Saxophonist/composer/arranger/producer Bob Belden died on Wednesday 20 May after suffering a massive heart attack the previous Sunday. He was unconscious and on life support in Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC, but when he became non-responsive over a 24 hours period, the life support was removed. He was 58. Belden (as he was known) was a true Renaissance Man of the music.

Although he was born in Evanston, Illinois, he was raised in South Carolina and experienced America’s parlous racial situation at first hand. Reading Dostoevsky and the classic Russian authors at the age of 12, “I was bored, there wasn’t much else to do,” he once said, he became interested in jazz when his brother began playing. The saxophone and piano came easily to him and although he denied he was a prodigy, nobody believed him. He graduated from the jazz course at North Texas State, remaining in touch with his alma mater for the rest of his life. His first name job was with Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd (1979-80), an association he always recalled with pride. Work on the New York scene followed, his rehearsal big band making its recording debut in 1990 with Treasure Island. It revealed a composer and arranger of considerable ability, versed in Gil Evans style of writing. It was something he was able to draw on for The Bob Belden Ensemble Performs the Music of Sting (Blue Note). Gil Evans had agreed to work on an album with Sting that was never realised because of Evans’ death, but here Belden gives us a shrewd idea of what might have been.

Belden knew Sting – he even helped put together Sting’s Blue Turtle band with Branford Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones and Omar Hakim – and his insight into Sting’s music produced an album that deserved to be better known. Perhaps his finest achievement with a big band was Black Dahlia (Blue Note), a nour-ish masterpiece and the first full-length release of his original music that is now sought after as a collectors item. His adaptation of Turandot and The Four Seasons for a large ensemble were impressive, but copyright problems prevented their release, a source of great frustration. His Grammy nominated albums Animation from 2000 and Re-Animation (both Blue Note) with a small group including trumpeter Tim Hagans revealed the breadth of his vision and willingness to embrace electronic tone colours.

His concept album Miles from India was Grammy nominated as Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2009. Belden won three Grammy awards for his work on 1996’s Miles Davis and Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (Best Historical Album, Best Album Notes) and 1998's Miles Davis Quintet 1965-'68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (Best Album Notes and both on Columbia/Legacy). His album notes revealed his erudition and breadth of knowledge about jazz in general and Miles Davis in particular. In his capacity as A&R man for Blue Note records, and also as a producer for the label and for free lance products he would work with some of the finest contemporary jazz talent of the day. A well regarded session musician, a jazz educator, a highly regarded jazz historian and mentor to young jazz talent, Belden was frustrated at the lack of work opportunities in New York that actually paid a living wage and what he considered was a conservative music scene. A tour in Iran in January this year, when he and his band became the first American artists to perform there in 35 years, was so successful that planning for a further concert tour was already in hand at the time of his death.

– Stuart Nicholson

from http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com