Hamiet Bluiett (1940–2018)

The baritone saxophonist and clarinetist and composer Hamiet Bluiett has died at the age of seventy-eight. The New York Times has an obituary. NPR has a sampler of his music.

I’ve listened to Bluiett on LPs and CDs for many years. And I was fortunate to hear him, just once, in person, in 2008, playing with Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio. I am glad that I had the chance to tell him how much his music meant to me. Still does.

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8:01 p.m.: Still on YouTube: a 1989 performance by the World Saxophone Quartet (Julius Hemphill, David Murray, Oliver Lake, Bluiett) from Night Music, hosted by David Sanborn (who once studied with Hemphill). Also still there, a later WSQ lineup (James Carter, Greg Osby, Oliver Lake, Bluiett) blowing down a gymnasium full of schoolkids in Lovejoy, Illinois: 1, 2, 3, 4.