Charlie Mariano R.I.P.

[Stereojack]

A truly great musician, and held in especially high regard here in Boston, his home town.

[JohnS]

Sad news indeed. I was enjoying his fine Bethlehem music a few days ago.

[RogerF]

Another great musician gone. Apart from all the aforementioned contributions he made to jazz, he was also a pivotal, founding member of the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble. RIP Charlie, you will be missed.

[king ubu]

Sad news indeed. I was enjoying his fine Bethlehem music a few days ago.

Yes, good music! The quartet is marvellous!

Those "Plays" albums (by Charlie, Stu Williamson, Max Bennett...) should have been given the same treatment as the "Kenton Presents" sessions got... but Bethlehem is beyond reach for Mosaic, alas.

[mikeweil]

His death came as a bit of a surprise to me - I knew of his age, but his looks didn't really change over the last ten to twenty years, which made him kind of ageless. He was a prominent and important figure among the Americans in Europe, and will he sorely missed.

[stevebop]

In today's Boston Globe:

Charlie Mariano, saxophonist, musical sojourner

By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | June 17, 2009

Charlie Mariano, the Boston-born saxophonist who gained world renown as a performer with his former wife, Toshiko Akiyoshi; Stan Kenton; and Charles Mingus, among many others, died yesterday at Mildred Scheel Hospiz in Cologne, Germany, his longtime home. Mr. Mariano, who had battled cancer for years, was 85.

“He was the dean of Boston jazz musicians,’’ says jazz impresario George Wein, a Boston native who resides in New York and was a colleague and friend of Mr. Mariano’s since the 1940s. “Charlie was a wanderer, and he left his mark wherever he went.’’

Born Carmine Ugo Mariano in 1923, he was weaned on his father’s beloved Italian operas and the big bands he heard on the radio: Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie, whose saxophonist Lester Young became Mr. Mariano’s first musical hero. He would not get his own saxophone until his 18th birthday, but in short order, the ambitious young musician was playing nightly at Izzy Ort’s bar and dance hall in what was then known as Boston’s combat zone, for $19 a week.

Mr. Mariano was drafted in 1943, but never saw combat. He was tapped to play in one of the several small music ensembles that entertained at officers’ clubs. Near the end of the war, Mr. Mariano, who was stationed on an air base north of Los Angeles, heard Charlie Parker play live for the first time, during Parker’s first West Coast gig, at Billy Berg’s jazz club in Hollywood.

“He completely turned my head,’’ Mr. Mariano said of Parker in “Tears of Sound,’’ a 1993 biography of Mr. Mariano published in Germany. Taken with the sax great’s inventive harmonics, newfangled rhythmic figures, and breakneck tempos, “I chased Bird’s sound, his way of phrasing. I listened to his solos on recordings for hours, wrote them down, and played it.’’

As it was for many alto saxophonists, Mr. Mariano found his muse and musical foundation in Parker’s ground-breaking sound. After leaving the Army in 1945, he drifted to Chicago, then Albuquerque, picking up work where he could, and finally wound up back in Boston. When the big-band era began winding down and many local clubs were closed, the largely self-taught Mr. Mariano enrolled in music school for the first time, at the Schillinger House of Music, which would later be renamed Berklee College of Music.

Mr. Mariano started to develop his own sound under the tutelage of Joe Viola, and he became a fixture on Boston’s vibrant jazz scene, collaborating with Nat Pierce, Jaki Byard, and fellow students Herb Pomeroy and Quincy Jones. In 1950, Mr. Mariano released his first recording as a bandleader, and several years later founded the Jazz Workshop, a hands-on school that emphasized experience over instruction and later evolved into a popular nightclub.

At the end of 1953, the financially strapped Mr. Mariano received a life-changing call from Stan Kenton, who tapped the saxophonist for his big band. After a couple of years on the road, Mr. Mariano settled in Southern California, where he joined drummer Shelly Manne’s band and worked as a session player.

But he soon grew disenchanted with the hours spent behind the wheel of a car and the relentlessly “cool’’ jazz scene in L.A., and in 1958 Mr. Mariano accepted a teaching position at Berklee. He only lasted two terms before moving back west, accompanied by the young piano phenom Toshiko Akiyoshi.

The pair married in 1959 and over the course of several years bounced from New York, where they formed the Toshiko Mariano Quartet and Mr. Mariano performed and recorded with Mingus, to Tokyo, back to New York, and then to Boston, where Mr. Mariano returned to teaching in the mid-1960s.

“I had him for an ensemble, and every week he would stop the band and pick on somebody,’’ said Mr. Mariano’s former student, saxophonist Arnie Krakowsky of Boston. “Four, five, six weeks go by, and he didn’t stop me, and I thought I must be doing better than I think. Then one day, he stopped the band and pointed at me and said: ‘You. When you go home this weekend, I want you to tell your mother and father that you want to be a doctor or a lawyer.’ That was his way of telling me I needed to practice. When we saw Charlie walking the halls at Berklee, we would walk the other way. We were petrified of him. He was that good.’’

Mr. Mariano also became known for his work on the nadaswaram, a South Indian woodwind instrument he discovered on an extended trip to Kuala Lumpur.

After divorcing Ms. Akiyoshi in 1967, Mr. Mariano wandered the globe for years, commuting between the United States (he had yet another go teaching at Berklee) and Europe (where he eventually settled).

Following the formation of Osmosis, his early jazz fusion group, Mr. Mariano devoted his last several decades to exploring musical amalgams inspired by other cultures, as well as by pop and rock. He was diagnosed in 1995 with advanced prostate cancer and given a year to live by his doctors, but with the help of alternative therapies and conventional treatment he lived another 14.

