TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Here on the show, we memorialize jazz composer Benny Golson and drummer Roy Haynes. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers a few more musicians who passed in 2024. For some of them, Kevin says, jazz was only part of the music they made, such as the sometimes smoothly romantic rhythm and blues saxophonist David Sanborn.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID SANBORN'S "SHORT VISIT")
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: That's alto saxophonist David Sanborn at his best - scalding, eruptive, passionate and phraseologically unpredictable. Jazz, blues and gospel fused in his sound. And his ability to play with anybody from the Butterfield Blues Band to David Bowie to Tim Berne made him a long-time presence and musical catalyst on late-night TV as a host, band member or guest. In a jazz setting, no one framed him better than arranger Gil Evans, with the open-ended 12-minute Sanborn concerto "Short Visit" from 1977.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID SANBORN'S "SHORT VISIT")
WHITEHEAD: As capacious as jazz is, some talents are too big for just one field. Entertainment dynamo Quincy Jones made a splash from the start as a spectacularly talented, fresh and original writer for big band in the 1950s. On his version of "Along Came Betty" by another jazz great who passed this year, Benny Golson, Quincy's smooth writing and well-drilled musicians make silky, muted brass pop.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES' "ALONG CAME BETTY")
WHITEHEAD: The debts Quincy Jones ran up running as dream band were why he became a pop producer. But even after Lesley Gore and Michael Jackson, he'd still promote jazz to a wider audience, presenting Duke Ellington as songwriter in a remarkable, jazz vocalist-studded TV special, touting Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to hip-hop listeners with "Back On The Block" and, before that, tipping his hat to the style of funky, electric sax man Eddie Harris with the sitcom theme "Sanford And Son."
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES' "SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)")
WHITEHEAD: Another crossover artist of sorts who passed this year, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson was the last survivor of Art Blakey's original 1954 Jazz Messengers. Back then, all hip, young alto players emulated the quicksilver Charlie Parker, Donaldson included, but his own feisty personality peeked through in his sly phrasing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ART BLAKEY'S "QUICKSILVER")
WHITEHEAD: Lou Donaldson on "Quicksilver," 1954. Late in life, he criticized young musicians for straying from the true jazz path. In the 1960s, though, with family to support, Donaldson started making populist records long before David Sanborn - danceable music aimed at party people, not jazz snobs. And that's OK. On his 1969 cover of Johnnie Taylor's "Who's Making Love," Donaldson gets credibly funky. He puts his own stamp on a prevailing style once again.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOU DONALDSON'S "WHO'S MAKING LOVE")
WHITEHEAD: Baritone saxophonist Claire Daly, who died in October, sang a little also, as if to remind us the jazz horn is an extension of the human voice. The baritone has a larger and more commanding range to explore but the same capacity for personal expression. Claire Daly got a fat, gritty, classic bari sax sound and danced it around, light on its feet. You hear it on her jazz calypso version of Hogy Carmichael's "Little Old Lady."
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAIRE DALY'S "LITTLE OLD LADY")
WHITEHEAD: Jazz figures who died in 2024 also include critic, record annotator, archivist and all-around advocate for 75 years Dan Morgenstern, also Michael Cuscuna, producer of much excellent new jazz and the most important producer of reissues and historic jazz recordings of the past 50 years, also the youngest and last of the three jazz-playing Heath brothers, the fine drummer Albert - nicknamed Tootie - and, recently, the French Algerian piano virtuoso Martial Solal.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARTIAL SOLAL'S "CRAZY RHYTHM")
WHITEHEAD: And finally, on December 10, we lost one more musician jazz could barely contain - the irrepressible downtown New York brass man Herb Robertson, who played some of the wildest trumpet around, a wizard at using mutes for outlandish effects. But he'd also get deep into the contours of a melody, infusing it with deep feeling to match. His friend Andy Laster's composition "Devotional" sparked that side of Herb Robertson's personality. So let that be our recessional hymn to bring this memorial session to a close.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDY LASTER'S "DEVOTIONAL")
MOSLEY: Kevin Whitehead is the author of "Play The Way You Feel: The Essential Guide To Jazz Stories On Film," "Why Jazz?" and "New Dutch Swing," which has just been reissued. On Monday's show, we'll hear Terry's interview with comedian Nikki Glaser from earlier this year, known for telling scathing jokes at celebrity roasts. Glaser will host the Golden Globes on January 5. I hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES' "SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)")
MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Al Banks.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES' "SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)")
MOSLEY: Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUINCY JONES' "SANFORD AND SON THEME (THE STREETBEATER)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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