In great memory of ....

2012 has been a sad year for jazz fans around the world with the passing away of seven sax-players whose records we all know, whose music we've enjoyed, whose shows we admired. In memory of those men, some quick overviews.


David S. Ware 

David S. Ware, one of my favorite artists passed away, after long suffering from kidney disease despite a transplant two years ago. Ware's music will always remain among the absolute top in free jazz, with albums such as "Live In Vilnius", "Threads", "Corridors & Parallels", "Surrender", "Shakti", "Live In The World" as a few of my favorites. His band members were always among the best you can find in innovative jazz circles, with Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Whit Dickey, Guillermo E Brown, Susie Ibarra, Joe Morris. His music has this post-Coltrane soaring spirituality, full of lyricism and great themes, while at the same time offering lots of freedom to improvise and express feeling. His energetic expansive way of playing will remain unique.

A jazz monument and musical innovator left us with a fantastic catalogue of music.


Byard Lancaster  


Alto-saxophonist and flautist Byard Lancaster also passed away in August at the age of 70. Less known than David S Ware, he is one of those musicians who were into the soul and the roots of music, willing to play funk as well as collaborate with Bill Dixon and Sunny Murray. A music educator, he wanted his free jazz to appeal to larger audiences, adding solid rhythms and more tribal African sounds. Also a Coltrane adept (who isn't?) his music adds this communal element of joint celebration, dancing and mourning. "Funny Funky Rib Crib" (1974), "Live At Macalester College" are among his best, but also his more recent work such as "Pam Africa" and "Ancestral Link Hotel", both on CIMP are easy to recommend.


Lol Coxhill 

In July, British soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill passed away. He was one of the absolute central figures in the British free improv scene, with hundreds of records on which he performed. Like Lancaster, he was open to any style of music, and collaborated with bands of all genres : blues, soul, R&B, punk, jazz and very very avant-garde electro-acoustic work, and very very much himself at all times. His tone could be detected from miles away. The British newspaper The Guardian described him as "generous, gifted and amiably eccentric".





John Tchicai 

Last October, Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai left us. Like Lancaster, Tchicai was also one of the early free jazz voices in the sixties, playing with John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, yet he continued to perform and innovate, by playing with young musicians and by keeping an open mind to new evolutions, as with John Coxon and Ashley Wales, or with fellow countrymen Jonas Westergaard and Kresten Osgood. My preferred recent album by him is "Good Night Songs" with Charlie Kohlhase and Garrison Fewell.





Faruq Z. Bey

In June, Faruq Z Bey passed away. Despite an erratic career due to an accident and health issues, he will be remembered as the driving force behind Griot Galaxy and for his collaborations with Northwood Improvisers. His own music was also very much inspired by Africa, with great polyrhythmics and trance-like soloing. Recent reviews can be found on this blog : his collaboration with Dennis González on "Hymn For Tomasz Stanko", and his own "Emerging Field". I am not too familiar with his other work, but also "Auzar" is easy to recommend for fans of Africa-centric music. Somehow, his music remained strongly rooted in the seventies.




I want to thank them for their great music. Our thoughts are with their families.

Borah Bergman 

Borah Bergman also died, ironically and sadly enough on the same day David S. Ware passed away. Bergman was a great pianist who worked with many great musicians like Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille, Evan Parker, Peter Brötzmann or John Zorn. Brötzmann even called him his favorite pianist. My Bergman favorite recordings are The Human Factor (with Cyrille), Exhilaration (with Cyrille and Brötzmann), Ride into the Blue (with Thomas Borgmann and Brötzmann, I also had the pleasure to see them live), Eight by Three (with Braxton and Brötzmann) and Luminiscence (with Greg Cohen, Kenny Wollesen - and John Zorn, on one track only). Allegedly he was suffering from dementia and died in a nursing home in New York. He will surely be missed (By Martin Schray)


Tony Marsh

"The percussionist Tony Marsh, who has died of cancer aged 72, was an inspired collaborator, combining intensity with restraint and stroking the drums more than he struck them. He worked with some of the most creative artists in European jazz of the past four decades, from the composer Mike Westbrook to the saxophonists John Tchicai and Evan Parker.

“‘Listen closely, take a chance, keep going even if money's tight, and you'll find the real reward – that's why Tony was hip in the most meaningful sense,’ [Evan] Parker says. ‘And he didn't need to play loud, or be loud, to get that intensity. It's like splitting diamonds or something. If you know exactly the right place to make the impact, you don't need to hit anything hard.’” (from The Guardian, with thanks to guitarist Han-Earl Park for adding his name).