# Alto sax master Richie Cole has died at the age of 72: Photos, Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/05/03/alto-sax-master-richie-cole-has-died-at-the-age-of-72-photos-videos/
- Published: 2020-05-03T17:52:51+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Alto saxophone great Richie Cole once referred to in Downbeat magazine as “the
sax machine,” has died at the age of 72. Cole is believed to have passed away in
the early morning hours of Saturday, May 2nd. Details regarding his death are currently
unknown. This article will be updated as new information becomes available.**

Richie Cole was a prolific composer who has recorded over 50 albums with the likes
of Eddie Jefferson, the Manhattan Transfer, Bobby Enriquez, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny
Stitt, Art Pepper, Tom Waits, Boots Randolph, and Nancy Wilson. He performed at 
the historic Village Vanguard and Carnegie Hall. Cole even gave a command performance
for Queen Elizabeth II.

Years ago, the prominent jazz critic Leonard Feather noted Cole’s lively and informal
presentations and “the free-wheeling and sometimes satirical nature of his performances.”
The website _About Jazz_ says Cole _“is the last of a breed — a fast and competitive
musical gunslinger acquiring legendary status for his willingness to demonstrate
his command of Charlie Parker’s bebop language by taking on all comers at any speed.”_

_“I like to trick people into liking jazz by keeping things friendly, upbeat, and
familiar,”_ stated Cole, who represented a musical link that runs from bebop’s founder
Charlie Parker and innovator Phil Woods to the present. Woods — who married Parker’s
widow — taught at a summer performing arts camp in New Hope, where he met the young
Cole and became his mentor. The two eventually joined in recording an album, _“Side
by Side.”_

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_“(Bebop) to me is the ultimate expression of jazz,”_ Cole said about the style 
that he mastered. It is a style that followed swing in the late 1940s, employed 
both traditional and untraditional harmonic and rhythm constructions (with an emphasis
on the untraditional), and stressed playful, fast, and intricate solos that let 
musicians soar as they explored both sound and emotion. In addition to Parker, other
masters of the style that took its name from sounds related to scat or sound singing
include Dizzy Gillespie and Theolonius Monk. “_If serious jazz musicians study their
music, they’ll see that it starts with bebop. You must master your instrument. Anything
that comes into your head you can play, because you have mastered your instrument.
Bebop musicians are like classically trained musicians,”_ Coe had stated.

Another important thing to recall, he expressed, is that bebop performers are not
just playing music. _“They’re telling a story off the top of your head; you’re not
reading the story. (Saxophonist) Sonny Rollins is a poet. He’s telling a story. 
I understand it. Every paragraph he’s talking about. That’s the core of my thing.”_

Cole shared that’s how the style of music came to him. _“That’s just the way I heard
it. I used to stay up listening to the radio. I used to stay up all night listening
to the jazz stations. I was attracted to bebop. I understood it. When I was growing
up in the ’70s, the avant-garde was out, and it looked like I was playing old folks’
music. But I heard it, and I based my career on it. It wasn’t easy. I was a young
white guy playing black bebop music. It was like a contradiction.”_

Although he has performed with some of the jazz greats — including Buddy Rich — 
a generation of music lovers remembers his four-year partnership with jazz vocalist
Eddie Jefferson. That great and playful collaboration ended when Jefferson was gunned
down during a drive-by shooting after a concert on May 9, 1979. _“A day doesn’t 
go by that I don’t think about the man. He was the world’s greatest pure jazz singer,”_
Cole has said.

Here is a classic recording featuring Eddie Jefferson and Richie Cole:

Cole often says that he was born to play jazz, and his family background backs up
the claim. His father was the proprietor of two Trenton jazz clubs in the segregated
1940s. The black-patrons Harlem Club featured great black players from New York 
and Philadelphia. The other, white Hubbie’s Inn, booked Las Vegas-type acts.

Cole’s decision to play alto sax at 10 years old was a natural. A pawned alto sax
ended up in his house. _“I grew up with a sax and smelled the metal and played with
the keys. When I went to elementary school and wanted to be in the band, I had the
instrument. I was blessed to be in an era when the public-school systems had great
music departments. I had great teachers who really helped me a lot. I was one of
the two people in the world who got a full scholarship,”_ stated Cole of his 1966
Downbeat Magazine award that took the Ewing High graduate to jazz and contemporary
music-oriented Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Cole left Berklee for experience, playing lead alto with Buddy Rich’s band in 1969.“
_I took the place of famed alto-saxophonist Art Pepper. It was the dream job. I 
went around the world. I was with him for two-and-a-half years. I have been very
lucky with my career and had a lot of good breaks.”_ Other experiences included 
joining bands led by Lionel Hampton and Doc Severinsen, playing with the Manhattan
Transfer, and then creating his own group, the Alto Madness Orchestra.

