Obituary News

Whitney Balliett; Jazz Reporter Known for Poetic Prose

Source: All About Jazz
February 2, 2007

Whitney Balliett, 80, a jazz reporter who spent more than four decades writing thousands of graceful and definitive stories for the New Yorker magazine and helped create one of the finest jazz programs on television, died Feb. 1 at his home in Manhattan, N.Y. He had liver cancer. Jazz critic and poet Philip Larkin described Mr. Balliett as “a writer who brings jazz journalism to the verge of poetry." Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers ...

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Whitney Balliett, 80, Dean of Jazz Writers

Source: All About Jazz
February 2, 2007

Whitney Balliett, who died yesterday at 80, was the longtime jazz reviewer for the New Yorker. A reporter, historian, and expert interviewer, Balliett's greatest gift was as an astute listener with the rare ability to capture the sound of the music in words. He wrote with a cadence and rhythm that mirrored the music itself, and was as witty and fun to read as he was serious and scholarly. He wrote that Blossom Dearie had a voice so small that ...

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Esmond Edwards: 1927-2007

Source: All About Jazz
January 30, 2007

Esmond Edwards died on Jan. 20, 2007, in Santa Barbara, CA. Born in Nassau, Bahamas, on Oct. 29, 1927, Edwards immigrated to Harlem and pursued photography with New York, dancers, and the jazz scene as his subjects. He com-bined his musical ear with his passion for the graphic arts in the form of album cover art. Edwards' work has been in New York's Lincoln Center Jazz Archives, in galleries abroad, the “New York Times Magazine" and “Photography."

From a clerk ...

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Jimmy Cheatham: Trombonist, Bandleader Was Fixture in San Diego

Source: All About Jazz
January 21, 2007

By George Varga Music Critic San Diego Union-Tribune / Copley News Service Jimmy Cheatham's trombone playing sounded very much like he did in conversation - warm, inviting and filled with the joyful spirit he radiated on and off stage. A pillar of the San Diego music scene since the late 1970s and a veteran of the bands of jazz icons such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Ornette Coleman, Mr. Cheatham died Friday after being taken ...

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Service for Alice Coltrane

Source: All About Jazz
January 18, 2007

Elevation Service for Alice Coltrane (Turiyasangitananda)

Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 1pm (Pacific Time Zone)

Location: Sai Anantam Ashram Center Address: 3528 North Triunfo Canyon Rd. Agoura, California 91301 By phone contact: 818-865-0409 For directions: http://saiquest.com/html/contact.html

For additional information on Alice Coltrane: http://AliceColtrane.org In lieu of flowers, please donate to the following charities: John Coltrane Foundation - http://JohnColtrane.com/ (under Scholarship, please click on Donation) ...

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Jazz Performer Alice Coltrane Dies at 69

Source: All About Jazz
January 15, 2007

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Alice Coltrane, a jazz performer and composer and wife of the late saxophone legend John Coltrane, has died. She was 69. Coltrane died Friday of respiratory failure at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center, said her sister, Marilyn McLeod. For nearly 40 years, Coltrane managed the archive and estate of her husband, a pivotal figure in the history of jazz. He died of liver disease in 1967 at age 40. A pianist and organist, Alice Coltrane ...

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Tenor Saxophonist Michael Brecker Dies

Source: All About Jazz
January 15, 2007

By NAHAL TOOSI Associated Press NEW YORK -- Michael Brecker, a versatile and influential tenor saxophonist who won 11 Grammys over a career that spanned more than three decades, died Saturday. He was 57. Brecker died in a hospital in New York City of leukemia, according to his longtime friend and manager, Darryl Pitt. In recent years, the saxophonist had struggled with myelodysplastic syndrome, a cancer in which the bone marrow stops producing enough healthy blood cells. The ...

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Alice Coltrane, 69; Performer, Composer of Jazz and New Age Music; Spiritual Leader

Source: All About Jazz
January 14, 2007

Alice Coltrane, the jazz performer and composer who was inextricably linked with the adventurous musical improvisations of her late husband, legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, has died. She was 69. Coltrane died Friday at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in West Hills, according to an announcement from the family's publicist. She had been in frail health for some time and died of respiratory failure. Though known to many for her contributions to jazz and early New Age music, Coltrane, a ...

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