Bob Belden

As a composer, historian, arranger and saxophonist, Bob Belden was a music fanatic who worked for Blue Note Records in the 1980s and '90s and had a reputation as a performer who always took a progressive, modern approach to his beloved jazz. Growing up in South Carolina, Belden learned piano from his father and several other instruments whilst in High School and won a scholarship to the North Texas College of Music at 16-years-old. After graduating, he cut his teeth as part of Woody Herman's big band orchestra and moved to New York in 1983 where he worked as sideman, formed his own 12-piece band and composed incidental music for the ESPN television channel. Early records 'Treasure Island' and 'La Cigale' showed off his smooth saxophone skills, but he made his name when he re-worked the music of Sting into suave, ambient, orchestral jazz compositions on his album 'Straight to My Heart' in 1991. He applied the same method to the music of Prince, The Beatles and Puccini and also arranged and conducted for Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson and worked for Blue Note Records in many different roles for over a decade. He won three Grammy Awards for his album notes and involvement in re-issuing Miles Davis recordings for Columbia Records, but it was his ambitious 2001 album 'Black Dahlia' that was regarded by critics as his finest work. Telling the story of the brutal murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short in 1947, it was a cinematic, operatic suite which featured high calibre musicians such as Marc Copland and Lew Soloff and displayed some of Belden's moodiest, noir tenor saxophone solos. He went on to form the more experimental fusion group Animation in 2010 and their album 'Transparent Heart' was a tense portrait of post-9/11 Manhattan, which dabbled with electronica and confused, free-form grooves and set another different direction for Belden to explore. The group became the first American artists to perform in Iran for 25 years in 2015, but unfortunately Belden suffered a heart attack a few months later and died aged 58.

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