Joe Temperley, 1929-2016

Joe Temperley is dead at 86. In recent years, he was a mainstay of the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra. In the 1970s following the death of Harry Carney, his glorious baritone saxophone sound anchored the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Temperley was born on September 20, 1929 in Crowdenbeath, Scotland and moved to New York in 1965. Also a master of the bass clarinet, he worked with the big bands of Woody Herman, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Clark Terry, Duke Pearson, Charles Mingus, and with a score of all-star groups.

Last year, the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra featured Temperley as the soloist in a piece he dedicated to a friend of his who had recently died. Here is Temperley’s dedication of John Coltrane’s “Alabama.”