Alvin.Batiste.RIP

[Lazaro Vega]

New Orleans morns the loss of veteran clarinetist Alvin Batiste who passed

away in his sleep early Sunday morning, May 6, 2007. Batiste was scheduled

to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival later today.

New Orleans morns the loss of veteran clarinetist Alvin Batiste

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans morns the loss of veteran clarinetist Alvin

Batiste who passed away in his sleep early Sunday morning, May 6, 2007.

Batiste was scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

later today.

His most current CD; Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste is with Bradford

Marsilas and other notable Jazz musicians. It also includes a reading by

wife, Mrs. Edith Chatters Batiste.

Several well known musicians studied under Alvin Batiste while at Southern

University. They include Randy Jackson (American Idol), his brother Herman,

Brandford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Henry Butler, Kent Jordan, Micheal

Ward, Herlin Riley, Charlie Singleton (Cameo), Woodie Douglas (Spirit) and

others.

His Columbia album billed him as a "Legendary Pioneer of Jazz." Alvin

Batiste is an avant-garde player who does not fit easily into any

classification. Under-recorded throughout his career, Batiste was a

childhood friend of Ed Blackwell and he spent time in Los Angeles in 1956

playing with Ornette Coleman. However, Batiste chose the life of an educator

in Louisiana where he taught music at Southern University in Baton Rouge

where her created the Batiste Jazz Institute and currently at the New

Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) where served as lead teacher in

jazz instrumental music.

Batiste recorded with the AFO ("all for one") quintet in New Orleans,

performed with Cannonball Adderley, and toured with Ray Charles in 1958, but

was an obscure legend until he made three albums with Clarinet Summit in the

1980s (a quartet also including John Carter, David Murray, and Jimmy

Hamilton). Batiste recorded an album, Bayou Magic, in 1988 as a leader for

India Navigation and made the 1993 Columbia album Late. Songs, Words and

Messages, Connections appeared in 1999, followed by Marsalis Music Honors

Alvin Batiste in 2007.

Batiste also performs on the Marlon Jordan featuring Stephanie Jordan 2005

CD which was a production of the Jordan-Chatters-Batiste family.

Arrangements will be announced onced complete.

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Vincent Sylvain

The New Orleans Agenda

[Tjazz]

I enjoyed his music.

[GA Russell]

I'm stunned. I'll put on his new CD. RIP.

[CJ Shearn]

damn, another one gone.

[GA Russell]

Here's his obituary from the Washington Post via the LA Times:

Alvin Batiste, 74; veteran jazz clarinetist

By Adam Bernstein, Washington Post

May 7, 2007

Alvin Batiste, a widely respected jazz clarinetist, composer and educator who played across the musical spectrum, from traditional to avant-garde styles, and was a prolific figure on the jazz festival circuit, died Sunday at his home in New Orleans after an apparent heart attack. He was 74.

He played Saturday at FestForAll, a celebration in Baton Rouge, La., and died hours before he was scheduled to perform with pianist and singer Harry Connick Jr. and saxophonist Branford Marsalis at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Batiste recorded sparingly but performed with saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Cannonball Adderley, considered modern jazz greats, as well as musicians as diverse as drummer Billy Cobham and pianist Dr. John. Never a household name but always admired among musicians, Batiste received broader recognition in the 1980s, touring and recording with Clarinet Summit, a quartet that included John Carter, David Murray and Jimmy Hamilton.

Batiste was born Nov. 7, 1932, in New Orleans, where his father, a railroad worker, played traditional jazz clarinet on the side. Outside home, Batiste grew immersed in the city's music offerings.

"I remember following a parade when I was 3 years old," he told a Baton Rouge reporter last year. "It was Easter Sunday. I had on a little white suit and, all over New Orleans, the people fed me. When I got home, after they expressed the happiness for me being there, then they almost killed me."

Batiste received extensive musical training through the school system and, as a college student, was a guest soloist with the New Orleans Philharmonic, playing a Mozart clarinet concerto.

He was a 1955 music education graduate of Southern University and later earned a master's degree in clarinet performance and composition at Louisiana State University.

Batiste was increasingly influenced by bebop jazz pioneers such as saxophonist Charlie Parker. In 1956, he helped start the American Jazz Quintet in New Orleans with drummer Ed Blackwell, pianist Ellis Marsalis, saxophonist Nat Perrilliat and bass player Chuck Badie.

Batiste considered the American Jazz Quintet an experiment in a modern chamber-jazz sound, and it resulted in an early album, "In the Beginning."

Competent on piano and saxophone, Batiste was called on for his multi-instrumental skills while touring with rhythm-and-blues artists such as Ray Charles, Guitar Slim and Little Willie John.

He also was a studio musician for the AFO ("all for one") label in New Orleans and toured regionally with his band, the Jazztronauts. That group included many of his music students at Southern University, where he helped create the jazz studies program in the late 1960s.

As an educator, Batiste influenced several generations of performers, including Branford Marsalis (son of Ellis, brother of Wynton) and pianist Henry Butler. Though retired from Southern University, he continued to teach at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, a conservatory for young adults.

