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Jazz Education Pioneer Clem DeRosa Dies, At Age 86
Source:
Ed Bride Associates
A drummer, leader, composer, educator, and author, DeRosa was co-founder of the International Association for Jazz Education Clem DeRosa, a major figure in jazz performance and education, died peacefully in his sleep, December 20. Succumbing after a long struggle with cancer, he was surrounded by family at his home near Denton, Texas, where he had moved earlier this year. The world of jazz education owes much to DeRosa, as do all followers of big band music. An internationally respected musician, ...
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Bob Brookmeyer: 1929-2011
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Bob Brookmeyer died in his sleep Thursday night in a hospital near his home in Grantham, New Hampshire. He would have been 82 on December 19. The cause is reported as congestive heart failure. Several weeks ago, Bob sent me a test pressing of the next album by his New Art Orchestra. He attached a note: This CD is very much a pre-production sample. Please hold close to your vest. I have been listening to it repeatedly and holding it ...
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Bob Brookmeyer: 1929-2011
Source:
Michael Ricci
From bobbrookmeyer.com: It's with great sadness that we share the news that Bob Brookmeyer passed away last night, just three days shy of his 82nd birthday. Bob was an integral force in music, making some of the greatest groups in jazz history what we know and admire today. Whether as a composer, arranger or trombonist, his voice is immediately discernible from the very first note, always bringing a smile and one word: “Brookmeyer." For many of us, Bob has ...
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Bob Brookmeyer (1929-2011)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Bob Brookmeyer, whose emotionally strained youth in Kansas City helped him become arguably the most soulful, peppery and lyrical valve trombonists of the 1950s and '60s, died December 15 in New Hampshire. He was 81. In the 1950s, there certainly was no shortage of great trombonists—J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Urbie Green, Carl Fontana, Frank Rosolino, Curtis Fuller and many others. But Bob was different for several reasons: For one, Bob played valve trombone, on which a player must use valves ...
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Entertaining Musician, Ad Man Paul West Dies
Source:
Seattle Jazz Scene
Paul West, an ebullient pianist, singer and humorist who entertained several generations on Seattle's lounge scene from the 1950s forward, died Monday. He was 76. The cause was prostate cancer. Though Mr. West worked much of his life as an advertising man by day, he played music by night. He was probably best known for his '70s trio BLT—Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato—featuring bassist Rolf Johnson (son of well-known Seattle architect Sig Johnson) and vocalist Gail Clements. Seattle's cocktail-lounge scene—all but ...
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WMUB's 'Mama Jazz' dies at 89
Source:
Michael Ricci
Hearing her mother Phyllis called “Mama Jazz" wasn't odd to her daughter, Gail Campbell of Oxford. “It fit her. No one was a stranger to her. Everyone was family," she said of her mother, Phyllis Campbell, the longtime WMUB-FM jazz host who died Sunday in Eaton, Ohio. She was 89. Long before she was a radio personality, Mrs. Campbell worked in the Miami University personnel and guidance departments, where she “always mothered students on her job," recalled daughter Jane Campbell ...
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Paul Motian (1931-2011): An Appreciation
Source:
Something Else!
Drummer Paul Motian, who first came to prominence in the late 1950s with pianist Bill Evans' pioneering trio, has died. A representative from ECM Records confirms he passed at 4:52 a.m. in New York City. A cause of death has not been disclosed. He was 80. After this groundbreaking association with Evans, Motian later collaborated with pianists Paul Bley (1963-64) and Keith Jarrett (1967㭈). An eclectic artist, he also worked with Arlo Guthrie in 1968-69, a stint that included a ...
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RIP Paul Motian: 1931-2011
Source:
John Kelman
Drummer Paul Motian passed away, in a New York City hospital, early this morning. The cause was complications of myelodysplastic syndrome, according to Motian's niece, Cindy McGuirl. This is the same rare blood and bone-marrow disorder that took the life of saxophonist Michael Brecker nearly five years ago, in early 2007. Emerging first as a member of pianist Bill Evans' groundbreaking trio in the mid-1950s, Motian went on to become an innovator in his own right, creating a style of ...
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