Malone died Friday at the age of 60. Malone suffered a heart attack while on tour with Ron Carter and Donald Vega.
“I am currently on a tour that began as The Golden Striker Trio, consisting of Russell Malone, Donald Vega, and Yours Truly.
On the 23rd Mr. Malone suffered a heart attack upon completion of our performance at Blue Note Tokyo. Donald Vega and I are completing this tour as a duo … in respect and honor of the memory Mr. Malone … this chair represents his presence.
Malone mostly worked in the Atlanta area until 1988 when he began two years of working and touring with Jimmy Smith. He was part of the Harry Connick Jr. big band during 1990-94 and became well known as the guitarist with the Diana Krall Trio during 1995-99.
Malone, who gave one the impression that he knew every standard ever written (he would often quote from obscure movie themes of the 1930s in his solos), was a brilliant and versatile straight ahead jazz guitarist with a clear and soulful tone and a relaxed but often hard-swinging style.
He recorded with such notables as Branford Marsalis, Don Braden, Wynton Marsalis, Terell Stafford, Roy Hargrove, Mose Allison, Ray Brown, Janis Siegel, Houston Person, Etta Jones, Regina Carter, Gary Burton, Cyrus Chestnut, Roger Kellaway, Diane Reeves (in a trio that also included guitarist Romero Lubambo), David Sanborn, Jimmy Cobb, Christian McBride, Steve Turre, and Sonny Rollins (he worked with him in 2010) along with many singers, and his duet and trio recordings with pianist Benny Green are an exciting treasure.
Malone, who appeared in the jam sessions scenes of the 1995 film Kansas City, was a member of the Ron Carter Trio (along with Mulgrew Miller or Donald Vega on piano) since 2002.
The guitarist led 13 of his own albums starting in 1991 and frequently toured with his group which gave him the opportunity to perform his originals along with superior tunes from earlier eras.
Here is Russell Malone, after being introduced by Dianne Reeves, playing solo guitar on a beautiful and quietly emotional ballad in 2010.
Russell Malone, a jazz guitarist whose encyclopedic knowledge of musicians and songs, combined with a precise yet relaxed playing style, earned him jobs with Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall and many others, as well as a dedicated following as a solo artist, died on Friday in Tokyo. He was 60.
His death, from a heart attack, was announced on social media by the bassist Ron Carter, in whose trio Mr. Malone had worked for many years. The trio, with Donald Vega on piano, was touring Japan and had just finished a performance at the Blue Note Tokyo when Mr. Malone died.
Mr. Malone was highly regarded for his versatility: He was able to support a variety of singers and instrumentalists in a range of styles, but he also had his own well-defined sound as a bandleader and soloist.
He was open about his influences — among them B.B. King, Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino — and he was never shy about pointing out how much he had learned from them, and how much of their sound showed up in his playing.
“When I hear a player play, if I don’t hear a smidgen of influences, I get suspicious,” he said in a 2023 interview with the online magazine Jazz Guitar Today.
He managed to carry the weight of those influences without sounding derivative. He was known for a distinctive style that was precise and spare but at the same time warm and luscious.
Mr. Malone emerged on the jazz scene in the late 1980s with the organist Jimmy Smith. He joined Mr. Connick in 1990 and played with him on tour and on seminal albums like “We Are in Love” (1990) and “Blue Light Red Light” (1991). He was with Ms. Krall from 1995 to 1999.
He recorded 10 albums as a leader, beginning with “Russell Malone” in 1992, while continuing to work with a long list of notable artists, including B.B. King, Branford Marsalis, Christian McBride, David Sanborn and Sonny Rollins — all of whom said they valued his ability to fit into, and elevate, their own sound.
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“He had great swing,” the drummer Lewis Nash, who frequently played with Mr. Malone, said, “but he was also like a chameleon, in the sense that he could play in so many scenarios.”
He started playing music at 4, after his mother gave him a green, four-string plastic guitar. He gravitated toward blues and gospel and played in his church band. He fell in love with jazz at 12 after watching George Benson play with Benny Goodman on television.
He began teaching himself licks by listening to records by Mr. Benson, Mr. Montgomery and other guitar greats and practicing them over and over.
By the time he graduated from high school, he was playing professionally around Atlanta, both alone and in groups. The repertoire he played ranged far beyond jazz to include country (Chet Atkins), rock ’n’ roll (Elvis Presley) and even punk (the Ramones).
After wrapping up a gig at a Holiday Inn one evening in 1987, he went to see Jimmy Smith perform at a club. When Mr. Smith saw the young player in the audience, still dressed in a tuxedo and sitting anxiously beside his guitar, he invited him up to play.
Mr. Malone started out cocky, he later recalled, but couldn’t keep up with the renowned organist.
After Mr. Malone stepped down from the stage, red-faced, Mr. Smith turned to the crowd.
“Now, whenever we let youngsters sit in with us, we always like to make sure that they learn something,” Mr. Smith said. “Now, did you learn something, junior?”
“I said, ‘Yessir,’” Mr. Malone recalled.
Mr. Malone is survived by his wife, Mariko; his children, Darius and Marla; his mother; his brothers Tony Barnes, Ricardo Jones and Stanley Jones; and his sister, Tametrice Jones.
Mr. Malone joined the jazz faculty at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., as an adjunct professor in 2021, when the guitarist Gene Bertoncini retired. Though he had never taught before, he proved a natural in the classroom.
“On the days he taught, he changed the whole building with his energy,” David Demsey, the coordinator of jazz studies at William Paterson, said in an interview. “He treated everyone the same.”
Mr. Malone brought the same sort of humility to his playing.
“I’m not concerned about living up to someone else’s idea of the perfect jazz guitarist,” he told The St. Louis Post Dispatch in 2001. “Or what’s considered to be cutting edge. But I’m committed to being the best musician I can be.”
