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As a personal manager, Levy assisted the careers of jazz legends Ramsey Lewis, Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderly, and Freddie Hubbard among others.  Vocalists Nancy Wilson, Roberta Flack, and the late Betty Carter saw their careers flourish under Levy’s tutelage as well. Levy also worked with stars outside of music, managing comedian-actor Arsenio Hall for a time. According to an NPR report, Levy didn’t use binding contracts with the artists he managed.

Levy was recognized as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006, receiving the nation’s highest honor nine years after his induction into the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997.

Levy’s decision to become a manager and open his management company, John Levy Enterprises Inc., was inspired by a need to make the best life for artists in a time where racism and segregation threatened to silence many of the artists he helped manage.

While Levy was born in New Orleans on April 11, he grew up in Chicago. Never finishing high school, Levy began playing piano and subsequently picked up the bass all while working a series of odd jobs. After a stint on Chicago’s club scene, he moved to New York City in 1944, which eventually led him to playing behind legendary jazz songstress Billy Holiday at her famous Carnegie Hall appearance in 1948.

Levy’s 2001 biography, “Men, Women, And Girl Singers: My Life As A Musician Turned Talent Manager,” was co-written with his wife. It detailed Levy’s long career and push for equal treatment of entertainers of all races and genders.

Levy is survived by his wife, Devra; three children, Michael, Pamela, and Samara; 14 grandchildren; and a host of great-grandchildren.

Learn more about John Levy here.

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Monique Rivers Williams says her father died Monday night from pneumonia.

The Oklahoma native was a saxophonist, flutist and composer.

He started his career in Boston, where he performed with Herb Pomeroy’s big band in an ensemble that included future music producer Quincy Jones. In 1964, he moved to New York and was hired by Davis. He played with a diverse group of musicians there that included Gillespie, T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker.

He moved to Orlando in the early 1990s and regularly played with a group of jazz musicians whose day jobs were at Walt Disney World.

Plans are being made for a public memorial concert.

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CHICAGO — Grammy-winning Blues musician David “Honey Boy” Edwards, believed to be the oldest surviving Delta bluesman and whose roots stretched back to blues legend Robert Johnson, died early Monday in his Chicago home, his manager said. He was 96.

Edwards had a weak heart and his health seriously declined in May, when the guitarist had to cancel concerts scheduled through November, said his longtime manager, Michael Frank of Earwig Music Company.

Born in 1915 in Shaw, Miss., Edwards learned the guitar growing up and started playing professionally at age 17 in Memphis.

He came to Chicago in the 1940s and played on Maxwell Street, small clubs and street corners. By the 1950s Edwards had played with almost every bluesman of note – including Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Charlie Patton and Muddy Waters. Among Edwards’ hit songs were “Long Tall Woman Blues,” “Gamblin Man” and “Just Like Jesse James.”

Edwards played his last shows in April at the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, Miss., Frank said.

“Blues ain’t never going anywhere,” Edwards told The Associated Press in 2008. “It can get slow, but it ain’t going nowhere. You play a lowdown dirty shame slow and lonesome, my mama dead, my papa across the sea I ain’t dead but I’m just supposed to be blues. You can take that same blues, make it uptempo, a shuffle blues, that’s what rock `n’ roll did with it. So blues ain’t going nowhere. Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Edwards won a 2008 Grammy for traditional blues album and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2010. His death represents the loss of the last direct link to the first generation of Mississippi blues musicians, Frank said.

“That piece of the history from that generation, people have to read about it from now on,” Frank said. “They won’t be able to experience the way the early guys played it, except from somebody who’s learned it off of a record.”

Edwards was known for being an oral historian of the music genre and would tell biographical stories between songs at his shows, Frank said. He was recorded for the Library of Congress in Clarksdale, Miss., in 1942.

“He had photographic memory of every fine detail of his entire life,” Frank said. “All the way up until he died. He had so much history that so many other musicians didn’t have and he was able to tell it.”

Edwards gathered those stories in the 1997 book “The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards.” He wrote in the book that his father bought a guitar for $8 from a sharecropper and Edwards learned to play in 1929.

“I watched my daddy play that guitar, and whenever I could I would pick it up and strum on it,” Edwards wrote.

Edwards was known for his far-ranging travels and played internationally. In his 90s, he was still playing about 70 shows a year. Edwards would visit with the audience after every show, taking pictures, signing autographs and talking with fans, Frank said.

Edwards earned his nickname “Honey Boy” from his sister, who told his mother to “look at honey boy” when Edwards stumbled as he learned to walk as a toddler. He is survived by his daughter Betty Washington and stepdaughter Dolly McGinister.

