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Cousin Mary: Keeper of the Coltrane Legacy (1927-2019)
Source:
All About Jazz
Mary Lyerly Alexander was born July 23, 1927 to Bettie Blair Lyerly and Goler Lyerly in High Point, North Carolina. An only child, Mary and her parents lived as an extended family with her first cousin, saxophonist John W. Coltrane, his parents and their maternal grandparents. Her grandfather, Rev. William Wilson Blair, an activist who was elected a Chowan County Commissioner in 1896 who later became pastor of St. Stephens African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, built the family home at ...
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Bob Wilber, RIP
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
We have learned that the superlative clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Bob Wilber died at his home in England earlier this month. He was 91. Wilber studied with the New Orleans reed pioneer Sidney Bechet and spent decades extending the Bechet legacy. Unusual among those who specialize in traditional music, Wilber also became adept in the bebop idiom and worked with, among others, trumpeter Clark Terry. In the Washington Post, arts writer Matt Schudel profiled Wilber in an extensive obituary. To ...
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Arno Marsh (1928-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Arno Marsh, a big band tenor saxophonist who recorded almost exclusively with Woody Herman's Third Herd in the 1950s and cited Chu Berry and Stan Getz among his major influences, died on July 12. He was 91. In addition to his work with Herman, Arno led a band in his home town of Grand Rapids, Mich., between 1951 and '53, but the ensemble isn't known to have recorded. Arno began playing in Las Vegas starting in the late 1950s and ...
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João Gilberto (1931-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
João Gilberto, whose chiffon-soft vocal covers of Brazilian colleagues' songs, his romantic guitar arrangements and intoxicating rhythms helped the bossa nova gain worldwide attention in 1959, died July 6. He was 88. The bossa nova had been played in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, since 1957, when Antonio Carlo Jobim, Carlo Lyra, Sylvia Telles, Johnny Alf, Roberto Menescal and Luiz Bonfá played hotel lounges and small clubs. According to my interview with Carlos Lyra, this tight group of bossa nova composer-musicians ...
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Joao Gilberto Is Gone At 88
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
The man often called the founding father of bossa nova, died today at home in Rio de Janeiro. Joao Gilberto was 88. Along with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gilberto pioneered the form that became a phenomenon of popular music in the early 1960s. With varying degrees of authenticity, bossa nova was adapted by performers around the world. It sprang from traditions of Brazilian music that reached far into Brazil’s history and reflected aspects of American music that in the fifties and ...
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Doris Day (1922-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Doris Day, whose melting pop vocals on records and pert sunny image in movies in the 1940s, '50s and '60s made her both a successful multimedia star and a national dart board, died May 13. She was 97. While Day's image was an ideal for many American women coming of age after World War II, it also came to personify '50s conformity and good-girl subservience. Both of these images would be held up to ridicule in the tumultuous 1960s, when ...
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Dave Samuels, RIP
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
The family of vibraphonist Dave Samuels has confirmed that he died in New York City on April 22. Best known for his association with the jazz-fusion band Spyro Gyra, Samuels had battled a long illness. His family did not disclose the cause of death. A Grammy award winner, Samuels was best known for more than three decades as a member of the crossover jazz-fusion band Spyro Gyra. He was 70 years old. Before joining Spyro Gyra, Samuels was a member ...
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Hal Blaine (1929-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Hal Blaine, a prolific Los Angeles session drummer most closely associated with the Wrecking Crew, a tightly knit group of studio musicians in the 1960s and '70s who added a professional studio sound behind thousands of recordings by pop-rock groups and stars, died on March 11. He was 90. Hal played on 40 #1 hit singles, 150 top-10 hits and performed on more than 35,000 recorded tracks. He was the drummer on the Grammy's “Record of the Year" for six ...
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