Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 26th, 2008
News came this Friday morning via several sources that tenor saxophonist and hardbop great Johnny Griffin has passed away from a heart attack at the age of 80. Ben Ratliff has an obituary online for the New York Times, and Doug Ramsey has posted a tribute that includes a link to a retrospective he wrote earlier this year over at Rifftides. Griffin, nicknamed “the Little Giant” because he was five feet five but produced a contrasting sound of immense strength and individualism, had a long and successful career that touches on several facets of modern jazz history…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 18th, 2008
Jo Stafford, one of the last great vocalists from the “songbird” era of big band vocalists, passed away Wednesday at the age of 90. A World War II icon dubbed “GI Jo” and beloved by soldiers for her performances and recordings such as “Long Ago and Far Away,” Stafford possessed one of the most graceful, limpid voices in the postwar popular music world, and she retained her popularity into the 1950s, scoring hits on her own and with Frankie Laine.
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jun 28th, 2008
Jazz pianist Ronnie Mathews has passed away at the age of 72 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Matthews had been the subject of an all-star benefit and tribute just last week at Sweet Rhythm in New York City. If you’ve spent any time listening to 1960s, 70s and 80s hardbop, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard Ronnie Matthews on the keyboards at some point–Dexter Gordon’s live 1976 opus Homecoming, for example, or…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Dec 24th, 2007
Sad Christmas Eve news that a number of jazz fans have probably heard by now: Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson has passed away at the age of 82. He was, as Doug Ramsey observes, “one of the great piano figures of his time… an inspiration to virtually every jazz pianist who followed him, his influence equaled only by his slightly younger contemporary Bill Evans.” A mainstay of Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic tours, an early devotee of Art Tatum and Nat King Cole who found his own voice of swing, soul, and sophistication, a presence on the jazz-piano scene befitting his bearishly-big body, projecting both strength and gentility, Peterson was perhaps easy to take for granted–a bit like living for many years in view of a beautiful mountain or ocean-front…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Dec 14th, 2007
Word from the Jazz Programmer Listserv that alto saxophonist Frank Morgan has passed away:
We’ve just been notified that Frank Morgan passed away peacefully from kidney failure this Friday morning, near his family and friends in his hometown of Minneapolis. He had just completed a successful European tour, even though he was worried about his health. A memorial gathering is planned in his longtime home town of Taos, New Mexico, on what would have been
his 74th, birthday, December 23.…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Aug 16th, 2007
RIP posts are a drag, for obvious reasons, and this one is a major bummer–Max Roach has left us. Another giant gone. The New York Times has an obituary up, and WKCR has begun a memorial broadcast that will continue through August 22. (Also check out the tribute at Who Walk in Brooklyn.) Word is that he passed away in his sleep early this morning, that his family was…
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