“He had his own unique style,” Frank said. “But it was a 75-year-old style and it was a synthesis of the people before him and in his time.”

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Foster died Tuesday morning at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia, of complications from kidney failure, according to Cecilia Foster, his wife of 45 years.

Foster was recognized in 2002 by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master, the nation’s highest jazz honor . In a statement expressing sadness at Foster’s death, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman called him “an extraordinary saxophonist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and educator.”

Landesman added, “We join many others in the jazz community and beyond in mourning his death while celebrating his life.”

According to the NEA, Foster’s many compositions included material for singers Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra, and a commissioned piece written for jazz orchestra for the 1980 Winter Olympics: “Lake Placid Suite.”

Foster was a native of Cincinnati. He told NEA interviewer Don Ball in 2008 that he “had an ear for music” from an early age. He said his mother took him to hear opera when he was just 6.

Jazz big bands caught his attention when he was 12. Foster’s first instrument was clarinet, but at age 13 he took up the sax. Foster told the interviewer he played in a dance band at Wilberforce University and went on to join Basie’s band in 1953.

During his 11-year tenure with Basie, Foster not only played tenor saxophone and other woodwinds but also contributed numerous arrangements and compositions for the band, including the jazz standard “Shiny Stockings,” Down for the Count,” and “Back to the Apple.”

After Basie’s death, he returned to assume leadership of the Count Basie Orchestra from Thad Jones in 1986. He won two Grammy Awards while leading the band until 1995.

However, Cecelia Foster said he was proudest of his own big band: Frank Foster’s Loud Minority. He also played as a sideman in drummer Elvin Jones’ combo and co-led a quintet with fellow Basie veteran, saxophonist-flutist Frank Wess.

Foster also served as a musical consultant in the New York City public schools and taught at Queens College and the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Although he was partially paralyzed by a stroke in 2001, Foster’s wife said he continued composing “up until the end.”

In the NEA interview, Foster said, “I had always had as much fun writing as playing … But when you play something, if you mess up you can’t make it right. But you can write something, and if it’s not right you can change it. And I always had as much pleasure writing as playing because the thrill of hearing your music played back to you is almost indescribable.”

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In this exclusive video for NewsOne, Radio One founder Cathy Hughes (who is the daughter of original Sweethearts band member Helen Jones Woods) discusses the legacy of these “freedom riders and freedom fighters,” and even reveals that Beyoncé found inspiration in their example:

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WASHINGTON, DC — The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, America’s first all-female racially-integrated band, are being interviewed onstage today at the Smithsonian Institution from 11 a.m. to noon ET as part of the launch of the museum’s Jazz Appreciation Month.

In this onstage conversation (and webcast), members of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm discuss the history of women in jazz and the legacy of the Sweethearts. Moderated by Frank Alkyer (publisher, Down Beat and Music, Inc.) and David Baker (maestro, Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra).

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Return to NewsOne over the next few days to see more behind-the-scenes of this historic event.

Click on the video below to begin watching:

Video streaming by Ustream

This week the Smithsonian Institution celebrates the Sweethearts’ legacy as part of the launch of the museum’s Jazz Appreciation Month.

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The Sweeethearts’ exhibit will be on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC from March 25 to May 31. Members of the Sweethearts, which included Black, white, Latino and Asian women, will participate in several events on March 29 and 30 at the museum. Radio One founder Cathy Hughes, whose mother Helen Jones Woods was an original band member, will also be a participant [NewsOne is a division of Radio One]:

Hughes, the Piney Woods School and Roz Cron (she had the largest collection) will participate in a “Donation Ceremony” to highlight their collection.  And then Ms. Hughes will facilitate an brief (10 minute) onstage discussion with six of the original Sweethearts who will participate in programming at the Smithsonian:  They are Helen Jones Woods (trombonist), Ms. Hughes’ mother; Willie Mae Wong Scott (saxophonist), the child of a Chinese father and mixed race Native American mother, she grew up on Mississippi in 1920s; Sadye Pankey Moore (trumpeter), African American; Johnnie Mae Rice Graham (pianist), African American; Lillie Keeler Sims (trombone), African American woman who played with the Sweethearts their first year but later served as an educator and administrator in the NYC school system 40 years;  and Roz Cron, one of the first white woman to join the band. On March 30th, the Sweethearts and Cathy Hughes will participate in a 60 minute discussion on the Sweetheart’s legacy that will be webcast via UStream.

NewsOne will provide continuing coverage and a deeper look into the Sweethearts’ history in the coming week.

