/ Stars that died in 2023

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Sam Rivers, American jazz musician and composer, died from pneumonia he was 88.

Samuel Carthorne Rivers  was an American jazz musician and composer. He performed on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano  died from pneumonia he was 88..

(September 25, 1923 – December 26, 2011)

Rivers was born in Enid, Oklahoma. Active in jazz since the early 1950s, he earned wider attention during the mid-1960s spread of free jazz. With a thorough command of music theory, orchestration and composition, Rivers was an influential and prominent artist in jazz music.[2]

Early life

Rivers's father was a gospel musician who had sung with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Silverstone Quartet, exposing Rivers to music from an early age. Rivers was stationed in California in the 1940s during a stint in the Navy. Here he performed semi-regularly with blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon.[3] Rivers moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1947, where he studied at the Boston Conservatory with Alan Hovhaness.[2]
He performed with Quincy Jones, Herb Pomeroy, Tadd Dameron and others.

Blue Note era

In 1959 Rivers began performing with 13-year-old drummer Tony Williams, who later went on to have an impressive career. Rivers was briefly a member of Miles Davis's quintet in 1964, partly at Williams's recommendation. This quintet recorded a single album, Miles in Tokyo. However, Rivers' playing style was too unrefined to be compatible with Davis's music at this point, and he was soon replaced by Wayne Shorter. Rivers was signed by Blue Note Records, for whom he recorded four albums as leader and made several sideman appearances. Among noted sidemen on his own Blue Note albums were Jaki Byard, who appears on Fuchsia Swing Song, Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard. He appeared on Blue Note recordings by Tony Williams, Andrew Hill and Larry Young.
Rivers derived his music from bebop, but he was an adventurous player, adept at free jazz. The first of his Blue Note albums, Fuchsia Swing Song (1964), adopts an approach sometimes called "inside-outside". Here the performer frequently obliterates the explicit harmonic framework ("going outside") but retains a hidden link so as to be able to return to it in a seamless fashion. Rivers brought the conceptual tools of bebop harmony to a new level in this process, united at all times with the ability to "tell a story" which Lester Young had laid down as a benchmark for the jazz improviser.
His powers as a composer were also in evidence in this period: the ballad "Beatrice" from Fuchsia Swing Song has become an important standard, particularly for tenor saxophonists. For instance, it is the first cut on Joe Henderson's 1985 The State of the Tenor, Vols. 1 & 2, and Stan Getz recorded it during the 1989 sessions eventually issued as Bossas & Ballads – The Lost Sessions.

Loft era

During the 1970s, Rivers and his wife, Bea, ran a jazz loft called "Studio Rivbea" in New York City's NoHo district. It was located on Bond Street in Lower Manhattan and was originally opened as a public performance space as part of the first New York Musicians Festival in 1970.[4] Critic John Litweiler has written that "In New York Loft Jazz meant Free Jazz in the Seventies" and Studio Rivbea was "the most famous of the lofts".[5] The loft was important in the development of jazz because it was an example of artists creating their own performance spaces and taking responsibility for presenting music to the public. This allowed for music to be free of extra-musical concerns that would be present in a nightclub or concert hall situation. A series of recordings made at the loft were issued under the title Wildflowers on the Douglas label.[6]
During this era Rivers continued to record, including several albums for Impulse!: Streams, recorded live at Montreux, Hues (both records contain different trio performances later collated on CD as Trio Live), the quartet album Sizzle and his first big-band disc, Crystals; perhaps his best-known work from this period though is his appearance on Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds, in the company of Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul.

Later career

In the early 1990s Sam and wife Beatrice moved to Florida, in part to expand his orchestra compositions with a reading band in Orlando. This band became the longest-running incarnation of the RivBea Orchestra. He performed regularly with his Orchestra and Trio with bassist Doug Mathews and drummer Anthony Cole (later replaced by Rion Smith.)[3] From 1996 to 1998 he toured and recorded three projects for Nato Records in France with pianist Tony Hymas and others. In 1998, with the assistance of Steve Coleman, he recorded two Grammy-nominated big-band albums for RCA Victor with the RivBea All-Star Orchestra, Culmination and Inspiration (the title-track is an elaborate reworking of Dizzy Gillespie's "Tanga": Rivers was in Gillespie's band near the end of the trumpeter's life). Other recent albums of note include Portrait, a solo recording for FMP, and Vista, a trio with drummers Adam Rudolph and Harris Eisenstadt for Meta. During the late 1990s he appeared on several albums on Postcards Records.
In 2006, he released Aurora, a third CD featuring compositions for his Rivbea Orchestra and the first CD featuring members of his working orchestra in Orlando.
Rivers died from pneumonia on December 26, 2011 at the age of 88 in Orlando, Florida.[7][8]

