Jazz musicians felled by coronavirus - Chapter 3 (updated 3-11-2022)

Here is part three of our chronological listing of jazz-related COVID-19 deaths from the novel coronavirus, updated as we receive them. Our profound sympathies to their families, friends and fans as we remember their musical legacies.

• Vibraphonist and xylophonist Ian Finkel died November 16 in Manhattan after a protracted battle with COVID-19. He was 72. Finkel dubbed himself “the world’s greatest xylophonist.” He was also a composer, arranger, musical director and author.
• Guitarist and educator Bobby Cairns died November 21 in Edmonton, Canada. He was 78. He started playing professionally at age 15 with pianist Tommy Banks. Cairns headed the guitar program at Grant MacEwan College for 38 years. He retired in 2008.   
• Promoter, broadcaster, writer and Central Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz co-founder Russ Neff died November 28 in Lancaster PA. He was in his 70s. He hosted jazz radio programs on WITF and WMSP, and wrote about music for the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Neff worked with CPFJ and Gretna Music to spotlight the local jazz scene and bring renowned performers to the Harrisburg area.
• Broadcaster Carlos Gaivar died December 1 in south Florida. He was 74. After many decades working at radio and TV stations in Washington DC (including WAMU-FM, WETA-FM and WJLA-TV), and Los Angeles (KNX Newsadio), the Brooklyn NY native retired and moved to the Miami area in 2018.
• Scottish bassist Ron Mathewson died December 3 in London at age 76. He was best known for his longtime work with saxophonist and London club owner Ronnie Scott, but also performed with Phil Woods, Gordon Beck, Tubby Hayes, and the Charlie Watts and Kenny Clark-Francy Boland big bands, among others.  
• Multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator Bassam Saba, president of the Lebanese National Conservatory, died on December 4 in Beirut. He was 61. Saba was a leading figure in Arab music. His collaborations included work with classical, pop and jazz musicians, the latter including Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. He played oud, violin and nay (an Arab flute).
• Saxophonist and educator Ed Xiques died December 4 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was 81. He was a member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra in the 1970s and also worked with Frank Foster, McCoy Tyner, Bill Watrous, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Maria Schneider among others. He taught music in New York schools in the 1960s and more recently at Vassar College.
  
• Traditional jazz banjoist Jack Kuncl died December 7 at age 86. He was a member of the Chicago-based Salty Dogs Jazz Band since 1969. He also played with the Chicago Cubs Dixieland Band, Roy Rubinstein’s Hot Six and The Dixie Stompers. 
• Composer, pianist, drummer and poet Harold Budd died December 8. The Los Angeles native was 84. His work over the years included jazz, avant garde, contemporary classical and minimalist and pop  music, including film and TV scores.   
• Belgian jazz and blues guitarist, singer and educator François Monseur died in his hometown, Liege, on December 10. He was 74. 
• Bassist and percussionist Aninbal Ambert died December 11. The New York City native was 70. Ambert was a busy fixture on the Houston, Texas music scene for 30 years, working in a variety of Latin jazz, salsa and swing bands.
• Croatian guitarist Damir Kukuruzović died December 12. He was 45. He was the founder and leader of the Siscia Jazz Club, which put his city, Sisak, on the jazz map. Kukuruzović organized numerous jazz festivals in Croatia, including the Siscia Open Jazz & Blues Festival. In 2011, he was named the most prominent acoustic jazz guitarist in Croatia.   
• Bassist and composer Lelio Giannetto died December 19 in Palermo, Italy. He was 59. He founded Curva Minor, an association for the dissemination of innovative music.
• Alabama-based concert organizer Bernard Lockhart died December 21. He was 59.  He founded  Birmingham’s Jazz in the Park series at Avondale Park in 2010. The series later spread to other parks in Birmingham and at least four other Alabama cities. Lockhart was CEO of Magic City Smooth Jazz and helped stage the Taste of Fourth Avenue Jazz Festival on Fourth Avenue North, Birmingham’s historic Black business district, in 2011. 
• Composer, pianist and singer Armando Manzanero, one of Mexico’s most revered songwriters, died in Mexico City on December 28. He was 85. He wrote more than 400 songs, many of them romantic ballads that were covered by a wide range of artists, including Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. Those gems included “It’s Impossible” and “Yesterday I Heard the Rain.”  

