Notable musicians who have died over the past 12 months
By Peter Alexander Dec. 28 at 5:42 p.m.
Now is the time to reflect on the past year, and among the many good things we all can recall there are losses, as well. The following list is necessarily incomplete, and likely represents my personal interests, as it includes a few people that I knew personally. Readers are encouraged to add any names they want in the comments section.
Dec. 31, 2022: Anita Pointer, the lead vocalist of the Pointer Sisters, the popular Grammy-winning vocal group of the 1970s and ‘80s that comprised Anita with her sisters Ruth, Bonnie and June and their band, whose recorded hits includes “Slow Hand,” “I’m So Excited,” “Dare Me” and “Yes We Can Can,” 74
Jan. 10: Jeff Beck, rock guitarist who is considered one of the most skilled and influential guitarists in rock history, who succeeded Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds and later formed his own band, The Jeff Beck Group featuring the singer Rod Stewart, and who also had a significant solo career, 78
Jan. 12: Lisa Marie Presley, a singer-songwriter who aimed to create her own sound and also pay homage to her famous father, Elvis; who not only lost her father when she was nine, but also her former husband, Michael Jackson, and her son, Benjamin Keough, and who appeared at the Golden Globes award ceremony only two days before her death, 54
Jan. 19: David Crosby, the singer-songwriter-guitarist and founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash (later Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), and two-time inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, who struggled with addictions but continued to record until last year, 81
Feb. 8: Burt Bacharach, composer, arranger, conductor and record producer, winner of two Academy Awards for film scores, whose upbeat hit songs including “The Look of Love,” “What the World Needs Now is Love” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head” were part of the 1960s, 94
Feb. 14: Friedrich Cerha, Austrian composer and conductor who took on the difficult task of completing Alban Berg’s unfinished opera Lulu, considered one of the greatest operatic works of the 20th century, who was himself the composer of several operas and other stage works, as well as orchestral and chamber music, 96
March 2: Wayne Shorter, saxophonist who contributed to the modern jazz style from the 1960s on, working with two of the leading groups of times, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Miles David Quintet; and later as a leader of Weather Report and in collaborations with Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana and Steely Dan, 89
March 9: Chaim Topol, known simply by his last name, the Israeli actor who sang and acted his way through more than 3,500 performances as Tevye in the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof starting with the 1971 movie version and including a 1990 Broadway revival, and also appeared in films including Galilleo (1975) and the James Bond flic For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore (1981), 87
March 20: Virginia Zeani, Romanian soprano who sang 69 roles over her 34-year operatic career, at La Scala, the Met, and other major houses worldwide, including an astonishing 648 performances as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, who originated the role of Blanche in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1957, and who passed on her skill as a teacher at Indiana University (1984–2002) and later from her home in Florida, 97
March 25: Christopher Gunning, British composer, arranger and conductor, best known in England for his music for film and television, whose Symphony No. 10 was performed on the same program with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 as part of Colorado MahlerFest XXXV last year in Macky Auditorium, 78
April 12: Blair Tindall, accomplished freelance oboist and later journalist, author of Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music, a salacious memoir that led to a television series; whose candor or exaggerations, depending on your point of view, divided critics while the author always said she intended serious points about the classical music world, 63
April 17: Ahmad Jamal, jazz pianist who won a lifetime achievement Grammy and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award, and whose spare style influenced artists including Miles Davis, 92
April 19: Otis Redding III, son of the legendary soul singer who formed the funk band The Reddings with his brother, Dexter, in the 1980s, and who was often asked to sing his father’s songs including “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” 59
April 25: Harry Belafonte, smooth-voiced American singer who smashed racial barriers in the 1950s and ignited the craze for Caribbean music with songs including “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell,” who also starred in several movies and continued to perform into the 21st century, and who concentrated on Civil Rights later in his life at least as much as his entertainment career, 96
May 1: Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folksinger known for “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy” and the perennial November favorite “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” who was inspired to join the folk music scene in Toronto in the 1960s, went on to international recognition, continued to perform even after a mild stroke in 2006, and recorded his final album in 2020, 84
May 6: Menahem Pressler, distinguished professor of piano at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and founding member of the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, of which he was the heart and soul for more than 50 years and with whom he recorded nearly all of the piano trio repertoire, who fled from his native Germany to Israel in 1939 and joined the Indiana faculty in 1955, where he taught until his death, and who continued to tour as soloist and chamber musician until 2018, 99
