Patty Waters (1946-2024)

[clifford_thornton]

Sad to report that vocalist and sometime pianist Patty Waters has died at 78. The family announced it on social media yesterday, though it looks like she passed in late June.

Her ESP records and vocal contributions to the Marzette Watts Savoy LP, as well as the You Thrill Me archival release, are all incredible. She was an influence on Diamanda Galas, Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon, and certainly others in the underground. I've spent less time with her comeback CDs; her voice seemed to struggle (and we know it's not a forgiving instrument) but she was still out there doing it, and that's something. Spoke to her a couple of times on the phone twenty or so years ago but she was reluctant to do an interview. I'm told that later on she became more comfortable with the idea, so I guess I was just too early. She was very sweet but at the time still kind of shell-shocked from an uneasy life in and outside of music  – that's how it seemed, anyway.

RIP, Patty, and thank you.

There's nothing else out there like this:

 

 

and this is just beautiful (rec. 1969, not '66):

 

[JSngry]

From 1980:

Singing usually includes acting, and one of the things to act is vulnerability. Here, I don't think this is acting. This is real.

Rest. In Peace.

[clifford_thornton]

Absolutely true on the vulnerability aspect. As Burton told me, she was so fragile and the New York (free) jazz scene did not treat fragile people well.

[Rabshakeh]

Very sad news. That ESP record was a big one for me.

[optatio]

Yes, very sad ... R.I.P.

[mjazzg]

Sad to hear this. Regret not attending her Oto gig a few years ago

[jazzbo]

Seriously sad to hear. She was a marvel.