  Here are links to the chronology: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by Matt DeMerritt, Tania Grubbs, Mongorama, Douglas Olsen, Ben Rosenblum and Kenny Washington...

Live jazz in times of uncertainty

Wednesday, November 4, brought the first live jazz concert that I’ve been able to hear in person in nearly eight months. The last was in early March.

This road trip was to Artis Naples, where the Naples Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra resumed its concert series last month – with careful attention to pandemic protocols.

Dan Miller

Rather than perform to two packed shows in the more intimate, 275-seat Daniels Pavilion, Artis Naples moved the performances next door to the 1,600-seat Hayes Hall. Temperatures were checked at the entrance, masks were required for the audience, staff and musicians, and the roughly 200 people who turned out were given seats far apart from each other. It felt a bit odd yet comforting, at the same time.

The resident sextet’s concerts usually feature a special guest soloist. West Coast singer Kenny Washington was due to make his third appearance in the series, which is now in its 11th season. But the audience found out at the start of last night’s show that he was not there.

Some good news for a change, near and far (updated)

Amid all the economic pain and uncertainty this year for jazz musicians, clubs and festivals due to the pandemic, there is some good news to share.

It comes on distant and local fronts, as we continue to await how the “new normal” affects the arts long term.

Just because we can...

As  the addage goes, just because we can doesn't mean we should.

I can only speak specifically about Florida,  where the governor proclaimed on Friday, September 25 that it is time for business as usual. After six months of varied restrictions to minimize the spread of COVID-19, he gave businesses the green light to get back to doing business at pre-pandemic levels.

In spite of that shift, let's hope we've learned a bit more about the need for caution - and continued precautions. Masks may no longer be required, but they sure are a good idea. Heck, the considerate folks in Japan have been wearing them in public for decades to avoid catching - or passing on - airborne germs that can cause colds, flu, viruses, what have you.

While some restaurants that offer live music here in Southwest Florida have been resuming live music with socially distanced tables, masks for servers and patrons, etc., let's hope that they don't rush to undo all of those sensible precautions.

As individuals, we should still tread with care. It just makes sense, no matter how much we love the way music in live settings warms the heart and touches the soul on some nights.

Arts and culture have been  hit particularly hard this year. By my count there have been more than 40 jazz-related COVID-19 deaths around the world. The number could be much higher but we'll never know for sure. I'd sure hate to see that toll rise further.

Exploring conflicts between our digital and natural worlds – through music

Composer, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider’s creativity knows no bounds. Her stellar music, voiced by her longstanding Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, has drawn on many influences and inspirations throughout her career.

Maria Schneider backstage at Newport, 2017

Some of her earliest intricate and colorful works were prompted by memories of imaginary monsters conjured up in her Minnesota childhood. A formidable string of recordings by her 18-piece big band start with 1994’s Evanescence (Enja), in part a tribute to her mentor, the late Gil Evans.

Her newest project, the two-disc recording Data Lords, is just out as her fifth project on the ArtistShare label, the world‘s first crowd-funding internet arts platform. It is a very strong departure from her Grammy-winning 2015 release The Thompson Fields. 

Data Lords is about “the impact that the data-hungry digital world has had on our lives,” Schneider says, and the natural world that has long been rooted in her music.

Disc One, titled “The Digital World,” focuses on the oft-unsettling digital side of the equation. The composition titles pretty much speak for themselves, though Schneider has penned thoughtful notes in the CD booklet that speak to the inspirations behind and intent of each work. The compositions on “The Digital World” are: “A World Lost,” “Don’t Be Evil,” “CQ, CQ, Is Anbody There?,” the other-worldly “Sputnik” and “Data Lords.” That title track takes aim at the giant data companies that track the minutae of our everyday lives as artificial intelligence increases its hold.

Disc Two, “Our Natural World,” celebrates the magic and beauty of the physical world around is and is a balm for what Schneider describes as "the relentless noise of our digital world.” Those tracks are “Sanzenin,” inspired by the lush, meditative gardens surrounding Kyoto, Japan’s Sanzen-in Buddhist temple, the artful “Stone Song,” “Look Up,” “Bluebird,” and two Ted Kooser poetry-inspired pieces, “Braided Together” and “The Sun Waited For Me.”

