Sunday, February 19, 2012

Sadness - Brilliant People - Short Aborted Lives

I've been blessed in my life to have been exposed to a lot of incredible music which has made my life often a joy!

Clifford Brown died a month after my 5th birthday. Magic Sam died a week after playing at the Nitty Gritty Bar in Madison, Wisconsin - within several hundred yards of where my dorm room was. (I'd never heard of him at the time.) I love both of their music!

Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. The clean-living Brown has been cited as perhaps breaking the influence of heroin on the jazz world, a model established by Charlie Parker. Clifford stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol. In June 1956, Brown and Richie Powell were being driven from Philadelphia to Chicago by Powell's wife Nancy for the band's next appearance. While driving on a rainy night on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, west of Bedford, she lost control of the car and it went off the road. All three were killed in the resulting crash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTN--4gy6II

Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett (February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969) was an American Chicago blues musician. Sam's breakthrough performance was at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969,[4] which won him many bookings in the U.S. and Europe. His life and career was cut short when he suddenly died of a heart attack in December 1969.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyfoe2zSdyg

Two of my favorite musicians both died young - not killing themselves through their actions, but leaving a wonderful musical legacy despite their short lives. Sad!