May 7: Grace Bumbry, courageous and ground-breaking mezzo-soprano who became one of the first Black opera stars, who created a scandal by singing Venus in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at Bayreuth in 1961, which led to a performance at the White House, a contract with impresario Sol Hurok, major mezzo and soprano roles around the world, and more than 200 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, 86
May 14: Ingrid Haebeler, Viennese pianist known for her performances and recordings of music by Mozart who gave her first public performance at 11 and later studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, was featured on many recordings of Mozart and other composers, most recently a boxed set, “Ingrid Haebeler: The Philips Legacy,” released by last year by Decca; believed to be 96
May 24: Tina Turner, soul and rock singer of vast energy since the 1960s, who came to prominence in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue with major tours in the late ‘60s, suffered a setback following her breakup with husband Ike Turner but returned to stardom in the 1980s after her recording “What’s Love Got to Do With It” won three Grammies in 1985, later recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as having appeared live before more people than any other individual artist, 83
June 2: Kaija Saariaho, Finnish composer whose opera L’Amour de Loin (Love from afar) broke a 2013-year absence of female composers at the Metropolitan Opera in 2016 and propelled her to international renown, a minor celebrity in her home country where she was often recognized on the street, known for creating works that challenged traditional forms and genres while remaining accessible, 70
June 4: George Winston, pop-music pianist who played what he called “rural folk piano” and others described as “new age,” whose albums of soothing instrumentals carried titles referring to seasons and nature including “Autumn”—his 1980 breakthrough hit on the Windham Hill label—“Sea,” “Woods,” and “December”; 74
June 5: Astrud Gilberto, sexy-voiced Brazilian singer whose first recording ever made her famous world wide, performing the bossa nova hit “The Girl from Ipanema” by her then husband João Gilberto with saxophonist Stan Getz in 1963, a recording that won the Grammy Award for record of the year and eventually sold more than a million copies, 83
June 23: Sheldon Harnick, lyricist for memorable Broadway shows including Tony-award winners Fiddler on the Roof and Fiorello! which he created with composer Jerry Bock, as well as the musical She Loves Me, which was based on the same play as the movie You’ve Got Mail, and other shows, and who also wrote and translated opera librettos, 99
July 6: Graham Clark, English tenor who sang a wide variety of roles from Mime in Rheingold and Siegfried to the Captain in Wozzeck and Almaviva in Barber of Seville, at the English National Opera, Covent Garden, the Bayreuth Festival, and the MET where he sang 82 times over 15 seasons, including Bégearss in the 1991 world premiere of John Corgiliano’s Ghosts of Versailles, 81
July 6: Peter Nero, concert pianist and consummate showman who combined classical and pops and light jazz, whose banter with the audience earned a large and devoted following, who appeared with Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Johnny Mathis and others, released 72 albums and conducted the Philly Pops for 34 years, mixed Liszt, Prokofiev and the American songbook on his programs, and wrote a cantata based on The Diary of Anne Frank, 89
July 12: André Watts, Black American pianist and classical music superstar who rose to fame starting with an appearance with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the age of 16 in 1963, who won a Grammy the following year, performed at White House state dinners in addition to his solo and orchestral appearances on tour, and joined the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2004, 77
July 21: Tony Bennett (born Anthony Dominick Benedetto), a quintessential interpreter of the American songbook and other musical standards over a career of more than 70 years, performing concert and club dates, making more than 150 recordings, who joined other entertainers to participate in the Selma-to-Montgomery Civil Rights March in 1965, performed at the While House of presidents Kennedy and Clinton, at Buckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth and for Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and who continued to perform into his 90s in spite of the onset of Alzheimer’s, notably with Lady Gaga in 2021 for his last public performance, 96
About July 25: Sinead O’Connor, outspoken Irish singer/songwriter whose 1990 Grammy- winning album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” included a cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which became a world-wide hit; whose strong political stances led to controversy, especially in 1992 when she tore up a portrait of Pope John Paul II on “S.N.L.” as protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and whose mental health struggles were well documented and publicly acknowledged by the singer, 56
Aug. 9: Robbie Robertson, Canadian musician who was lead guitarist and composer for The Band, often celebrated for his ability to capture a vision of rural and Southern America that came to be known as Americana, in such songs as “The Night They Drove old Dixie Down,” “Up On Cripple Creek” and “The Weight,” 80