Discography


Jemeel Moondoc and Rashid Bakr at Studio Rivbea July, 1976

Lake Eola, Orlando Fl in 2008

2007

As leader

As co-leader

Compilations

  • The Complete Blue Note Sam Rivers Sessions (Mosaic, 1996)

As sideman

With Barry Altschul
  • You Can't Name Your Own Tune (Muse, 1977)
With Steven Bernstein
  • Diaspora Blues (Tzadik, 2002)
With Miles Davis
With Bruce Ditmas
With Brian Groder
  • Torque (2007)
With Andrew Hill
With the Dave Holland Quartet
With Bobby Hutcherson
With Jason Moran
  • Black Stars (Blue Note, 2001)
With the Stephen McCraven Quartet
  • Intertwining Spirits (Free Lance, 1982)
With Music Revelation Ensemble (James Blood Ulmer)
  • In the Name of... (DIW, 1993)
With NOJO
With Don Pullen
With Roots (Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, Nathan Davis, a.o.)
  • Salutes the Saxophone - Tributes to John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and Lester Young (In & Out, 1992)
  • Stablemates (In & Out, 1993)
With Kazuko Shiraishi
  • Dedicated to the Late John Coltrane and Other Jazz Poems (Musicworks, 1977)
With Cecil Taylor
With Tony Williams
With Larry Young



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Emmanuel Cooper, British potter and writer, died he was 73.

Emmanuel Cooper OBE is a British studio potter and writer on arts and crafts  died he was 73..

(1938 – 21 January 2012[1]) 

Cooper studied at the University for the Creative Arts.[2] He also achieved a PhD degree at Middlesex University.
He is a member of the Crafts Council and is the editor of Ceramic Review. Since 1999, he has been visiting Professor of Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art. He is the author of many books on ceramics including his definitive biography of Bernard Leach that was published in 2003 (Yale University Press)[citation needed] and is also the editor of The Ceramics Book, published in 2006.[citation needed]
As a potter, Emmanuel's work falls into one of two general forms. In the first his vessels are heavily glazed in a volcanic form. The vessels, as a result of this heavy glazing, derive a lot of their appeal from their varied and uneven textures. In their most simple form they are very reminiscent of work by Lucie Rie. In their more extravagant forms though the vessels can be banded or use incredibly vivid colors to great effect including pink, vibrant yellow and deep reds and blues. His other form of work is much simpler in style using plain glazes, often in egg yolk yellow, occasionally spotted with gold flecks.
Emmanuel's work can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Scottish Museum,[2] as well as in many private collections. He has been awarded an OBE for services to art. Emmanuel Cooper died peacefully on 21 January 2012.


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Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Barbara Lea, American jazz singer and actress, died from Alzheimer's disease she was 82.


Barbara Lea  was an American actress and singer  died from Alzheimer's disease she was 82..


(April 10, 1929 – December 26, 2011)

Background

Barbara Ann LeCocq was born into a musical family; her musical heritage is traceable to a great uncle, Alexandre Charles LeCocq — an important nineteenth-century composer of French light opera. Barbara's father changed their surname to Leacock; she shortened it to Lea when she begin working professionally. Barbara grew up in a Detroit suburb and attended the girls-only Kingswood School (which merged in 1984 with the Cranbrook School to become the Cranbrook Kingswood School).
Boston was a hotbed of jazz in the late 40s and early 50s, allowing Lea to sing with major instrumentalists including as Marian McPartland, Bobby Hackett, Vic Dickenson, Frankie Newton, Johnny Windhurst, and George Wein. She worked with small dance bands there before attending Wellesley College on scholarship and majoring in music theory. She also sang in the college choir, worked on the campus radio station and newspaper, and arranged for and conducted the Madrigal Group and brass choir concerts.
Her professional career started upon graduation. Her early recordings for Riverside and Prestige met with immediate critical acclaim and led to her winning the DownBeat International Critics' Poll as the Best New Singer of 1956.[1] She appeared in small clubs in New York, including the renowned Village Vanguard, and throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada, as well as on radio and TV.
She studied acting to improve her stage presence and, with the near-demise of classic pop in the early 60s, turned to the legitimate theatre, performing an impressive list of leading and feature roles in everything from Shakespeare to Sondheim. She moved to the West Coast and received her M.A. in drama at Cal. State-Northridge, then returned to New York and taught speech at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and acting at Hofstra University.
In the 1970s, with the resurgence of interest in show tunes and popular standards, Lea was literally sought out to appear in the Peabody Award-winning National Public Radio series "American Popular Song with Alec Wilder and Friends". She appeared in two shows—one featuring the songs of Willard Robison (10/03/1976) and one featuring songs performed and recorded by Lee Wiley (11/14/1976).[2] This led to two lengthy feature articles in The New Yorker magazine, where Whitney Balliett declared "Barbara Lea has no superior among popular singers" (The New Yorker, May 20, 1985, p. 88), and a renewed singing career.
Lea starred in the JVC, Kool, and Newport Jazz Festivals several times, but her increasing devotion to the songs as written led to concerts of the works of Rodgers and Hart, Arthur Schwartz, Cy Coleman, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, and the Gershwins, as well as cabaret appearances devoted to Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, and Yip Harburg.[3]
At the time of her death, more than a dozen of her CDs were available on the Audiophile label, which has a reputation for featuring the best in singers of classic pop, plus reissues of two early LPs on Fantasy/Original Jazz Classics, three recent releases on the European-based label, Challenge, as well as three recent releases on her private label.[4][5]
She died in 2011 from complications of Alzheimer's disease.[6][7][8][9]