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PARIS (AP) — Singer Al Jarreau has been taken to a hospital in France with breathing problems.

A hospital in the Alpine city of Gap says the 70-year-old fell ill before a concert Thursday at a jazz festival in the French town of Barcelonnette.

Hospital official Maurice Marchetti said the Grammy Award winner is still in the intensive care unit Friday and his condition is “worrisome.”

Jarreau, who started out in jazz before crossing over into pop and R&B, is in the midst of a European tour. It is unclear whether he will be able to make other stops planned for July, in Germany, Azerbaijan, Austria and Slovak.

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NEW YORK — New York City is planning to build a new home for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem across the street from the legendary Apollo Theater.

The complex will include an art house movie theater and a satellite office of the city’s tourism agency.

The city’s Economic Development Corp. on Monday issued a request for proposals for developers to bid on the project, which will be a further step in Harlem’s growth as a tourist destination.

“Harlem more than ever has become sort of a global icon for the city,” said George Fertitta, the head of NYC & Co., the tourism agency. “It’s a magnet for visitors from all over the world.”

The project will occupy a city-owned lot on Harlem’s main commercial strip, 125th Street, in front of the Apollo, the famed theater that became a venue for aspiring black performers who were routinely turned away at other sites in the 1930s.

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Through its legendary Amateur Night, the Apollo is famous for propelling the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, James Brown and others.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is housed in smaller quarters on 126th Street but will be able to expand its offerings in its new home.

Executive Director Loren Schoenberg said museum exhibits will incorporate live musicians, and there will be real and virtual instruments for visitors to play.

“Jazz really gets the endorphins going, and we want the museum experience to replicate that,” Schoenberg said.

Others in the jazz world said they look forward to the reborn jazz museum.

“It’s wonderful that they’ve finally found a site,” said Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University and a former board member of the Harlem jazz museum. “Harlem is certainly a place where there should be a permanent representation for jazz and its history.”

Harlem has in recent years attracted growing numbers of guidebook-toting tourists. European visitors line up around the block for Sunday services at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and on weekdays they may see former President Bill Clinton heading to his office on 125th Street.

Soon, more of them will be able to stay in the neighborhood if they want to. The city this month awarded $19.8 million in tax-exempt financing to a partnership including American football great Emmitt Smith to build a 200-room luxury hotel, also on 125th Street.

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Subsequently many Haitians, white, mixed, as well as free Blacks and slaves relocated to New Orleans after the Haitian revolution. Many of these people became what we now know as the “creole” population.

Free Black people helped the USA defeat the British in the war of 1812. Despite the fact that New Orleans was a center of the slave trade, New Orleans was home to a large population of free, educated, land owning people of color.

New Orleans was an important part of the Civil War. New Orleans was an important center and was taken and occupied by the union early in the Civil War. During reconstruction, many people of African descent held office, including P.B.S. Pinchback, who was the first non-white governor in the U.S. and the only one for more that 117 years.

After reconstruction failed, New Orleans returned to segregation. The landmark case of Plessy Vs. Fergurson happened after a creole was arrested in New Olreans for sitting in a segregated area of a train. This case would be tried by the Supreme Court and would provide legal justification for segregation.

New Orleans was also at the center of the civil rights struggle. The influential South Christian Leadership Committee (SCLC) was founded in New Orleans. New Orleans was also the site of many lunch counter sit-ins and protests over desegregation of school. The famous Norman Rockwell picture of Ruby Ridges, was of a six year old Black girl who integrated the William Franz School in the lower 9th Ward.

New Orleans is also credited as being the birthplace of Jazz music. Jazz started in New Orleans as a mixture between ragtime, blues and traditional French brass band marching music. Louis Armstrong, a trumpet player born in New Orleans went on to become on of Jazz’s most successful musicians.

In 2005, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The world finally go to see the poor people of the 9th ward, who had their poverty compounded by natural disaster. The Hurricane highlighted the large difference between rich white people and poor Black people in New Orleans.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

Jazz is coming to el, though it won’t be cheap.

Beginning this weekend, the CTA will start running a car featuring live Jazz musicians on a Purple Line train running from downtown to Evanston and back.

“People ride the CTA every day to work, but we thought this would be a good chance to take the train out of that context and put it in a different one,” Daniel Melnick, the program director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, told the Tribune‘s Howard Reich.

The new car, called the Chi-Jazz El Train by the Mayor’s Office of Special Events and the Jazz Institute of Chicago, leaves on its inaugural two-hour trip from the Library Stop at 1 p.m. Sunday. A CTA historian will point out noteworthy landmarks along the way.

Click here for more.