Aug. 11: Tom Jones, the lyricist who with composer Harvey Schmidt wrote The Fantasticks, a musical comedy that opened in Greenwich Village in 1960 and ran for 42 years, making it the longest running musical in history; who also wrote the lyrics to 110 in the Shade and I Do! I Do!, other collaborations with Schmidt, 95
Aug. 16: Renata Scotto, brilliant Italian soprano who was a favorite at the Metropolitan Opera with more than 300 performances in 26 roles, and who was renowned for her acting as well as her singing in major roles including Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, Mimi in La Bohème and Violetta in La Traviata, and who was also known for her fiery temperament, 89
Aug. 19: Gloria Coates, composer of 17 idiosyncratic symphonies including works subtitled “Music on Open Strings” and “Music in Microtones,” known particularly for her use of glissandi, a Wisconsin native who lived most of her adult life in Germany, where she curated a concert series of American contemporary music, 89
Sept. 1: Jimmy Buffett, singer/songwriter who celebrated the beach-bum life of the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast, leader of a group of like-minded fans known as “Parrot Heads,” with hits including “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” backed by the Coral Reefer Band that gave his songs an easy-going blend of calypso, country and rock, and who became a multi-millionaire with a business empire of restaurants, hotels, tequila, t-shirts and footwear, 76
Sept. 30: Russell Batiste Jr., drummer who was a vital part of the New Orleans funk and R&B scene, member of a celebrated musical family who started playing with the family band at the age of 6, known for playing with a ferocity that sometimes broke his foot pedals with bands including Russell Batiste and the Orchestra From Da Hood and a trio named for the Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Vida Blue, 57
Sept. 30: Russell Sherman, an American pianist and music educator who was the first American to record the complete Beethoven sonatas and concertos for piano but also recorded other composers from Liszt to Schoenberg as well as new pieces composed for him, who performed with major orchestras in the US and abroad, and who gave his last recital five years ago at the age of 88, 93
Oct. 11: Rudolph Isley, one of the Isley Brothers from their breakthrough in 1959 until he left the group in 1989 to pursue a career in the ministry, who was both a harmony singer in the group and co-writer of many of their hits, and was known for making fashion statements by wearing hats and furs and carrying a jeweled cane, 84
Oct. 17: Carla Bley, prolific jazz composer, arranger and pianist known for everything from delicate miniatures to rugged fanfares, who was considered an avant-garde musician early in her career and continued to surprise thereafter, whose jazz-rock opera Escalator Over the Hill won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1973, 87
Oct. 25: Zdenek Macal, Czech-born conductor who performed around the world, including visits to the United States where he led the New Jersey Symphony 1992–2003 and guest conducted the Chicago Symphony, as well as other major orchestras world-wide; known for his performances of late Romantic composers including his fellow-Czech Dvořák, 87
Nov. 2: Yuri Temirkanov, Russian conductor who was music director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic 1988–2022 as well as the Baltimore Symphony 2000–2006 and artistic director of the Kirov opera, known especially for his leadership of the Russian repertoire, including Shostakovich, whom he knew, as well as Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, 84
Nov. 18: David Del Tredici, Pulitzer Prize-wining composer known first in the 1960s as an experimental composer who set works of James Joyce; in the 1970s and ‘80s as an exponent of “new romanticism” in a series of works based on Lewis Carrol’s “Alice” books, culminating in the hour-long “Final Alice” for soprano and very large orchestra (1975), and in the early 2000s, a series of works about gay sexuality, 86
Nov. 19: Colette Maze, French pianist who began lesson at the age of 5, later studied with Alfred Cortot and Nadia Boulanger, who recorded her first album at the age of 90, became an internet sensation at 105, and became the oldest pianist ever to record an album, “109 ans de piano” (109 years of piano), released just this year and featuring music of Gershwin, Debussy and others, 109
Nov. 29: Mildred Miller (Posvar), an American mezzo who sang Mozart’s Cherubino at the Metropolitan Opera 61 times and many other mezzo roles, famously recorded a definitive Das Lied ben der Erde with Bruno Walter, and after retirement from the Met co-founded the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, 98
Dec. 12: Richard Gaddes, founding director of the St. Louis Opera Theater who led that company from 1976 to ’85, and was general director of the Santa Fe Opera 2000–08, succeeding founder John Crosby, winner of the Opera Honors Award from the National Endowment for the Arts (2008), known for having introduced important artists to the U.S. including soprano Kiri Tr Kanawa and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, 81
DEc. 15: Eduardo Villa, American tenor who came to opera from a career in musicals, studied voice at USC and with Margaret Harshaw, won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 1982, and had contracts in Basel, Paris and Munich before singing 25 performances in 10 different roles at the Met, 70
Dec. 17: Buddy Baker, trombonist from Indiana who toured with both Stan Kenton and Woody Hermann, later established the jazz program at the Indiana University School of Music, taught at the University of Northern Colorado, played in the Greeley Philharmonic for 33 years, and served as president of the International Trombone Association, 91
Sharps & Flatirons 