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Joe Diorio (1936-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Joe Diorio, a guitarist whose soulful playing on albums by Sonny Stitt and Eddie Harris gave those recordings a special feel and whose pensive, ringing tones and polytextures on solo albums influenced fusion guitarists, died on February 2. He was 85. Diorio grew up in Westbury, Ct., and learned to play guitar at a local music school in the 1950s. Gigging in New York, he stood out with a jagged technique that focused on heart rather than perfection, traditional jazz ...
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Beegie Adair: 1937-2022
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Beegie Adair, who was one of the busiest unbusy studio and lounge pianists in Nashville who recorded more than 100 albums, died on January 23. She was 84. Unbusy, because Beegie (born Bobbe Gorin Long) played simply with a straight-ahead style, adding a dash of jazz along the way. While not widely known outside of Nashville studio circles and among those who fancy the cocktail-piano sound, Beegie preferred playing the standards people liked to hear with a modicum of flourish ...
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Terry Teachout (1956-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday afternoon, my literary agent called with terrible news. Terry Teachout had died hours earlier. I had to sit down. I couldn't believe it. My agent also was Terry's agent. In fact, Terry was the one who had introduced us years earlier at a book party. Now Terry was gone at age 65. For those unfamiliar with Terry, he was the drama critic for The Wall Street Journal and a tireless essayist who cranked out gorgeous pieces on the arts—high ...
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Ronnie Spector (1943-2022)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ronnie Spector, whose quivering, commanding vocals as the lead singer of the Ronettes in the early 1960s touched the hearts of love-struck teens and set new standards for girl groups on records and TV shows, died January 12. She was 78. With her high, sonorous teenage voice and distinct New York accent, Ronnie, along with the Ronettes, had a way of connecting instantly with young radio listeners, especially in urban markets. Under the guidance of record producer Phil Spector starting ...
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2022 - Jazz musicians felled by coronavirus, Chapter 6
Source:
Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
Here is the latest update to our running, chronological list of jazz-related jazz-related COVID-19 deaths, updated as we receive them. This segment begins with deaths in 2022. Chapter 5 covers the second half of 2021 and Chapter 4 lists deaths in the first half of the 2021, a combined 57 known losses. Chapters one, two and three contain 2020's 63 known losses. Our profound sympathies to their families, friends and fans as we remember the musical legacies they have given ...
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Barry Harris (1929-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Barry Harris, a jazz pianist and beloved educator whose leadership and sideman recordings celebrated bebop—the 1940s modernist movement that established a roadmap for improvised jazz—died on December 8. He was 91. Though Harris was too young to have participated in bop's birth or initial popularity in the years immediately after World War II, the Detroit-based pianist caught the tail end of the first wave. In particular, he was influenced by and adored Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, bebop's founding-father pianists, ...
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Slide Hampton (1932-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Slide Hampton, a slide trombonist and a prolific leader, composer and arranger for many of the most significant big bands of the post-war era, including several led by Maynard Ferguson, died November 18. He was 89. Though not as well known to jazz fans as J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Urbie Green or Curtis Fuller, Hampton was an in-demand sideman, arranger and leader whose smooth, punchy playing and whip-cracking arrangements delivered drama and daring. Here are 10 favorite tracks—including 8 as ...
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Margo Guryan (1937-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Margo Guryan, a singer-songwriter and sunshine pop pioneer whose first and only commercial album in 1968 was notable for its swinging, breathy approach and layered vocal overdubs, died on Nov. 8. She was 84. Guryan's album, Take a Picture, for Bell Records, had a happy-go-lucky, bedroom-and-incense feel and still sounds of the era—between San Francisco's Summer of Love and before the violence at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in the summer of 1968. The album also has a distinctly young, ...
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