Posted on May 13, 2020 at 6:24 pm

I’ve found it punishingly hard to write music during these last nine weeks (nine weeks!), but I did manage to do this, a tribute to the great Bucky Pizzarelli and all the extraordinary jazz musicians lost to the coronavirus.

Many thanks to the folks at Local 802 for asking me to create something, and to Pete Donovan for putting the video together (and beautifully laying down the bass), as well as all the musicians who contributed: Jamie Eblen (drums), Monica Davis (violin and viola), Janet Axelrod (flute), Lynne Cohen (English horn), Elise Frawley (viola), Kyle Hoyt (French horn), Morris Kainuma (tuba), Caryl Paisner (cello), and the wondrous Tony Kadleck playing a gorgeous flügelhorn solo.

At the end of my intro, you’ll hear a list of some of the players I admired who were taken away from us in the past two months. Their names, linked here to Nate Chinen’s lovingly detailed obituaries, are:
Bucky Pizzarelli
Lee Konitz
Ellis Marsalis
Wallace Roney
Mike Longo
Henry Grimes
Jymie Merritt
Bootsie Barnes

If you’ve got any bread to spare, or you’re a musician in need of some help, head over to the Local 802 Emergency Relief Fund: https//erf.local802afm.org