Gene lees biography

Frederick Eugene John Lees (February 8, 1928 – April 22, 2010) was a.
Lees, Gene (Frederick Eugene John).
Frederick Eugene John Lees was a Canadian music critic, biographer, lyricist, and journalist.

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The editorial staff at JazzProfiles subscribed to The JazzLetter for many years.

Its author, , who died in April, 2010 at the age of eighty-two, published The JazzLetter in monthly editions of 6-8 manuscript-sized, printed pages and mailed them to his subscribers.

Gene would often get behind in his efforts to put it out on a monthly basis and a clump of them would sometimes arrive in one envelope.

Who cared. Whenever one or more copies of The JazzLetter hit my mailbox, it marked a joyous occasion as I was about to be transported into some aspect of the world of Jazz and its makers by , whom Glen Woodcock of the Toronto Sun once labeled: “… the best writer on Jazz in the world today.”

Although, Tim Berners-Lee devised the first web browser and server at and launched the World Wide Web in August, 1991, about ten years after Gene began publishing The JazzLetter in 1981, the publication never made an appearance on the world-wide-web.

Irrespective of the fact that The

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Gene Lees, 1928-2010

Gene Lees died today. We lost a writer unsurpassed at illuminating music and the world that musicians inhabit. I lost a cherished colleague whose work inspired me, a dear friend whose companionship brightened my existence. For a formal biography, see his entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia. My remarks are more personal.

Gene’s books about Oscar Peterson, Woody Herman, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer and Lerner and Lowe are among the finest biographies of our time, regardless of category. He was completing a biography of Artie Shaw. I have read some of the manuscript. It is definitive. The collections of pieces from his invaluable publication Gene Lees’ JazzLetter are essential books for anyone interested in music. The titles indicate his range: Meet Me at Jim and Andy’s, Singers and the Song, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White, You Can’t Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt and Nat, Friends Along the Way: A Journey Through Jazz. Jazz Lives is Gene’s book of essays about 200 musicians from Spiegle Willcox to Christia

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By Mark Lewis

Ojai prides itself on its small-town charm, but it is not so small that everyone actually knows everyone. A person can live here for three decades — as Gene Lees did — without being widely recognized. So when Lees died in April 2010 at the age of 82, his friends mourned, and his Foothill Road neighbors took note, but his passing was not big news in his adopted hometown. The Ojai Valley News did not run an obituary.

Elsewhere, it was a different story. The New York Times hailed Lees as “a prolific jazz critic and historian who approached his subject with a journalist’s vigor and an insider’s understanding.” The Washington Post eulogized him as “a multi-talented writer who left a lasting mark on jazz as a biographer, an opinionated critic, and graceful song lyricist.” The Los Angeles Times quoted former New Yorker Editor Robert Gottlieb, who described Lees as “a strong presence in jazz.”

All the obituaries dutifully reported that Lees had died “in Ojai, Calif.” None explained how it was that