Standout soloists on this project include accordionist Gary Versace, guitarist Ben Monder, alto saxophonist Dave Pietro, baritone saxophonist Scott Robinson, soprano/alto saxophonist Steve Wilson, tenor saxophonists Donny McCaslin and Rich Perry, trombonists Marshall Gilkes and Ryan Keberle, and trumpeter Mike Rodriguez.

“Look Up” is a clever piece that features Gilkes and pianist Frank Kimbrough. As its melody spirals up, this is a musical reminder to indeed look up: up at the sky, up at the birds or, as Schneider says, “simply at each other.”

In other words, look up from those laptop, iPad and smartphone screens once in a while -- and savor the things around us that aren’t plugged in to something. Except your music player, of course, because this powerful project deserves repeat listenings.

CDs of Note Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by The 3D Jazz Trio, Artemis, Mayita Dinos, theTNEK Jazz Quintet, and Bernard Purdie, Christian Fabian & Ron Oswanski….

3D Jazz Trio, I Love to See You Smile (DIVA Jazz)

Six years ago when they were backing dancer Maurice Hines’ show Tappin’ Through Life, drummer Sherrie Maricle, bassist Amy Shook and pianist Jackie Warren discovered they had an incredible, instant musical simpatico. Their creativity abounds on this project, I Love to See You Smile. Power drummer Maricle is better known as leader of the all-woman Diva Jazz Orchestra, but she has also put together smaller ensembles from withiin the big band’s ranks. This is one of them. Everything in this varied program swings with joy, from the Randy Newman-penned title track to the traditional Scottish folk song “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” Favorite track: their take on “Besame Mucho,” the famous bolero by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez. Warren’s lush classical-styled intro sets up the band’s romp. The Cleveland-based pianist has chops and creativity galore – and they are on full display here.

Artemis, Artemis (Blue Note)

Two years after a stunning main stage performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, the all-woman supergroup Artemis has made its recording debut. The band is named for a Greek goddess who was an explorer and goddess of the hunt. The globally rooted band includes pianist and musical director Renee Rosnes, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, clarinetist Anat Cohen, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, drummer Allison Miller and singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. All of the material here was written and/or arranged by the band’s six instrumentalists. Favorite tracks: Miller’s fierce opening track “Goddess of the Hunt,” the Rosnes-penned “Big Top,” the Rosnes-arranged Stevie Wonder hit “If It’s Magic,” featuring Salvant on vocals, and the band’s transformative take on Lee Morgan’s instrumental jazz chestnut, "The Sidewinder.” This version is more pensive and teasing than the funk-driven original. This is a September 11 release.

Mayita Dinos, The Garden Is My Stage (Dash Hoffman)

Puerto Rico-born, Los Angeles-based singer Mayita Dinos’ debut recording is a garden of musical delights. How cool that she’s a renowned landscape designer by day – and jazz singer by night. She was able to blend those two passions on this session, which was produced by singer Cathy Segal-Garcia. Every tune here has a nature or garden theme or reference. The opening track is also the most intriguing. Dinos set her own words to Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology.” Other gems: getting back to the garden) through Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” honoring the rose in “Spanish Harlem,” a run through Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower” and, quite naturally, Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing.” Dinos wrote the melody for an ethereal voice-and-bass duet with Gabe Davis that digs into the Federico Garcia Lorca poem “La Lola.”

Purdie-Fabian- Osmanski, Move On! (Consolidated Artists)

This one throws a different twist into the organ trio concept, which usually involves Hammond B-3, drums and either guitar or saxophone as the third instrument. Here we have B-3 player Ron Oswanski and bassist Christian Fabian teamed with the legendary funk drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie. Besides five Fabian originals, they put their funky stamp on diverse covers of Tower of Power’s “Can’t You See (You’re Doin’ Me Wrong),” Duke Ellington’s “Love You Madly,” Miles Davis’ classic “So What” and even “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Producer and principal composer Fabian’s “Got Groove (Pt. 2)” is my favorite, but every track is distinctive and drenched with energy from these three creative melodic improvisers. The result is the funkiest jazz recording I’ve heard so far this year, and it will be hard to beat in that regard.

