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Obituary

WMUB's 'Mama Jazz' dies at 89

Source: Michael Ricci
November 29, 2011

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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Obituary

Paul Motian (1931-2011): An Appreciation

Source: Something Else!
November 23, 2011

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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Obituary

RIP Paul Motian: 1931-2011

Source: John Kelman
November 22, 2011

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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Obituary

Grosse Pointe resident Bess Bonnier, 83, died Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011.

Source: JazzStage Productions
November 22, 2011

Bess Bonnier began playing piano at an early age, taking her first professional job with a big band at 13. She joined the Detroit Federation of Musicians in 1946. Her career spanned more than six decades and included regular appearances with Jack Brokensha at his club in Detroit's New Center area, and at countless other clubs and hotels, concert and festival venues, private parties, events and local resorts. Highlights of her stage career include a performance in 1981 at the ...

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Obituary

Two Losses to Detroit Jazz: Bess Bonnier and Brad Felt

Source: JazzStage Productions
November 22, 2011

One of the great and unusual combinations of jazz voices hereabouts was the big-horn/little- horn thing that Steve Wood|| and {{Brad Felt had going at least since the '80s, with Steve on sax (especially the relatively small soprano) and Brad on tuba or euphonium, romping through tunes like “Second Balcony Jump," a Jerry Valentine composition from the Billy Eckstine band. (Steve and Brad liked to give credit where it was due like that.) Steve sent out an e-mail Thursday afternoon ...

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Obituary

Russell Garcia, Renowned Composer / Arranger / Conductor, Dies in New Zealand at 95

Source: Carolyn McClair Public Relations
November 21, 2011

April 12, 1916—November 20, 2011 NEW YORK, NY: Russell Garcia, the composer, conductor and arranger renowned for his stellar collaborations with Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Anita O'Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Frances Faye, Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra and numerous others as well as film scores for George Pal's “The Time Machine" and “Atlantis: The Lost Continent" and his orchestrations for Charlie Chaplin's “Limelight," died Sunday, November 20, 2011. He passed away peacefully at his home in Kerikeri, New ...

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Obituary

Russ Garcia (1916-2011)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 21, 2011

Russ Garcia, an early West Coast jazz-classical theorist, composer, arranger and teacher whose trombone-centric big band scores in the 1950s could swing with pixie delight and jack-hammer power, died on Nov. 19. He was 95. I interviewed Russ in 2008 about his life as well as his assertion that he had been mistakenly overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when Oscars were awarded in 1972 for the score to Charlie Chaplain's Limelight. My interview with Russ ...

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Obituary

RIP Singer Smokin' Joe Frazier [video]

Source: HypeBot
November 9, 2011

Joe Frazier died on Monday. Also known as Smokin' Joe, he was an Olympic and Undisputed World Heavyweight boxing champion beating and later losing to Muhammad Ali, whose professional career lasted from 1965 to 1976, with a brief comeback in 1981. But did you also know he was a singer, releasing a string of songs like Frank Sinatra's “My Way" and Eddie Floyd's “Knock On Wood on Knockout Recorrds. Here is Frazier singing his love beer in a 1978 Miller ...

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