Lou Donaldson obit

Jazz legend, Badin native Lou Donaldson has died

He was not on the list.

Lou Donaldson, who was born and raised in Badin, North Carolina and became a legendary saxophone player, died Saturday at age 98.  Donaldson’s website posted a message to fans.  “The Family of Sweet Poppa Lou Donaldson sadly confirms his death November 9, 2024. A private service will be held. “Thank you for your support of Lou and his music throughout his career. Because of you, his legendary contributions to Jazz will live on forever.”

He was an American jazz alto saxophonist. He was best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to playing the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was heavily influenced by Charlie Parker, as were many during the bebop era. He was also known for being sampled many times in Pot Belly, his cover of Ode to Billie Joe, and his cover of It's Your Thing.

He attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro in the early 1940s. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was trained at the Great Lakes bases in Chicago where he was introduced to bop music in the lively club scene.

At the war's conclusion, he returned to Greensboro, where he worked club dates with the Rhythm Vets, a combo composed of A and T students who had served in the U.S. Navy. The band recorded the soundtrack to a musical comedy featurette, Pitch a Boogie Woogie, in Greenville, North Carolina, in the summer of 1947. The movie had a limited run at black audience theatres in 1948 but its production company, Lord-Warner Pictures, folded and never made another film. Pitch a Boogie Woogie was restored by the American Film Institute in 1985 and re-premiered on the campus of East Carolina University in Greenville the following year. Donaldson and the surviving members of the Vets performed a reunion concert after the film's showing. In the documentary made on Pitch by UNC-TV, Boogie in Black and White, Donaldson and his musical cohorts recall the film's making—he originally believed that he had played clarinet on the soundtrack. A short piece of concert footage from a gig in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is included in the documentary.

Donaldson's first jazz recordings were with bop musicians Milt Jackson and Thelonious Monk in 1952, and he participated in several small groups with other prominent jazz musicians such as trumpeter Blue Mitchell, pianist Horace Silver, and drummer Art Blakey. In 1953, he also recorded sessions with the trumpeter Clifford Brown, and with Philly Joe Jones. He was a member of Art Blakey's Quintet for the hard bop recording sessions at Birdland on February 21, 1954, which would yield the A Night at Birdland albums for Blue Note Records.

He was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame on October 11, 2012. Also in 2012, he was named a NEA Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2018, he declared himself retired, having performed his final shows in 2017. On November 2, 2021, he made a public appearance at a 95th birthday tribute show at Dizzy's Club in Manhattan, New York City. Lou appeared at his 96th and 97 birthday tribute shows on November 7, 2022, and October 30, 2023 but opted not to travel to New York City for his 98th birthday celebration due to a bout of pneumonia.