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Jeter Thompson 1930 - 2017
Pianist Jeter Thompson, whose leadership of the groups Quartette Trés Bien and Trio Trés Bien made him a significant figure on the St. Louis jazz scene from the Gaslight Square era into the 21st century, died on Friday, December 1. He was 87 years old. Born in St. Louis on March 16, 1930, Thompson started playing ...
Beverley Thorne (1924-2017)
Beverley “David" Thorne, the last of the Case Study architects and the designer of Dave and Iola Brubeck's modernist California and Connecticut homes, died December 6 in Sonoma, Calif. He was 93. Bev's death was confirmed yesterday by architect, colleague and long-time friend Paul Wood, who said from France that Bev was admitted to the hospital ...
Mundell Lowe (1922-2017)
Mundell Lowe, an impeccable jazz guitarist, arranger and talent scout who recorded on many important East Coast jazz albums and introduced Bill Evans to Riverside producer Orrin Keepnews in the mid-1950s, died on December 2. He was 95. Few guitarists played with as many jazz greats as Mundy. The list includes Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Billie ...
Mundell Lowe, 1922-2017
Guitarist Mundell Lowe died today. He was 95. Lowe’s career began at 13 when he frequently went from his home in Laurel, Mississippi, to work at clubs in New Orleans’ French Quarter. After service in World War Two, he honed his bebop skills and became one of New York’s busiest guitarists. He worked with a cross-section ...
Jon Hendricks, George Avakian: RIP
We can be thankful today that Jon Hendricks and George Avakian made so many important contributions to jazz during their long lives. Both died in New York yesterday. Hendricks was 96. Avakian was 98. Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross formed the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross for their album Sing A Song Of ...
George Avakian (1919-2017)
George Avakian, who as an executive and producer at Columbia Records in the 1940s and '50s created a successful formula for packaging jazz as popular music and who signed Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Johnny Mathis to the label, among others, died November 22. He was 98. [Photo above by Ian Clifford] In the early 1950s, ...
Jon Hendricks (1921-2017)
Jon Hendricks, a singer, songwriter and lyricist who pioneered vocalese—the art of crafting words to famed jazz solos—and was a co-founder of the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, died November 22. He was 96. Jon died on the same day as producer George Avakian. I interviewed Jon in 2009 for JazzWax. Here is my complete ...
Della Reese (1931-2017)
Della Reese, best known as the boss of a band of divine messengers on the 1990s TV series Touched By an Angel but started her career decades earlier as an earthy pop singer, died on Nov. 19. She was 86. Reese's deep and often rousing gospel-fueled voice was powerful and rested somewhere between Dinah Washington, Pearl ...
Sol Schlinger: 1926-2017
Sol Schlinger, a baritone saxophonist who played in several major big bands in the 1940s and was part of the East Coast sax section that handled a sizable amount of studio recording in the 1950s and beyond, died last week. He was 91. Among producers, contractors, arrangers and musicians, Sol was considered a rock-solid anchor in ...
Muhal Richard Abrams, RIP
The Chicago avant-garde jazz patriarch Muhal Richard Abrams died today at 87. Named a National Endowment of The Arts Jazz Master in 2010, the pianist, composer and bandleader was at the center of Chicago’s free jazz movement, which was formalized in 1965 when he co-founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. The Art Ensemble ...
