Home » Jazz News
Obituary News
Timely announcements covering new album releases, tours, concert series, special events, job postings, crowdfunding campaigns and more. You can find more news by searching our website, viewing our news stream, seeing what's trending or reading our blog posts. Subscribe to our news RSS feed and/or embed AAJ news content on your website or blog. Learn about our news service here. Submit news here.
Passings: Friedman, Jones, Thompson
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
The generations move on. It’s a sad part of an observer’s task to acknowledge the deaths of musicians who made important contributions. Pianist Don Friedman died of pancreatic cancer at home in New York City on June 30. He was 81. Friedman was treasured by fellow musicians for the subtlety and strength of his support as an accompanist and for the daring ingenuity of his harmonies. He was equally at home with traditionalist Bobby Hackett; modern mainstreamers Clark Terry, Chet ...
Continue Reading
Don Friedman (1935-2016)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Don Friedman, a jazz pianist with enormous sensitivity and avant-garde curiosity who shared an introspective style similar to Bill Evans but tended to be more experimental and jagged with shades of Bud Powell in the trio and solo formats, died June 30. He was 81. Don grew up in San Francisco and studied formally starting at age 4. He moved to Los Angeles with his family when he was 15, fully expecting to become a classical pianist. But the following ...
Continue Reading
Jeremy Steig, 1942-2016
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Flutist Jeremy Steig died on April 13 at his home in Japan. He was 73. His death wasconfirmed days after the fact. “He didn’t like to read about musicians’ deaths in newspaper obituaries,” his wife Asako told The New York Times. “He wanted me to delay the announcement of his death, so that it wouldn’t really be ‘news’ to be written up.” Unlike most jazz flutists, Steig (pictured circa 1965) did not make his instrument secondary to the saxophone; he ...
Continue Reading
Joe Temperley, 1929-2016
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Joe Temperley is dead at 86. In recent years, he was a mainstay of the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra. In the 1970s following the death of Harry Carney, his glorious baritone saxophone sound anchored the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Temperley was born on September 20, 1929 in Crowdenbeath, Scotland and moved to New York in 1965. Also a master of the bass clarinet, he worked with the big bands of Woody Herman, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Clark Terry, Duke Pearson, Charles ...
Continue Reading
Jon Raney on Doug Raney
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Doug Raney (1956-2016), a son of guitar legend Jimmy Raney and a brilliant lyrical guitarist in his own right who lived in Denmark for much of his career, died of heart failure in Copenhagen on May 1, according to his brother Jon. He was 59. Many jazz fans in the States are unfamiliar with Raney, since he toured here infrequently and gave few interviews. Those who do know his music have been exposed to it largely through his albums, many ...
Continue Reading
Gato Barbieri (1932-2016)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Gato Barbieri, a fiery tenor saxophonist born in Argentina whose music for film and albums could whip up images ranging from steamy seduction to hysterical passion, died on April 2. He was 83. Influenced by the spiritual free-jazz of John Coltrane and Coltrane's disciples in the 1960s and Sonny Rollins in the 1970s, Barbieri nearly always thought in cinematic terms. He routinely created works of open-ended abandon and desire that churned and heaved, conjuring up images of the wild. Despite ...
Continue Reading
David Baker, 1931-2016
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
I am sad to learn of the death yesterday at 84 of the trombonist, cellist, composer and music educator David Baker. Baker founded Indiana University’s Jazz Studies program and taught at IU for decades. Dozens of his students went on to distinguished jazz careers. He was a trombonist with the Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and Quincy Jones bands and then with George Russell’s quintet. Baker had to give up the instrument after his jaw was injured in a car crash. ...
Continue Reading
Ernestine Anderson, 1928-2016
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Ernestine Anderson died on Thursday at the age of 87 at a retirement home in Seattle. The singer’s career of more than six decades began in that city when she was a teenager. She went on to be featured with the big bands of Johnny Otis and Lionel Hampton, record the classic album Hot Cargo and receive Grammy nominations and rave reviews for recordings she made after a comeback in the 1970s. For an extensive account of Ms. Anderson’s life, ...
Continue Reading
