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The article continues at great length on this page, which also contains related features and links to many other related features:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/arts/music/david-bowie-dies-at-69.html



I wasn't a David Bowie fan in particular, but his vast creativity and influence are undeniable, and even for me, some decades would have been much duller without him.

R.I.P.
 

Rock Icon David Bowie Dies At 69



David Bowie performs at Wembley Arena in London in 1983.
Phil Dent/Redferns/Getty Images

Iconic rock musician David Bowie has died of cancer at age 69. The news was announced in a statement on Bowie's social media sites:

"David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer," it read.

Bowie's death was confirmed by his son, Duncan Jones, who tweeted, "Very sorry and sad to say it's true. I'll be offline for a while. Love to all."

The singer released his latest album, Blackstar, on his birthday on Friday. The New York Times described the album as "typically enigmatic and exploratory."

In a career that spanned decades and incorporated various personas, including Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke, Bowie was known for his innovative and wide-ranging musical styles and his highly theatrical stage presentation.

John Covach, director of the Institute for Popular Music at the University of Rochester, highlighted Bowie's influence on rock in the 1970s, singling out the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust for the "Ziggy Stardust" persona that Bowie adopted.

Covach adds:

"Jim Morrison had flirted with the persona of the Lizard King already in the late 1960s, and the donning of a persona in UK pop singing could be traced back at least to Screaming Lord Sutch in the early to mid 1960s. Like Alice Cooper and Peter Gabriel at about the same time, Bowie's performances became theatrical in ways that focused on the persona, and these shows took rock performance to new production levels, with greater emphasis on staging and costumes.

"Bowie's creative and performing persona would change from album to album and from tour to tour, permitting him to transform his music in ways that fans might not have embraced in other artists (Madonna would adopt a similar strategy beginning in the 1980s)."

The New York Times reports:

"Mr. Bowie was his generation's standard-bearer for rock as theater: something constructed and inflated yet sincere in its artifice, saying more than naturalism could. With a voice that dipped down to baritone and leaped into falsetto, he was complexly androgynous, an explorer of human impulses that could not be quantified.

"He also pushed the limits of 'Fashion' and 'Fame,' writing songs with those titles and also thinking deeply about the possibilities and strictures of pop renown."

Bowie's popularity hit another peak in the '80s with the release of Let's Dance. Hit singles from that album included the title track as well as "Modern Love" and "China Girl."

In addition to his musical career, Bowie was an actor, appearing in films including The Man Who Fell to Earth and Labyrinth.

Bowie is survived by two children and his wife, the model Iman.


Source

Pat Metheny on collaborating with Bowie:

"Working with David Bowie on “This Is Not America” was an incredible experience. I had written the song as the main theme for the score for “The Falcon and the Snowman”. After traveling to Mexico City where the filming was taking place and watching Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton do a few scenes, I went back to my room and the whole piece came very quickly.

Later while in London recording the score, John Schlesinger, the director of the film, suggested a collaboration with David Bowie for a version of the song to go over the final credits. David came to a screening of the film and I sat near him as he saw the picture for the first time. He had a yellow legal pad on his lap and was writing constantly. At the end of the film, he had a list of maybe 30 (brilliant) song titles that he had thought of while watching. One of them was “This Is Not America”, a line from the film.

David took the music with him and a month later the core of my band and I traveled to Montreux, Switzerland to join him in his studio to record the single. In the meantime, David had taken my original demo, added an additional drum machine part and while keeping the form and big chunks of the original melody, added an additional vocal line on top of the “A” section to which he had written those haunting and evocative lyrics. To me his words make “This is Not America” one of the greatest protest songs ever.

Watching him do his vocal was something I will never forget. I can only say that it was masterful - kind of like the feeling I have had whenever I have had the chance to be around a great jazz musician who carried a one-of-a-kind type presence that filled every note that came out of them. He was really fast. He asked if any of us could sing (we couldn’t/can’t!), so he did all the background vocals himself, kind of transforming into what seemed to be two or three different people as he did each part.

Throughout the whole experience, he was kind, generous and contrary to so many aspects of his various public personas, very normal and straight-ahead. My main impression was that he was extremely professional about everything that he did, that he really wanted to do a great job with the tune and to get a great singing performance and track down as quickly and spontaneously as possible.

And it doesn’t surprise me at all that his last recording includes some of the best contemporary players in New York, especially the fantastic Donny McCaslin. During our time together he expressed a real appreciation and knowledge of this music and saxophone players in particular. He carried the kind of broad view of music and art that was inspiring to me as a collaborator and a fan. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to be around him."

Source

Echoing the article above regarding the major jazz influence on David Bowie's final album, Blackstar, released last Friday on his 69th birthday. His backing band, the Donny McCaslin Quartet, who Bowie sneaked in to watch at the 55 Bar in the West Village, were recommended by Maria Schneider of the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra. These articles go over some of the details of that story and the production and quality of the album (I had been eagerly awaiting the release of this album, but of course did not expect it to be followed so shortly by Bowie's passing):

New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/arts/ ... ation.html
Rolling Stone - http://www.rollingstone.com/music/featu ... r-20151123
The Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-t ... aordinary/

Quote from the NYT article from Tony Visconti, long-time producer for Bowie:

“David and I had long had a fascination for Stan Kenton and Gil Evans,” Mr. Visconti added, referring to two prominent jazz orchestrators of the mid-20th century. “We spoke about that virtually the first time we met, back in the ’60s. We always saw pop and rock as something we were quite capable of doing, but we always held the jazz gods on a pedestal above us.”

The album is definitely a fine final touch from an artist who should have no problem being remembered as pedestal-worthy icon of the multiple genres he spanned over his career. It will take me many more listenings to feel out all of the various elements of his final release, but so far, it is a great listen.

This coming week at the Village Vanguard should be very interesting and emotional.

Donny McCaslin Quartet New York Times Critics' Pick
Village Vanguard
Jan. 19-26 at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.

It wouldn’t quite be accurate to say that this pugnacious band, led by the tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, has a big new album out this month. But it also wouldn’t be untrue. The album is the late David Bowie’s “Blackstar,” on which the quartet — with the keyboardist Jason Lindner, the electric bassist Tim Lefebvre and the drummer Mark Guiliana — hunkers down in deep-groove mode, providing something more essential and elusive than strict accompaniment. In his unassuming way, Mr. McCaslin takes a victory lap next week, bringing the band for the first time into the Village Vanguard, with one substitution: for every night but the last, Nate Wood will sub in on bass.

I found this nice summary of David Bowie's stage presence on Suzanne Vega's blog, in an entry titled "When Suzanne Met David Bowie":

He was both masculine and feminine, aristocratic and working class, human and alien, introspective and wild extrovert; he worked the whole range of what it’s possible to be onstage. Tough and vulnerable, funny and serious and tragic.

Today would have been David Bowie's 70th birthday. Still feels like a big loss nearly one year later.

Posthumous music video debuted this weekend for new song No Plan, one of the final songs he recorded.



A bit of the back story was presented on NYT today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/08/arts/ ... video.html