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Michel Legrand (1932-2019)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Michel Legrand, a French pianist who began writing arrangements for jazz musicians in the early 1950s before becoming one of the new sophisticated sentimentalists of American film in the 1960s and beyond as a composer, arranger and conductor, died on January 26. He was 86. Legraand's jazz recordings began with Dizzy Gillespie and the Paris Operatic Strings in Paris in 1953 and then Blossom Dearie and Les Blue Stars mid-decade. His jazz turning point came in June 1958 when he ...
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Michel Legrand, 1932-2019
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Michel Legrand, the pianist, arranger and prolific composer of film scores, died today at his home in France. He was 86. Dozens of Legrand’s melodies became popular hits, among them “The Windmills OfYour Mind,” “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?” and “Watch What Happens.” The wide range of performers who collaborated with him includes such diverse stars as Miles Davis, Barbara Streisand and Kiri Te Kanawa. Early on, Legrand was the piano accompanist for Sarah Vaughan and ...
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Urbie Green (1926-2018)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Urbie Green, one of jazz's smoothest and most polished trombonists who recorded more often than virtually any other post-war player, including Frank Rosolino, J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, died on December 18, 2018. He was 92. Green's soft, yearning trombone on albums was unmistakable. His sound came off as a perfect high-register sigh, more akin to a vocalist than a horn player. His sultry solos stood out on albums ranging from Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin and Dizzy Gillespie's Gillespiana ...
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Urbie Green, 1926-2018
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
We learned today that trombonist Urbie Green died last Monday, December 31, in the Poconos mountain region that he called home for many years. He was 92. A musician idolized by his contemporaries—and particularly by fellow players of the trombone—Green’s earliest big band years included stretches with Frankie Carle and Gene Krupa. His work with Woody Herman in the early 1950s brought him widespread attention and frequent mention in jazz polls and surveys. Green was a member of the all-star ...
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Hargrove Memorial Reset
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Plans have changed for a service in memory of trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who died on November 3. Frank Stewart of Jazz at Lincoln Center sent the announcement: The life and work of Roy Hargrove will be honored at a musical celebration on Tuesday, January 8 at Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall on Broadway at 60thStreet, New York, New York. Doors will open at 6:30 pm and the event will begin promptly at 7pm. Originally scheduled to take ...
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John Williams Has Died
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
It can be discouraging, but we are resigned to keeping you up to date on the deaths of prominent musicians. The latest bad news is about the pianist John Williams, who died On December 14 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Williams achieved substantial renown in the 1950s for his work with several prominent leaders and for leading his own trio. Inevitably, he was occasionally misidentified as another John Williams who was once a jazz pianist but became known primarily as a ...
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John Thms. Williams (1929-2018)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
John Thomas Williams, a spritied jazz pianist strongly influenced by Bud Powell and Horace Silver who recorded with the Stan Getz Quintet in the early 1950s before recording his two sole leadership albums for EmArcy in 1954 and '55, died on December 15. He was 89. Born in Windsor, Vt., Williams began as a church organist and played baritone horn in the Army before spending a semester at the Manhattan School of Music. In the 1940s, he joined Mal Hallett's ...
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Nancy Wilson: 1937-2018
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Nancy Wilson, a sassy and sultry jazz-pop singer with extraordinary vocal and visual performing talents who emerged in 1959 just as the pop charts were starting to be dominated by soft Brazilian voices, vocal harmonies by beach bands, British invaders and back-beat soul from Detroit and Memphis, died yesterday. She was 81. Nancy was first and foremost a superb story-singer who let songs run through her and whose face and voice perfectly expressed the elation or pained determination detailed in ...
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