In Memoriam: a tribute to the musicians who left us in 2024

In 2024, we said goodbye to genre-defying, soul-expanding, world-building musicians and artists who broke through barriers and binaries, redefining the art and the industry for everyone who followed them. 

As music fans, we're mostly mourning people we don't know personally, but that doesn't lessen the very real grief that goes along with losing an artist who means something to you. 

Maybe they represented a vital perspective missing in your life, another point of view that opened up your own heart or mind to another way of moving through the world. Maybe their music moved you to sing out or speak up, or helped you feel seen. Maybe their records and songs gave you a place to cultivate and process — solitude, rage, joy, sorrow, empowerment, purpose — whatever you needed to grow into the next iteration of yourself. Maybe their music was just all-caps FUN, a dance party frolic 'n' frenzy that turned every room into a night out at the club. 

Some incredible musicians, composers, artists and industry people left us this year. Let's stand still together for a little bit and be grateful for them. Let's pay tribute not just to what they gave us while they were here, but what they leave us to discover over and over and over again, every time we press play.

Peter Schickele

July 17, 1935, to Jan. 16, 2024
Composer, musical educator, parodist

"There are a lot of people who are not only surprised I write serious music, but also disappointed, like 'Here's another clown who wants to play Hamlet.' It would be ungrateful to be too resentful. I always like doing P.D.Q. Bach, and I've been making a very nice living doing something I love doing. I've made my bed, and it's not a bad bed." — Washington Post

Ivan Moody

June 11, 1964, to Jan. 18, 2024
Composer, conductor, musicologist, writer

"A tribute to Ivan Moody (1964-2024) is, on the one hand, so easy: to consider his life, his character, his impact is an unmitigatedly positive, joy-filled endeavour. But a proper tribute to this man is also impossibly difficult: how can one do justice to the vast number of people and worlds that he touched, and changed for the better?" — Luminous: Conversations on Sacred Arts 

Mary Weiss

Dec. 28, 1948, to Jan. 19, 2024
Singer (the Shangri-Las)

Norman Jewison

July 21, 1926, to Jan. 20, 2024
Director, producer, screenwriter (Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler on the Roof)

"I measure my life by my films. Each one is different. Each has its own reason for being. There's no difference between comedy and drama, it's only about believability. If you believe what's happening on the screen, you've got them. Make something special, people will carry it around in their heart for the rest of their life." — National Post

Frank Farian

July 18, 1941, to Jan. 23, 2024
Singer, songwriter, producer (Boney M, Milli Vanilli)

"Our work was truly blessed and so enjoyed by people around the world who had the privilege to hear it down the years. We shared and united under a star which rose above and beyond what we ever dared to expect. I say well done to the work that we did. Rest in peace Frank." — Boney M.'s Liz Mitchell, the Guardian

Melanie

Feb. 3, 1947, to Jan. 23, 2024
Singer, songwriter

Shigeichi Negishi

Nov. 29, 1923, to Jan. 26, 2024
Inventor of the first karaoke machine

"Karaoke king Negishi practised the discipline until his final years, proving that talent comes and goes but dumb passion is a lifelong gift. His invention helped expand music as we use it, so broad a church that it can absorb failure and folly into its everyday function. Now he is clasping the great microphone in the sky, I hope he ascends to his rightful status as patron saint of iffy singers everywhere." — Jazz Monroe, the Guardian

Wayne Kramer

April 30, 1948, to Feb. 2, 2024
Musician, singer, songwriter, producer (MC5 founder)

"I did things according to my own rules my whole life." — Mojo

Aston 'Family Man' Barrett

Nov. 22, 1946, to Feb. 3, 2024
Reggae songwriter, musician, arranger, producer

Toby Keith

July 8, 1961, to Feb. 5, 2024
Country singer, songwriter, musician, actor

"I write about life, and I sing about life, and I don't overanalyze things." — CBC

Seiji Ozawa

Sept. 1, 1935, to Feb. 6, 2024
Conductor

"Seiji Ozawa was a truly great artist, musician, conductor. We all knew it; the world knew it. But for me, his musical persona was secondary to the fact that he was a genuine, caring human being. He loved the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its players. He showed this over and over." — Douglas Yao, the Last Trombone

Vitalij Kuprij

July 7, 1974, to Feb. 20, 2024
Pianist, composer (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

Eleanor Collins

Nov. 21, 1919, to March 3, 2024
Jazz singer, TV host

Emmanuëlle

Oct. 18, 1942, to March 3, 2024
Singer

Maurizio Pollini

Jan. 5, 1942, to March 23, 2024
Pianist

Péter Eötvös

January 2, 1944, to March 24, 2024
Conductor, composer

"In 1971, I was flying over Anchorage in Alaska when I saw an incredible light effect through the aeroplane window: it was the aurora borealis. I have never ever seen anything so powerful or such a blaze of colour in motion. It was not only beautiful, but also extremely powerful, almost threatening and simply monumental. In my composition Aurora, I have attempted to reproduce the impressions of this moment, when really I felt myself as an element of this cosmos." — World Federation of International Music Competitions

Phil Nimmons

June 3, 1923, to April 5, 2024
Jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader

Excerpted from Bill King's Billboard interview with Phil Nimmons in 2020:

King: If you had a choice of musicians throughout history to assemble under one roof to play your music, who would be on the bandstand?

