[Dixielandjazz] Dick Sudhalter's NY Times Obit

[Stephen G Barbone]

Below is the NY Times obit of Richard Sudhalter. It omits mention of  
his playing days in NYC at various jazz clubs. In those days, he was  
known as Dick Sudhalter and he was a fine jazz trumpeter.
Cheers,
Steve Barbone


September 20, 2008 - NY TIMES - by Douglas Martin
Richard M. Sudhalter, 69, Author and Jazz Trumpeter, Is Dead

Richard M. Sudhalter, who won wide respect as a mellifluous trumpet  
player and perspicacious jazz historian — and ignited controversy for  
a book arguing that jazz was shaped by white as well as black  
musicians — died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 69.

The final cause was pneumonia after a long period of declining health,  
said his partner, Dorothy Kellogg.

Mr. Sudhalter ranged widely across the jazz scene, from critic to  
concert producer to bandleader to scholar to raconteur to teacher to  
album annotator. He shared a Grammy in 1982 for notes he and John  
Chilton wrote for “Bunny Berigan (Giants of Jazz).” He organized the  
New Paul Whiteman Orchestra; became an admired fixture on the classic- 
jazz scene, playing with groups that included the short-lived but  
highly lauded Classic Jazz Quartet; and recorded for Audiophile,  
Challenge and other labels.

In his 1999 book, “Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution  
to Jazz, 1915-1945” (Oxford), he strove to controvert the widely held  
belief that white players contributed little to the development of  
jazz. His account began at jazz’s inception in New Orleans, providing  
captivating accounts of many important soloists, among them Bix  
Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Red Norvo, Bud Freeman,  
the Dorsey brothers, Bunny Berigan, Pee Wee Russell and Artie Shaw.

Jason Berry, in The New York Times Book Review, praised the book’s  
“elegant musical analysis” and did not dispute that whites greatly  
contributed to jazz. But Mr. Berry questioned whether Mr. Sudhalter  
had properly apportioned credit by giving too much of it to whites.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthy, William H. Youngren defended Mr.  
Sudhalter’s balance, saying the tendency at the time would be to see  
the book as an attack on black achievement. “Nothing could be further  
from Sudhalter’s intent,” he wrote.

A month before the book was released, The Times published a long essay  
on the topic by Mr. Sudhalter in its Arts & Leisure section. A storm  
of letters followed.

In an interview with Contemporary Authors, Mr. Sudhalter said most  
critics had not grasped his point. “The angrier the denunciation, it  
seemed, the less the writer had actually read,” he said. His book, he  
said, was a history, not “a racial screed.”

Mr. Sudhalter, who was a music critic for The New York Post in the  
1970s and ’80s, also wrote “Bix: Man and Legend” (Arlington House), a  
highly praised 1974 biography of Beiderbecke, with Philip R. Evans.  
His friend the critic Terry Teachout compared its thoroughness to “a  
scholarly biography of a major classical composer.”

In 2002 Mr. Sudhalter published “Stardust Melody: The Life and Music  
of Hoagy Carmichael” (Oxford). Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post  
said the book showed “that Carmichael’s mind was deeper and tougher  
than first impressions might suggest.”

Richard Merrill Sudhalter was born in Boston on Dec. 28, 1938. His  
father was a saxophonist who adored jazz, particularly Beiderbecke,  
and took his son’s musical education seriously. By his teens the  
younger Sudhalter was playing his cornet in Boston clubs. He earned a  
degree in English literature and music from Oberlin, worked as a  
musician in Germany and then was a reporter for United Press  
International in Europe.

He gave more emphasis to playing after he visited the Williams College  
library to research his Beiderbecke book. He discovered all the  
arrangements of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra of the 1920s, in which  
Beiderbecke had played, and decided to form a band to play the  
arrangements.

So he returned to London, where he was then living, and gathered top  
British musicians to play as the New Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Fans  
applauded them wildly at a jazz festival, a recording was made four  
days later, and the group went on to successful appearances at  
Carnegie Hall and elsewhere. Mr. Sudhalter played the cornet in the  
role of Beiderbecke, with inflections reminiscent of his other idols,  
Louis Armstrong and Bobby Hackett.

In addition to Ms. Kellogg, Mr. Sudhalter is survived by his sister,  
Carol, of Queens; his brother, James, of Harrisburg, Pa.; and his  
daughters Adrian, of Manhattan, and Kimberly, of Hollywood, Calif.

Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers  
University, said jazz lovers were disappointed years ago when the  
Classic Jazz Quartet suddenly broke up after the death of its pianist,  
Dick Wellstood. He recalled that all four members of the group were  
writers of various sorts, and all had a hearty sense of humor.

Their first choice for a name, Mr. Morgenstern said, was the Bourgeois  
Scum, but “they were told that was not commercial.”