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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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Ed Bickert (1932-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ed Bickert, a Canadian jazz guitarist whose highly tasteful chord voicings and juicy sense of harmony made him a first-choice gig and recording sideman and leader in Toronto, and who today is considered one of jazz's finest guitar accompanists, died on February 28. He was 86. Bickert was a favorite of guitarist Jim Hall and was most likely introduced to him by Canadian bassist Don Thompson, who worked with Jim since 1974. In the 1980s, when Jane Hall, Jim's wife, ...
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Ed Bickert, 1932-2019
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
One of Canada’s finest musicians, guitarist Ed Bickert, died on Thursday. He was 86. He was quiet and reserved, but the rich harmonies in Bickert’s playing captivated listeners and fellow musicians alike. Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, with whom Bickert performed and recorded in the 1970s, wrote in the notes for one of his albums that he sometimes turned around on the bandstand to ”count the strings on Ed’s guitar … how does he get to play chorus after chorus of ...
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André Previn (1929-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
André Previn, a piano prodigy who began his career at MGM while still in high school in the mid-1940s and excelled at jazz, classical and easy listening in the 1950s and beyond, died on February 28. He was 89. Previn escaped Nazi Germany with his family in 1938 when he was still a child. The family emigrated to Los Angeles, where they had relatives. Previn grew up in the Hollywood film studios thanks in part to his great uncle, Charles ...
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Departures: Andre Previn And Ira Gitler
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
This week, music lost two venerable and influential figures. Andre Previn, who distinguished himself as a performer and composer in a wide range of styles and genres, died on Thursday at his home in New York City. He was 89. A gifted pianist whose work as a film composer and orchestrator began before he left high school, Previn won four Academy Awards for his film scores. He performed orchestral works and wrote many pieces played by renowned musicians including the ...
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Ira Gitler (1928-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ira Gitler, a jazz author, journalist and producer who was a wealth of eyewitness knowledge and whose liner notes starting in the early 1950s appeared on more albums than many of the musicians he wrote about recorded, died on February 23. He was 90. Ira is perhaps best known for writing Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz volumes starting in the 1950s. Each musician entry was concise and, at one point, included the addresses of the artists, presumably so that musicians, ...
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