Yuku free message boards

Jazzpriest, Benny was a JAZZMUSICIAN and he worked continiously!!!
And...Benny didn't speak Dutch.

It was a tragic and puzzling end to a dazzling and under-appreciated career.

Benny was very active and was touring frequently. He was still in great condition. And he was doing a lot of tours in Germany, Belgium, Sweden , Norway, Switzerland, etc

His friends (musicians) thought he was playing in Germarny or Belgium with local cats. He had his answering machine on. He only put it on if he wasn't at home...I phoned him and got this answering machine , that means he wasn't at home...
As I told before, Benny was doing his 80th Birthday Concerts. I phoned him before his trip to wish him all the best. I told him to take care in a special train (he was robbed sometimes, he once told me).
He was a little upset because he was already 80...(he never made it)!

Benny had a son in Germany and 2 daughters in Sweden.

He had a gig in Great Britain, but he never arrived.... A window cleaner had found the 79 year old Benny Bailey dead in his Amsterdam apartment, where he lived alone...
The neighbors did not know Bailey and the police took the body to the local morgue. Hoping to locate relatives, Dutch authorities put a death announcement in a local paper, almost two weeks later. That’s how the Dutch jazz community found out about Benny’s death.

Benny Bailey, the artist who inspired Quincy Jones to compose the classic big band anthem "Have You Met Benny Bailey."
I made some phone calls to Benny's (musician) friends (and talked with his niece in Cleveland). This was about two weeks after he was found. Unfortunately, most of the media didn’t know much about the colorful life of this jazz legend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA52zasBBAo

Please, read the reactions!


After playing with the Hampton band in Sweden, Bailey in 1953 stayed in Stockholm and began performing with Harry Arnold’s big band on Swedish radio. Bailey moved to Europe permanently in 1961, in part he said, to get away from drugs in the United States.

He became a fixture on the European jazz scene, playing with most of the top bands in Holland, Sweden, Germany and Norway, and appearing on countless records.
He also played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra during Ellington’s 70th birthday tour of Europe in 1969.

The last photo of Benny, during his Belgian tour (by Jos Knaepen).
--------------------
Click here to view the attachment