Otis Rush

guitarist, singer

29.04.1934 - 29.09.2018

Otis Rush Jr. was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. His distinctive guitar style featured a slow-burning sound and long bent notes. With qualities similar to the styles of other 1950s artists Magic Sam and Buddy Guy, his sound became known as West Side Chicago blues and was an influence on many musicians, including Michael Bloomfield, Peter Green and Eric Clapton.

Rush was left-handed and strummed with his left hand while fretting with his right. His guitars, however, were strung with the low E string at the bottom, in reverse or upside-down to typical guitarists. He often played with the little finger of his pick hand curled under the low E for positioning. It is widely believed that this contributed to his distinctive sound. He had a wide-ranging, powerful tenor voice.

Martyn Jerel Buchwald (Marty Balin)

singer, guitarist, keyboard player (Jefferson Airplane)

30.01.1942 - 28.09.2018

Marty Balin born Martyn Jerel Buchwald was an American singer, songwriter, and musician best known as the founder and one of the lead singers and songwriters of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship.

Alois 'Zipflo' Weinrich

violinist, bassist

16.06.1964 - 23.09.2018

Alois "Zipflo" Weinrich was an Austrian jazz musician (violin, bass).

Charles Nicholas (Chas) Hodges

vocalist, pianist, guitarist, bassist, banjo player

28.12.1943 - 22.09.2018

Charles Nicholas Hodges was an English musician and singer who was the lead vocalist of the musical duo Chas & Dave.

Martin (Maartin) Allcock

multi-instrumentalist (guitar, keyboards, violin, bass guitar, pipes)

(Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, The Mission)

05.01.1957 - 16.09.2018

Maartin Allcock (born Martin Allcock) was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer. Born in Middleton, Lancashire (now Greater Manchester), England, Allcock studied music at Huddersfield and Leeds. He began playing professionally in January 1976, playing in dance bands and folk clubs. His first tour was in 1977 with Mike Harding as one of the Brown Ale Cowboys. He went to Brittany in 1978, for a temporary stay, but ended up remaining longer than intended, and learned to cook while there. On returning to Manchester he studied and qualified to become a chef, working in the Shetland Islands in 1980.

In 1981 he joined the Bully Wee Band, a Celtic folk group, which led to an 11-year stint as lead guitarist with British folk rock band Fairport Convention from October 1985 to December 1996, and concurrently four years as keyboardist with rock band Jethro Tull from January 1988 to December 1991. In summer 1991 he also played keyboards for The Mission. From the early 2000s he began working freelance from his home on the west coast of Snowdonia as a session man and record producer with the Welsh language Sain record label.

Allcock's session career included more than 200 albums, including Robert Plant, Beverley Craven, Judith Durham, Breton guitarist Dan Ar Braz (six albums), Ralph McTell, Dave Swarbrick, Cat Stevens, and Dafydd Iwan. He began producing Welsh music in 2005 and has produced ten albums for Sain Records in Caernarfon. He was UK bass guitarist and tour manager for Nashville songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman.

Cecil James McNeely (Big Jay McNeely)

saxophonist

29.04.1927 - 16.09.2018

Cecil James McNeely better known as Big Jay McNeely was an American rhythm and blues saxophonist.

Max Bennett

bassist

25.05.1928 - 14.09.2018

Max Bennett was an American jazz bassist and session musician. Bennett grew up in Kansas City and Oskaloosa, Iowa, and went to college in Iowa. His first professional gig was with Herbie Fields in 1949, and following this he played with Georgie Auld, Terry Gibbs, and Charlie Ventura. He served in the Army during the Korean War from 1951 to 1953, and then played with Stan Kenton before moving to Los Angeles. There he played regularly at the Lighthouse Cafe with his own ensemble, and played behind such vocalists as Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez through the 1970s. He also recorded with Charlie Mariano, Conte Candoli, Bob Cooper, Bill Holman, Stan Levey, Lou Levy, Coleman Hawkins and Jack Montrose.

Bennett recorded under his own name from the late 1950s and did extensive work as a composer and studio musician in addition to jazz playing. Often associated with The Wrecking Crew, he performed on many records by The Monkees and The Partridge Family.

In 1969, Bennett served as the principal bassist for Frank Zappa's Hot Rats project. He also played on later Zappa albums such as Chunga's Revenge.

His studio work also included bass on the 1969 Lalo Schifrin soundtrack to the 1968 film Bullitt as well as Greatest Science Fiction Hits Volumes 1-3 with Neil Norman & His Cosmic Orchestra.

In 1973, Guerin and Bennett joined Tom Scott's L.A. Express alongside Joe Sample and Larry Carlton. After recording their eponymous debut album, the jazz fusion quintet served as the core band for Mitchell's Court and Spark (1974). A subsequent iteration of the group (including guitarist Robben Ford and pianist Larry Nash) backed Mitchell on the live Miles of Aisles (1974) and recorded two smooth jazz albums for Caribou Records following Scott's departure in 1976. After the band's dissolution, Bennett formed his own group, Freeway. He continued to perform with his last group, Private Reserve, until his death in 2018.

Erich Kleinschuster

trombonist

23.01.1930 - 12.09.2018

Erich Kleinschuster was an Austrian trombonist and bandleader. Kleinschuster was born in Graz, and learned to play piano before picking up trombone; his first major engagement was as a member of Fridl Althaler's Radio Graz dance orchestra. As a member of the International Youth Band, he appeared at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, and worked with Johannes Fehring from 1958 to 1965, in addition to playing with Kenny Clarke and Francy Boland's ensemble. He played with Friedrich Gulda in 1965, then put together a six-piece ensemble the following year, which performed frequently on Österreichischer Rundfunk. He founded Vienna's Jazzinstitut in 1968 and was the leader of Österreichischer Rundfunk's big band from 1972 until 1981; he was the conductor for the Austrian entries of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1972 and 1976. Among his jazz associations in the 1970s were Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, George Gruntz, Peter Herbolzheimer, Gerry Mulligan, and Toots Thielemans.

In 1981 he moved back to Graz and became a lecturer in music at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, a position he held until 1998; he also put together a youth orchestra, JAM, which toured in the early 1990s.

Conway Victor Savage

pianist, keyboardist, organist, singer 

 

27.07.1960 - 02.09.2018

Conway Victor Savage was an Australian rock musician. He was a member of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, providing piano, organ and backing vocals from 1990. From 1993, Savage had a solo career and released albums, Nothing Broken (2000), Wrong Man's Hands (2004) and Rare Songs & Performances 1989–2004. He also collaborated with other artists for their albums, such as Soon Will Be Tomorrow (with Suzie Higgie, 1998) and Quickie for Ducky (with Amanda Fox and Robert Tickner, 2007).

Randolph Edward 'Randy' Weston

pianist 

 

06.04.1926 - 01.09.2018

Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection.

Weston's piano style owed much to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, whom he cited in a 2018 video as among pianists he counted as influences, as well as Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Earl Hines. Beginning in the 1950s, Weston worked often with trombonist and arranger Melba Liston.

Described as "America's African Musical Ambassador", he said: "What I do I do because it's about teaching and informing everyone about our most natural cultural phenomenon. It's really about Africa and her music.