Ronald Bell was an American composer and saxophonist best-known as the founder of Kool & the Gang.
He wrote and produced many of the band’s songs including “Celebration”, “Cherish”, “Jungle Boogie”, “Summer Madness”, and “Open Sesame”.
RIP Simeon ‘Silver Apples’ Coxe (1938 – 2020)
Simeon Coxe (1938 – 2020) was an American composer and musician known as a founding member of the electronic rock ensemble Silver Apples.
I guess I first stumbled upon Silver Apples when I bought the Underground Moderne cd by Nova Records. It had the track “Gypsy Love” on it, and I always skipped it. Silver Apples were undeniably of great influence, but none of their records would end up in my desert island selection.
RIP Cini Boeri (1924 – 2020)
Cini Boeri was an Italian architect and designer.
RIP Gary Peacock (1935 – 2020)
Gary Peacock was an American jazz double-bassist. He recorded a dozen albums under his own name, and also performed and recorded with major jazz figures such as Albert Ayler, Paul Bley, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Tony Williams.
On Life Time (Blue Note, 1964), Gary Peacock plays bass on tracks one to three.
RIP Jiří Menzel (1938 – 2020)
Jiří Menzel (1938 – 2020) was a Czech director, actor and screenwriter.
He is best-known for the film Closely Watched Trains (1966).
RIP David Graeber (1961 – 2020)
David Graeber was an American left-wing thinker and activist, author of Bullshit Jobs, Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Utopia of Rules.
He coined the phrase we are the 99%.
He will be missed.
RIP Itaru Oki (1941 – 2020)
Itaru Oki was a Japanese jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist.
He was part of the French Opération Rhino collective and as such appeared on the famous Nurse with Wound list.
RIP Hal Singer (1919-2020)
Hal Singer was an American R&B and jazz bandleader and saxophonist. He was the last surviving male survivor of the Tulsa race massacre.
He is known for such instrumentals as “Malcolm X” on the album Paris Soul Food (1969), produced by Bernard Estardy.
If you are a melomaniac, I’d check the latter’s “Ombilic Contact” en “Cha Tatch Ka”.
RIP Stuart Christie (1946 – 2020)
Stuart Christie was a British anarchist, best-known for plotting a failed assassination of General Franco in Spain.
Stuart Christie links to the Situationists, Paris 68, the American hippies and the European Years of Lead era.
RIP Edmond Kiraz (1923 – 2020)
Edmond Kiraz was a French-Armenian cartoonist and illustrator.
He is best known for his Parisiennes, his post-war Parisian wafer-thin model girls which first appeared in print in 1966.