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Kiyonori Kikutake, Japanese architect, died he was 83.

Kiyonori Kikutake  was a prominent Japanese architect known as one of the founders of the Japanese Metabolist group  died he was 83..[1] He was also the tutor and employer of several important Japanese architects, such as Toyo Ito and Itsuko Hasegawa.

(菊竹 清訓 Kikutake Kiyonori?) (April 1, 1928 – December 26, 2011)

Background

Kikutake was born in 1928 in Kurume, Japan and graduated from Waseda University in 1950.[2]

Career

Kikutake is best known for his "Marine City" project of 1958, which formed part of the Metabolist Manifesto launched at the World Design Conference in Tokyo in 1960 under the leadership of Kenzo Tange. He, along with fellow member Kisho Kurokawa was invited to exhibit work at the "Visionary Architecture" exhibition in New York of 1961, through which the Metabolists gained international recognition. Kikutake continued his practice until his death in 2011, producing several key public buildings throughout Japan, as well as lecturing internationally. He was also the President and then Honorary President of the Japan Institute of Architects.

Awards

Kikutake was the recipient of numerous awards both in his native Japan and internationally. These include the Japan Academy of Architecture Prize (1970) and the UIA (Union Internationale des Architectes) Auguste Perret Prize (1978).

List of works



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Fred Fono, Solomon Islander politician, Deputy Prime Minister (2006) and MP for Central Kwara'ae (1997–2010), died he was 49.


Fred Iro Fono  was a Solomon Islands politician, serving as the country's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Rural Development and Indigenous Affairs from December 2007 to August 2010 died he was 49..[1] He was a member of the People's Alliance Party[2] and represented Central Kwara'ae Constituency in the National Parliament for thirteen years from 1997 to 2010, when he was defeated for re-election by MP Jackson Fiulaua.[3][4]

 

(10 October 1962 – 26 December 2011)


Fono served as Chief Commercial Officer of the Corporate Division of the Ministry of Commerce & Primary Industries and as Provincial Secretary for Malaita Province before being elected to the National Parliament for the first time in the August 1997 parliamentary election. He then served as Minister for Development and Planning from 29 September 1997 to 5 June 2000.[1] He was a candidate for the position of Deputy Speaker of the National Parliament later that year, but withdrew his candidacy on 1 December 2000, leaving Jackson Sunaone to win the post without opposition.[5] He was re-elected to his seat in the December 2001 parliamentary election and subsequently served as Deputy Speaker of the National Parliament from 20 December 2001 to 3 January 2005. He was then Minister for National Planning and Aid Coordination from 4 February 2005 to 4 April 2006. Re-elected to his seat in April 2006, he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Planning and Aid Coordination in the short-lived government of Snyder Rini from 21 April 2006 to 4 May 2006.[1] Fono was the government's candidate to replace Rini as Prime Minister,[6] but he was defeated by Manasseh Sogavare in the parliamentary vote on 4 May, receiving 22 votes against 28 for Sogavare.[7] He was then elected as Leader of the Opposition on 5 May, receiving unanimous support from the members of the opposition.[8]
Criticizing Sogavare's worsening of relations with Australia through his refusal to extradite Attorney-General Julian Moti, Fono introduced a motion of no-confidence against Sogavare that was defeated on 11 October 2006; the motion was supported by 17 members of parliament, while 28 voted against it.[9] After Sogavare was defeated in another no-confidence vote in December 2007, Fono became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Rural Development and Indigenous Affairs under Prime Minister Derek Sikua on 21 December 2007.[10]
In December 2011, Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo mentioned Fono as a possible High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, but he never took up the post.[3]
Fred Fono died at National Referral Hospital (NRH) in Honiara at approximately 11 p.m. on December 26, 2011, at the age of 49.[3] It is believed that Fono contracted a brief illness after returning from a trip to Auki, Malaita Province, on December 23rd.[3] Fono was survived by his wife, Abby, his two daughters, Joy and Rachel, and his son Fred Junior.[3][4]


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Sean Collins, American surfer and surf forecaster (Surfline), died from a heart attack he was 59.

