Obituary News

Hamiet Bluiett on Freddie Hubbard

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
January 8, 2009

St. Louis American editor Chris King, who also blogs at Confluence City and is one of the folks behind Poetry Scores, sent along the following text with a note saying, “This will be in the American this Thursday but you can make any use of it you wish with proper credit." Consider it used, with StLJN's thanks to Chris and the American:“Sitting in with Freddie HubbardHamiet Bluiett remembers a jazz legend, gone at age 70By Chris ...

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Mike Watt Riffs on Ron Asheton and the Stooges

Source: Michael Ricci
January 8, 2009

Mike Watt, bassist for punk groups the Minutemen and Firehose, was invited in 2003 by Iggy Pop to join the Stooges when the seminal Michigan band reunited for its first performance in nearly 30 years at the Coachella Valley Arts & Music Festival.

He continued to perform and record as a Stooge for the next 5 1/2 years alongside founding members Ron Asheton, the guitarist who was found dead this week at age 60; his brother, drummer Scott Asheton; and ...

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Gene Parrish Longtime Classical Music Radio Host Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 8, 2009

Gene Parrish, a longtime host of classical music programs on KUSC-FM (91.5) who also wrote and produced syndicated programs on worldwide jazz and American choral music, has died. He was 82. Parrish, of Hermosa Beach, died Friday of lung cancer at a Kaiser Permanente hospice-care facility in Harbor City, said his wife, Eleanor. Soon after joining KUSC in 1984, Parrish co-hosted a daily arts magazine with Gail Eichenthal on the Olympic Arts Festival. “He was intensely involved in the work ...

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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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