_“The idea of the orchestra is the concept and sound of an 18-piece big band using
only seven instruments, four of which are horns. Not only does this have the big
band ensemble sound, it also allows us plenty of room for improvisation as if we
were in a quartet setting,” _Cole shared in an earlier interview.

When asked about his personal musical presence, Cole, self-assured but not self-
congratulating, says, _“I have a distinctive sound. You hear it and you know it’s
Richie Cole. That’s an accomplishment. I go to Russia all the time, and the literary
people call me the poet of jazz. I do not play the saxophone; I sing the saxophone.
I approach it like a (vocal) soloist. I sing it. I play the melody straight, then
I do what I want and improvise, tell the story, and then come back to the melody.
And there’s the creation.”_

For Cole, the storytelling or improvisation comes from places beyond thought. _“
I do not plan what I’m going to do; it just comes out. I quote (other pieces of 
music). When you improvise, it just comes out. If you think too much, you’re going
to (screw) it up. Don’t think. Just blow, man,”_ he was quoted as saying.

What made a standard his own related to deeply felt life experiences. “_For some
reason, I am torn between serious jazz and show business. I have a sense of humor.
I have to because my life has been a catastrophe.”_  That catastrophe, he says, 
includes the deaths of two wives, a battle with alcoholism, and problems with the
music business.

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Cole has played with the greats, appeared at international festivals, recorded more
than 50 albums and CDs, written more than 3,000 compositions (including symphonies
for 80-piece orchestras), and served on the boards of the National Jazz Service 
Organization and the National Endowment for the Arts, where he was chairman for 
one year.

_“Almost every recording I’ve done is my statement at the moment,”_ he says. And
several recordings and sessions available on YouTube give testament to his artistry
and talent.

_“Yardbird Suite,”_ recorded in 1981 by the Richie Cole Quintet at the Village Vanguard
in New York City, shows Cole’s exuberance, dexterity, and grounding in style. Clear
and bright throughout, he begins with a solid respect to the score before launching
into a fast-paced yet masterfully controlled exploration of tonal relations and 
phrases before returning to the introduction. Throughout Cole makes choices that
seem to honor the work’s originator, Parker, and the work’s era while not sacrificing
his own sensibility, such as when he uses a rising and playful flourish to end a
phrase and introduce another musician.

Here is a vintage video of Richie Coe performing _Yardbird Suite_ at the Village
Vanguard in 1981:

In the 1978 _“Moody’s Mood,”_ Cole’s phrasing is full, smooth, and expressively 
swelling and retreating, suggesting the sensuous quality of Ella Fitzgerald, one
of the great bebop vocalists. And, in “Something’s Coming” from Leonard Bernstein’s“
West Side Story” he merges both bebop and cool jazz into an interpretation that 
clearly delivers the song while imbuing it with his soulfulness and playfulness.

Here is the 1978 recording of “Moody’s Mood” in the classic Cole style:

Cole is also known for his playful rendition of the _“I Love Lucy”_ theme song for
one of television’s landmark shows.  Recording and performing this tune in varietal
ways.

Here is a recent rendition of Cole’s take on _I Love Lucy_ that features the Uptown
Vocal Jazz Quartet:

In the past decade, Riche Cole had been living in Pittsburgh and benefited from 
the generous stewardship of bassist and jazz musician Mark Perna.  Recording several
albums in the past few years. These albums continued to showcase his legendary stature
as one of the trailblazers and unique sounds in jazz.  The latest albums the past
few years include _Richie Cole Plays Ballads and Love Songs_, _The Many Minds of
Richie Cole_, _Have Yourself an Alto Madness Christmas_, _Richie Cole: Pittsburgh_,
_Latin Lover_, _and Cannonball. _

In a 2019 interview, Perna and Cole along with Vince Taglieri talked about Cole’s
resurgence in jazz recordings and in the jazz scene.

The interview was at the time of the release of _Cannonball_, where Cole paid tribute
to his longtime hero, jazz legend Cannonball Adderley.

Cole certainly did enjoy a resurgence in the past five years. Thanks to the help
of bassist and producer Mark Perna. Here is an example of this collaboration that
features Richie Cole in a recording of _The Girl From Carnegie_ from his album _Latin
Lover_:

No doubt, Richie Cole will be remembered as one of the most enigmatic and revered
figures in jazz history.  His music, interviews, and appearances were a source of
jazz electricity to be reckoned with. Cole leaves behind a catalog of music that
will always be remembered for its bebop energy. A significant sound that carried
on the legacy of Charlie Parker and bebop jazz.

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