Sean Robb Collins was the founder of Surfline and a noted figure in the areas of surfing and surf forecasting died from a heart attack he was 59..[1]

Biography

Collins was born in Pasadena, California in 1952.[2][3][4] His father, Whitney Collins, was a former Navy lieutenant who enjoyed sailboat racing and owned a 45-foot Newporter ketch, "Leprechaun", berthed in the Long Beach marina and biking distance from Collins' Long Beach home. Collins' early experiences sailing with his father instilled a passion for the ocean and meteorology.[5][3] Much of his knowledge of meteorology was self-taught. While Long Beach has almost no surf because of its breakwater, Collins was part of a vibrant surf culture at Woodrow Wilson high school (class of 1970), where surf film director Bruce Brown graduated earlier, and world-class woman surfer, Jericho Poppler, was a classmate.
In the early years of Collins' surf forecasting he would record weather reports and forecasts from the Southern Hemisphere, which he received via shortwave radio.[2] He also studied charts and data from the National Weather Service library. By comparing these various data sources with his observations of the surf, he devised formulas for predicting how global weather events would affect near-shore surf conditions; these models were eventually combined into a set of swell-modeling algorithms nicknamed "LOLA".[2]
In the 1970s, Collins spent extensive time traveling and surfing in Mexico. He converted marine weather forecasting equipment for use in an automobile so that he would have advance knowledge of where swells and offshore weather patterns were developing, and in turn used that information to find the best locations for surfing.[5]
In 1985, Collins founded a surf report service called Surfline. The company started as a call-in service, which provided verbal condition reports for various surf breaks around Southern California.[6] In 1995, Surfline moved online, offering live video streams of surf breaks in addition to written surf reports.[7]
Surfline eventually expanded to offer editorial coverage of surfing, and is now one of the most prominent websites related to the sport.[8] Tyler Collins assumed Collins position on the Surfline Board of Directors in 2012.[9]

Recognitions

In 1999, Collins was named one of the "25 Most Influential Surfers of the Century" by Surfer magazine.[2] In 2006, he was named "one of the 100 most powerful people in Southern California" by The Los Angeles Times' West Magazine, for his influence on the region's surfers.[10]
In 2008, in honor of his contributions to surf forecasting, Collins was inducted into the Surfers' Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, California.[11] [12]
In 2012, Collins was inducted into the Surfer's Walk of Fame and received the Surf Culture Award in Huntington Beach, California. [13]
In August 2012, Sean Collins was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the SIMA Waterman's Ball in Laguna Niguel, California. [14]

Death

He died on December 26, 2011 in Newport Beach, California, aged 59, from a heart attack.[15][16] His death was memorialized by a paddle out by about 200 surfers in what was described as the "biggest memorial tribute ever held for a surfer in Huntington Beach", with about 2,000 people in attendance.[17]


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Joe Bodolai, American comedy writer (Saturday Night Live) and producer, died from suicide by poisoning he was 63.

Joe Bodolai was an American film and television producer and writer  died from suicide by poisoning he was 63..[2]

(May 11, 1948 – December 26, 2011) 



Born and raised in the United States, Bodolai was opposed to the Vietnam War and moved to Canada in order to avoid being drafted.[3] He moved back to the United States in 1981 to write for twenty episodes of Saturday Night Live before returning to Canada.
He is best known for producing such television shows as It's Only Rock & Roll, Comics!, and The Kids in the Hall and helping to launch the careers of the young talent featured on those shows. He also co-wrote the first draft of the film Wayne's World with Mike Myers.
Bodolai was a founder of The Comedy Network, helping the new channel secure its licence from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in 1996, and expected to be named the new channel's head by its owners. He was disappointed when he was not hired and decided to return permanently to the United States.[4]
Bodolai was found dead on December 26, 2011 in a Hollywood hotel room of an apparent suicide; he was 63.[5][6][7] No suicide note was found, though on December 23 a long post was added to his blog,[8] entitled "If this were your last day alive what would you do?"[9]


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Dickey Betts died he was 80

Early Career Forrest Richard Betts was also known as Dickey Betts Betts collaborated with  Duane Allman , introducing melodic twin guitar ha...