In Memoriam: Claire Daly, 1958–2024

By Lara Pellegrinelli I Oct. 23, 2024

Claire Daly, right, performs with tenor saxophonist George Garzone at Dizzy’s in 2023.
(Photo: Michael Jackson)

Claire Daly often signed her correspondences with “Love and Low Notes.”

The baritone saxophonist, who died Oct. 22 at age 66 after a year-long battle with cancer, had a special affinity for frequencies in the depths of the tonal spectrum. Down there, she might burnish a ballad’s lingering melody to a chestnut glow, or cause a blues to erupt into craggy, fire-spitting peaks. Her most recent recording, VuVu for Francis (2023), with guest tenor saxophonist George Garzone, finds the pair matching each other coolly phrase by phrase on Charles Lloyd’s “Sweet Georgia Bright” and romping merrily through Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Lonely Goatherd.”

“She came forward with the goods,” says Garzone, who knew Daly for more than 40 years and performed during the album’s release party at Dizzy’s Club in New York. “I’m not just saying that. She couldn’t have known it would be the last record she made, but she played right up to the mark, the best I’d ever heard her. I’m happy and honored to be on it with her.”

Daly won Baritone Saxophonist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association and the DownBeat Critics and Readers polls multiple times. She made seven recordings as a leader. Her 1999 debut, Swing Low (Koch), was selected for the collection of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum because the recording was significant to the former President while he was in office. Daly performed as a leader at the Monterey, Litchfield, Perth and Mary Lou Williams jazz festivals. She served as a faculty member for more than two decades at the Litchfield Jazz Camp, leading combos during the school year for “Litchfield in New York.” She also taught for a decade in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Middle School Jazz Academy, proposing and running a special ensemble for girls.

Widely known for her outgoing and big-hearted nature, Daly was equally gifted at dispensing the love from her signature as the low notes. At her semi-annual Oscars event, which featured music from classic Hollywood films, Daly awarded golden statuettes to audience members based on her own categories, such as the Oscar Peterson, the Oscar de la Renta and even the Oscar Madison. She led rehearsals, hosted jam sessions and threw parties in her Chelsea loft; a century earlier, the space may have been home to the Tammany Club and the illicit leisure pursuits of its crooked politicians. Numerous jazz musicians would call the loft home upon their arrival in New York.

A virtuoso of the jazz hang, Daly could, on many nights, be found happily listening in the audience at other people’s gigs — and wherever the action was afterwards, cigar in hand. “Whenever we were at a conference or festival together,” remembers DownBeat Editor and Publisher Frank Alkyer, “we’d end up somewhere we weren’t supposed to be, laughing and having a blast.” Daly contributed features and interviews to DownBeat. She served as an adjudicator for the DownBeat Student Music Awards for more than a decade.

Born Feb. 26, 1958, Claire Anne Daly was the youngest of four siblings and spent her youth in Yonkers, just north of New York City. She studied ballet and acted in commercials as a teen. At Maria Regina High School in Hartsdale, she also distinguished herself as a spelling bee champion, tying for first place in a run-off with the local Catholic boy’s school. (She would bitterly recall that only the boy was allowed to advance to the next competition, an injustice she attributed to her gender.)

Daly’s early love of jazz was fostered by her father, Patrick, who took her to hear the heroes of the Swing Era. At the loft, she kept framed autographs of Benny Goodman and his band members that she had collected as a girl. Daly began studying the saxophone around age 12. As a student at the Berklee College of Music, she played alto and tenor, studying with Joe Viola and Charlie Banacos; Garzone coached her in an advanced ensemble. Although Daly felt Berklee was a boy’s club at that time, she found camaraderie with classmates and fellow saxophonists Carol Chaikin, Laura Dryer and Jenny Hill.

Daly graduated in 1980, playing in an all-female New Wave band called Dish and rock bands before moving to New York in 1985. She then transitioned to baritone. Daly was a member of the Kit McClure Band, including tours backing 1980s icon Robert Palmer. And she was a founding member of the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, occupying the baritone chair for seven years.

“Claire was all about swinging and great sound,” says saxophonist Virginia Mayhew, who was also a member of DIVA and says Daly was her first real friend in New York. “She never tried to fit in or do what anybody else thought she should do. I always appreciated that so much. It was always about the music and not a macho competition.”

Daly’s long-time quartet included pianist Eli Yamin, bassist Dave Hofstra and drummer Peter Grant. Her recording projects as a leader include Rah! Rah! (2008; re-released on Ride Cymbal, 2020), a tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk; the Mary Joyce Project (2011), dedicated to her trailblazing second cousin who traveled across Alaska by dogsled in the 1930s; Baritone Monk, in which she reimagined Thelonious’ idiosyncratic compositions on the horn (North Coast Brewing, 2012); and the Motown collection 2648 West Grand Boulevard (Glass Beach Jazz, 2016).

Daly was a frequent collaborator and regularly lent her talents to projects by other artists: pianist Joel Forrester’s People Like Us, singer Nora York, poet Kirpal Gordon, Two Sisters Inc. with fellow baritone saxophonist Dave Sewelson, TriBeCaStan, IsWhat?! with beatboxer Napoleon Maddox and bassist Joe Fonda, the J. C Hopkins Biggish Band, and trumpeter Matt Lavelle among them.

Announcement of Daly’s diagnosis with squamous cell neck and head cancer in 2023 was met by an outpouring of support. Within days, a GoFundMe campaign for her treatment and living expenses had collected donations from hundreds of friends and fans, ultimately raising more than $75,000. Daly is survived by her brother Frank Daly of Goshen, Connecticut. Information on her memorial will be shared on her CaringBridge webpage. DB