Mike Zwerin, a jazzman who got his first break jamming with Miles Davis a half-century ago, has died aged 79.
Zwerin was a trombonist who became the Paris-based jazz critic for the International Herald Tribune and later for Bloomberg News. He died at 3 a.m. local time in a Paris hospital after a long illness, his family said.
He was the author of the memoirs Close Enough for Jazz and The Parisian Jazz Chronicles among others. In the books, his life story is interlaced with those of the stars he encountered: Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker, Bob Dylan, Wayne Shorter--and Davis, the man “everything comes back to."
He was spotted by Davis playing in a club.
“When I came to rehearsal, it was the band called Birth of the Cool," Zwerin recalled in a Bloomberg interview in 2005. Davis told him “I like your sound."
Zwerin was a trombonist who became the Paris-based jazz critic for the International Herald Tribune and later for Bloomberg News. He died at 3 a.m. local time in a Paris hospital after a long illness, his family said.
He was the author of the memoirs Close Enough for Jazz and The Parisian Jazz Chronicles among others. In the books, his life story is interlaced with those of the stars he encountered: Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker, Bob Dylan, Wayne Shorter--and Davis, the man “everything comes back to."
He was spotted by Davis playing in a club.
“When I came to rehearsal, it was the band called Birth of the Cool," Zwerin recalled in a Bloomberg interview in 2005. Davis told him “I like your sound."
