From music producer Quincy Jones, to critic and archivist Dan Morgenstern, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers just some of the influential musicians and personalities we misplaced this yr.
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Right here on the present, we memorialize jazz composer Benny Golson and drummer Roy Haynes. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers just a few extra musicians who handed in 2024. For a few of them, Kevin says, jazz was solely a part of the music they made, such because the generally easily romantic rhythm and blues saxophonist David Sanborn.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID SANBORN’S “SHORT VISIT”)
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: That is alto saxophonist David Sanborn at his finest – scalding, eruptive, passionate and phraseologically unpredictable. Jazz, blues and gospel fused in his sound. And his skill to play with anyone from the Butterfield Blues Band to David Bowie to Tim Berne made him a long-time presence and musical catalyst on late-night TV as a number, band member or visitor. In a jazz setting, nobody framed him higher than arranger Gil Evans, with the open-ended 12-minute Sanborn concerto “Quick Go to” from 1977.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID SANBORN’S “SHORT VISIT”)
WHITEHEAD: As capacious as jazz is, some abilities are too massive for only one discipline. Leisure dynamo Quincy Jones made a splash from the beginning as a spectacularly proficient, contemporary and unique author for giant band within the Nineteen Fifties. On his model of “Alongside Got here Betty” by one other jazz nice who handed this yr, Benny Golson, Quincy’s easy writing and well-drilled musicians make silky, muted brass pop.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES’ “ALONG CAME BETTY”)
WHITEHEAD: The money owed Quincy Jones ran up working as dream band had been why he turned a pop producer. However even after Lesley Gore and Michael Jackson, he’d nonetheless promote jazz to a wider viewers, presenting Duke Ellington as songwriter in a exceptional, jazz vocalist-studded TV particular, touting Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to hip-hop listeners with “Again On The Block” and, earlier than that, tipping his hat to the fashion of funky, electrical sax man Eddie Harris with the sitcom theme “Sanford And Son.”
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES’ “SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)”)
WHITEHEAD: One other crossover artist of kinds who handed this yr, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson was the final survivor of Artwork Blakey’s unique 1954 Jazz Messengers. Again then, all hip, younger alto gamers emulated the quicksilver Charlie Parker, Donaldson included, however his personal feisty character peeked via in his sly phrasing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ART BLAKEY’S “QUICKSILVER”)
WHITEHEAD: Lou Donaldson on “Quicksilver,” 1954. Late in life, he criticized younger musicians for straying from the true jazz path. Within the Sixties, although, with household to assist, Donaldson began making populist data lengthy earlier than David Sanborn – danceable music geared toward social gathering individuals, not jazz snobs. And that is OK. On his 1969 cowl of Johnnie Taylor’s “Who’s Making Love,” Donaldson will get credibly funky. He places his personal stamp on a prevailing fashion as soon as once more.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOU DONALDSON’S “WHO’S MAKING LOVE”)
WHITEHEAD: Baritone saxophonist Claire Daly, who died in October, sang somewhat additionally, as if to remind us the jazz horn is an extension of the human voice. The baritone has a bigger and extra commanding vary to discover however the identical capability for private expression. Claire Daly obtained a fats, gritty, basic bari sax sound and danced it round, gentle on its ft. You hear it on her jazz calypso model of Hogy Carmichael’s “Little Previous Woman.”
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAIRE DALY’S “LITTLE OLD LADY”)
WHITEHEAD: Jazz figures who died in 2024 additionally embody critic, file annotator, archivist and all-around advocate for 75 years Dan Morgenstern, additionally Michael Cuscuna, producer of a lot glorious new jazz and crucial producer of reissues and historic jazz recordings of the previous 50 years, additionally the youngest and final of the three jazz-playing Heath brothers, the fantastic drummer Albert – nicknamed Tootie – and, lately, the French Algerian piano virtuoso Martial Solal.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARTIAL SOLAL’S “CRAZY RHYTHM”)
WHITEHEAD: And at last, on December 10, we misplaced yet one more musician jazz might barely include – the irrepressible downtown New York brass man Herb Robertson, who performed a number of the wildest trumpet round, a wizard at utilizing mutes for outlandish results. However he’d additionally get deep into the contours of a melody, infusing it with deep feeling to match. His pal Andy Laster’s composition “Devotional” sparked that facet of Herb Robertson’s character. So let that be our recessional hymn to carry this memorial session to a detailed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDY LASTER’S “DEVOTIONAL”)
MOSLEY: Kevin Whitehead is the creator of “Play The Approach You Really feel: The Important Information To Jazz Tales On Movie,” “Why Jazz?” and “New Dutch Swing,” which has simply been reissued. On Monday’s present, we’ll hear Terry’s interview with comic Nikki Glaser from earlier this yr, recognized for telling scathing jokes at superstar roasts. Glaser will host the Golden Globes on January 5. I hope you possibly can be a part of us.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES’ “SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)”)
MOSLEY: FRESH AIR’s government producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer right now is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with extra engineering assist by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Al Banks.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES’ “SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)”)
MOSLEY: Our interviews and evaluations are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. With Terry Gross, I am Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES’ “SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)”)
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