May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
Trumpeter Malachi Thompson died on July 16 at his home in Chicago after a lengthy battle against leukemia. He was 56.
Thompson had been a particularly active player in Chicago’s jazz scene. He joined the Association For The Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1968. While he left for New York ten years later when he formed the Freebop Band, he returned to Chicago in 1989 after he was diagnosed with cancer.
But Thompson never let the diagnosis discourage his music, or his advocacy on behalf of jazz. In 1991, he formed the Sutherland Community Arts Initiative, which set out to present arts education programs on the city’s South Side. That year, he also formed Africa Brass, a 13-piece brass ensemble. He also established a lengthy association with Delmark Records and recorded such discs as Spirit , Lift Every Voice , Buddy Bolden’s Rag and Blue Jazz for the label.
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
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