Home » Jazz Musicians » Gone

Gone

Sign in / sign up and request update access to the Gone page.


Tags

4

Obituary

Ellis Marsalis Is Gone

Ellis Marsalis Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

The death this week of Ellis Marsalis recalls dozens of enounters with him when he was one of New Orleans’ premier jazz musicians. Long before Ellis became famous as the father of Wynton, Branford, Jason and Delfeo, he established himself as a nonpareil pianist and educator. I remember hearing the the young Marsalis when he was a key member of alto saxophonist Al Belletto’s sextet in the 1960s and being spellbound by the intricacies he and Belletto wove in their ...

1

Obituary

Bill Smith And McCoy Tyner Are Gone

Bill Smith And McCoy Tyner Are Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

James Moody told me that his Georgia-born grandmother said one morning while looking through the newspaper, “Folks is dyin’ what ain’t never died befo’.” The trend continues, as It always has and, if human suscsceptibility is a guide, always will. Recently, the parade of departures resumed when the jazz world lost two giants in their nineties, McCoy Tyner and William O. Smith. Smith a clarinetist, composer, teacher and formidable arranger, was 93. Encouraged by the classical composer Darius Milhaud when ...

1

Obituary

Jimmy Heath And Claudio Roditi Are Gone

Jimmy Heath And Claudio Roditi Are Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

The last thing any of us at Rifftides wants is for our endeavor to become an obituary service. Life goes on, however, as does its opposite. So we continue to note the passing of musicians who have enriched listeners around the world. Recently, we lost American saxophonist, bandleader and composer Jimmy Heath and Brazil’s Claudio Roditi, perhaps the most influential trumpet and flugelhorn soloist to emerge from his country in the second half of the last century. Heath was 93, ...

Obituary

Joao Gilberto Is Gone At 88

Joao Gilberto Is Gone At 88

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

The man often called the founding father of bossa nova, died today at home in Rio de Janeiro. Joao Gilberto was 88. Along with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gilberto pioneered the form that became a phenomenon of popular music in the early 1960s. With varying degrees of authenticity, bossa nova was adapted by performers around the world. It sprang from traditions of Brazilian music that reached far into Brazil’s history and reflected aspects of American music that in the fifties and ...

Obituary

British Critic Alun Morgan Is Gone

British Critic Alun Morgan Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey


Obituary

Nancy Wilson Is Gone

Nancy Wilson Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Sorry to hear of the passing of Nancy Wilson. She was 81 and died yesterday at her home north of Los Angeles in the California desert community of Pioneertown. The singer achieved fame in the 1960s after Cannonball Adderley heard her in a Columbus, Ohio, club and recommended her to Capitol Records. An album she made with Adderley and his quintet became one of her most popular and has remained so for decades. Nearly as successful was her album with ...

1

Obituary

Jerry González Is Gone

Jerry González Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

It is sad to hear of the death of Jerry González, the extraordinary bandleader, trumpeter and Latin percussionist. He died of heart failure at 69 after being overcome by smoke in a fire in his home in Madrid, Spain on Monday. He had lived in Madrid since 2000. In the late 1970s, González and his bassist brother Andy established The Fort Apache Band, which quickly became one of the leading groups combining jazz and Latin music. Their album Rumba Para ...

1

Obituary

Patrick Williams Is Gone

Patrick Williams Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Sorry to learn that composer, arranger and bandleader Patrick Williams died yesterday at 79. Prolific in his work for motion pictures and television, Williams was sometimes taken for granted—but never by fellow members of the arranging fraternity or by the musicians who took part in recordings of his ingenious, often demanding, arrangements. Frank Sinatra chose Williams to do the arrangements for the singer’s final studio albums. Williams’ work on television series brought him several Grammy nominations. His music accompanied Colombo, ...

2

Obituary

Bob Dorough Is Gone

Bob Dorough Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Word has arrived that Bob Dorough died today at his home in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania. He was 94. Dorough’s greatest fame in popular culture stemmed from his central role in the enormously successful television series Schoolhouse Rock. The program informed and entertained children, and many adults, from 1973 to 1985. Within the jazz community, Dorough was a beloved singer of literate and witty songs that he wrote and performed, usually accompanying himself as a skilled and harmonically adept pianist. In ...

Obituary

Cecil Taylor Is Gone

Cecil Taylor Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Cecil Taylor, a pianist who fashioned his music from myriad styles and sources, died yesterday in New York. He was 89. From his earliest recordings in the mid-1950s with bassist Buell Nieidlinger, drummer Dennis Charles and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, Taylor pursued daring and swam upstream against jazz orthodoxy. This is how critic Ben Ratliff put it in an obituary in today’s New York Times. At the center of his art was that dazzling physicality and the percussiveness of his ...

Photos

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.