Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

I had some experiences with the Bells. They lived in my town and Kool's sone went to my high school, first guy I knew with a beeper. After I got into music production I learned there was a famous recording studio hidden away directly across the street from my house more or less so I went by and got myself a summer internship. It was called the House Of Music. Bat Out of Hell, Synergy, Patti Smith, Dr. Buzzard and many other big names recorded there. It was attached to/associated with another studio run by the Bells who's name I can't remember but I used to make them coffee and stuff.

oh god the most beautiful woman who ever lived lived long enough to be tagged "Game of Thrones Star" in her obituary :(

Shit news. RIP

(itv4 currently repeating avengers series 5 fwiw. would be on this very second but for tour de france highlights)

oh man rip

Best Bond girl ever.

The Assassination Bureau (w/Rigg, Ollie Reed & Telly Savalas) is one of the most wacky & fun action films nobody's seen.

;_;

This is no good, very bad news. RIP.

RIP Alan Minter, a boxer who was also mentioned in The Fall's 'Fit and Working Again'

Everyone at Sky Sports is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of British boxing great, Alan Minter, aged 69.

Alan was an Olympian and unified middleweight champion who shared the ring with some of the very best our sport has ever seen. He'll be thoroughly missed. pic.twitter.com/DuhLJ7a1Zv

— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) September 10, 2020

Shere Hite, author of the Hite Report and loathed by lotharios everywhere:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/10/she-began-the-real-sexual-revolution-for-women-shere-hite-dies-aged-77

lol NV, RIP queen

Alan Minter was my first (and last) celebrity autograph. RIP.

Toots

:(((((

Terence Conran.

Ronald Harwood, playwright of The Dresser and screenwriter of The Pianist

Charles Saunders, pioneer of African fantasy and black sword and sorcery
https://www.facebook.com/milton.davis.52/posts/10214005770897028

Apparently his Imaro character is getting a tv series, sad that he couldn't see it. The last couple of books were self-published and he has been very obscure for a long time.

Original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/original-bad-brains-singer-sid-mccray-rip/

Aline Chrétien, wife of former PM Jean Chrétien.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/statement-by-the-prime-minister-on-the-passing-of-aline-chretien-812442387.html

Paul Méfano, French conductor of contemporary classical music and founder of the 2e2m Ensemble. He was 83. RIP.

Jiri Menzel

https://variety.com/2020/film/global/jiri-menzel-dies-czech-director-oscar-1234761137/

Menzel was fortunately able to see a big re-evaluation of his work outside of the Czech Republic. A magnificent filmmaker

Stanley Crouch, jazz critic, amateur pugilist (he was known to swing on other writers and sometimes musicians), and master of the liner note essay so hyperbolic it could give you vertigo.

RIP. Haven’t read a lot of him, but I’ve liked what I read. Just included his piece on “The Roots of Black Homophobia” on a syllabus I’m putting together for January.

Thought he would keep doing that stuff forever. RIP

RIP, that's a bummer. he was a regular and welcome face in the crowd and a worthwhile writer. had not heard about his fighting spirit before.

Damn, Crouch is major.

Thought he was kind of problematic figure, tbh.

Oh he is! Doesn't make him not major.

I didn't really *like* Crouch but I kind of wanted him to be around forever

^^^ yeah, this. I can't remember which liner notes I was reading recently where "so hyperbolic it could give you vertigo" only begins to cover it, but I still respected his uncompromising opinions on what jazz is, even if I didn't agree with them.

Yes, thirded, that was kind of my original position.

His disdain for Bitches Brew made me not wish to dig deeper.

RIP Stanley Crouch, wrong about electric Miles and much else but always worth reading

xp

He was wrong about Davis, and about lots of other things too, but he was never just fucking around. He meant what he said, and wrote, and that's always defensible IMO.

His essay collections deserve to be bound up by the Library of America.

Oh, and I just searched his name on Amazon and spotted this:

Unti Charlie Parker Volume 2

Pub date: January 2021.

I don't know his writing well, but I've seen him interviewed in many things--think he was a friend of Christgau's and (I might be wrong here) Kael's.

xgau the only person at the village voice he didn't punch iirc

he should’ve

lol I thought adam shatz was speaking figuratively when he said "He left some bruises, not always in the right places"

xgau the only person at the village voice he didn't punch iirc

One of the first things I did when I read the news was email Matthew Shipp: "Didn't you get into a physical fight with him once?"

He responded, "He attempted 2 times - was broken up both times."

Did he ever try picking a fight with Mingus?

Wondered where I knew the name from, and yeah, I have seen him talking in basically every documentary about 20s / 30s jazz. He was very enthusiastic, which was good.

sinkah otm

I knew his political facepalms best, so...

I had drinks with Stanley Crouch at several book parties. He was intense and funny. I didn't agree with most of his opinions, but he could bring it strong, no matter how wrong. Another part of my youth gone. RIP. pic.twitter.com/MqcOpHH4jK

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) September 16, 2020

This just in from New West Records:
Steve Earle & the Dukes announced today that they will be recording an album of songs written by Justin Townes Earle with 100% of artist advances and royalties going to a trust for Justin's daughter, Etta St. James Earle. It is expected that the album will be recorded in October and released in January, 2021, around the time of what would have been Justin's thirty-ninth birthday. More details to be announced shortly.

Yeah that wrecked a lot of us today. I had to read it twice to take it in. I don't think there's even been an album like this.

Just included his piece on “The Roots of Black Homophobia” on a syllabus I’m putting together for January.

― A White, White Gay (cryptosicko), Wednesday, September 16, 2020 1:34 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i really hope you're prepared to give some context for the piece, e.g.

Virulent homophobia was hysterically and consistently inserted into 1960s black nationalism single-handedly by Amiri Baraka.

^ conveniently ignores SC's own deeply disturbing homophobic attitudes, which you can hear for yourself in this spoken word piece from 1969 which i'm sure mr. crouch would've preferred we all forgot existed:

!! do not click if you don't want to hear dozens of homophobic slurs !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA9elrRWfA8
"ain't no ambulances ..."

Wasn't aware of Crouch's own homophobic history, but I definitely planned to contextualize anyway. Thanks for this, though; it'll definitely figure into my discussion.

crouch was close to baraka iirc, as a favoured and talented disciple -- and made his bones breaking with him and breaking with free jazz, an event possibly more oedipal than careerist when it happened, though it did his career no harm of course

when i interviewed diamanda galas in the late 80s -- galas who had played piano with crouch and david murray and others in the 70s -- she had very evidently come to dislike him greatly at some point, perhaps always. she hinted at why but didn't expand and i didn't know enough to press the point

he could write of course, and his love of jazz before miles went electric is genuine, and scholarly. tbh i think he ruined marsalis.