Gerry Niewood and Coleman Mellett - R.I.P.

[cookie]

Just heard that these two musicians were lost in the Clarence, NY plane crash.

I am very, very sad. I didn't know Coleman, but I met Gerry on several occasions and have also met his son, Adam.

This is horrible news. My thoughts are with their families.

[Peterdubya]

2 Mangione musicians die in plane crash

1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Two members of jazz musician Chuck Mangione's band were among those killed on the plane that crashed into a Buffalo, New York, house, a publicist said Friday.
Publicist Sanford Brokaw identified the band members as Gerry Niewood, 64, of Rochester, N.Y., and Coleman Mellett of Maryland. Niewood played saxophone and flute and Mellett was a guitarist.
In a statement Mangione said: "I'm in shock over the horrible, heartbreaking tragedy of the crash of Flight 3407, which took the lives of my dear friends and band members. I am grieving and praying with their families and friends."
Mangione and his band were scheduled to perform Friday with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra at Kleinhans Music Hall. The concert has been postponed.

[David Gitin]

I knew Gerry quite well when he was starting out; he used to come up to my attic room to listen to new jazz releases. Only recently we got back in touch via email. This is a shock.

[Valerie]

Originally Posted by David Gitin

I knew Gerry quite well when he was starting out; he used to come up to my attic room to listen to new jazz releases. Only recently we got back in touch via email. This is a shock.

so sorry, David.

[bigtiny]

What a drag! I didn't know anything about Mellet, but Niewood was a great musician. Actually quite underappreciated.....

bigtiny

[matt]

I knew Coleman Mellett quite well ... we played in a number of jazz groups together in New York and later when I moved back to Seattle we would do a few gigs when he was in town. Coleman is married to vocalist Jeannie Bryson and they usually vacationed every summer near Seattle.

I just got the call this afternoon and I'm still in shock.

- Matt Jorgensen

[Lois Gilbert]

Glen Ridge resident Gerry Niewood, 64, a longtime member of the Chuck Mangione band, was on Contintental flight 3407, which crashed outside Buffalo last night, killing everybody on board. His death, along with another Chuck Mangione band member, Coleman Mellett, was confirmed today by a publicist.

Niewood and his family are music royalty in Glen Ridge. Gerry, an accomplished saxophonist, leaves behind his wife Gurly Niewood, a beloved piano teacher and church and school accompanist, a son Adam, who followed his father's footsteps to become a jazz musician, and a daughter Elizabeth.

[Lois Gilbert]

Two members of jazz musician Chuck Mangione’s band were among those killed on the plane that crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y., a publicist said Friday.

Publicist Sanford Brokaw identified the band members as Gerry Niewood, 64, of Rochester, N.Y., and Coleman Mellett of Maryland. Niewood played saxophone and flute and Mellett was a guitarist.

In a statement Mangione said: “I’m in shock over the horrible, heartbreaking tragedy of the crash of Flight 3407, which took the lives of my dear friends and band members. I am grieving and praying with their families and friends.”

Mangione and his band were scheduled to perform Friday with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra at Kleinhans Music Hall. The concert has been postponed.

All 49 people on board and one person on the ground were killed in the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J. The cause of the disaster was under investigation.

[tippy]

That is very sad. My sympathies.

[Mike Schwartz]

Natuarally I'm saddened by these events, but especially so in that these are people known by others in our little on-line and jazz community. Sorry for all your losses, and peace be with the families.

[Cem]

Sad... senseless, early departures. My condolences to all their friends and family.

[Lois Gilbert]

An accomplished jazz guitarist, Coleman Mellett was a touring member of trumpeter Chuck Mangione’s band for the last several years. The group was scheduled to perform Friday night at the Kleinhans Music Hall with the Buffalo Philharmonic, but the concert was postponed.

Mellett grew up near Washington, D.C., and moved to New Jersey to study at William Paterson University, according to his MySpace profile. After graduating he moved to New York and earned a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music in 1998.

Mellett, 33, lived in East Brunswick, N.J., with his wife, singer Jeanie Bryson, according to the Star-Ledger of Newark.

[gonzo]

excuse my language but, how fucking sad is this?? a real tragedy. very sad indeed.

[Jazzooo]

I loved Gerry Niewood and his music. Totally under appreciated, except by other jazz sax players who spoke of him in almost hushed tones. When I first him, I was probably 14 and he was on Chuck Mangione's early recordings--long before Mangione turned to smooth jazz with Feels So Good. Chuck had a killer quartet--flugelhorn, Niewood reeds, Alphonso Johnson or Joel DiBartolo on bass, and either Steve Gadd (then unknown like the rest of them) or Joe Labarbera on drums. Gerry played the hippest and most burning melodic stuff I'd ever heard.

