Home » Jazz News
Obituary News
Timely announcements covering new album releases, tours, concert series, special events, job postings, crowdfunding campaigns and more. You can find more news by searching our website, viewing our news stream, seeing what's trending or reading our blog posts. Subscribe to our news RSS feed and/or embed AAJ news content on your website or blog. Learn about our news service here. Submit news here.
RIP Fred Anderson
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
Howard Reich has the details on the passing of Fred Anderson following a heart attack earlier in the month. I'm not particularly familiar with Mr. Anderson's work but I understand his leadership role in Chicago, a city that is laudably proud of its contributions. One thing I noticed in the article was the role of Dan Melnick as a volunteer at Mr. Anderson's home, the Velvet Lounge.I wondered where Dan went after he suspended posting at Soundslope and ...
Continue Reading
Pete Quaife, a Bassist for the Kinks
Source:
Michael Ricci
Pete Quaife, a bassist who joined forces with two schoolmates to form the Kinks, one of the leading rock bands of the 1960s British Invasion, died on Wednesday in Herlev, Denmark. He was 66. The cause was kidney failure, a spokeswoman for the band said.
Born Peter Alexander Greenlaw Quaife on Dec. 31, 1943, he went to William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School in North London with Ray and Dave Davies, and the three began playing music together in 1961, with ...
Continue Reading
We Will Miss You Dearly, Mr. Fred Anderson
Source:
Michael Ricci
We are deeply saddened by the passing of Chicago's beloved Fred Anderson. Words cannot express what he meant to the music world, and specifically the Chicago creative jazz community. Please go out and support Chicago's Velvet Lounge--Fred Anderson's home for Chicago Jazz! Thank you for your kindness and generosity.
Kevin Johnson Delmark Records From Kurt Gottschalk, All About Jazz Fred Anderson: 1929-2010
There aren't many artists with so singular a ...
Continue Reading
Kalmen Opperman, Master Clarinetist and Teacher Dies
Source:
Michael Ricci
Kalmen Opperman, a master clarinetist whose intensive teaching methods helped mold some of the top players of the last 50 years, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 90.
The cause was complications of congestive heart failure, said his daughter, Roie Opperman.
Mr. Opperman began his professional career playing for ballet and Broadway, but it was his relentless pursuit of musical perfection and highly personal teaching methods that drew generations of students to his studio.
“He was the elder statesman ...
Continue Reading
Last South Dakota Code Talker from World War II Laid to Rest
Source:
Michael Ricci
Clarence Wolf Guts of Wanblee was buried Tuesday in Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. The 86-year-old Wolf Guts died June 16 at the South Dakota Veterans Home in Hot Springs.
Wolf Guts was one of 11 Lakota, Nakota and Dakota code talkers from South Dakota. During the war, they transmitted messages from an Army general to his chief of staff in the field using their native language, which the Germans and the Japanese could not translate.
People came from ...
Continue Reading
WWII Nurse in Iconic Times Square Kissing Photo Dies
Source:
Michael Ricci
A nurse famously photographed being kissed by an American sailor in New York's Times Square in 1945 to celebrate the end of World War Two has died at the age of 91, her family said on Tuesday.
The V-J Day picture of the white-clad Edith Shain by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured an epic moment in U.S. history and became an iconic image marking the end of the war after being published in Life magazine. The identity of the nurse in ...
Continue Reading
William A. Fraker Hollywood Cinematographer
Source:
Michael Ricci
William A. “Bill" Fraker, a cinematographer who was nominated for six Academy Awards including for “Looking for Mr. Goodbar," “Heaven Can Wait" and “1941," died June 2nd at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 86 and had cancer.
Fraker, a larger-than-life figure, was one of America's most respected cinematographers, known as much for the enduring images he crafted on classic movies like “Rosemary's Baby" and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as for his efforts to mentor young ...
Continue Reading
Bill Dixon, Leading Edge of Avant-Garde Jazz
Source:
Michael Ricci
Bill Dixon, the maverick trumpeter, composer, educator and major force in the jazz avant-garde movement of the 1960s, died on Wednesday at his home in North Bennington, Vt. He was 84.
In the early 1960s, when rock was swallowing popular culture and jazz clubs were taking few chances on the new thing as the developing avant-garde was then known Mr. Dixon, who was known for the deep and almost liquid texture of his sound, fought to raise the profile of ...
Continue Reading
