Buddy DeFranco, known for working with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday and other well-known musicians, has died aged 91.
His family said the jazz clarinetist died on Christmas Eve at a Florida hospital.
His wife, Joyce, said his health had been poor in recent years.
Buddy DeFranco, a member of the American Jazz Hall of Fame, performed at venues around the world for 75 years and also recorded many albums.
The musician conducted the Glenn Miller Orchestra for eight years from 1966 to 1974.
He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and later a Living Jazz Legend in a Kennedy Center ceremony.
Buddy DeFranco won the Playboy All-Star award for top jazz clarinetist in the world 16 times.
“We have received condolences from around the world,” Joyce DeFranco told AP.
She said her husband’s influence on music will last long beyond his lifetime.
Other top music stars Buddy DeFranco played with included Art Tatum, Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett.
Originally named Boniface Ferdinand Leonardo De Franco, the musician was born in Camden, New Jersey, but raised in south Philadelphia. He learned to play the mandolin at five, and took up the clarinet four years later.
He began his career as a teenager in Philadelphia and he went on to play with some of the major bands of his era including ones led by Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Gene Krupa and Charlie Barnett.
Later, composer Nelson Riddle was so impressed by Buddy DeFranco he wrote the musical Cross Country Suite in 1958 for him.
Now, the annual Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival is held each spring at the University of Montana.
His family have asked that contributions in his memory be given to the festival so it can continue.
Buddy DeFranco is survived by his wife, Joyce, and son Chad DeFranco.
Bob Dylan will release tracks originally recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra on his new album Shadows in the Night, the artist has announced.
His 36th studio album, out on February 3, 2015, will feature 10 “uncovers”.
I’m A Fool To Want You, The Night We Called It A Day and Irving Berlin’s What’ll I Do, all recorded by Frank Sinatra, are among the songs being reworked by Bob Dylan and his band.
Other highlights on the album produced by Jack Frost include Nat King Cole’s Autumn Leaves and Some Enchanted Evening from Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
Bob Dylan – who has sold more than 125 million records around the world and won multiple Grammys – called it “a real privilege” to make the album.
Columbia Records chairman Rob Stringer said Bob Dylan had infused “new life and contemporary relevance into the songs”.
The album is the first new music from Bob Dylan since 2012’s critically acclaimed Tempest.
His last five albums, including 2006’s Modern Times, have achieved new levels of commercial success for his work.
Together Through Life became Bob Dylan’s first album to debut at number one in both the US and the UK in 2009.
[youtube 6S7nTLeMdAk 650]
Woody Allen’s spokesman dismissed as “absurd” speculation that the director may not be the father of Mia Farrow’s son Ronan.
The claims are “so fictitious and extravagantly absurd that he is not going to comment,” said his spokesman.
Mia Farrow’s admission to Vanity Fair that Ronan may “possibly” have been fathered by ex-husband Frank Sinatra has also been rubbished by the singer’s widow.
“It’s just a bunch of junk,” Barbara Sinatra told the Desert Sun newspaper.
“There’s always junk written – lies that aren’t true,” the 85-year-old said on Wednesday.
“It sounds like a phony to me.”
Ronan Farrow, 25, has made his own comment on the story, tweeting: “Listen, we’re all *possibly* Frank Sinatra’s son.”
Mia Farrow admitted to Vanity Fair that her son Ronan may “possibly” have been fathered by ex-husband Frank Sinatra
Mia Farrow’s comments came in a lengthy article in Vanity Fair‘s November issue, which also contains quotes from eight of the actress’s children.
In excerpts released ahead of its publication, Mia Farrow claims she and Frank Sinatra “never really split up” following the end of their two-year marriage in 1968.
Mia Farrow subsequently married, and divorced, the composer Andre Previn, with whom she had three children and adopted three more.
The actress went on to have both a professional and personal relationship with Woody Allen, with whom she had Ronan – originally named Satchel – in 1987.
The revelation that Woody Allen was having a secret affair with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn caused the break-up of their 12-year relationship in 1992.
This led to a bitter custody battle in which Woody Allen was accused of molesting their adopted daughter Dylan, charges Allen denied and which have never been proved.
Dylan, who now goes under the name Malone, refers to the alleged molestation in the Vanity Fair article, claiming she had been “scared” and had “wanted it to stop”.
“I have never been asked to testify,” she is quoted as saying.
“If I could talk to the seven-year-old Dylan, I would tell her to be brave, to testify.”
The article offers further insights into how Mia Farrow and Woody Allen’s acrimonious break-up has impacted on their biological and adopted children.
Fletcher Previn, it is revealed, used Photoshop to remove Woody Allen from every family photo and edited him out of the Farrow’s home videos.
Speaking in 2005, Woody Allen confirmed he no longer had relationships with the three children from his relationship with Mia Farrow.
Ronan Farrow, now a human rights campaigner and journalist, is reportedly in talks to host his own show on US channel MSNBC.
[youtube TaCIzODdEbA]
