Home » Search Center » Results: Obituary

Results for "Obituary"

News: Obituary

Carla Bley: 1936-2023

October 19, 2023

Carla Bley, a pianist, composer and arranger who carved out her own niche in avant-garde jazz, creating a singular musical style that was both daring and distinctly tender, died on October 17. She was 87. During my interview with Carla for The Wall Street Journal in 2020, she was remarkably open and almost journalistic recalling her ...

News: Obituary

Tony Bennett (1926-2023)

July 24, 2023

For me, Tony Bennett's passing was personal. Since 2011, I interviewed the singer five different times for The Wall Street Journal, four at his art studio overlooking Central Park. Each time was a revelation, from the interview we did sitting in close quarters on a sofa to the last in 2018, when his Alzheimer's was already ...

News: Obituary

João Donato (1934-2023)

July 18, 2023

João Donato, one of Brazil's original bossa nova pianist-composers who stood out among a sea of extraordinarily talented peers by integrating jazz and Latin chord voicings and rhythms into his playing style, died on July 17. He was 88. Donato's contemporaries included Brazilian musician-composers Johnny Alf, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, João Gilberto, Eumir ...

News: Obituary

Chicago-Area Jazz Publicist, Producer And Vocalist Ralph Lampkin, Jr. Passes At 66

July 6, 2023

This article by Carrie Maxwell was originally published on Windy City Times. Music producer, vocalist and business owner Ralph Lampkin, Jr. died June 24 of a heart attack. He was 66. Lampkin was born April 29, 1957, in New York City, where he lived with his parents Ralph Lampkin, Sr. and Betty Jane Lampkin and younger ...

News: Obituary

Astrud Gilberto (1940-2023)

June 7, 2023

Astrud Gilberto, who as the wife of Brazilian singer João Gilberto was urged to record “The Girl From Ipanema" and “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars" in English in March 1963 because he didn't speak the language and whose hit vocals helped send the bossa nova into the pop stratosphere and her into stardom, died on June ...

News: Obituary

Tina Turner (1939-2023)

May 25, 2023

The moment I heard that Tina Turner had died yesterday at 2:45 p.m., I started writing. I knew what was about to happen. Within minutes, I heard from the arts editor asking for an appreciation needed asap. An hour and 45 minutes later, my essay was done, fact-checked and filed. Tina was a force of nature. ...

News: Obituary

Don Sebesky (1937-2023)

May 2, 2023

Don Sebesky, a composer and arranger best-known for his jazz orchestrations for albums produced by Creed Taylor at Verve, A&M and CTI and for his Broadway scores for a large number of updated popular musicals, died on April 29. He was 85. Over the course of his long, prolific career, Don played and arranged for a ...

News: Obituary

Ahmad Jamal: 1930-2023

April 17, 2023

Ahmad Jamal, whose spare but highly melodic piano style on trio recordings beginning in 1951 transformed the sound of the jazz piano and deeply influenced Miles Davis and Red Garland, died on April 16. He was 92. At the dawn of the 1950s, Jamal's gleeful and relaxed style was a radical departure from other piano approaches ...

News: Obituary

Toni Harper (1937-2023)

March 10, 2023

Toni Harper, a child singer in Los Angeles in the late 1940s who grew up to become a superb jazz stylist in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, recorded with Oscar Peterson, Buddy Bregman, Marty Paich and many other leading jazz artists only to quit the business at age 29, died on February 10. She was 86. ...

News: Obituary

Burt Bacharach (1928-2023)

February 12, 2023

At 10:15 on Thursday morning, I received an email from the Wall Street Journal's Arts in Review editor letting me know that Burt Bacharach had died. He also asked how quickly I could turn around an appreciation essay. I had interviewed Burt at length twice for the WSJ—once in 2011 for a feature and again in ...