In Memoriam

Drummer John “Jabo” Starks, who played on many of James Brown’s hits, died on May 1, 2018 at age 79. For much of the time he was with Brown, Starks played alongside drummer Clyde Stubblefield. Both drummers played on such Brown songs as “I Got the Feelin’,” “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m…

African gyil master and teacher Bernard Woma died April 27, 2018. Woma was born in Northwestern Ghana, near the border with Burkina Faso. He began playing the gyil when he was two years old. At age five, Bernard was introduced to Ziem Tibo, a xylophone maker and player who became Bernard’s mentor and guide. Bernard…

Dean Witten, Professor of Percussion and Director of Percussion Studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, since 1979 died on March 16, 2018, after a battle with cancer. Witten gave the world premier performances of more than 40 works for percussion. He had served as principal percussionist of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra…

By Rick Mattingly Drummer, percussionist, producer, composer, clinician, and educator Leon Ndugu Chancler died on February 3, 2018 after a battle with cancer.  His website states that the name “Ndugu” is Swahili for “brother, family, kinsman—for us it means togetherness.” Judging by the huge outpouring of tributes on social media following his death, it was…

LA Philharmonic percussionist, composer, educator dies at 82. ENCINITAS (Oct. 28, 2017) – Mitchell Peters, a prodigious composer, recording artist, music professor, and former principal timpanist and percussionist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, died today in Encinitas at the age of 82. Mr. Peters joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic as its co-principal percussionist in…

Clyde Stubblefield, known for his work with James Brown, died on February 17 of kidney failure. He was 73 years old. Stubblefield was born in Chattanooga, Tenn. In 1943 and had lived in Madison, Wis. since the early 1970s. He toured with Otis Redding before joining Brown in 1965, where he played alongside drummer John…

Margaret “Willi” Zildjian, co-founder of the Sabian Cymbal Company with her husband, Robert Zildjian (whom she married in 1951), and mother of current Sabian president Andy Zildjian, died on February 14, 2017. When Sabian was founded in 1981, she came up with the name, based on the first two letters of the names of her…

Michael Quinn, well known for his distinguished career as percussionist and timpanist in the USA and abroad, died on Jan. 21, 2017 at his home in Switzerland with his family after a long illness. His many years performing included percussion positions with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany. He…

Drummer Alphonse Mouzon died on December 25, 2016. In the 1970s, along with Billy Cobham and Lenny White, Mouzon helped fashion a jazz-rock, or “fusion,” style of drumming by combining the volume, rhythms, and energy of rock playing with the polyrhythms, techniques, and finesse of jazz. Born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina, Mouzon started…

On November 16, 2016, the Paiste cymbal company announced the death of Robert Paiste Robert was born in 1932 in the family’s country of origin, Estonia. The disruptions during the mid-20th century brought the family through Poland to Northern Germany, where in the late 1940s he joined his father, Michail, in cymbal and gong making….