It is with a heavy heart that I share with you that Andrew White – DC Jazz icon, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, Coltrane musicologist, 5th Dimension and Weather Report bassist, and all-around one-of-kind iconoclastic showmen – passed away on November 11th at the age of 78.
For the past year and half, Andrew has had some health issues but was recently improving and on the mend in an assisted living facility outside of DC. I visited him the Saturday before his death and he was in great spirits, alert, and funny as ever. Larger than life, Andrew White has been playing jazz on the DC music scene since he was 18 years old at Howard University, when Cannonball Adderley noticed his talent and produced the young musician’s group, the JKF Quintet (who released two albums on the Riverside Label). For the past 50 years, Andrew has recorded and produced his own music on his Andrew’s Music label, demonstrating what it means to be a self-produced, independent artist. I was thankful to have known him for the last 16 years and featured him on Lost Treasures in 2018 where he reminisced about his years as a musician and his work with Andrew’s Music. Andrew Nathaniel White III goes to that great jam session in the sky to be reunited with the love of his life and wife of 42 years, Jocelyne. Details on a memorial service forthcoming and possible public celebration of his music and his life (through DCPL and LOC). Bobby Hill will be celebrating Andrew's life today on WOWD, with a rebroadcast of his earlier tribute on takomaradio.org. I will be a guest remembering Andrew, along with Washington Post icon Richard Harrington, DCPL archivist Ray Barker, and jazz musician Marty Ehlrich. You can tune in on 12/5/20 at 3:00pm on takomaradio.org or streaming locally at 94.3 FM. https://soundcloud.com/.../lost-treasures-radio-show... Comments are closed.
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AuthorLover of words and music Archives
July 2024
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