Obituary News

Jazz, in Black and White

Source: All About Jazz
October 18, 2008

The Sept. 20 obituary of Richard M. Sudhalter discussed his book Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945. The obituary failed to mention that the book was widely praised for correcting the notion that the roots of jazz were only in African American culture and that its development was virtually without significant contribution by white musicians. Sudhalter thoroughly researched and documented the involvement of myriad white jazz musicians, including Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy Dorsey and Mildred ...

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Neal Hefti is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 18, 2008

The last thing I want is for Rifftides to become a death watch. Nonetheless, as James Moody says his grandmother once told him, “Folks is dyin' what ain't never died before." Or, to use Bill Crow's words in the subject line of a message today about the arranger, composer and former trumpet player Neal Nefti, “The parade continues."

Hefti died at home in the Toluca Lake community of Los Angeles on Saturday, the same day and a few miles from ...

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William J. Claxton, 80; Made 'Jazz for the Eyes'

Source: All About Jazz
October 17, 2008

As the premier chronicler of West Coast jazz, photographer William Claxton took his subjects out of the shadows and into the light. Instead of posing musicians such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins in dark, seedy-looking clubs, wreathed in cigarette smoke, he photographed them on golden beaches, riding on carousels, strolling in the Mojave Desert, emerging from the ocean cradling a trumpet. Mr. Claxton, who worked in a style he called “jazz for the eyes," died Oct. 11 ...

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Neal Hefti Former Big Band Trumpeter, Arranger and Composer Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
October 14, 2008

Neal Hefti, a former big band trumpeter, arranger and composer who worked with Woody Herman and Count Basie and later composed the memorable themes for the movie “The Odd Couple" and the campy hit TV series “Batman," has died. He was 85. Hefti died Saturday at his home in Toluca Lake, said his son, Paul. He did not know the cause of death, but said his father had been in good health. Everybody in the music business loved Neal Hefti. ...

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William Claxton, 1928-2008

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 14, 2008

Word has just come in that William Claxton died on Saturday in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure. He was eighty. With his pictures of Chet Baker in the early 1950s, Claxton established himself as a brilliant photographer of jazz musicians and went on to a career as one of the most admired camera artists in the world. He did incomparable work not only in jazz, but also with a varied array of personalities including Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Igor ...

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William Claxton Photographer Helped Make Chet Baker Famous

Source: Michael Ricci
October 13, 2008

William Claxton, the master photographer whose images of Chet Baker helped fuel the jazz trumpeter's stardom in the 1950s and whose fashion photographs of his wife modeling a topless swim suit were groundbreaking years later, has died. He was 80.

Claxton died from complications of congestive heart failure Saturday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his wife, actress and model Peggy Moffitt Claxton, told The Times.

In a career spanning more than a half century, Claxton also became ...

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Jazz Photographer William Claxton Passes Away

Source: Night Lights Classic Jazz
October 13, 2008

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Gone with the Ages the Coconut Grove

Source: Michael Ricci
October 13, 2008

The Ambassador Hotel lesson Demolishing such iconic buildings not only destroys history, it wastes resources. By Diane Keaton

Last week, I drove past the 22-acre vacant lot once known as the Ambassador Hotel. As I looked at the rubble of our lost cause, I pulled over, sat back and gave in to a feeling I can only describe as guilt. I thought about my connection to the once-iconic hotel, about why places like it are so ...

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