There was one song they did--Legacy--where Niewood's solo taught me year's worth of improvisation theory. They re-did the song with orchestra on several albums, but only the one with the sparse quartet really gripped me. Anyway, I was 15 and I snuck into a club in L.A. (Dante's) to see them. There was NO ONE there except me, my girl and a friend, and the bartender...and the band. We spoke to the band all through their performance, and at the break, I bent Gerry's ear about his playing on Legacy.

When the band came back, Chuck said "We're going to dedicate this next one to Doug..." and off they went. Niewood played a 10 minute solo, every note brilliant and tuneful.

he never seemed to crave the jazz life, and instead ruled the NY pit band circuit his entire career, occasionally coming out of obscurity to release a solo album or tour short term with Mangione.

Man, I was just wondering if someone I knew and loved was on that plane. RIP, everyone.

[cookie]

Niewood was the master of the soprano saxophone. He brought good tone, tuning, sound and soul out of that resistant axe.

I especially loved his flute playing. Knew Gerry's playing since high-school from Chuck's vinyl. Met him as a freshman in college (he's good friends w/ my mentor, Steve. Steve's son Miles plays with Gerry's son, Adam). He was a friend of a friend, but what an inspiring player and just plain ol' nice guy. His flute playing was particularly meaningful for me.

I play his composition "Joy" for fun (sometimes at home; sometimes on a safe quiet night in public). I've conducted the vocal version originated by Rare Silk several times. Why? Because I remember in my gut what that tune sounded like when I lucked into hearing its composer playing it back in the long-ago when I hardly hadn't heard anything.

[VIBEr]

Originally Posted by Jazzooo

Chuck had a killer quartet--flugelhorn, Niewood reeds, Alphonso Johnson or Joel DiBartolo on bass, and either Steve Gadd (then unknown like the rest of them) or Joe Labarbera on drums. Gerry played the hippest and most burning melodic stuff I'd ever heard.

Although this record has been long out of print, anyone who only knows Mangione's smooth stuff is in for a pleasant surprise if they hear The Chuck Mangione Quartet on Mercury Records. Excellent playing, writing, concept, and Gerry Niewood really defined the sound of that band.

What a shock to hear the news of his passing, but I'm thankful I got to hear him in person on several occasion. RIP.

Sidenote: the PBS Friends and Love concert from 1971 is out on DVD with Niewood, Gadd, Levin, and the rest of that crew.

[hornplayer]

I heard about this but with no ID of who they were last night on CNN. this makes that horrible crash just that much more awful.

Condolences to all their families and friends.

[Chazro]

Too sad, one of the 1st CD's I ever bought was Gerry Niewood's DMP release, 'Share My Dream'.

RIP

[Vince Kargatis]

This saddens me. I know several Niewood solos by heart from some early 70s mangione records. What a bummer.

I just flew a Colgan Air Dash-8 from Burlington to Newark (not that that means anything, but the incident made my ears perk up.)

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by VIBEr

Sidenote: the PBS Friends and Love concert from 1971 is out on DVD with Niewood, Gadd, Levin, and the rest of that crew.

I bought this for my father last year, he loves it. It's nifty to see, but just a warning - they used the videotape audio, instead of syncing the good available stereo recording, so it sounds a lot worse than it could've if they'd spent more on the dvd.

[Elflion]

I went to school at William Paterson with Coleman Mellett. I remember him as just a really nice, good guy - what a tragic loss. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

[Jazzooo]

here's an article I just sent in to Atencion, the weekly paper here in San Miguel de Allende:

HAVE YOU HEARD?

FEBRUARY 2009

Music Column by Doug Robinson

JAZZ LOSES ANOTHER UNSUNG HERO

You might have noticed jazz saxophonist Gerry Niewood’s name among the list of victims from flight 3407 this month, and for most of the world it was the first and last time we heard it. However, as 35-year fan of Gerry’s music, I want to make sure that at least here in San Miguel, his legacy gets an extra 60 seconds of recognition.

Way back in 1970, long before he became a smooth jazz icon, the then-unknown flugelhorn player and composer Chuck Mangione led a bold quartet that produced two stellar albums: Alive! and Quartet. I was 15 years old, a jazz newbie who was drawn to the hip power of improvisation. When I listened to a good player it was a combination of a music lesson and a magical spell. But when I heard those two LPs in particular, each of which featured Gerry Niewood, it inspired me more than almost anything else had.

