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Obituary

Gretchen Carhartt Valade Detroit Businesswoman and 'Angel of Jazz'

Source: DL Media
January 5, 2023

Metro Detroit and the global jazz community lost one of its greatest champions this week. Gretchen Carhartt Valade, businesswoman, and philanthropist, died peacefully on December 30, surrounded by family at her Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich. home. She was 97. Known by many in the arts community as the “Angel of Jazz,” Gretchen C. Valade will be remembered for her philanthropic contributions to the arts, culture, and business landscape of Metro Detroit and the global jazz community. As chairman emeritus of ...

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Obituary

Thom Bell (1943-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 24, 2022

Thom Bell, a producer, arranger and songwriter who was one of the architects of the Philly Sound in the late 1960s and early 1970s and had hits with soft soul vocal groups backed by his engaging orchestrations, died on December 22. He was 79. Thom pioneered a movement that ushered in a new soul style that featured mostly male vocal groups singing lush, romantic songs. The groups he produced in the studio at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound were highly choreographed for ...

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Obituary

Gal Costa (1945-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 15, 2022

Gal Costa, one of Brazil's most respected and beloved singers and recording artists admired as much for her courage as her performing charm, vocal range and vast knowledge of standards and obscure songs, died on November 9. She was 77. Costa's singing and guitar-playing career began in August of 1964, during a period of enormous musical celebration and political upheaval. At the time, Brazil's capital, Rio De Janeiro, was the center of a global music phenomenon known as the bossa ...

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Obituary

Anita Kerr (1927-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 13, 2022

Anita Kerr, a recording studio soprano and vocal arranger whose Anita Kerr Singers released a staggering number of mellifluous albums under the group's own name as FM radio embraced the “beautiful music" stereo format starting in the late 1960s, died on October 10. She was 94. In addition to recording as a lead group, the Anita Kerr Singers recorded background vocals on dozens of albums by country stars and by easy-listening maestros such as Ray Coniff, Percy Faith and Bert ...

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Obituary

Ronnie Cuber (1941-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 10, 2022

Ronnie Cuber, a saxophonist and flutist who primarily played the baritone and whose stampeding solo approach landed him in top big bands in the 1960s and '70s and leading jazz, rock, pop, Latin, funk and soul orchestras and combos in the 1980s and beyond, including the Saturday Night Live band, died October 7. He was 80. Ronnie died in his studio on New York's Upper West Side after suffering from internal injuries related to a fall near his home in ...

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Obituary

Remembering All About Jazz's Mark Barnett: 1932-2022

Source: All About Jazz
October 4, 2022

Mark Barnett of Gaithersburg, Maryland passed away peacefully on the morning of September 26, 2022 after a long life of accomplishment, love, and laughter. Born on Easter Sunday 27 March 1932, Mark grew up in a three-level house in Newark, NJ filled with an extended Jewish family, good food, and a series of beloved turtles. After graduating Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmacy from Rutgers University in 1950, he joined the Public Health Service in the Radiological Health ...

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Obituary

Pharoah Sanders (1940-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 26, 2022

Pharoah Sanders, a tenor saxophonist who initially was associated with free-jazz players in the 1960s, including Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Don Cherry and John Coltrane, but who went on to record several critical pan-African spiritual albums under his own name before developing a softer, more romantic sound in the 1980s and beyond, died on September 23. He was 81. Born in Little Rock, Ark., Farrell Sanders changed his first name to Pharoah in the early 1960s at the urging of ...

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Obituary

Creed Taylor (1929-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 25, 2022

Creed Taylor, a highly influential and maverick jazz record producer and entrepreneur who recorded virtually every major jazz artist while in charge of the music at six major record labels over the course of his career, died August 22 in Winkelhaid, Germany, following a stroke suffered weeks earlier. He was 93. His son, John, announced Creed's passing in an email to me. Creed began his career at Bethlehem Records in New York in 1954, where he helped pioneer the 10-inch ...

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