DETROIT -- Marcus Belgrave, a jazz trumpeter who graced stages and studios with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Cocker and Motown artists galore, died Sunday. He was 78.
Belgrave died of heart failure at an Ann Arbor care facility, said Hazelette Crosby-Robinson, a cousin of Belgrave's wife, Joan.
Belgrave remained active on the Detroit and international jazz scenes up until his death. Born into a family of musicians in Chester, Pa., he started playing professionally at 12 and joined The Ray Charles Band in the late 1950s -- what he once described as "the beginning of my musical life."
He went to Detroit in 1962 and became a studio musician for Motown Records, playing on hits including "My Girl," "The Way You Do the Things You Do" and "Dancing in the Street." After Motown decamped to California in the early '70s, Belgrave stayed in Detroit and co-founded Tribe Records and recorded with a collective of jazz artists.
He became an original member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra in 1988 at the request of Wynton Marsalis, and in 2006 Belgrave was featured at Jazz at Lincoln Center's presentation "Detroit: Motor City Jazz." He also was a prolific mentor and teacher, serving as a professor or visiting artist at numerous institutions, including Detroit-area schools, Michigan State University, Stanford University, the University of California and Oberlin College.
Metro on 05/26/2015