“His music was the music of a traveler,’’ says Eric Jackson, longtime host of the WGBH show “Jazz with Eric in the Evening.’’ “Just look at the places Charlie called home in the course of his life. He was on a lifelong musical journey.’’

Mr. Mariano leaves his wife, painter Dorothee Zippel Mariano of Cologne; his sister Connie Rosato; six daughters, Sherry of Salisbury, Cynthia and Melanie Lamar, both of Merrimac, Celeste Perrigo of Berwick, Maine, Monday Michiru of Long Island, N.Y., and Zana of Toronto, Canada; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Mr. Mariano is being cremated in Germany, and the ashes will be entombed at the family grave in Boston.

[Larry Kart]

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4336907,00.html

This link from Ted O'Reilly

[Durium]

CHARLIE MARIANO

A great jazz musicians has gone ............

Charlie Mariano (1923-2009)

Keep swinging

Durium

[Kyo]

Sad news indeed. I was enjoying his fine Bethlehem music a few days ago.

Yes, good music! The quartet is marvellous!

Those "Plays" albums (by Charlie, Stu Williamson, Max Bennett...) should have been given the same treatment as the "Kenton Presents" sessions got... but Bethlehem is beyond reach for Mosaic, alas.

I agree, it's great stuff. I already had the Japanese 2in1 Mariano Bethlehem set and

now decided that it's about time I get the Stu Williamson 2in1 as well. The Max

Bennett stuff doesn't seem quite as interesting judging from the lineup.

[Enterprise Server]

Sorry to hear of his passing. But at least he did live a full life when compared to so many other artists of his generation.

[Tom 1960]

Sad news indeed. I was enjoying his fine Bethlehem music a few days ago.

Yes, good music! The quartet is marvellous!

Those "Plays" albums (by Charlie, Stu Williamson, Max Bennett...) should have been given the same treatment as the "Kenton Presents" sessions got... but Bethlehem is beyond reach for Mosaic, alas.

I agree, it's great stuff. I already had the Japanese 2in1 Mariano Bethlehem set and

now decided that it's about time I get the Stu Williamson 2in1 as well. The Max

Bennett stuff doesn't seem quite as interesting judging from the lineup.

Thanks for plugging this album. I purchased the Fresh Sounds release and should have this in my mailbox very soon.

[fasstrack]

I receive that few minutes ago:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends and colleagues,

today I have the sad task of informing you that Charlie Mariano is no longer among us, he "checked out" this morning.

Email is not how I would have wanted to pass on this message to you, but due to his great number of friends, I am not able to call each of you personally.

We will miss his voice, we will miss his humor, and all of you who over the years had the good luck of playing together with him will feel the loss.

He had spent the last weeks in the Mildred Scheel Hospiz where he was given the best possible care. His wife Dorothee had been caring for him lovingly for months. His daughter from the US had come to be with him. Many of you had visisted him during the last months. He was not alone.

Tonite I will sit down to listen to his music. Two new CDs recorded within the last year are to be released, one with Chaouki Smahi and Billy Cobham, one with Jasper and Philip Catherine. At 85 he was still blowing beautifully, touching the hearts of his audience.

An era of great jazz players seems to be nearing it´s end. Please carry on the spirit of great music to which Charlie dedicated his life. Remember him as someone who played with everyone and everywhere, never could say no to anyone wanting him to join-up for a gig. Remember him as a musician who was held in great esteem but other musicians as well as by the listeners for besides his great music he was a sweet, and may I mention it; good-looking man. He was a friend and his loss will be felt dearly.

Sincere Greetings,

sharon

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RIP, Charlie.

Nice tribute. He seemed like he was happy to do his thing out of the spotlight. I loved that recording 'Portrait of the Artist'. I can't remember the writer, but Mariano with a big band and perhgaps strings.

85 years is a hell of a run, especially doing something as nuts as playing jazz.

[Chuck Nessa]

Nice tribute. He seemed like he was happy to do his thing out of the spotlight. I loved that recording 'Portrait of the Artist'. I can't remember the writer, but Mariano with a big band and perhgaps strings.

Don Sebesky.

[fasstrack]

Nice tribute. He seemed like he was happy to do his thing out of the spotlight. I loved that recording 'Portrait of the Artist'. I can't remember the writer, but Mariano with a big band and perhgaps strings.

Don Sebesky.

Thanks. I have to get that, it knocked me out, writing and playing both.

[Guest Bill Barton]

R.I.P.

The breadth of his recorded legacy is remarkable. Such variety! He was definitely a seeker...

[ValerieB]

Charlie Mariano Scholarship Fund at Berklee

For those who are interested, the Mariano family has set up the Charlie Mariano Scholarship Fund at the Berklee College of Music. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be mailed to: Berklee College of Music, c/o Marjorie O'Malley, 1140 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 02215; or one can contact Ms. O'Malley directly at: momalley@berklee.edu, (617) 747-2569.

[clifford_thornton]

Indeed, a fine player and very daring - even if one didn't always like the surroundings he chose, one still had to respect his ideas and desire to challenge himself. Sad to see him go.

[Jay]

Though I am a little late, I wanted to at least acknowledge what a great artist he was and in my opinion, a fusion trailblazer (in addition to all of the wonderful mainstream and later, world jazz, records that he did).

To wit, an example of an excellent fusion record devoid of all of the excess that doomed the 70's version of the genre:

I am glad that I have this album and others that I can enjoy in his memory....

[hepcat1950]

Two pics I took on November 21, 2008

to the left: Booby Stern's sax

Charlie Mariano's alto sax

See more pictures from the Birthday Concert at the Theaterhaus, Stuttgart, Germany.