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Donald Byrd (1932-2013)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Death is a devastating event for loved ones. The finality of loss is crushing and leaves family members feeling helpless, particularly when the deceased is notable and the media seeks information. Over the past week or so, rumors circulated about the passing of trumpeter Donald Byrd. Some blogs and radio disc jockeys decided that a Facebook mention of Byrd's death by a distant relative was sufficient to announce the trumpeter's passing and pay tribute—even though word surfaced that there may ...
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Donald Byrd, 1932-2013
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
On several blogs and websites, a man name Alex Bugnon, a nephew of trumpeter Donald Byrd, is quoted as saying that Byrd died on Monday in Dover, Delaware, his home in recent years. According to the reports,Bugnon said that other members of Byrd‘s family were keeping the death of the 80-year-old jazz artist under “an unnecessary shroud of secrecy.” I have tried to get at least one further confirmation; a coroner’s report, word from an immediate family member in Delaware, ...
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"Unchain My Heart" Songwriter Bobby Sharp Dies At Age 88
Source:
Natasha Miller
Bobby Sharp, 88, of Alameda, passed away on Monday, January 28. His passing marked the end of a life filled with generosity toward friends, colorful storytelling about mid-century times in Los Angeles, New York, and California, and a long songwriting career highlighted by his 1961 hit, “Unchain My Heart." Bobby was born in 1924 in Topeka, Kansas, and after spending his early years in Lawrence, Kansas, moved to Los Angeles to live with his grandparents. His parents, Louis and Eva, ...
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Butch Morris, RIP
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
The ceaselessly innovative and searching composer and Butch Morris died yesterday in New York. He had been under treatment of cancer for several years. Morris was 65. He developed an approach to big band music that he called conduction. It made demands on musicians by insisting on intensive, intuitive listening, reaction and interaction. The effort involved adjustment to Morris’s highly personalized methods of conducting while simultaneously composing and arranging through a system of cues and hand motions. Sometimes combined with ...
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Norwegian Guitarist Morten Molster: 1963-2013
Source:
All About Jazz
By Jon Trygve Utne Morten Mølster, aged 50, died from a sudden cardiac arrest Monday this week during physical exercise. To fans of trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, he will be remembered for playing on the iconic album Khmer (ECM, 1997), but in Norway he was best known as the guitarist in The September When, in the period 1990-1996, during which time the band had great success in its native country. Mølster was also involved in many other collaborations, especially in ...
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George Gruntz Remembered
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
The death of George Gruntz last Thursday brought responses from dozens of the musicians who played in his Concert Jazz Band over the past 40 years. The Swiss pianist, composer and arranger hired an international who’s-who of players for his annual tours in Europe, the United States and South America, among other places around the globe. To name a few, his sidemen or guest soloists included established stars like Elvin Jones, Jimmy Knepper, Dexter Gordon, Sheila Jordan and Herb Geller. ...
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Ada Louise Huxtable (1921-2013)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ada Louise Huxtable, the country's most respected and feared architecture critic whose finely crafted articles, essays and books held architects and their works to high humanistic standards, died January 7. She was 91. Ada Louise was most recently the architecture critic for the Wall Street Journal, but she was an early mentor of mine when I worked as a college intern at The New York Times in the late 1970s and she was a member of the Editorial Board. A ...
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TD Ottawa Jazz Festival's Jacque Emond (1934-2013)
Source:
All About Jazz
Obit by James Hale, courtesy of Jazz Chronicles and CBC Music: Note: My longtime friend Jacques Emond, former programming director for the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, died Sunday night after suffering a stroke the previous day. Almost everywhere I've ventured in the global jazz community I've found them: obsessed, lifelong fans of the music with encyclopedic knowledge, massive collections of recordings, and a thousand stories—either firsthand or many times retold. Some, like broadcaster Phil Schaap, have turned their obsessions into ...
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