This past year of 2006 we lost many forces in both the Jazz and Poetry world. The list is as follows;
JAZZ
Oscar Klein, 76, Austria-born jazz great
VIENNA, Austria - Austrian-born jazz legend Oscar Klein, who fled when the Nazis took power and recorded with Lionel Hampton and other greats during a career that spanned four decades, has died at the age of 76, local media reported Wednesday
December 13, 2006
Edgar Summerlin, 78, Composer Who Brought Jazz to Church
Edgar E. Summerlin was a tenor saxophonist and composer who wrote some of the first jazz music for church services.
October 24, 2006
Claude Luter, 83, French Jazz Artist
Claude Luter, the clarinetist and bandleader, was one of the stars of the postwar Paris jazz scene and accompanied Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong.
October 10, 2006
Dewey Redman, 75, Jazz Saxophonist
Dewey Redman was an expansive and poetic tenor saxophonist and bandleader who had been at the aesthetic frontiers of jazz.
September 4, 2006
Moacir Santos, 80, a Composer Revered in Brazil's Jazz History
Moacir Santos’s six decades of music were rediscovered and celebrated in Brazil and the United States only in the last five years.
August 14, 2006
Rufus Harley, 70, Adapted Bagpipes to Jazz
Rufus Harley was billed as “the world’s first jazz bagpiper” and emitted his haunting sounds alongside some of the greats of jazz.
August 13, 2006
Malachi Thompson,56 Trumpeter,
Malachi Thompson was a trumpeter and a leading figure in Chicago’s experimental jazz scene.
July 20, 2006
Hilton Ruiz, 54, Pianist Fluent In Jazz and Latin Rhythms
Hilton Ruiz spent his career shuttling between two separate if not entirely dissimilar musical words.
June 7, 2006
John Hicks, 64, Jazz Pianist Active on New York Scene
John Hicks was a pianist who helped define the mainstream jazz aesthetic of his instrument.
May 13, 2006
William Gottlieb, 89, Jazz Photographer
William P. Gottlieb used a boxy, old-fashioned press camera to document what jazz looked like when both early legends like Armstrong and Ellington and the emerging beboppers ruled the bandstands and radio waves.
April 25, 2006
Don Alias, 66, Percussionist And Sideman
Don Alias had a long career as a sought-after sideman, working with an array of artists in jazz and pop including Nina Simone, Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell.
April 5, 2006
Jackie McLean,74 Jazz Saxophonist and Mentor,
Jackie McLean was one of many gifted young musicians who burst onto the New York scene after World War II in the wake of the musical revolution known as bebop.
April 3, 2006
Ray Barretto, 76 a Master of the Conga Drum,
Ray Barretto helped define the role of the conga drum in jazz and became an influential figure in both jazz and Latin music during a career spanning more than 50 years.
February 18, 2006
Bob Weinstock, 77, Founder of the Jazz Label Prestige
Bob Weinstock produced and released some of the most important jazz recordings in the beginning years of the LP era.
January 16, 2006
ANITA O’DAY, 87 one of the great vocalists in jazz history, passed away Thanksgiving Day. She was considered by many, a singer’s singer.
November 23, 2006
POETRY
January 4 Irving Layton 93 Canadian poet
February 21 Gennadiy Aygi 71 Chuvash/Russian poet
February 25 Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin 69 Ethiopian poet laureate, in New York
March 3 Ivor Cutler Scots poet
March 27 Ian Hamilton Finlay 80 Scots poet, writer, artist — and gardener
May 14 Stanley Kunitz 100 former United States Poet Laureate
June Jim Simmerman 54 American poet
July 14 Patricia Goedicke American poet, of pneumonia
July 26 Louise Bennett-Coverley Jamaican folk poet known as "Miss Lou"
July 30 Trinidad Sánchez Jr. 63 American Chicano performer and poet, from complications of a stroke
November 27 Győző Határ 92 Hungarian poet and writer