The TNEK Jazz Quintet, … Plays the Music of Sam Jones (TNEK Jazz)

This is a mighty fine – and long overdue – concept recording. It pays homage to music of Sam Jones, a bassist and composer best known for his work in the 1950s and ‘60s with the Adderley Brothers. He also worked fat various times with Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson and Cedar Walton – and in the late 1970s co-led a New York big band with trumpeter Tom Harrell. Jones, a Jacksonville FL native, died in 1981. Washington DC-area saxophonist Ron Kearns produced this session, assembling some of his favorite players. Bassist Kent Miller is joined by pianist Darius Scott, drummer Greg Holloway, and saxophonists Antonio Parker (alto) & Benny Russell (tenor and soprano). The unusual band name is an anagram of bassist Miller’s first name. They put their own spin on a range of Jones compositions, from the best-known “Unit Seven” (long the unofficial Cannonball Adderley band theme song) and “Del Sasser” to “Biittersuite,” “Some More of Dat” and the ballad “Lillie.” This hard-swinging recording winds down with Kenny Barron’s “Tragic Magic” from Jones' 1979 trio recording The Bassist. Barron was in that band.

Remember this date - 66 years ago in jazz history

Yes, it has been 66 years.

On July 17, 1954, something happened in Newport, Rhode Island that made an indelible mark on jazz history - and in the scope of popular music presentation as we know it today.

Before Woodstock, before Coachella, before Monterey, there was Newport.

The first Newport Jazz Festival, actually dubbed the American Jazz Festival that inaugural year, was held July 17 and 18, 1954 at historic Newport Casino, a stately tennis venue now known as the International Tennis Hall of Fame, along toney Bellevue Avenue.

A temporary bandshell, covered in thick cardboard, was erected on a berm overlook the tennis courts. As Burt Goldblatt recalled in his book, Newport Jazz Festival, The Illustrated History, the music kicked off at 9:18 that Saturday night when guitarist Eddie Condon's Dixieland band dug into the trad jazz classic "Musktat Ramble."

Newport Jazz Festival, 1954*

Other featured performers that inaugural weekend included singers Lee Wiley, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday; the Modern Jazz Quartet; and bands led by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonists Lee Konitz, Gil Melle and Gerry Mulligan, guitarist Johnny Smith, and pianists Oscar Peterson, George Shearing and Lennie Tristano. It closed with an explosive set by drummer Gene Krupa's trio. A few jam sessions and all-star mixing and matchings were thrown in for good measure. 

The festival that first year was estimated to have drawn a combined weekend crowd of 13,000.

Newport was the granddaddy of outdoor American music festivals that were quick to follow.

And all because Newport socialite Elaine Lorillard and her tobacco-heir husband, Louis, wanted to do something to enliven the stodgy summer scene. They hired George Wein, who wan Boston's Storyville jazz club, to produce the event.

Wein, now 94, is still at it. He oversees the Newport Festivals Foundation, a nonprofit that he and other forward thinkers created a few years ago to keep the Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Folk Festival alive well into the future. 

Like so many other events near and far, the 2020 edition of the Newport Jazz Festival was shelved because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The many fans and supporters - and the musicians themselves, are waiting to see how the "new normal" will affect this large-scale outdoor gathering going forward. As a relative latecomer, I've been attending the Newport Jazz Festival annually since 1981, the year Wein brought the storied event back to Newport after a nine-year absence. 

Some history on that 1972-1980 absence: 
Gate crashers and bear-swilling rowdies not content to listen from the hillside, stormed Festival Field on Saturday July 3, 1971. bring that year's event to a premature end. Ironically, Dionne Warwicke was on stage singing "what the World Needs Now Is Love" when the fences came crashing down. Wein took his concept to New York City. 

The festival returned to Newport in 1981 as the city's movers and shakers realized times had changed - and the event could be held at a more controlled setting, Fort Adams State Park, located on a peninsula across Newport Harbor from the downtown business district.
  
      *photo courtesy of Newport Festivals Foundation archives.