Obituary News

Michael Berniker Record Producer Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
July 29, 2008

Michael Berniker, a prolific record producer whose diverse projects won nine Grammy Awards over four decades, died on Friday in Great Barrington, Mass. He was 73.

Best known for producing the first three Barbra Streisand albums on Columbia as well as numerous Broadway cast albums, Mr. Berniker also produced Latin jazz, spoken word, comedy and classical records. The cause was complications from kidney disease, said his wife, Heather. Other pop artists he produced included Eydie Gorme, Johnny Mathis and Perry ...

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Joe Beck Jazz Guitarist with Sinatra, Davis Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
July 29, 2008

Joe Beck, 62; jazz guitarist collaborated with Sinatra, Davis, other top musicians was honored five times by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences as a “Most Valuable Player."

Joe Beck, a jazz guitarist who collaborated with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis and James Brown, died July 22 at a Connecticut hospice after battling lung cancer. He was 62. Beck got his start as a teenager in the 1960s playing in a jazz trio in New York. ...

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Hiram Bullock Charismatic Jazz-Rock Guitarist

Source: All About Jazz
July 28, 2008

Hiram Bullock was a talented and charismatic guitarist, a rock'n'roller with a jazz head who bridged the world of sophisticated pop and the avant-garde New York jazz scene.

A super-session player, Bullock was mentored by the producer Phil Ramone, and his work can be heard on Steely Dan's Gaucho (1980), Paul Simon's One Trick Pony (1980), Sting's Nothing Like the Sun (1987), Billy Joel's The Stranger (1977) and Barbra Streisand's A Star Is Born (1976). He also played with the ...

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Youssef Chahine Renowned Egyptian Filmmaker Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2008

In more than 40 films and documentaries, Youssef Chahine sought to capture and defend the spirit of multicultural tolerance against the forces he saw undermining it: fundamentalism, dictatorship and imperialism.

Youssef Chahine, an Egyptian filmmaker whose work over nearly five decades made him a renowned figure in Arab cinema, died Sunday at Al Maadi Military Hospital in Cairo. He was 82. Chahine fell into a coma last month after suffering a brain hemorrhage and was flown to France in critical ...

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George H. Russell Guitarist and Composer Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
July 27, 2008

George H. Russell, a veteran record promoter, guitarist and composer, died of a heart attack July 19 at his home in Laguna Beach, said Sandra Gillard, his companion. He was 89.

Russell was commissioned to write the music for “Encounter Near Venus," a children's story ballet presented by Ballet Pacifica in Orange County in 1975. He also composed music for two other ballets, “Birthstone Suite" and “Mah Jong." Russell recorded two solo guitar albums, which were combined in 1994 as ...

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Hiram Bullock Late Night with David Letterman Guitarist Dies

Source: All About Jazz
July 26, 2008

Hiram Bullock, onetime barefoot guitarist for Paul Shaffer's World's Most Dangerous Band, dead at the age of 52. Bullock had been fighting a tumor in his throat since January. Bullock played guitar behind Shaffer from the debut of Late Night With David Letterman in 1982 until 1984; rumor had it that he suffered from an attendance problem. He also played on Steely Dan's Gaucho, Paul Simon's One Trick Pony, Michael Franks' Skin Dive, Barbra Streisand's A Star Is Born, and ...

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The Little Giant Steps On: Johnny Griffin, 1928-2008

Source: All About Jazz
July 26, 2008

News came this Friday morning via several sources that tenor saxophonist and hardbop great Johnny Griffin has passed away from a heart attack at the age of 80. Ben Ratliff has an obituary online for the New York Times, and Doug Ramsey has posted a tribute that includes a link to a retrospective he wrote earlier this year over at Rifftides. Griffin, nicknamed “the Little Giant" because he was five feet five but produced a contrasting sound of immense strength ...

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Retake: Tom Talbert

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
July 26, 2008

Lately, I've been missing Tom Talbert. I went into the archive to see what Rifftides had to say about him following his death a little more than three years ago. Here is one paragraph of the remembrance:

Tom died on Saturday, a month short of his eighty-first birthday. An elegant, soft-spoken man, he was an early and drastically overlooked composer, arranger and band leader on the west coast before West Coast Jazz was a category. His mid-to-late-1940s Los ...

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