Something, it could be said, dies within when you hear of the passing of a person whose music you love and means something to you, and yet often as not by a person you didn’t even know. You do know the music though, it's inside you: that haunting melody or was it the sense of ultimate rhythm and freedom, or simply the feeling of losing yourself in the improvisation? Or just the indefinable romance of it all. Perhaps the person whose passing you mourn stood for a style or represented an era. Maybe they were a one-hit wonder, or stayed in the memory to represent a mythic time and a place. It could be that that particular person, always someone with a strong personality, had a sense of unerring sartorial elegance as well, or stood for cultural change, or ushered in a change in our consciousness. Maybe the person was just a journeyman player and that night you caught them was just a good night. But you’ll never forget it. Or maybe just maybe you never even heard them live and yet their records still send you. As the year draws to a close let’s bid farewell to Patti Page, George Gruntz, Butch Morris, Pat Halcox, Donald Byrd, Melvin Rhyne, Rune Carlsson, Bebo Valdés, Bob Brozman, Mulgrew Miller, George Duke, Ben Tucker, Bobby Blue Bland, Bengt Hallberg, Cedar Walton, Sathima Bea Benjamin, Bernie McGann, Oscar Castro-Neves, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Butch Warren, Chico Hamilton, Stan Tracey, Jim Hall, and so many others who all passed away in 2013 and whose music counted, and still does.
Cedar Walton above who died in August at the age of 79