US jazz clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre dead at 86

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Pioneering jazz performer and composer Jimmy Giuffre, whose distinctive avant-garde clarinet style drove a lengthy career that included working with legend Woody Herman, has died at age 86, US media reported.

Giuffre, a central figure in West Coast jazz best known for penning the big band classic "Four Brothers" with Herman in 1947, died Thursday in Pittsfield in the northeast state of Massachusetts, according to JazzTimes.com.

He died of pneumonia and complications from Parkinson's disease, it said.

A musician with multiple talents, Giuffre played the saxophone and flute, but it was his standout work on the clarinet which sealed his influential reputation. He took the then-conservative sounds of the clarinet into free-jazz territory and...