Yusef Lateef Dies at 93

Few jazz musicians balanced intellect and instinct, head and heart, as effectively or seamlessly as Yusef Lateef, who died at 93 on Dec. 23, at home in Massachusetts. His prescience and influence as a player and composer were mighty, and often go overlooked, maybe because his innovations resulted in such likable, lucid music, based often in sheer melody and modal groove. A tenorman who projected the sort of bluesy romance we associate with great midcentury hard bop, he became one of jazz’s best
flutists, with a stately attack and a pulsating vibrato that gave his sound a breathy humanity. He was also jazz’s first true multiculturalist, whose musicological passion for Eastern musics cleared new paths for improvising musicians.

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Yusef Lateef. Photo by Jimmy Katz

Bassist Dwayne Burno Is Dead at 43

Dwayne Burno, a bassist who played with a who’s who of jazz artists and led his own groups, died Dec. 28, in New York City following a long battle with kidney disease. He was 43. Burno was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2004 and underwent a kidney transplant in 2010. Burno appeared on more than 50 recordings and also led his own Dwayne Burno Quintet, which performed at New York’s Smalls and other venues.

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Dwayne Burno

Guitarist Joel Harrison Remembers Jim Hall

Jim Hall was a composer first, guitar player second. I believe he looked at improvising as composition. Many do, of course, but with Jim it was evident all the time. His playing was thoughtful without being cerebral, organized without being restrictive, melodic and yet elliptical and surprising, sometimes romantic but never sentimental. He had a keen sense of humor in his playing and writing, and in his life.

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Photo by Jim Allen