BLUES LEGEND JOHNNY WINTER DIES AT 70 IN ZURICH
GENEVA (AP) — Texas blues legend Johnny Winter, known for his lightning-fast blues guitar riffs, his striking long white hair and his collaborations with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and childhood hero Muddy Waters, has died. He was 70.
Winter was a leading light among the white blues guitar players, including Eric Clapton and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, who followed in the footsteps of the earlier Chicago blues masters. Winter idolized Waters — and got a chance to produce some of the blues legend’s more popular albums. Rolling Stone magazine named Winter one of the top 100 guitarists of all time.
His representative, Carla Parisi, confirmed Thursday that Winter died in a hotel room in Zurich a day earlier. The statement said his wife, family and bandmates were all saddened by the loss of one of the world’s finest guitarists.
There was no immediate word on the cause of death.
Winter had been on an extensive tour this year that recently brought him to Europe. His last performance came Saturday at the Lovely Days Festival in Wiesen, Austria.
The tour, a documentary that premiered at the SXSW Festival exploring his music, youth and substance abuse battles, and a newly released four-CD set of recordings were all part of Winter’s celebration of turning 70 this year.
John Dawson Winter III was born on Feb. 23, 1944, in Mississippi, but was raised in Beaumont, Texas. He was the older brother of Edgar Winter, also an albino, who rose to musical fame with the Edgar Winter Group.
Winter was one of the most popular live acts of the early 1970s, when his signature fast blues guitar solos attracted a wide following. But his addiction problems with heroin during that decade and later battles with alcohol and prescription medication, including methadone, also drew attention.
His career received a big boost early on when Rolling Stone singled him out as one of the best blues guitarists on the Texas scene. This helped secure a substantial recording contract from Columbia Records in 1969 that led to an appearance at the Woodstock Festival and gave him a wide following among college students and young blues fans.
Crowds were dazzled by the speed — and volume — of his guitar playing, which had its roots in urban blues but incorporated elements of rock ‘in roll.
Winters paid homage to Waters on “Tribute to Muddy,” a song from his 1969 release “The Progressive Blues Experiment.” He continued to pick up accolades, producing three Grammy Award-winning albums for Waters and recording with John Lee Hooker, which helped revive their careers.
Winter performed often with blues and rock singer Janis Joplin and the two became close during the 1960s.
Among the blues classics that Winter played during that era were “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” ”Bad Luck and Trouble” and “Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl.” He also teamed up with his brother Edgar for their 1976 live album “Together.”
He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1988.
There was no immediate word on funeral services.
By John Heilprin | AP
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Gregory Katz contributed from London.
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GRAMMY-WINNING JAZZ FLUTIST PAUL HORN DIES AT 84
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Horn, the Grammy-winning jazz flutist and New Age music pioneer, has died at the age of 84.
Horn’s son Marlen said his father died Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, after a brief illness. He declined to provide further details.
“He passed away very peacefully and did not suffer,” Marlen said. “He wasn’t in any pain.”
Horn’s career spanned five decades, 50 albums and five Grammy nominations. He played the flute, clarinet and saxophone in concert tours and recording sessions with such artists as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Chico Hamilton.
His album “Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts” won Grammys in 1966 for best original jazz composition and photographic cover album.
Horn studied transcendental meditation alongside the Beatles with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Horn’s albums “Inside the Taj Mahal” and “Inside the Great Pyramid” laid the groundwork for the New Age music genre and earned him the nickname “Father of New Age Music.”
Horn is survived by his wife, two sons, a stepson and four grandchildren.
http://news.yahoo.com/grammy-winning-jazz-flutist-paul-horn-dies-84-001905426.html
By Derrik J. Lang | AP
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JAZZ TRUMPETER LIONEL FERBOS DIES AT 103
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Centenarian jazz musician Lionel Ferbos died Saturday at his home in New Orleans, just days after celebrating his 103rd birthday on July 17 with friends and family in the French Quarter.
