how did joe farrell die?

[brownie]

...enough about death!!!

[Peter Johnson]

Still like Couw's version better!

[Chuck Nessa]

what happened to sonny clark?!?

Heroin overdose did it

JR Monterose told me a combination of junk and alcohol did him in. He said he and Sonny were junk "partners" - JR said Sonny "nodded off" with a gallon jug of wine on his finger and when he woke up he struggled to pull it off his (now swollen) finger and had a heart attack. That is what JR told me in 1964 or 5.

[ep1str0phy]

Morbid as it is, talking about death is as much about remembering--so I'll throw Mongezi Feza in here... died in a sort of sanitarium and, if I recall correctly, he was actually suffering from pneumonia (exacerbated by the doctors' poor diagnosis and treatment). F'in tragedy.

[clifford_thornton]

Morbid as it is, talking about death is as much about remembering--so I'll throw Mongezi Feza in here... died in a sort of sanitarium and, if I recall correctly, he was actually suffering from pneumonia (exacerbated by the doctors' poor diagnosis and treatment). F'in tragedy.

Yup. Sucks.

[marcello]

what happened to sonny clark?!?

Heroin overdose did it

JR Monterose told me a combination of junk and alcohol did him in. He said he and Sonny were junk "partners" - JR said Sonny "nodded off" with a gallon jug of wine on his finger and when he woke up he struggled to pull it off his (now swollen) finger and had a heart attack. That is what JR told me in 1964 or 5.

From several sourses here:

CLARK, Sonny

(b Conrad Yeatis Clark, 21 July '31, Herminie PA; d 13 Jan. '63, NYC) Piano. Bud Powell was the definer of jazz piano; the brilliant young Clark simplified and personalized Powell's approach with a soulful drive, but died of a heart attack probably exacerbated by drugs.

He freelanced in New York from 1957-62, until he was hospitalized for a leg infection. He died suddenly of a heart attack shortly after he was discharged from the hospital.

One notorious drummer junkie told me that he was found either in a doorway or a hall "frozen" in a stoop or a crouch.

Sorry about the gory details.

[AllenLowe]

here's a tragic one - Jaki Byard told me (though I have no other corroboration) that Eric Dolphy died because, when he went into insulin shock, the people around him (he was in Europe at the time) assumed that he was a junkie and that his problem was drug-related. So he was treated incorrectly and died - not 100 percent sure this is true, though Jaki was usually a pretty reliable source. If so, it is someowhat ironic, given that the Europeans, whom we generally see as enlightened in racial matters, had many of the same stereotypes -

[couw]

here's a tragic one - Jaki Byard told me (though I have no other corroboration) that Eric Dolphy died because, when he went into insulin shock, the people around him (he was in Europe at the time) assumed that he was a junkie and that his problem was drug-related. So he was treated incorrectly and died - not 100 percent sure this is true, though Jaki was usually a pretty reliable source. If so, it is someowhat ironic, given that the Europeans, whom we generally see as enlightened in racial matters, had many of the same stereotypes -

I have heard the same story, it's even in the Wikipedia entry for Dolphy. The stereotype was rather about the profession than about race. Everyone knows that jazz musicians are drunken drug addicts.

[clifford_thornton]

Prince Lasha told me the same thing about Dolphy. The slight variant was that they grabbed his needles and insulin and locked him in a room, and by the time they realized what had happened, it was too late.

[rockefeller center]

http://listserv.uh.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind98...;T=0&P=4146

[couw]

http://listserv.uh.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind98...;T=0&P=4146

yes, but this is another millenium

[MartyJazz]

My recollection, for which I can not easily find any substantiation on the web, is that he had a brain tumor or even brain cancer. Sound familiar to anyone else?

That was definitely the case with Pepper Adams. I recall sharing a dining booth with Mel Lewis at "The Angry Squire" in NYC sometime during the late '80s at which time he divulged that information. For that gig, Pepper was appearing as the front line member of the Michael Weiss Quartet.

[AllenLowe]

"Everyone knows that jazz musicians are drunken drug addicts."

well, maybe only 70-80 percent of them -

the reall horror story about Pepper Adams, if it is true, is that it has been said that his wife, when she found out he had terminal cancer, basically took everything and left him - don't kow, however, how accurate that is, though I've heard it from more than one source -

[Niko]

http://listserv.uh.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind98...;T=0&P=4146

does anyone know details about this?

Dolphy and Coltrane did use an excessive amount of sweets, especially

honey,