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Obituary

Gordon Beck: British Piano Legend Dies at 76

Source: Art of Life Records
November 7, 2011

British piano legend Gordon Beck passed away on November 5th, 2011. Gordon performed and recorded with many of the worlds finest musicians including Tubby Hayes, Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Clyne, John McLaughlin, Tony Oxley, Lena Horne, {{Helen Merrill, John Stevens, Jimmy Deuchar, Alan Ganley, Kenny Wheeler and many more. His musical legacy lives on in the dozens of recordings he released as a leader and the hundreds of sideman appearances that he participated on. To learn more about Gordon and his ...

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Obituary

Andy Rooney dead at 92

Source: Michael Ricci
November 5, 2011

Andy Rooney, the “60 Minutes" commentator known to generations for his wry, humorous and contentious television essays—a unique genre he is credited with inventing—died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery. He was 92, and had homes in New York City, Rensselaerville, N.Y. and Rowayton, Conn. “It's a sad day at '60 Minutes' and for everybody here at CBS News," said Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of “60 ...

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Obituary

Walter Norris, 1931-2011

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
November 2, 2011

Pianist Walter Norris died this week at his home in Berlin. He was two months short of his 80th birthday. Because of his early recording with Ornette Coleman and later experimental work, he is often described as associated primarily with free jazz, but Norris's stylistic range was virtually unlimited. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and first received substantial notice in the 1950s in Los Angeles when he recorded with Jack Sheldon and was the pianist on Coleman's first ...

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Obituary

Graham Collier, 1937-2011

Source: All About Jazz
October 24, 2011

Written by Duncan Heining Composer, bassist and bandleader Graham Collier left town on Friday, September 9,, 2011. He was holidaying with his partner, John, in Crete, when a sudden heart failure took his final breath. It was quick, relatively painless but unexpected. We all felt sure Graham had too much sparkle, too much music in him to go so soon. His career, indeed his life, was shaped by music. Collier grew up in Luton, Bedfordshire—reason enough to leave home at ...

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Obituary

Band leader Edmundo Ros dies, 100

Source: Lasse Stein Holst
October 22, 2011

Band leader Edmundo Ros, the man credited with popularising Latin American music in the UK, has died at the age of 100. His death was confirmed by showbusiness charity the Grand Order of Water Rats. Secretary John Adrian said: “He died last night peacefully at his home in Spain, two months short of his 101st birthday." Ros received an OBE for services to entertainment in the New Year Honours of 2000. Royal rumba success According to the Official Edmundo Ros ...

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Obituary

Pete Rugolo (1915-2011)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 20, 2011

Pete Rugolo, a jazz-classical maverick in the late-1940s andarchitect of a brassy, West Coast orchestral sound that helped establish Stan Kenton and the music of television and the movies in the 1950s and 1960s, died on October 16 in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 95. [Photo by William P. Gottlieb] Starting in 1944 with his first arrangement for Kenton (Opus a Dollar Three Eighty), Rugolo's music was as sweeping and as grand as California's panoramic landscape—and at times just as ...

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Obituary

Pete Rugolo, 1915-2011

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 19, 2011

Pete Rugolo has died in Los Angeles at the age of 95. Rugolo's composing and arranging, particularly for the Stan Kenton Orchestra,had much to do in the 1940s and '50s with the creation of what came to be called progressive jazz. As a discoverer of talent and as a producer, he was responsible for recording a number of artists including Peggy Lee and Mel Tormé. He produced the seminally influential Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions of 1949 and ...

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Obituary

Jeff Sultanof on Pete Rugolo

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 19, 2011

Shortly after Pete Rugolo died this week, Jeff Sultanof offered to contribute a piece putting Rugolo's work in perspective. I was delighted to accept and flattered that he considered Rifftides the proper place for his essay. Jeff is a native of New York City, where he lives and works. He is a composer, orchestrator, editor, educator and researcher greatly admired in the community of professional musicians, critics and academics. He has analyzed, studied, edited and taught the music of Gerald ...

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