Joey Ramone

popular name: Max Roach

date_of_death: August 16, 2007

age: 83

cause_of_death: Complications related to Alzheimer's and dementia

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Max Roach, was an American jazz drummer, composer, and one of most influential musicians in the development of bebop jazz. One of the most influential and widely recorded percussionists in modern history, Max played or recorded with such giants as Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. During his lifetime he was awarded membership into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame, National Institute of Arts and Letters and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1995. France named him a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, its highest cultural honor.

popular name: Bill Black

date_of_death: October 21, 1965

age: 39

cause_of_death: Brain tumor

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: When Elvis Presley cut his first ground-breaking single "That's All Right, Mama" he was backed by Sun Studio musicians Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black on bass. With D. J. Fontana later added as drummer, the four hit the road and played every dancehall, fairground and club that manager Tom Parker could book. Black and Moore became Presley's backup group and were paid 25% of his earnings with the group billed as "Elvis Presley and the Blue Moon Boys." Black played on early Presley recordings including "Good Rockin' Tonight", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Baby Let's Play House", "Mystery Train", "That's All Right", and "Hound Dog", and eventually became one of the first bass players to use the Fender Precision Bass (bass guitar) in popular music, on "Jailhouse Rock", in the late 1950s. But what could have been the first great rock 'n' roll band fell apart when Parker paid and treated the other musicians as just the hired help. In 1959, Black joined a group of musicians which became Bill Black's Combo. The original lineup was Black (bass), Joe Lewis Hall (piano), Reggie Young (guitar), Martin Willis (saxophone), and Jerry Arnold (drums) although there were several personnel changes over the years. The band released blues instrumental "Smokie" for Hi Records in December 1959 and the follow-up "Smokie, Part 2" became a No. 17 U.S. pop hit, and made number one on the "black" music charts. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. During his brief career the Bill Black Combo released 22 singles, 14 albums, and sold over 5 million records before Bill succumbing to brain cancer.

popular name: Bix Beiderbecke

date_of_death: August 6, 1931

age: 28

cause_of_death: Lobar pneumonia coupled with edema of the brain and the effects of long-term alcoholism

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Bix Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer who was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. As a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical approach and purity of tone and with such clarity of sound that Eddie Condon described it like "Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying yes." His solos on seminal recordings such as "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927) demonstrate his gift for extended improvisation that heralded the jazz ballad style. Sadly he died at the young age of 28 due primarily to his prodigious consumption of alcohol.