Nimmons: That would take a lot of thought. At first, I think I would like to get people who relate to my philosophies, but then I realize it doesn't matter. What matters is what happens on the bandstand. I'd like to thank Duke for setting the pattern. It didn't matter when the band showed up as long as they got there. I was privy to a few events when we had the school with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown. We'd go to Chicago for meetings and stay at the Palmer House. After they finished playing the London House, we'd go down to the south side of Chicago around one o'clock to hear Duke's band play.

One night, we went down there and the only person to show up was Duke, so we went home. He was just so great as opposed to other leaders I know that just get some uptight. I imagine a third world war might have started on Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman's bandstand.

Andrew Davis

Feb. 2, 1944, to April 20, 2024
Conductor

"In high school, I studied Latin and Greek. The Aeneid consists of 12 books — 9,896 lines. I've completed 11 books, translating into iambic pentameter. It's been very rewarding, and not totally unlike what I usually do, only looking for colour in words instead of sound, to capture the emotional climaxes, the power and the grandeur." — Chicago On the Aisle

MC Conrad

April 1972, to April 30, 2024
MC, producer, vocalist

"I mourn the loss of a friend and a role model. Conrad was a pioneering vocalist in a brand new genre with no roadmap or rule book, and he immediately made a place for himself with his inimitable vocals, full of gravitas and energy." — Mike Battaglia, 48Hills.org

Steve Albini

July 22, 1962, to May 7, 2024
Singer, songwriter, musician, producer, recording and audio engineer, music journalist

"The community that I joined when I came to Chicago enabled me to continue on with a life in music. I didn't do this by myself. I did this as a participant in a scene, in a community, in a culture, and when I see somebody extracting from that rather than participating in it as a peer, it makes me think less of that person.… My participation in all of this is going to come to an end at some point. The only thing that I can say for myself is that, along the way, it was a cool thing that I participated in, and on the way out, I want to make sure that I don't take it with me." — Pitchfork via NPR

Brother Marquis

April 4, 1966, to June 3, 2024
Rapper (2 Live Crew) 

"My condolence goes out to the family of Brother Marquis and so many of his fans from around the world after learning his passing. We took on so many fights for the culture, made great music together, something I would never forget. We had recently got back together to take on another fight to get back our catalogue that was stolen from us. We will continue that fight in his name for his family. The Brother Marquis that I know would want us to celebrate his life that's exactly what I'm gonna do. R.I.P My Brother." — Luther Luke Campbell, X

Françoise Hardy

Jan. 17, 1944, to June 11, 2024
Singer, songwriter, musician, model

Shifty Shellshock

Aug. 23, 1974, to June 24, 2024
Singer, songwriter (Crazy Town)

Ray St. Germain

July 29, 1940, to June 25, 2024
Singer, musician, author, actor, TV host

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Oct. 4, 1942, to July 16, 2024
Singer, composer, scholar, activist (The Freedom Singers co-founder)

"The Albany Movement [nonviolent protest in Albany, Ga., in 1961-62] was already a singing movement and we took the songs to jail. There the songs I had sung because they made me feel good or because they said what I thought about a specific issue did something. I would start a song and everybody would join in. After the song, the differences among us would not be as great. Somehow, making a song required an expression of that which was common to us all. The songs did not feel like the same songs I had sung in college. This music was like an instrument, like holding a tool in your hand." — Sing Out!

Alcides Lanza

June 2, 1929, to July 17, 2024
Composer, pianist, educator

"I always was interested in modifying sounds, trying to get something 'more' than what regular note writing on paper could offer. Hence my interest in graphic music, improvisation, noise and tape recorders. I was already using those tools even before my time at the CLAEM. I had always asked my piano teachers if there were some other sounds 'between' one note on the keyboard and the next one. They could not answer. However, via tape recorders, speed changes and working with filters, I began to get an answer to those questions. Each note on the piano was rich in harmonics — a universe of sounds at my fingertips!" — My Scena

Devon Martin

June 6, 1963, to July 23, 2024
Rapper

Kurt Kellan

June 27, 1952, to  July 26, 2024
Former principal horn of the Calgary Philharmonic

