Marco Eneidi (1956-2016)

[clifford_thornton]

Last night we lost the great alto saxophonist Marco Eneidi at age 59. Scrappy and true, his playing moved me so many times on record over the years and I only wish I'd had the chance to see him play in person. 

Looks like my review of his latest CD, Cosmic Brujo Mutafuka, will be running as a requiem.

Here's an interview that Taran Singh did in 2005 with him, which is very informative:

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/marco-eneidi-still-here-marco-eneidi-by-taran-singh.php

[relyles]

Sad news. I have not investigated his music as thoroughly as I have other artists, but I did appreciate everything I did hear. I was fortunate to hear him live once in 2012 with Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes.

[Leeway]

I saw him perform once in DC- a memorable occasion. There is a bare knuckle interview with him in an old issue of Cadence. RIP. 

[ep1str0phy]

This is a huge loss. I didn't know Marco very well, and even given a large volume of mutual friends, I only ever exchanged a handful of words with him. He seemed to be in the mode of "itinerant musician" by the time I got into playing music full time, so I only really heard and heard about him in passing--glowing, awed remarks from colleagues and echoes of his laser-focused alto in the interstices of the Bay Area scene.

I fully admit that he was the kind of talent that I neither had the opportunity nor insight to truly appreciate in his time, which is positively gutting today (with so many friends--many of them my "seniors"--offering tributes and condolences on FB).

In a more general sense, despite Marco's epochal work with the likes of Cecil Taylor, Peter Kowald, William Parker, Bill DIxon, and the legendary American Jungle Orchestra, he was somewhat unheralded outside of musician and hardcore improv circles. Part of this is regional--he spent so much time in the Bay Area, a perpetual press vacuum--part of this is the nature of playing uncompromising music in a fundamentally compromised epoch, itself saturated in compromised culture.

Folks like Marco--the diehards, the warriors--may not be your heroes (or, rather, you may not know that they are your heroes), but they live heroic lives, surviving and thriving through sheer willpower, conviction, and--in defiance of every bullshit stereotype you might imagine regarding jazz and/or creative musicians--fundamental decency and staggering focus.

If you want to celebrate folks like Marco, listen to his music, go see a live show, and spend some time digging into the unseen and unheard. The music is there--and I mean deeply, profoundly there--if you're willing to look.

Edited May 25, 2016 by ep1str0phy

[king ubu]

Very sad news indeed - don't know much of his work, alas, but wherever his name pops up, I'm mighty interested!

[AllenLowe]

sweetheart of a guy; we were supposed to meet this summer in New Haven. Became friends through Facebook (I sent him a few boxes of reeds as he was having a difficult time).  Just unfair.

[Д.Д.]

Very saddened by this news. A wonderful under-appreciated musician, and at 59 way too young to go. He's been living here in Austria for some time, but to my regret I never caught him live.