RIP Muhal Richard Abrams

According to reports, the legendary jazz musician has passed away at 87. His music will live on.

 

Damn.

 

At least he’ll get to jam with Lester again.

RIP

 

Sad news, but a long and beautiful career. Thanks Mr. Abrahms.

 

Sources? Did a search, but couldn't find anything on the internet.

 

To quote Laura Nyro:

If it's peace you find in dying,
when dying time is here,
Just bundle up my coffin cause
it's cold way down there,
I hear that's it's cold way down there,
yeah, crazy cold way down there.

 

The folks who produce The Hum blog announced it last night. I trust them. They’re well connected on the avant scene, although it’s odd that there is no other mention at this time. As much as anyone I hope they’re wrong.

 

Searched again and found this: RIP Muhal Richard Abrams - they are referring to "many sources", but didn't specify any.

 

Reported by record producer Chuck Nessa: Muhal Richard Abrams - RIP

 

Thank you.

 

In 1980 I saw him premiere a new piece for the New Music Society of Syracuse, NY. The band was him, Jay Hoggard, Fred Hopkins and Henry Threadgill. Great composer and band leader.

 

Thanks. I hadn't checked that board yet.

 

Sad news.

One of the jazz giants, but probably the most under appreciated artist of his era -- his footprint on the music was enormous, both as a founder of the AACM, and as a mentor to a generation, and as a wide-ranging composer of genius -- his music went from gut bucket blues to atonal chamber music to free improvisation to hard post-bop swing, sometimes in a single piece. But even in a realm of music where giants are generally obscure, Abrams was more obscure. People maybe have heard of Roscoe Mitchell and the Art Ensemble, maybe Henry Threadgill, maybe Anthony Braxton, among artists who came out of that time and place, but Abrams? Not so much, even though his impact on the music is right up there with giants like Coleman and Taylor.

Funny thing about Abrams, when it comes to his recorded output, I don't know that he made a lot of great albums early on, and given that so often a musician is measured by great albums and era-defining albums and that sort of thing, there never really was an album of the mid or late '60s from Abrams you could point to as some kind of sign post for the music like you could point to Coleman's Shape of Jazz to Come or Mitchell's Sound or even Braxton's For Alto. So while his peers in Chicago may have looked to him as an intellectual leader, listeners in the outside world didn't necessarily have occasion to hear it that way.

As a record-making composer, Abrams was kind of a late bloomer. But then came the records he made for Black Saint beginning in the late '70s and through the '90s, and they were all not only good, many, many of the them were amazing, brilliant, era-defining records. It's just that in '89 or '91 when masterpiece sort of albums like The Hearinga Suite and Blu Blu Blu were coming out, few people were paying attention to jazz, and the greatness of these records 20-25 years after the initial breakthroughs of the AACM didn't really fit into the conventional narrative of an influential giant leaving his mark.

Long live his music.

 

Very sad to hear this, and I echo what chervokas has said. Of those Black Saint albums, Mama and Daddy and Blu Blu Blu really stand out for me (especially the former). I've been playing them both last night and today:

Here's a youtube link to the whole of Mama and Daddy (chervokas has already linked to a track from the other):



L.

 

a requiem for muhal richard abrams

 

Big loss.

 

Thanks for posting that.

L.

 

RIP.

 

I once lived down the hall from him for a year or so.

 

A huge loss to music.

 

In a world of unique musical talents, he was more uniquer than most.