Obituary News

Robert Grahams Legacy is an Open Door

Source: Michael Ricci
January 8, 2009

Artists, civic leaders, celebrities pay tribute to Robert Graham At his funeral, artists,family, friends and dignitaries pass through the cathedral entry that he created.

A hushed throng of artists, arts patrons and civic leaders joined friends and family of the late sculptor Robert Graham at a funeral Mass on Wednesday morning at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Filing through the cathedrals Great Bronze Doors, which Graham considered his greatest public commission, the crowd came to mourn the ...

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Betty Freeman Photographer Patron of New Music Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 7, 2009

Betty Freeman, one of the most influential individual patrons of contemporary composers over the last 40 years, and long the keeper of a famously gracious musical salon in Los Angeles, died on Saturday at her home in Beverly Hills. She was 87. The philanthropist Betty Freeman in 1997 at her home in Beverly Hills with the Hockney painting of her in the background. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said her daughter Shelley Butler. At a time when grants to composers ...

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The Stooges' Ron Asheton Remembered

Source: All About Jazz
January 7, 2009

Pioneering guitarist shaped the sound of punk to come

Ron Asheton, the guitarist in the proto-punk band the Stooges, whose raw, animalistic playing laid the groundwork for the entire punk rock movement, was found dead in his Ann Arbor, Michigan home last night. He was 60. An autopsy is scheduled, but police don't suspect foul play or drug use. Alongside Iggy Pop, David Alexander and his brother Scott, Ron co-wrote such classics “I Wanna Be Your Dog," “No Fun" and ...

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Ron Ashenton The Stooges Guitarist Found Dead

Source: Michael Ricci
January 6, 2009

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Punk guitarist Ron Asheton of The Stooges has been found dead in his Ann Arbor home. He was 60.

Ron Asheton, whose scorching and energetic guitar work behind singer Iggy Pop in the Michigan punk band the Stooges established a new model of raw emotion for a succeeding generation of punk, grunge and alternative rockers.

Iggy Pop, center with Ron Asheton, left, and Scott Asheton.

Asheton's body was discovered Tuesday at his home in ...

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Ohio Players Founder Robert Ward Dies

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

Robert Ward, a Georgia blues musician who played with some of Motown's biggest artists, died Dec. 25. He was 70.

His wife, Roberta, told the Telegraph of Macon that her husband died at his home in Dry Branch in central Georgia. She said her husband had suffered a stroke in 2001 and never fully recovered. Ward, a Georgia native, moved to Ohio and founded the Ohio Untouchables, which later became the Ohio Players. However, Ward left the group well before ...

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Travolta Heartbroken over Son's Death

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

John Travolta said Sunday he and his wife Kelly Preston are “heartbroken" over the death of their chronically ill 16-year-old son, in their first public statement since Jett's death..

We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief. We will cherish the time we had with him for the rest of our lives. Jett was the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for and lit up the lives of everyone he encountered.

We have received ...

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Service for Freddie Hubbard

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
January 4, 2009

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Daniel Nagrin Modern Dancer and Choreographer Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 4, 2009

Daniel Nagrin, a choreographer, performer, teacher and writer who was known for intensely dramatic solos that became modern-dance classics, died on Dec. 29 in Tempe, Ariz. He was 91 and lived in Tempe.

For him, jazz was not a finger-popping, torso-twisting genre of self-involvement but a tool to explore character. Don McDonagh --Dance magazine (1997)

Mr. Nagrins choreography and performing were craggily innovative, drawing on jazz movement and music as well as traditional modern dance and classical ...

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