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Dan Miller: A Life Well-Lived, And Then Some....
Source:
Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
Someone's impact on others is a more meaningful measure of a life well-lived than the number of years they spend on the planet. That notion was reinforced today when we received word that Dan Miller died unexpectedly yesterday (Friday, August 19). He was just 53. Dan was passionate about a lot of things—auto racing and other sports, fine food, and his family. Most of us knew him best through his many contributions to the world of jazz. He was a ...
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Gabe Baltazar (1929-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Gabe Baltazar, a Hawaiian-born Asian-American clarinetist, flutist and alto saxophonist with a Charlie Parker sound who was a member of the Stan Kenton Orchestra starting in 1960, died on June 12. He was 92. A clarinetist as a child, Baltazar later switched to alto saxophone as his main instrument. During a visit to New York in 1948 while studying music in Baltimore, Baltazar met Charlie Parker during a break in sets at the Royal Roost. Their conversation and Parker's kindness ...
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Jessica Williams: 1948-2022
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Jessica Williams, a jazz pianist and composer of extraordinary talent and imagination whose style touched on bebop, fusion and the avant-garde, died on March 12, She was 73. Williams was a mystery to many jazz fans and jazz writers—a name you heard every so often but never got to hear live or see on TV. Intensely sensitive and private, she was averse to touring and preferred keeping to herself. Her keyboard approach was flavored by the styles of multiple jazz ...
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Barbara Morrison: 1949-2022
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Barbara Morrison, a soul-jazz singer whose artful vocal control and powerful delivery stunned club audiences and should have made her a household name, died on March 16. She was 72. Born in 1949, Morrison didn't start recording until the early 1970s. By then, a career in jazz and the blues had become a struggle for singers who hadn't made a name for themselves in the 1950s. Clubs had already rolled over to rock and soul, with many converting to disco ...
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Carlos Barbosa-Lima (1944-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Carlos Barbosa-Lima, a Brazilian child prodigy whose touch and counterpoint on the guitar were virtually unrivaled and who arranged Antonio Carlos Jobim's music for the guitar in the 1980s at Jobim's request, died on February 23. He was 77. Barbosa-Lima began his professional career at age 12. A master of pop interpretation as well as classical guitar, Barbosa-Lima earned his living performing around the world and recording. His arrangements of songs by Brazilian composers, including Jobim and Luiz Bonfá, were ...
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Ernie Andrews: (1927-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ernie Andrews, one of the last Black male blues and pop crooners from the 1950s who was a frequent performer at Central Avenue clubs in Los Angeles and whose dry, romantic style was a favorite of jazz fans and musicians, died on February 24. He was 94. Born in Philadelphia in 1927, Ernie's mother sent him to live with her mother in Jeanerette, La., when he was 11. His mother and father had split up and his mother couldn’t look ...
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Nils Lindberg (1933-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Nils Lindberg, one of Sweden's finest jazz pianists and orchestral composer-arrangers who collaborated in Stockholm with American jazz musicians including Benny Bailey, Idrees Sulieman and Red Mitchell, died on February 20. He was 88. Among his albums that Americans jazz fans need to hear are Sax Appeal (1960) and Trisection (1962). Most recently, I posted in January about Nils and his beautiful album with Swedish singer Margareta Bengtson. Nils had an ability to weave together Swedish folk songs, a jazz ...
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Elza Soares (1930-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Elza Soares, one of Brazil's most spectacular and beloved pop singers who fused samba, bossa nova and other rhythmic styles and whipped them into a seductive, breezy confection through her charismatic, joyous delivery, died on January 20. She was 91. In addition to her stunning beauty and fluid stage presence, she was able to sell everything she sang with an actor's instincts. Soares also was known for tastefully accenting her singing in select places with a Louis Armstrong-like growl. She ...
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