Died On This Date (April 2, 2010) Mike Zwerin / Jazz Musician & Critic
themusicsover Mike Zwerin
May 18, 1930 – April 2, 2010
Mike Zwerin was a respected jazz trombonist and long time music critic. As a musician, he is perhaps best remembered for his years playing with Miles Davis in his Birth of the Cool band. As a jazz reviewer, Zwerin graced the pages of Rolling Stone, Down Beat, Bloomberg News and the Village Voice, where he was the European editor from 1964 to 1971. Mike Zwerin was 79 when he died on April 2, 2010. He had been ill for some time.
Known as the “King of Ragtime,” Scott Joplin took banjo and piano music out of the brothels and raised it to a true art form. Born in Texas to a former slave father, Joplin tought himself how to play on a piano of a local white family. He was soon studying under a German instructor. All of these experiences helped him develop a sound that was truly unique. In 1899, his “Maple Leaf Rag” was published and went on to become one of the most popular instrumentals of all time, a true American standard. Another of his tunes, “The Entertainer” turned a new generation on to his music and helped spark the ragtime revival of the mid ’70s. Featured in the Paul Newman/Robert Redford film, The Sting, the song started receiving heavy airplay which helped its opening to become on of the most recognizable in pop music history. Joplin was just 48 when he died of what has been reported as the result of syphilis.
Joe Williams has been called the last great big-band singer. His beautiful baritone has been heard alongside such greats as 
Herb Ellis was a jazz guitar virtuoso who, over the course of a career that spanned some 50 years played with the likes of 
W.C. Handy was born in Florence, Alabama in a log cabin that was built by his grandfather. By the time he was a teenager he was playing both trumpet and clarinet in a band. He would become a teacher by trade and was soon writing songs that would become blues standards. His “St. Louis Blues” as recorded by