His first major-label release was 1993's "Late" for Columbia Records, which included several of his compositions and a trio led by pianist Kenny Barron. This year, Branford Marsalis produced "Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste," which showcased Batiste's compositions.

Batiste is survived by his wife of 53 years, Edith Chatters Batiste of New Orleans and Baton Rouge; three children, Alvin Batiste Jr. of Plaquemine, La., Marcia Wilson and pianist Maynard Batiste, both of Baton Rouge; a sister; and 12 grandchildren.

[LarryCurleyMoe]

Sorry to hear - truly a marvel on the instrument - Batiste could PLAY THE HELL outta his clarinet - sweet stuff too. That Columbia release "Late" is tasty...

By a stroke of luck - I heard Alvin play live at Chicago Jazz Festival in the 1980's and was BLOWN AWAY...

A very underappreciated cat IMO...R.I.P.

[mikeweil]

R.I.P.

A major force in new Orleans music. Clarinet is not my favourite instrument, but he sure was a helluva player of it.

Edited May 7, 2007 by mikeweil

[ep1str0phy]

Sad news, but a great legacy left. RIP.

[GA Russell]

Here's what Doug Ramsey has to say in his Rifftides blog today:

May 7, 2007

Alvin Batiste, Gone

The news of Alvin Batiste's death of an apparent heart attack early Sunday morning came as I was preparing to write a few words about his new CD. A great clarinetist, a masterly transmitter of the jazz tradition, Batiste was scheduled to play Sunday at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr., two of the legion of Louisiana musicians who learned from him. As head of the music department at Southern University in Baton Rouge, much of Batiste's teaching was in that four-year institution, but in recent years he was also the primary teacher of jazz instrumental music at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA).Batiste.jpg

He teamed with NOCCA's founder, his lifelong friend Ellis Marsalis, to help shape the abilities of Connick, the Marsalis brothers (Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason), drummer Herlin Riley, saxophonist Donald Harrison and dozens of other young New Orleans musicians who have become prominent in jazz.

The first black soloist with the New Orleans Philharmonic, Batiste was thoroughly grounded in the formal rules of music and brilliant in breaking them. As effective in free music as he was in traditional jazz and bebop, Batiste jammed with Ornette Coleman during Coleman's New Orleans sojourn in the 1950s. Along with Ellis Marsalis, Harold Battiste, Ed Blackwell, James Black, Melvin Lastie, Al Belletto, Warren Bell, Jr. and a few others who fell under the spell of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and other pioneers of bebop, he helped establish modern jazz in the city.

In my encounters with Batiste in New Orleans over the years, I found him kind and gracious, with an endearing soft humor. In Batiste the educator those qualities were wrapped around a core of iron; he once ejected Branford Marsalis from the Southern University jazz band for insufficient commitment. Marsalis later said that the experience concentrated his focus. He went on to become one of the deepest improvising musicians of his generation.

Batiste's Cd titled Alvin Batiste is an initial release in the Honor Series on the Marsalis Music label. It was produced by Branford Marsalis, who plays saxophone on three of its tracks. Riley is the drummer. The other name musician is guitarist Russell Malone. They are supported by two youngsters Marsalis recommended, pianist Lawrence Fields and bassist Ricardo Rodriguez, both impressive in this fast company. Singer Edward Perkins appears on four tracks. Batiste has played farther out than he does in this collection, but the CD provides a broad acquaintance with his scope, his daring and the depth of his fat sound. Seven of the ten compositions are his, including "The Latest," a harmonic obstacle course in the manner of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and the funky anthem "Salty Dogs," which was adopted years ago by Cannonball Adderley. Exchanging phrases on "My Life Is A Tree," Batiste and Marsalis, on tenor sax, are continuations of the same line of thought. Batiste's bebop foundation is in stimulating evidence in the "Cherokee" derivative called "Bat Trad."

Batiste's concentration on music education kept him occupied. As a result, there is precious little of him on recordings. We may consider the CD Alvin Batiste a posthumous gift.

Quint Davis, the director of the New Orleans JazzFest, sums up Batiste's importance in this interview with WDSU-TV. The New Orleans Times Picayune combines an obituary and a wrapup of the tribute that replaced Batiste's appearance at the festival.

Branford Marsalis will play with his quintet this week at The Seasons. I look forward to reminiscing with him about his friend and mentor.

[Lazaro Vega]

"Legendary Pioneer of Jazz"

NEW ORLEANS (5/8/2007 - The New Orleans Agenda) - Alvin Batiste's body will lie in state for public viewing at the historic Gallier Hall, 545 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70113 on Friday, May 11, 2007 from 12:00 noon to 7:00 pm, followed by a musical tribute where several New Orleans musicians will perform in memory of the man they called "Bat."

Funeral service will be held at Gallier Hall, on Saturday, May 12, 2007 with public visitation from 9:00 am - 10:30 am. Final service begins at 11:00 am, to be followed by a musical procession immediately after the services. Arrangements by Duplain W. Rhodes Funeral Home, 1728 North Claiborne Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70116 (Phone: 504- 943-3422).

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