Novelist, celebrant of black culture, jazz
NEW YORK - Albert Murray, the influential novelist and critic who celebrated black culture, scorned black separatism and was once praised by Duke Ellington as the “unsquarest man I know,” died Sunday. He was 97.
Murray died at home in his sleep, according to Lewis Jones, a family friend and Murray’s guardian.
Few authors so forcefully bridged the worlds of words and music. Like his old friend and intellectual ally Ralph Ellison, Murray believed that blues and jazz were not primitive sounds, but sophisticated art, finding kinships among Ellington and Louis Armstrong and novelists such as Thomas Mann and Ernest Hemingway.
He argued his case in a series of autobiographical novels, a nonfiction narrative (South to a Very Old Place), an acclaimed history of music (Stomping the Blues) and several books of criticism. Although slowed by back trouble, Murray continued to write well into his 80s, and also helped Wynton Marsalis and others stage the acclaimed Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts. Millions of television viewers came to know him as a featured commentator in Ken Burns’ documentary series Jazz.
An amiable counterpart to the aloof Ellison, Murray was many men: friend of Ellington and artist Romare Bearden (whose paintings were displayed in Murray’s Harlem apartment); foe of Marxists, Freudians, academics, black nationalists and white segregationists; and mentor and inspiration to Ernest J. Gaines, Stanley Crouch, James Alan McPherson and many others.
Star of Jett Jackson, Rizzoli & Isles’ Frost
Lee Thompson Young, an actor who played a child star on the Disney Channel show The Famous Jett Jackson and a detective on the hit TNT series Rizzoli & Isles, was found dead Monday at his home in Los Angeles after he failed to show up for work. He was 29.
The cause was suicide, a statement from his manager said.
Young had appeared on Rizzoli & Isles, a police procedural set in Boston and based on novels by Tess Gerritsen, since its debut in 2010. He played Barry Frost, a computer-savvy homicide detective who can’t stand the sight of blood, who is the partner of Jane Rizzoli, played by Angie Harmon.
TNT announced Monday that Rizzoli & Isles had been renewed for another season.
Young’s first major role came in 1998, when he played the title character on The Famous Jett Jackson. The show followed the child star of an action show who decides to move production back to suburban North Carolina from Hollywood so he can resume life with his family.
Young also had recurring roles on the NBC comedy Scrubs and the WB superhero drama Smallville. He also acted in the films Friday Night Lights (2004) and Akeelah and the Bee (2006).
Survivors include his mother and a sister.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 08/21/2013