Obituary News

Lionel Hampton, 94, Pioneering Jazz Vibraphonist

Source: All About Jazz
September 2, 2002

By Claudia Levy - The Washington Post

Lionel Hampton, 94, the frenetic jazz vibraphonist, gifted bandleader and storied showman who was one of the most celebrated musicians of the swing era and went on to a six-decade career on the American stage, died Saturday in a hospital in New York after a heart attack.

Hampton, who made hundreds of records, was known for tremendous energy and for directing bands that were among the most long-lived and consistently popular large ensembles ...

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Jazz Great Lionel Hampton, 94, Dies

Source: All About Jazz
September 2, 2002

NEW YORK (AP)--Lionel Hampton, the vibraphone virtuoso and standout showman whose six-decade career ranked him with the greatest names in jazz history, died Saturday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 94.

Hampton, whose health was failing in recent years, died at Mount Sinai Medical Center at about 6:15 a.m., said his manager, Phil Leshin.

Hampton worked with a who's who of jazz greats, from Benny Goodman to Charlie Parker to Quincy Jones. But over the last decade, Hampton battled health ...

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Alan Lomax: Famous Collector of Music In The Field

Source: All About Jazz
July 28, 2002

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Vanguard Records Founder Passes

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2002

Seymour Solomon, co-founder of Vanguard Records, a label that dominated American folk music with stars such as Joan Baez, died Thursday. He was 80. Solomon founded Vanguard in 1950 with his brother, Maynard. The label recorded famed artists like Odetta, Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie. It also signed such jazz and blues legends as Mississippi John Hurt and Buddy Guy and maintained a strong classical list.

From its earliest days, the Solomons took risks, signing performers like the Weavers and Paul ...

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Jerry Fuller: Canadian Drummer Played with Ellington, Peterson

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2002

When drummer Jerry Fuller didn't show up for a gig at the Rex in Toronto on Saturday, July 13, a check of his home found that he had died, apparently in his sleep. I have many fond memories of him beginning in 1962 when I was 27 and began hearing a pair of visitors from the Canadian West – new arrivals on a healthy Montreal jazz scene, Jerry and P. J. Perry (the other exciting newcomer) ...

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Ray Brown: A Giant of the Jazz Bass Dies at 75

Source: All About Jazz
July 3, 2002

By Kenny Mathieson

Ray Brown was one of the greatest bass players in all of jazz history. His magisterial sonority on the double bass, innate lyricism and infallible harmonic judgement all came yoked to arguably his greatest asset of all, a meticulous rhythmic sense which drew on both swing and bop conceptions, and made him one of the most in-demand players in jazz. From Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie onwards, Brown played with the greatest creative ...

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Rosemary Clooney: Highly Regarded Pop-Jazz Singer Dies at 74

Source: All About Jazz
July 3, 2002

Born May 23, 1928, Rosemary Clooney was a popular singer who overcame great personal problems to re-emerge as fine interpreter of the repertoire of writers like Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Although she always refused to be categorised as a jazz singer, much of her later work involved collaborations with jazz musicians, including a number of records on the Concord Jazz ...

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Thelonious Monk's Widow, Nellie Dead at Eighty...

Source: All About Jazz
June 26, 2002

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