Niewood sounded like a true master even back then, and as his career picked up steam and flirted with fame, it seemed like he was destined for wide appeal. First of all, in addition to playing alto, tenor and baritone saxes as well as flute and alto flute, he also managed to coax a gorgeous (and always in tune) sound from the soprano saxophone—not the easiest feat. He appeared with Simon and Garfunkel, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Astrid Gilberto and Judy Collins, but it was his early appearances with the fledgling Chuck Mangione group that earned him the Talent Deserving Wider Recognition vote in Downbeat Magazine’s international critic’s poll, two years in a row.

Now to get a little personal, let me tell you how I met him. At 15, I had absorbed as much of his playing as I could find living in San Diego—not exactly a jazz mecca--when I noticed he and Chuck Mangione had an appearance coming up at the now-defunct L.A. club called Dante’s. I persuaded an older friend (Art Harde) to drive my girlfriend and me up to Los Angeles and had planned to lie about my age in order to squeeze into the nightclub. If that didn’t work, Art was supposed to create a diversion while I snuck in. Imagine my shock when we arrived at a completely empty nightclub—no bouncer, no audience. We walked in and sat down, the lone bartender behind us and the band setting up on the stage in front of us. In such a casual setting, it’s perfectly normal to strike up a conversation with the players, but we ended up shooting the breeze between numbers for the entire set! During the break, though, I cornered Mangione and told him how much I enjoyed his composing and thanked him for giving Niewood so much solo space, and then spent the rest of the time pumping Gerry for his thoughts about improvisation. We used my favorite solo of his, from a ballad called “Legacy,” as an example. I learned that he had been a mathematics professor and really had no interest in fame and fortune as a performing musician, he just loved making it. This would explain why so few people knew his name decades later—no one other than musicians knew he was the first saxophonist of the Radio City Orchestra, for example, but they knew the music was top notch.

Anyway, back to that summer night in 1970: When the band took the stage after their break, the room was still empty except for our party of three. Chuck Mangione grabbed the mic and looked out into the room and said, with his tongue in cheek, “Thanks everyone! If it’s alright with you, we’re going to dedicate this next number to Doug, our biggest fan!” and they proceeded to play Legacy, with a sublime extended soprano solo by Niewood, certain passages that I can still hear in my head today. It was one of those peak experiences that seem like they will stay with you forever.

Over the years, I’d tell people about him, though his occasional solo albums never completely captured his talent the way I thought they should. In fact, one of the projects I hoped to get around to one day was to produce an album featuring him and George Young, another under-recognized sax genius I had the pleasure of playing with once. It was an idea that probably couldn’t have missed, to finally shine the spotlight on these behind the scenes lions.

I’d love to direct you to multiple links of those early Mangione recordings and Niewood’s solo albums, but they are mostly out of print. Hopefully, that will change as record labels see an opportunity to capitalize on his brief and tragic notoriety. I just ordered a copy of his last solo album, Facets, but I haven’t listened yet. Glenda and I have spent many happy hours listening to one of Niewood’s other albums called Alone, which is at once a poignant and perfectly accurate title, as the album features him playing solo saxophones—all kids—and flutes. If not for the occasional burst of bebop fire, the album plays like a soulful soundtrack for meditation. Alas, I can’t find a new copy anywhere today.

It seems unfair to single out one passenger when so many have lost their lives in the same event and of course my heart goes out to all of the victims and their families. But I had a feeling when I learned about the crash that someone I knew and loved was on that plane, though, and when I heard it was Gerry Niewood, I knew I wanted to start off this year’s columns by paying tribute to him. Tuck his name in the back of your head, look for his albums and maybe someday you’ll find them.

(Doug Robinson is a composer who lives in San Miguel de Allende with his wife, Glenda, and their three basset hounds.)

[Lois Gilbert]

Doug

You brought tears to my eyes

I'm so sorry for our loss and so sorry Doug and David and others for such a personal loss.

[Lois Gilbert]

Doug

You brought tears to my eyes

I'm so sorry for our loss and so sorry Doug and David and others for such a personal loss.

[cookie]

Doug, that's beautiful. Thank you.

Tears here, too.

[Cymbal groove]

Gerry and Coleman were wonderful people and musicians! I worked with both of them but more so with Gerry. These guys brought a very positive spirit to the bandstand that lifted the music up a notch. I remember having great hangs with both of them. Gerry would tell Joe Romano stories and Coleman and I talked a lot about Blue Note records. They both were great with people and I'll miss them both dearly! My heart goes out to both families!

[Lois Gilbert]

From the day she was born, Elizabeth Niewood kept what she called a “daddy doll,” a cloth figure about 18 inches tall with a shock of ochre yarn for hair and eyes stitched with light blue thread.