His granddaughter, Lori Schexnayder, said the trumpeter she called “paw-paw” died peacefully, surrounded by friends and family.
Ferbos performed all over New Orleans and its suburbs for decades. His ability to read music made him an in-demand musician for gigs that took him to parks, schools, churches, dance halls and even prisons. He also performed at his 102nd birthday party and at every New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival until this past year.
Ferbos was believed to be the oldest working jazz musician, performing regularly until last year. He was also the last living member of the WPA band, which was formed during the Depression by laborers in the city’s Works Progress Administration.
He had recently become too weak to hold his trumpet, but family members would occasionally hold it to his mouth so that he could blow into it, Schexnayder said.
“He missed it so much, but his arms just weren’t strong enough to hold it up,” she said.
Early on, Ferbos performed with New Orleans society jazz bands at well-known venues such as the Pelican Club among a string of clubs along Rampart Street — a downtown strip that in the 1920s and ’30s was the epicenter of the city’s bustling black entertainment district.
He performed with Walter Pichon and Captain John Handy in the ’30s, earning little more than a dollar a night. He also performed with saxophonist Harold Dejan and trumpeters Herbert Leary, Gene Ware and Sidney Desvignes, as well as blues singer Mamie Smith.
“He was very advanced and technical for his time,” said Dixieland jazz musician Lars Edegran, who performed with Ferbos for decades with the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, a group formed in the 1960s to revive the old music unearthed in the jazz archives at Tulane University.
“You needed advanced music reading skills to play in the orchestra, and Lionel was a very well-trained musician,” Edegran said. “He was very professional on stage, a beloved person, and there’s just nobody else like him.”
Ferbos had a unique voice and a knack for soft, sentimental hits like ‘When I Grow Too Old to Dream” and “The Beautiful Dreamer.”
Though he performed almost exclusively in New Orleans, Ferbos did make eight tours of Europe with the ragtime orchestra. He was also part of the original stage band of the off-Broadway hit “One Mo’ Time,” though he dropped out of show in the ’70s when it moved to New York. He didn’t want to leave his hometown New Orleans, where he met his wife, a Creole seamstress named Margarite Gilyot.
The couple married in 1934 and remained so for 75 years — until her passing in January 2009.
Ferbos never had to scramble for work because people came to him with musical offers.
When Danny Barker founded the now-famous Fairview Baptist band to train a young generation of New Orleans musicians, Ferbos was asked to write out all their charts. In the 1940s, he played on New Orleans’ Lake Pontchartrain at the Happy Landing and Mama Lou’s, and in the ’50s he worked with Harold Dejan at the Melody Inn, where he recorded with the “Mighty Four.” In the ’60s he played with Herbert Leary’s Orchestra.
Manual labor was as much a part of his life as music. Like many musicians of his time, Ferbos had a day trade. He worked for decades as a metal maker, first in his father’s French Quarter workshop, then eventually taking over the family business and building his own workshop.
“”He was a hard worker, a family man and a wonderful husband to my grandmother,” Schexnayder said. “Everybody loved him.”
By Stacey Plaisance | AP
https://music.yahoo.com/news/jazz-trumpeter-lionel-ferbos-dies-103-211012393.html
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
July 2014
21: Verda Erman (tr), 70, Turkish pianist, leukemia.
20: Rod Franks, 58, British trumpeter (London Symphony Orchestra), traffic collision.
19: Lionel Ferbos, 103, American jazz trumpeter.
17: Richard Nichols, 55, American band manager (The Roots), leukemia.
16: Johnny Winter, 70, American Hall of Fame blues guitarist, singer (Nothin’ but the Blues) and triple Grammy Award-winning producer (1978–1980).
15: Aqeel Ahmed, 80, Indian Agra gharana vocalist and musician.
14: Vange Leonel, 51, Brazilian singer, writer, feminist and LGBT activist, ovarian cancer.
From http://www.wikipedia.com