Jazz

Died On This Date (October 10, 2009) Sonny Bradshaw / Jamaican Jazz Musician

Sonny Bradshaw
1926 – October 10, 2009

sonny_2Sonny Bradshaw was a beloved Jamaican musician whose career spanned a remarkable six decades.  He was as multi-faceted as he was renowned.  Besides playing the trumpet, piano, trombone, saxophone, and clarinet,  Bradshaw was a composer, arranger, producer, journalist and promoter.  During the ’50s, he formed the Sonny Bradshaw 7, which turned out to be the first significant musical home of many great Jamaican musicians to come.  In the early ’60s, Bradshaw began working in radio, with his Teenage Dance Party, becoming the first place many Jamaicans heard the early songs of future legends. On October 10, 2009,  Sonny Bradshaw died after having been ill following a stroke a few months earlier.  He was 83 years old.



Died On This Date (October 9, 1978) Jacques Brel / Belgian Singer-Songwriter

Jacques Brel
April 8, 1929 – October 9, 1978

brelJacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who came to prominence in Europe during the 1950s.  And although he wrote and sang exclusively in French, many of his songs have been covered in English by such notable performers as Ray Charles, David Bowie and Dusty Springfield.  He has sold over 25 million albums worldwide.  His career started modestly in the cabarets of Paris, but by the mid ’50s, his talent could not be denied, so he began touring Europe and beyond.  He also made a name for himself in film.  A longtime smoker, Brel was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1973 and died from it five years later at the age of 49.

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Jacques Brel

Died On This Date (October 4, 2008) Al Gallodoro / Jazz Musician

Al Gallodoro
June 20, 1913 – October 4, 2008

Al Gallodoro was a jazz saxophonist whose career began in the 1920s and spanned nearly eight decades until just prior to his death in 2008.  He is best remembered for his association with Paul Whiteman, playing in his orchestra from 1936 to 1940.  He went on to play bass clarinet in NBC’s Symphony Orchestra.  Gallodoro made his final appearance on September 20, 2008 and then passed away 2 weeks later at the age of 95.



Died On This Date (October 3, 2009) Laura Mae Gross / L.A. Blues Club Owner

Laura Mae Gross
1920 – October 3, 2009

lauramaeKnown around the Los Angeles blues scene as “Mama,” Laura Mae Gross was the owner of Babe and Ricky’s Inn which she opened on the storied Central Avenue in 1964.  In no time, the club became a destination of local and traveling blues musicians alike.  She hosted the likes of B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Big Mama Thornton, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, John Lee Hooker and Albert King to name just a few.  In 1987, the mayor of Los Angeles signed a proclamation honoring Gross for her commitment to keeping the Central Avenue music scene alive.  After a downturn in the area during the ’90s, Gross moved the club to the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles.  Laura Mae Gross died of heart failure at the age of 89.

Died On This Date (September 28, 1991) Miles Davis / Jazz Icon

Miles Davis
May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991

milesMiles Davis was trumpeter who was one of jazz’s must influential musicians of all times.  Over the course of his career, he helped launch the careers of some of biggest names in jazz by hiring them for his bands.  That list includes John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.  In 19444, Davis moved to New York City right after graduating from high school.  He became an integral part of the be-bop scene there.  He also helped pave the way for other forms of jazz as well, including hard bop, fusion, cool jazz, and free jazz.    In 1959, Davis released A Kind Of Blue, which would go on to be his biggest selling album and a key release of all jazz.  Over the course of his career, Davis was awarded nine Grammys for now classic albums like Bitches Brew, Aura and Sketches of Spain.  Davis suffered from cocaine addiction for many years, and was finally able to kick it in the early ’80s.  That decade proved to be a nice renaissance period for him thanks in part to his associating with more contemporary pop artists like Public Image Ltd., Scritti Politti, and Artists United Against Apartheid.  Miles Davis passed away on September 28, 1991 at the age of 65.  Causes of death was pneumonia, stroke and respiratory failure.

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Kind of Blue - Miles Davis