Blue notes

It's time for the annual look at what has happened over the past year and what will be happening this year in the world of jazz and blues, and as usual the grim reaper figures prominently.

There is no way of knowing what the headcount will be for 2010, but there was at least one noteworthy casualty for every month of 2009. It was a bad year for Ray Charles' saxophonists, with both David 'Fathead' Newman and Hank Crawford checking out, and for drummers, with Louie Bellson, Rashied Ali and Uriel Jones among the casualties.

Farewell also to George Russell, Charlie Mariano and Ian Carr, while an era truly came to an end with the passing of the relatively little known Lawrence Lucie at a venerable 101. The guitarist was believed to be the last surviving musician to have played The Cotton Club with Duke Ellington.

The blues mourns, among others, Snooks Eaglin, Eddie Bo, Koko Taylor and Willie King.

Not all the fallen made their greatest contributions as musicians. Pete King was a tenor saxophonist but he earned his place in jazz history as the managerial senior partner at Ronnie Scott's London jazz club, remaining at the helm after Scott's death. The club has since changed hands and style, but King and Scott between them maintained it as one of the great jazz venues of the world for almost five decades.

Art D'Lugoff, who founded the Village Gate club in New York, was a contemporary and in some respects an American counterpart of King and Scott, and he also died last year. Sadly, there were too many more keepers of the flame snuffed out to list.

With regard to CD releases, internationally it was a good, but not vintage year, while locally nothing much happened except for the release of Tan Hanjin's debut as a jazz singer - watch this space though for new recordings by Hong Kong-based artists due out in the coming months.