Shaun Martin

Aug. 23, 1978, to Aug. 3, 2024
Musician, composer, arranger, producer

Maurice Williams

April 26, 1938, to Aug. 5, 2024
Singer, songwriter (the Zodiacs)

James Darren

June 8, 1936, to Sept. 2, 2024
Singer, actor, director

Jack Long

June 25, 1929, to Sept. 4, 2024
Trumpeter, co-founder of Long & McQuade

Sérgio Mendez

Feb. 11, 1941, to Sept. 5, 2024
Musician, singer, songwriter, arranger, bandleader, composer

"I love Brazilian music. It's a very special kind of music. I understand why it seduced the world. Stan Getz, Cannonball, Sinatra, the jazz musicians in the 1960s — they all loved those great melodies. That's something I kinda miss now; I don't hear much melody these days. I'm a melody guy. I grew up listening to Cole Porter, Gershwin, Henry Mancini and then Jobim. I still play those songs. They are timeless. I think melody will make a comeback. Everything is a cycle. When you walk out of a movie today, you're not whistling a song. Where's Henry Mancini? … I don't see myself as nostalgic. But there will come a time when melody will again be very important." — Tidal

Will Jennings

June 27, 1944, to Sept. 6, 2024
Lyricist

Kris Kristofferson

June 22, 1936, to Sept. 28, 2024
Singer, songwriter, musician, actor

"There's no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson. Everything he writes is a standard and we're all just going to have to live with that." — Willie Nelson

Dave Allison

Jan. 5, 1956, to Sept. 30, 2024
Guitarist (Anvil co-founder)

Ken Tobias

July 25, 1945, to Oct. 2, 2024
Singer, songwriter

"I've been onstage since I was four years old. My first gig was at the old Zellers store on King Street, I was in there singing and modelling. They paid me a bag of candy, and I thought, 'Oh God, I want to do this,' and I really liked the applause." — Amplify, National Music Centre

Cissy Houston

Sept. 30, 1933, to Oct. 7, 2024
Gospel and soul singer

Leif Segerstam

March 2, 1944, to Oct. 9, 2024
Conductor, composer

"He was a totally unique figure, and possibly the most talented musician I have ever met — pianist, violinist, composer, conductor, recorder player, tenor. He won the most prestigious piano and violin competitions in Finland — with two weeks in between. He composed almost 400 symphonies — beat that, Haydn. Perfect pitch down to 1 Hz. Wake him up in the middle of the night and ask him to tap out metronome marking 88 — he did it. Could read any score like today's newspaper. He jumped in for Aho's flute concerto (with Sharon Bezaly) at a moment's notice and just conducted the immensely intricate score with meter changes every second bar like it was nothing. I have personally recorded him as violinist, pianist, conductor, composer. Completely overwhelming in all ways … a completely unique person…. The world is poorer without him. Much poorer. I miss him!" — Robert von Bahr, record producer

Jackmaster

Jan. 11, 1986, to Oct. 12, 2024
DJ and record producer

Liam Payne

Aug. 29, 1993, to Oct. 16, 2024
Singer, songwriter (One Direction)

Mitzi Gaynor

Sept. 4, 1931, to Oct. 17, 2024
Singer, actor, dancer

"My mother and my auntie would take me to the theater in Detroit. Any play, any ballet, they'd take me. I saw Carmen Miranda in Streets of Paris. They'd buy one ticket. First act, I'd go and sit in my mother's lap. Second act, she'd leave, and my auntie would come in and I'd sit in her lap. And then I'd do the entire show for them when we got home. They'd sit and smoke cigarettes and drink tea and do tarot cards, and get out their astrology magazines." — Chicago Tribune

Norma Beecroft

April 11, 1934, to Oct. 19, 2024
Composer, electronic music pioneer, producer, broadcaster

Paul Di'Anno

May 17, 1958, to Oct. 21, 2024
Heavy metal singer, songwriter (Iron Maiden)

Phil Lesh

March 15, 1940 – Oct. 25, 2024
Bass guitar, trumpet, vocalist (Grateful Dead co-founder)

Quincy Jones

March 14, 1933, to Nov. 3, 2024
Producer, composer, conductor, bandleader, musician

Bob Bryar

Dec. 31, 1979, to November 2024
Drummer (My Chemical Romance)

"As we were recording the record [The Black Parade], I was getting more and more excited. It was turning out to be a very complete and a very entertaining audio story. I would sit in my apartment with my roommates, the genius Patrick Stump and my best dude Matt Cortez, and listen to everything we had worked on that day while taking notes. I was nervous that it may not be well received by old-school My Chem fans, but also had a feeling that they had grown just like us and would probably love it. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I really feel every part of that record, down to the artwork, is pretty unbeatable. I hope those songs will be around for a long time." — AltPress.com