Howie Leess 1920 - 2003

[Pete Rushefsky <klezbanjo...>]

Sadly, the great New York saxophonist/clarinetist Howie Leess passed away on 
Saturday in Rochester, NY.  I'm sure Henry Sapoznik and others could do a much 
better job with an obituary to this master musician and wonderful human being 
than I could, but I'll give a try:

 Howie studied reed instruments with Shloimke Beckerman as a child and then 
went on to play and record with the likes of Naftule Brandwein, Dave Tarras, 
the Epstein Brothers, Rudy Teppel, as well as many of the best Society Bands of 
the times such as Lester Lannan's Orchestra.  

In recent years, he was an important link for younger generations of klezmorim, 
recording the seminal Klezmer Plus! album with Sid Beckerman (Shloimke's son), 
appearing many times at KlezKamp and as a featured artist on last year's 
Yiddish Radio Project tour.

His ability to create beautiful harmonic and counterpunctual tenor sax lines 
was only matched by the love and kindness with which he shared his art.

Howie is survived by his wife Shirley, two sons and a bunch of grandchildren.  

I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to play with him and develop a 
friendship with him and Shirley after his move to upstate NY in the late 
1990's.  I will miss him very much.

May his light in Gan Eyden burn brightly.

Pete Rushefsky

 




---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software