John Stubblefield, 60, Saxophonist Who Worked With Jazz's Best, Dies

John Stubblefield, a tenor saxophonist who worked with Mary Lou Williams, Charles Mingus, Tito Puente, Miles Davis, Anthony Braxton and Abdullah Ibrahim, among other jazz musicians, died last Monday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. He was 60 and lived in Manhattan.

He had been hospitalized since April 2004 and died of prostate cancer, his family said.

Mr. Stubblefield learned to play piano and saxophone as a child in his home state, Arkansas. Like the jazz and blues music he loved, he moved up the Mississippi River to Chicago, where he studied at the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians with its co-founder, Muhal Richard Abrams.

Described by his fellow saxophonist Steve Slagle as a soulful "preacher" of jazz and blues, Mr. Stubblefield finally settled in New York City in 1971 and played and recorded with well-known artists for more than three decades.
[...nytimes.com]
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