Jimmy Giuffre

Jimmy Giuffre has died. Giuffre was an important guiding artist at CMS because he served as a bridge between a more traditional, "mainstream" approach to jazz and some of the freer, "outside" approaches to improvisation. Too many who came to CMS were inclined toward the latter without much grounding in the former. Emily Hay credits Giuffre as the one who convinced her to stick with flute when she was interested in branching out to saxophones.

Here's an obituary from the Washington Post.

And here's an article that appeared in All About Jazz in 2003 that covers the range of Giuffre's career very nicely.

The quality of this video is not too good, but it's a nice opportunity to see Giuffre in his younger days as he was moving out of more traditional jazz structures. The absence of a drummer in his small groups became one of his hallmarks.