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Jackie McLean

John H. Armwood Jazz History Lecture Nashville's Cheekwood Arts Center 1989

Friday, November 04, 2016

Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist who spent five decades with Sonny Rollins, dies at 83 - The Washington Post

"Bob Cranshaw, a versatile jazz bassist best known for his association with saxophonist Sonny Rollins, whom he accompanied on virtually every concert and album since 1962, died Nov. 2 at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.



The cause was cancer, said his wife, Bobbi Cranshaw.



Mr. Cranshaw never had an album as a leader, but he was on dozens of well-known jazz recordings, including trumpeter Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” in 1964. He toured for several years with singer Ella Fitzgerald and appeared on more recordings on the famous Blue Note jazz label in the 1960s than any other bass player.



With his early classical training and an ability to play in any style, Mr. Cranshaw proved to be so adaptable and dependable that he may have been the only musician who performed, at various times, with Bing Crosby, Paul Simon, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Rod Stewart, Peggy Lee, the “Saturday Night Live” orchestra and the studio band of “Sesame Street.”



“I didn’t ask to be a star,” he said in a 2014 interview with jazz pianist Ethan Iverson on the Do the Math website. “I wanted to be a sideman. I wanted to be a super-sideman.”



Mr. Cranshaw first performed with Rollins in 1959 at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago. It was a demanding job because, at the time, Rollins had a bare-bones lineup, backed by just bass and drums.





Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist who spent five decades with Sonny Rollins, dies at 83 - The Washington Post

Juilliard students perform "Rick Rolling the Westboro Baptist Church" "Three members of the infamous Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church protested yesterday morning outside of The Juilliard School and LaGuardia High School in New York City. Largely known for its demonstrations at military funerals and routine hate speech, the group was protesting what it condemns as “the vanity called ‘The Arts’.” An announcement on Westboro’s website takes aim at Juilliard by quoting several bible verses and concludes: “If you had taught those children to invest 5 percent of the energy they use for the vanity called ‘The Arts’, America would not be leading the world in racing to destruction.” Shirley Phelps Roper, daughter of the church’s founder and one of the protesters, told Playbill that her group chose Juilliard, ranked as one of the top music academies in the world, because the school’s teachers “have taught this nation proud sin. They have filled the nation with proud sodomites.” How did the students respond when met with deplorable signs, homophobic slurs and anti-Semitic statements? By using their talents to create a joyful noise with a spirited, impromptu concert, highlighted by an original arrangement of the aptly-titled vintage tune, “God Loves Jazz.”