In Memoriam|

Larry Harvey answered “Why do you do what you do?” as part of a community-art project.

Larry Harvey (January 11, 1948 – April 28, 2018) was an American artist, philanthropist and activist. He was the main co-founder of the Burning Man event, along with his friend Jerry James.

Burning Man started in 1986 as a summer solstice evening ritual burning of their artistic creation of an effigy of a man with a group of just a dozen people at San Francisco’s Baker Beach soon became an annual event that over four years grew to more than 800 people. In 1990, in collaboration with the SF Cacophony Society, the event moved to Labor Day weekend in the Black Rock Desert, where it has grown rapidly from a three-day, 80-person “zone trip” to an eight-day event with 70,000 participants.

In 1997, six of the main organizers formed Black Rock City LLC to manage the event, with Harvey as the executive director, a position he held until his death. He was also the president of the Black Rock Arts Foundation, a non-profit art grant foundation for promoting interactive collaborative public art installations in communities outside of Black Rock City.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Harvey

# # # # #

Larry Harvey, Burning Man founder, dies at 70

Larry Harvey, the founder of the Burning Man event now held in Nevada, has died after suffering a stroke earlier this month, event CEO Marian Goodell said Saturday. He was 70.
“Burning Man culture has lost a great leader and an inspiring mind,” she said in a written statement. “He adeptly interpreted the manifestation of what became a movement. I have lost a dear friend who I’ve known, loved, and worked beside for nearly 22 years.”
Harvey had a stroke April 4, she said.
“As he told one of us recently, Larry liked to create ‘scenes’ that made people consider the world in a new way. He was extraordinarily successful at doing just that.”

Burning Man is a multiday event dedicated to art and community, where attendees are asked to follow a set of rules that include the practice of “gifting.”

Founded in San Francisco in 1986 as a bonfire ritual for summer solstice, the event moved to Nevada in 1990. Over the years, it has grown in popularity, with the temporary metropolis becoming a celebration of art and architecture, showcasing futuristic structures made with state-of-the-art technology.

“You’re free to be you,” Harvey told CNN in 1997 about the event. “The only person, the only type of person that wouldn’t like it here ultimately, that we’d recommend not come, are intolerant people. They get irritated.”

Since 2000, a wooden temple has formed the sacred center of Burning Man.

Tens of thousands of people attend the event in the Black Rock Desert.

CNN’s Sarah Jorgensen and Nell Lewis contributed to this report.

By Steve Almasy, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/28/us/burning-man-founder-dies/index.html

Photo: Larry Harvey answered “Why do you do what you do?” as part of a community-art project that started at Burning Man in 2004, and is a continuing collaboration: http://wdydwyd.ning.com/group/bm. Photographed in San Francisco, California.

* * * * *

Charles Neville

Charles Neville (December 28, 1938 – April 26, 2018) was an American R&B and jazz musician best known as part of The Neville Brothers. Known onstage as “Charlie the horn man”, his saxophone playing helped earn the group a Grammy Award for best pop instrumental performance.

The second oldest of the four Neville brothers, Charles Neville was born in New Orleans on Dec. 28, 1938 to Arthur Lanon Neville Sr. and Amelia (Landry) Neville and was raised in the Calliope housing project with his musical brothers, Art, Aaron, and Cyril. Their uncle, George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry, was lead singer of the Mardi Gras Indian group The Wild Tchoupitoulas. Charles left home when he was 15 to play saxophone with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrel Show. When back in New Orleans, he played in the house band at the Dew Drop Inn.

He served in the Navy from 1956 to 1958 and discovered the music scene on Beale Street while stationed in Memphis, Tennessee, later touring with B.B. King and Bobby (Blue) Bland.

He joined the band of fellow New Orleanian Larry Williams, but his addiction to heroin landed him short jail terms for the shoplifting that sometimes supported his habit. He finally overcame his addictions in 1986. Beginning in 1963 he served three and a half years at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for possession of marijuana. He practiced in the prison music room with other incarcerated New Orleans musicians, notably pianist James Booker and drummer James Black. Moving to New York City after release from prison, he explored modern jazz and toured with Johnnie Taylor, Clarence Carter, and O. V. Wright.

In 1976 he returned to New Orleans when his maternal uncle, George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry, called Charles and his brothers Art, Aaron, and Cyril together to record with his Mardi Gras Indian group, The Wild Tchoupitoulas. The blend of traditional and funk music on The Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976) album has made it an icon of New Orleans musical culture.

Shortly afterward, the four brothers formed The Neville Brothers, recording more than a dozen albums and building a worldwide following. For years they were the closing act on the main stage of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Charles’s saxophone playing was especially notable on the title track of their best-selling album, Yellow Moon, and helped earn the group its only Grammy, for best pop instrumental performance, for the album’s, “Healing Chant”.

He moved to rural Massachusetts in the 1990s with his wife, Kristin Neville, and children and continued to perform and record with family members and a wide variety of musicians for the rest of his life. His recordings include an album with the groups Diversity, with jazz and classical musicians, and Songcatchers, with Native American musicians. In 2008 he released his own album, reflecting his interests in Eastern spirituality, Safe in Buddha’s Palm. He returned often to New Orleans, playing with his jazz combos at Snug Harbor and with his daughter, jazz and funk singer Charmaine Neville. He also performed with two of his sons, Talyn and Khalif, as the New England Nevilles. After 2012 he toured with Aaron Neville’s solo band and appeared with him for Aaron’s first performance at the French Quarter Festival in 2017. Charles’s last Jazz Fest performance was with Dr. John in 2017.

He was scheduled to join in “The Neville Family Groove”, a musical celebration of the Nevilles at Tipitina’s in November 2017, but was by then hospitalized with pancreatic cancer, from which he died on April 26, 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Neville_(musician)

* * * * *

Tim Calvert

Tim Calvert (November 7, 1965 – April 30, 2018) was an American metal guitarist. He was known for his dark, moody style of songwriting created through his frequent usage of dissonant passages and diminished chords. He was associated with the bands Forbidden and Nevermore.

Calvert was an accomplished guitar player who played in a neoclassical style, featuring an abundance of arpeggios and sweep-picking. He started guitar lessons with Bob Marshall in Castro Valley and eventually took lessons from Jim Bedford in Hayward, California for about 10 years. He played Jackson Guitars throughout his entire career.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Calvert

* * * * *

Art Simmons

Arthur Eugene Simmons (February 5, 1926 – April 23, 2018) was an American jazz pianist.

Simmons was born in Glen White, West Virginia in February 1926. He played in a band while serving in the U.S. military in 1946, then remained in Germany after the war, studying music, and moved to Paris in 1949. There he studied at the Paris Conservatory and the Ecole Normale de Musique, playing with Charlie Parker and Kenny Clarke at the Paris Jazz Festival; he also played with Aaron Bridgers, Don Byas, Robert Mavounzy, and Nelson Williams. Simmons led his own group at the Ringside Club in 1951. In the early 1950s he played with Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones, and toured London with singers such as Bertice Reading. As resident pianist at the Mars Club, he worked with Michel Gaudry, Pierre Cullaz, and Elek Bacsik, and accompanied touring singers such as Carmen McRae and Billie Holiday (1958). In the early 1960s he played in a duo with Art Taylor.

Simmons also did arranging work for Barclay Records. In 1971 he played in Spain; following this he returned to the United States and retired. He died on April 23, 2018 at the age of 92 at his home in Beckley, West Virginia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Simmons

Leave a Reply

Close Search Window