Obituary News

Nick Brignola: Gifted Specialist on the Baritone Saxophone

Source: All About Jazz

If the conventional history of jazz is dominated by a series of major innovators who have dictated the sweeping changes in style which have brought the music to its present point, there has been an equally important sub-strata of musicians who have contented themselves with taking those styles as a given, and refining and developing them throughout their careers.

The American saxophonist Nick Brignola is one such player. His chosen field was bop, and his preferred instrument the baritone saxophone. ...

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Baritone Saxophonist Nick Brignola Succumbs to Cancer

Source: All About Jazz

Baritone sax great Nick Brignola died at the Albany Medical Center, Albany, NY on Feb. 8, 2002 after a long battle with cancer.

Mainly self-taught, he studied music at Ithaca College and Berklee School of Music in the mid 1950s. His greatest baritone influence was Harry Carney of The Duke Ellington band who became his mentor.

He played with guitarist Sal Salvador and Woody Herman in the early 60s and recorded with Woody in 1964. He also had a ten ...

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Peggy Lee: Cool and Sultry Star of Jazz and Pop

Source: All About Jazz

Peggy Lee was best known for her massive hits with ‘Fever’ and ‘Is That All There Is?’, which won her a Grammy award in 1969. Her cool, sultry vocal style lent itself equally well to both pop and jazz settings, and she said in interviews over the years that she considered herself to be an interpreter of songs rather than a jazz singer. She emerged to wide notice with the Benny Goodman Big Band in 1941, ...

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Singer Peggy Lee, a Jazz Legend, is Dead

Source: All About Jazz

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 22 — Peggy Lee, the singer-composer whose smoky, insinuating voice in such songs as “Is That All There Is?” and “Fever” made her a jazz and pop legend, died Monday. She was 81. Lee died from a heart attack at her Bel Air home, said her daughter, Nicki Lee Foster. Lee repeatedly battled injury and ill health, including heart trouble, in a spectacular career that brought her a Grammy, an Oscar nomination and sold-out houses worldwide.

For ...

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Ralph Sutton: Consummate Stylist with Roots in Stride

Source: All About Jazz

Ralph Sutton was a consummate stylist with a complete technical command of his instrument, an individual style, and a wide-ranging musical vocabulary which went well beyond his roots in stride piano. His characteristic style, heavily influenced by the stride pianists of the 1920s and 1930s, led by Fats Waller, James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith, was probably best appreciated in solo performances, but he was equally at home in a group setting throughout his ...

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