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Henry Brant, Experimental Composer on Grand Scale
Source:
Michael Ricci
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 ...
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Jimmy Giuffre, Jazz Clarinetist and Composer, Dies at 86
Source:
All About Jazz
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 ...
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Jimmy Giuffre; Infused Jazz with Blues, Classical Notes
Source:
All About Jazz
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 ...
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Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre Dead at 86
Source:
All About Jazz
Pioneering jazz performer and composer Jimmy Giuffre, whose distinctive avant-garde clarinet style drove a lengthy career that included working with legend Woody Herman, has died at age 86, US media reported. Giuffre, a central figure in West Coast jazz best known for penning the big band classic “Four Brothers" with Herman in 1947, died Thursday in Pittsfield in the northeast state of Massachusetts, according to JazzTimes.com. He died of pneumonia and complications from Parkinson's disease, it said. A musician with ...
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Bebe Barron, Scored the Science Fiction Film "Forbidden Planet"
Source:
All About Jazz
Bebe Barron, a pioneering composer who started manipulating sounds after receiving a tape recorder as a wedding present and later scored the 1956 science-fiction film “Forbidden Planet," the first full-length feature to use only electronic music, has died. She was 82. Barron died April 20 of complications related to old age at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said her son, Adam Barron. With her engineer husband, Louis Barron, she created “a soundscape for 'Forbidden Planet' that no one could ...
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Jazz Legend Humphrey Lyttelton Dies
Source:
All About Jazz
Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz musician and presenter of Radio 4 comedy show “I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue", has died aged 86. Lyttelton, who had hosted the “self-styled antidote to panel games" since 1972, was admitted to hospital earlier this week for surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. Best known as a musician, Lyttelton began playing the trumpet in 1936 and still toured with his band up until recently. In 1956, Lyttelton's Bad Penny Blues was the first British jazz record ...
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George T. Butler Jr., Columbia Executive Greatly Influenced Jazz
Source:
All About Jazz
George T. Butler Jr., an influential figure in the business of jazz as an A&R man and record company executive, died April 9 at Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, Calif. He was 76. Butler was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2005 but died of multiple organ failure, his sister, Jacqueline Butler Hairston, said. His overall medical condition took a turn for the worse in January after he walked out of his assisted living facility in Hayward and fell in ...
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