The doll was made to look like her father, the saxophonist Gerry Niewood, and was a gift from a family friend intended to comfort Ms. Niewood whenever her father was out of town plying his trade. The doll now has greater poignancy for Ms. Niewood, who is 23: her father was on his way to perform at a concert when he was killed on Thursday night in the crash of Flight 3407 outside Buffalo.

“It was just another outing for dad,” Ms. Niewood said as she cradled the doll and fought back tears during an interview on Saturday on the porch of the beige, three-story home here that her father bought more than 30 years ago.

Mr. Niewood, 64, and Coleman Mellett, 33, were scheduled to perform with the jazz musician Chuck Mangione when their Continental Connection flight from Newark slammed into a house as it approached the Buffalo airport, killing all 49 aboard.

In the world of jazz, the two men were largely successful, able to carve out middle-class existences solely through their music and not needing to rely on day jobs to pay their bills. But their lives as musicians were hardly glamorous; flying in a cramped turboprop plane to play a show in Buffalo in February was not an unfamiliar routine.

Family and friends of both men said they accepted the rigors of life on the road as the sacrifice they had to make in order to create the music they were passionate about.

“Ever since Sept. 11, he said the travel has been harder on him,” said Bob Sneider, a jazz musician and a friend of Mr. Mellett’s who teaches at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. “But music was his passion, and he loved to go and perform for people.” Mr. Niewood had also toured with Simon and Garfunkel and Liza Minnelli and had appeared on “Saturday Night Live.”

He had known Mr. Mangione since they were grade-school classmates in Rochester, N.Y., said Adam Niewood, Mr. Niewood’s son, who is also a musician even though his father had encouraged him to do something that offered more financial security.

“I marvel at the fact that my dad’s mother hardly went anywhere besides her hometown, and he set foot on almost every continent just by playing saxophone,” Adam Niewood, 31, said.

“He’d say, ‘A lot of people have to save up all year to take one vacation; I go on vacation 10 months out of the year and I don’t have to pay, I get paid.’ ”

Mr. Mellett grew up near Washington and studied music at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh before transferring to William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., said his friend and former roommate Paul Wells, 35, who is also a jazz musician.

Mr. Mellett was married to Jeanie Bryson, 50, a jazz singer and the daughter of Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he would often perform. They lived in a ranch-style house in East Brunswick, N.J., a lifestyle that Mr. Mellett found ideal, far from the famed jazz clubs of Manhattan. Though he occasionally taught lessons to supplement his income, Mr. Mellett earned a steady salary from being part of Mr. Mangione’s ensemble. At Mr. Niewood’s prompting, Mr. Mellett also worked with the Radio City Music Hall orchestra during the “Christmas Spectacular” show.

“He loved his wife, he loved his home, he loved the town where they lived, and he loved the life they built up,” Mr. Wells said. “We both shared the common goal of being working New York City musicians. As we got older, we found it was more complicated than we thought when we were 20 years old.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/ny....html?emc=eta1

[ribot_for_president]

Glen Ridge resident Gerry Niewood, 64, a longtime member of the Chuck Mangione band, was on Contintental flight 3407, which crashed outside Buffalo last night, killing everybody on board. His death, along with another Chuck Mangione band member, Coleman Mellett, was confirmed today by a publicist.

Niewood and his family are music royalty in Glen Ridge. Gerry, an accomplished saxophonist, leaves behind his wife Gurly Niewood, a beloved piano teacher and church and school accompanist, a son Adam, who followed his father's footsteps to become a jazz musician, and a daughter Elizabeth.

I grew up right around the corner from Gerry and family and attended Glen Ridge High School with Adam (though I can't claim to be close with him), and they are all good people. Such a tragic loss.

[jazzy mary]

I was terribly shocked when I heard about this, as everyone was. I was watching TV and they were interviewing this woman who was saying how much she loved her son-in-law and how much he loved his family and the name "Connie Bryson" was on the screen. I thought, wait a minute...that was Jeannie Bryson's husband!!??

You see, I love Jeannie's singing and would see her whenever she was playing in NYC! I mean, Jeannie is amazing! I have looked to see if she was ever playing aorund so I could see her, but it seemed like she wasn't in the NYC area much. Then I found out she had gotten married and lived in N.J. etc. Long story, short, I saw she was a friend of a friend of mine on "Facebook" so I friended her and wrote her a note telling her how much I loved her singing.

This is just so sad and I feel so terrible for her. It is clear that they were very much in love.

Marla, from looking at Jeannie's facebook, I see you are a dear friend of hers.

[makpjazz57]

Hi Mary,

Yes, a close friend of both Jeanie and Coleman's.

Take care,
Marla