Secret Society

RIP Sam Rivers

Another great gone...

Obviously Rivers leaves behind a vast and varied body of work, but don't sleep on his' '90s and '00s bigband recordings, now collected on a 3CD Mosaic Select box.

Celebration: Remembering - a tribute to Bob Brookmeyer

My tribute to Bob Brookmeyer is up at NewMusicBox. As important as Bob is to me, I knew my own words would be inaquate to convey the full sweep of his career and the enormous influence he had on generations of musicians — so the piece also includes excerpts from interviews I conducted with Jim Hall, Bill Holman, Jim McNeely, Joe Lovano, Maria Schneider, and others.

RIP Bob Brookmeyer

Bob Brookmeyer was the most extraordinary teacher -- more than a mentor, he was and is the most important shaping force in my musical life. He saw the spark of something in me and invited me to study with him at New England Conservatory, and any succes I've had since is directly attributable to his influence. I'm going to miss him something fierce.

A more extensive tribute is in the works [UPDATE: it's here], but in the menanwhile, here's my post in honor of Bob's 80th birthday celebration -- he would have turned 82 this Monday.

Elsewhere...

The official announcement on BobBrookmeyer.com
Terry Teachout, who broke the news on Twitter.
Ryan Truesdell, who has been Robert Craft to Bob's Stravinsky over the past decade or so.
Nicholas Urie, a fellow composer who also studied with Bob at NEC.
Peter Hum, Jazzblog.ca
Richard Kamins, Step Tempest
Pat Donaher, Brookmeyer alumnus, and friend and collegue from my NEC days.
Marc Myers, JazzWax
NPR
Washington Post
New York Times
The Guardian
Clark Terry, who co-led a quintet with Bob in the 1960's and is one of Bob's oldest, dearest friends.
Jazz Profiles
JazzTimes
Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
Carole Sloane - Bob shared arraigning duties with Bill Finegan on her classic record Out of the Blue. I did not know that it was Carol who first introduced Bob to the Fats Waller tune "Willow Tree," which he went on to arrange for the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis band. Good call.
Jazz at Lincoln Center - uncredited but I think this is by Phil Schaap?
BMI
John Hollenbeck - a sublime tribute from the great drummer-composer-bandleader, and one of Bob's closest collaborators.