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Tommy LiPuma (1936-2017)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Tommy LiPuma, a five-time Grammy winning pop and jazz record producer whose passion for music and musicians resulted in career-changing albums for a range of artists, including Randy Newman, George Benson, Bill Evans, Natalie Cole, Paul McCartney and Diana Krall, died on March 13. He was 80. A long-time fan of my writing, both for The Wall Street Journal and JazzWax, Tommy was a dear friend. In addition to lunching together regularly, we spent time at his home in Westchester ...
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Remembering Larry Coryell
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
The importance of Larry Coryell in jazz history cannot be understated. Whether you favor jazz-rock fusion or not, it was a revolutionary style that dominated jazz in the late 1960s and '70s thanks to technological advances, a shift in pop culture and the demands and interests of a new generation of players and listeners. To help us fully understand the late guitarist's contribution (see my post yesterday), I reached out to three dear friends—vibraphonist Gary Burton, trumpeter Randy Brecker and ...
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Larry Coryell (1943-2017)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Larry Coryell, a guitarist who played rock 'n' roll as a teen but wound up pioneering jazz-rock fusion starting in the mid-1960s and then psychedelic fusion in the early '70s, died on Feb. 19. He was 73. Born in Texas and raised in Seattle, Coryell studied at the University of Washington while taking private classical guitar lessons. In 1965 when he was 22, Coryell moved to New York just as instrumental folk and rock were intriguing skilled musicians and captivating ...
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Larry Coryell Is Gone
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Guitarist Larry Coryell died over the weekend in New York City. He was 73. A pioneer of jazz-rock and fusion, throughout his career Coryell was capable of delicacy and softness in guitar lines that had roots in mainstream jazz. Nonetheless, his earliest notice came as a result of his recorded work with drummer Chico Hamilton in which he generated a huge sound that verged on distortion. Coryell died in his sleep at a hotel shortly after weekend appearances at New ...
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Barbara Carroll (1925-2017)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Barbara Carroll, a gifted jazz and pop pianist who made a name for herself in New York in the 1940s as a standout bop player with a proclivity for block chords and impeccable time, died on Feb. 12. She was 92. Carroll came up at a time when most skilled female jazz pianists could find steady work only as intermission keyboardists at hotel bars and lounges where managers sought to hold onto audiences. The list included Marian McPartland, Dardanelle, Marjorie ...
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Svend Asmussen, RIP
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Svend Asmussen, the Danish violinist who thrived in eight decades of stardom, died yesterday—three weeks short of his 101st birthday. He was one of the handful of violinists who in the 1930s proved the instrument capable of swing and emotional expression at the highest jazz level. He may well have been the only man still alive in the new century who had played with Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, Stuff Smith, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Asmussen and his ...
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Chuck Stewart And Ed Berger, RIP
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Two non-musicians prominent in the US jazz community have died in the past week. One was a photographer whose images are among the most prominent in jazz history. Chuck Stewart’s intimate work appeared on dozens of album covers and in magazines. He was 89. Among his most familiar photographs were those of John Coltrane. Stewart took the one below at a recording session for Coltrane’s album A Love Supreme. In a New York Times interview, Fellow photographer Carol Friedman said ...
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Charles "Bobo" Shaw 1947-2017
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Charles Wesley “Bobo" Shaw, a St. Louis drummer who helped found the Black Artists Group, co-led the Human Arts Ensemble, and played with many prominent jazz and creative musicians of the past half-century, has died at a nursing care facility in St. Louis. He was 69 years old. St. Louis trumpeter, arts administrator and impresario George Sams, who was friends with Shaw for nearly 60 years, said the drummer had been hospitalized with multiple ailments in early December, first at ...
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