Obituary News

Broadway Musical Director Peter Howard

Source: All About Jazz
May 9, 2008

Peter Howard, who arranged the dance music, composed the incidental music or conducted the orchestra for many of Broadway's biggest hits of the last half-century, and who sometimes did all three of those underappreciated jobs, died on April 18 in Englewood, N.J. He was 80 and had lived in recent years at the Lillian Booth Actors' Home in Englewood. Mr. Howard made his most significant mark as the dance music arranger for 23 of the 38 Broadway shows he worked ...

Continue Reading

The Function of Jazz

Source: All About Jazz
May 8, 2008

Abstraction under siege in a utilitarian world

Some current jazz-related events have got me thinking about the necessities of life. A quintet featuring saxists Frank Morgan and Sonny Fortune at Catalina's. A benefit for the stroke rehabilitation of reedman Buddy Collette is happening at the same place on Sunday. A tribute to the late pianist Horace Tapscott is scheduled at the Jazz Bakery. There was a benefit for sax legend Teddy Edwards a couple of months ago. And windman Charles ...

Continue Reading

Eddy Arnold "Make the World Go Away"

Source: All About Jazz
May 8, 2008

Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like “Make the World Go Away" made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday. Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography “Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart." His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside ...

Continue Reading

Mona Clayton Hinton: 1919-2008

Source: All About Jazz
May 8, 2008

Edmonia - Mona - Clayton Hinton, the widow of noted jazz musician and documentarian Milt Hinton (1910-2000), died on May 3, 2008, at North Shore Hospital after a long illness. She was living at the Hinton family residence on Milt Hinton Place in the Queens section of New York City. The Hintons first met at Milt's grandmother's funeral in 1939 and were inseparable for the next 61 years. Mona traveled extensively with Milt throughout his career. She was the only ...

Continue Reading

Hee Haw Jim Hager, Half of Hager Twins

Source: All About Jazz
May 3, 2008

Jim Hager, one of the Hager Twins who satirized country life with cornball one-liners on TV's “Hee Haw," died in Nashville, the show's producer said Friday. He was 66. Hager was at a coffee shop when he collapsed Thursday, Sam Lovullo said. He said he had been told that by Jon Hager, the surviving twin. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he had been taken, gave no details on the cause of death. The twins, who were also guitarists and drummers, ...

Continue Reading

Henry Brant, Experimental Composer on Grand Scale

Source: Michael Ricci
May 1, 2008

Henry Brant -- an American maverick composer who added the dimension of space to music by placing musicians in nooks and crannies of concert halls, on boats floating down the Amstel River in Amsterdam or arrayed throughout sports arenas -- has died. He was 94. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer died Saturday at his home in Santa Barbara, according to associates. Brant's pieces were always events tailor-made for specific sites. A typical example was “500: Hidden Hemisphere," commissioned in 1992 by ...

Continue Reading

Jimmy Giuffre, Jazz Clarinetist and Composer, Dies at 86

Source: All About Jazz
April 28, 2008

Jimmy Giuffre, the adventurous clarinetist, composer and arranger whose 50-year journey through jazz led him from writing the Woody Herman anthem “Four Brothers" through minimalist, drummerless trios to striking experimental orchestral works, died on Thursday in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was 86. The cause was pneumonia, brought about by complications of Parkinson's disease, said his wife of 46 years, Juanita, who is his only survivor. Among the half-dozen instruments he played, from bass flute to soprano saxophone, it was the clarinet ...

Continue Reading

Jimmy Giuffre; Infused Jazz with Blues, Classical Notes

Source: All About Jazz
April 28, 2008

Jimmy Giuffre, a jazz musician who composed a popular big-band anthem of the 1940s and became an innovator of a minimalist form of classically inspired jazz, died April 24 at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass. He had Parkinson's disease and would have turned 87 today. Mr. Giuffre (pronounced JOO-free) had his greatest early fame as the composer of “Four Brothers," a popular instrumental hit for Woody Herman's big band in 1947. Later, after a stint in the saxophone section ...

Continue Reading