Joey Ramone

popular name: Johnny Hodges

date_of_death: May 11, 1970

age: 62

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Johnny Hodges was one of the most influential alto saxophonists in jazz history and is best known for his long association with Duke Ellington. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1907 and raised in nearby Boston, Hodges began as a pianist and drummer before focusing on saxophone. By the late 1920s he had joined Ellington’s orchestra, where his rich tone, lyrical phrasing, and expressive vibrato quickly made him one of the band’s standout soloists. For nearly four decades—mainly from 1928 until his death in 1970—Hodges helped define the Ellington sound, delivering memorable performances on compositions such as Passion Flower, Isfahan, and Prelude to a Kiss. During the early 1950s Hodges briefly left Ellington to lead his own small groups, recording popular rhythm-and-blues–inflected instrumentals and albums for labels like Verve Records. Despite this successful period as a bandleader, he rejoined the Ellington Orchestra in 1955 and remained a central figure in the ensemble’s recordings and international tours. Renowned for his smooth, blues-tinged style and elegant ballad playing, Hodges influenced generations of saxophonists and remains a defining voice of swing-era jazz.

popular name: Cootie Williams

date_of_death: September 15, 1985

age: 74

cause_of_death: Kidney disease

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Cootie Williams was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter who is best remembered for his tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Cootie first played professionally with the Young Family Band (which included the future tenor sax superstar Lester Young) when he was 14. In his later teens, he settled in New York and worked with James P. Johnson, Chick Webb, and Fletcher Henderson. Joining the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1929, among the hundreds of Ellington recordings on which he is featured, the “miniature concertos” “Echoes of Harlem” and “Concerto for Cootie” are especially noted; he also led a small ensemble of fellow Ellington band members, Cootie Williams and His Rug Cutters, on outstanding recordings. Williams left Ellington in 1940 and spent a year in Benny Goodman’s band. In the face of the general decline of the big band business, he led a big band for much of the 1940s and rhythm-and-blues units after that. He rejoined Ellington in 1962; by then he was a somewhat coarser but no less dramatic player. After Duke’s death he played in the Mercer Ellington band into the 1970s.

popular name: Duke Ellington

date_of_death: May 24, 1974

age: 75

cause_of_death: Lung cancer and pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Considered by many as the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time, Duke Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in all of Western music. In addition to the over 1000 composition and phenomenal sideman that graced his various musical groups, Ellington was noted for his inventive use of the orchestra and for his eloquence and charisma. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999.