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Disco Queen Donna Summer dies at 63
Like the King of Pop or the Queen of Soul, Donna Summer was bestowed a title fitting of musical royalty — the Queen of Disco. Yet unlike Michael Jackson or Aretha Franklin, it was a designation she wasn't comfortable embracing. “I grew up on rock 'n' roll," Summer once said when explaining her reluctance to claim ...
Legendary Bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn Passes Away At Age 70
Donald “Duck” Dunn, who played on hundreds of rock and soul classics as the bassist for Booker T. and the MGs, and later as a session player, passed away Sunday morning at the age of 70. Steve Cropper, the MGs guitarist, broke the news on his Facebook page at approximately 12:30AM Eastern time. “Today I lost ...
Levon Helm: 1940-2012
By C. Michael Bailey The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. —William Faulkner It might be a hard sell to claim that Levon Helm was ...
Teddy Charles: (1928-2012)
Teddy Charles, a hard-swinging four-mallet vibraphonist, composer, pianist and player-producer who in the late 1940s and early '50s transformed the steel-plated instrument into a cooler, jazz-classical protagonist, died on April 16, He was 84. Trained at the Juilliard School of Music, Teddy was able to reach effortlessly into modern classical music theory and deploy modal ...
Hal McKusick: 1924-2012
Hal McKusick, an East Coast jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger whose seductively smooth sound, tireless work ethic and flawless technique were admired by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Johnny Mandel and every other musician he worked with since the early 1940s, died on April 10 of complications from a fractured hip. He was ...
Jazz Pianist Carol Whitney Britto Dead At 76
By Chantaie Allick Jazz pianist Carol Whitney Britto has died. She was 76. Britto died March 16 in New York City. She had her first gig at age 16 in Cleveland, Ohio, and began to make a name for herself in Toronto and New York. She studied with legendary pianist, Oscar Peterson and her style of ...
Sonny Igoe, 1923-2012
Sonny Igoe, who played drums with a succession of prominent leaders, died this week at the age of 88. In 1939 when Igoe was 16, he won the first Gene Krupadrum competition. After four years in the United States Marine Corps in World War Two, he worked briefly in a band of former Marines, then began ...
Leon Spencer Jr. (1945-2012)
Leon Spencer Jr., one of the most melodically funky organists during Prestige's Hammond B-3 era in the early 1970s and whose voicings and guitar-like touch on the instrument provided a powdery groove behind lead horn players, died on March 11. He was 66 and lived in Houston. Spencer's recording career began in 1968 but didn't become ...
Khalil Shaheed, Noted Jazz Trumpet Player, Dies
Khalil Shaheed, a trumpet player who served as one of the Bay Area's most prominent jazz music educators and performed for several years with the drummer Buddy Miles, died Friday in Oakland. He was 63. His family confirmed the death. In 2009, the trumpeter was diagnosed with lung cancer. Mr. Shaheed's music career began in the ...
Bill Caldwell, Noted Wichita Jazz Musician, Dies
Bill Caldwell, a gifted musician who brightened the lives and the musical arrangements of jazz enthusiasts all over the country, died this week at his home in Wichita. He was 49. Tim Henry, Mr. Caldwell's Wichita-based business partner and fellow jazz musician, found him dead in his home early Monday after he missed a rehearsal Sunday ...
