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Buddy Greco (1926-2017)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Buddy Greco, a solid swinging jazz pianist, a supper-club pop vocalist and probably the last surviving member of Benny Goodman's “Undercurrent Blues" bebop band of 1948-49, died January 10. He was 90. Born in Philadelphia, Greco had his work cut out for him. His father was one of the country's leading opera critics and his mother was an accomplished accordionist. Greco made his professional debut at 5 on Philadelphia's WPEN, where he spent the next 10 years as an actor, ...
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Nat Hentoff (1925-2017)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Nat Hentoff, the dean of jazz essayists who in the 1950s applied modern feature-writing techniques to musicians who up until that point had been treated as little more than hip novelties by many trade journalists and print hacks, died of natural causes on Jan. 7. He was 91. As an intellectual, Nat was many things, including a critic, a civil libertarian, a writer keenly tuned into the Supreme Court and an unbridled champion of free speech and the U.S. Constitution. ...
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Nat Hentoff Is Gone
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Last night we lost Nat Hentoff, a defender of civil liberties and—notably, for this readership—a lifelong champion of jazz. He was 91. His son Nick reported that members of the family were nearby and a Billie Holiday record was playing when Hentoff died in his Greenwich Village apartment in New York. Influential as a jazz critic for DownBeat, the Village Voice and other publications, he was even better known for his books and columns explaining and defending First Amendment freedoms. ...
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Hod O'Brien (1936-2016)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Hod O'Brien, a ruggedly handsome and soft-spoken bebop pianist who came to jazz in the late 1950s, left jazz for 10 years in the 1960s and early 1970s, only to return to the music, becoming one of the most highly regarded and tasteful pianists of his generation, died on Nov. 20. He was 80. Born in Chicago in 1936, Walter “Hod" O'Brien was deeply influenced by boogie-woogie at age 8. Lessons followed from a teacher at his grade school. Fortunately ...
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Hod O'Brien, 1936-2016
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Friends of Hod O’Brien report that the pianist died yesterday at 80 following a long battle against cancer. He continued an active playing life even as he underwent treatment for the disease. Born in Chicago, O’Brien attended Oberlin Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music. He became active in New York jazz circles in the 1950s. Early in his career, he worked with Oscar Pettiford and the J.R. Monterose-Elvin Jones group. As house pianist at a club on Staten Island, ...
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Mose Allison (1927-2016)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Mose Allison, a jazz-folk pianist and singer-songwriter who brought white rural imagery to the urban jazz scene and was highly regarded by every musician who played with him, even those who were initially wary of his Mississippi roots, died on Nov. 15. He was 89. Mose was one of a kind. While Dr. John and Leon Russell are two pianists who shared Mose's earthy naturalism, only Mose grasped the nuanced aspects of modern jazz and the music's cosmopolitan wryness. All ...
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Mose Allison Is Gone
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Mose Allison has died at the age of 89. A Mississippi pianist, singer, composer, songwriter and sometime trumpeter, Allison made his New York debut in the 1950s as a bebop pianist. He worked with Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan and a variety of other post-bop musicians, but came to fame employing his Mississippi folksiness and command of the blues idiom. He led trios in that genre for most of his career. His work had a powerful effect on such ...
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Leon Russell R.I.P. - "I've acted out my life on stages with 10,000 people watching"
Source:
HypeBot
Leon Russell wrote songs so well crafted that even the first time you heard them, you swore that you've heard them before. It was not that they were't unique- they usually were- it was that they touched something hiding deep inside you. Leon Russell, a prolific artist, songwriter and producer, who recorded hits such as “Tight Rope" and “Lady Blue" has died. He was 74. A statement released on Sunday by Russell's wife Jan Bridges said: “We thank everyone for ...
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