Ludvigsen R.I.P.

You foreigners won't get this, but one of my first musical heroes, Gustav Lorentzen a.k.a. Ludvigsen of the musical duo Knutsen & Ludvigsen, passed away yesterday. I can't begin to explain what their music and (mostly, but by no means always, nonsensical) lyrics have meant to me, and indeed whole generations of Norwegian children, young and old. Thanks for the memories.

Rashied Ali, R.I.P.

Dang! Only got the news today - attending Øya usually means I have very little time reading news online, and I've yet to read a word about Ali in a Norwegian paper. Rashied Ali is probably best known as the drummer for John Coltrane in the '60s, but he played on plenty of other great records as well, with Touchin' On Trane with William Parker and Charles Gayle a personal favorite.

Some nice words for Ali over at Do the Math.

George Russell R.I.P.

Goerge Russell, the influential and very innovative jazz composer and theoretician behind such album classics as Ezz-Thetic, passed away earlier this week. More from jazz.com here, and Ben Ratliff of the New York Times here.

Edit: More thoughts from Darcy James Argue and Frank Kaplan.

Grant McLennan, 1958-2006

This is just too sad. Grant McLennan, co-founder of that utterly terrific group the Go-Betweens, sadly passed away in his sleep on Saturday 6th of May, 2006. There is a nice obituary on the band's official web site. The Go-Betweens have been one of the most astonishingly consistent purveyors of sophisticated and intelligent pop since the early eighties. Grant will be greatly missed.