Kevin Whitehead

Sheila Jordan, who grew up partly in western Pennsylvania, as she tells us on Sheila's Blues from 1984.

Jordan, who died in 2025 at 96, started singing as a kid and never stopped, building on Charlie Parker's bebop to find her own confident voice in all sorts of musical settings.

She also taught and inspired countless other vocalists.

When Sheila sang, you could hear the joy she found in jazz, which kept her eternally young.

Other veteran singers who passed this year include Cleo Lane, Nancy King, and Lillian Boutte.

Also the buttery smooth baritone Andy Bay, who lingered over slow ballads.

But Andy Bay also had a way with rhythm tunes, like this 1970 Duke Pearson number.

Musicians from the jazz rhythm section who died in 2025 include guitarist George Freeman, pianists Hal Galper, Mike Wofford, and Mike Ratlidge, drummers Al Foster, Greg Bandy, and Louis Maholo Maholo, tuba players Joe Daley and Jim Self, and one of the great bass players of our time, whose appointment book was always full, Ray Drummond.

Bass violin is a big instrument, and Drummond was a big man who handled it with effortless grace.

Another influential teacher who passed this year was alto saxophonist Bunky Green, who taught in Jacksonville for a couple of decades after a long spell in Chicago.

He didn't record so very much, and not always in ideal settings, though even his 70s funk records have their moments.

Back then, his slippery phrasing and side-slipping harmony pointed the way for future alto stars Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, and Rudresh Mahantapa.

Here's Bunky Green on Tension and Release in 1979.

Another much better known horn player passed in 2025.

Let's listen a bit, then I'll tell you who it is.

The Jazz Messenger's 1966 on Secret Love with trumpet hotshot Chuck Mangione.

A few years later, Mangione would turn his attention to pop jazz, hitting it big in 1978 with Feels So Good, a terminally mellow tune that set him up for life.

Chuck Mangione was a good sport about his flugelhorn, cuddling public image, spoofing himself on TV's King of the Hill.

But give the man his due, his younger self could really play.

Chuck Mangione.