Viewing will be held 4 - 9 p.m., Thursday, May 18, 2006AAJ also has an article on Hicks' death here. In other coverage, St. Louis American editor Chris King interviewed some of Hicks' St. Louis friends for another obituary here, and the blog J-Notes has a brief note with a nice performance photo of Hicks here.
Saint Mark's United Methodist Church
55 Edgecombe Avenue
(between 137th & 138th Sts)
New York, NY
Homegoing service for Mr. Hicks will be held 2:00 p.m., Friday, May 19, 2006
Saint Mark's United Methodist Church
55 Edgecombe Avenue
(between 137th & 138th Sts)
New York, NY
Funeral arrangements are being handled by John H. Joyce Funeral Directors, located at 2332 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd., New York, NY 10030. Phone number is 212-690-3500.
Following the funeral services for Mr. Hicks, the family will have his body shipped to Atlanta, Georgia to be buried at South View Cemetery in the family plot along with his parents, grandparents, and brother, Eldon. Flowers can be sent to the funeral home.
Meanwhile, Boston jazz station WGBH is planning a four-hour tribute to Hicks tonight (Friday, May 12) beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The station will replay material from two concerts - a 1990 performance of Mingus Dynasty, and a 1993 show by the Gary Bartz Quartet - featuring Hicks. To check it out, go here and then click on the link marked "listen to WGBH."
UPDATE - 3:35 p.m., 5/12/06: NYC composer Darcy James Argue has a post on his blog with a very useful roundup of coverage of and reaction to John Hicks' death. Read it here.
UPDATE - 2:30 p.m., 5/14/06: Argue has updated his post with additional material a couple of times since it was linked above, and I've also run across a couple more related items. The New York Times' obituary for John Hicks, written by Ben Ratliff, is here; saxophonist Joe Lovano pays tribute here; and the Web site Jazz Police has a appreciation of Hicks here.
However, apparently there has still been no mention at all of John Hicks' passing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Just before posting this update, I looked in the obituaries and the entertainment section, and searched the STLtoday.com site two different ways, and came up with nothing. This neglect by the daily newspaper of the town in which Hicks spent his formative years strikes me as equal parts shameful and pitiful - in fact, we may actually need to coin a neologism, something along the lines of "shampitiful," to adequately describe this failure.
It's not that the Post doesn't have someone who could write about Hicks; I'm sure that P-D freelancer and occasional StLJN contributor Terry Perkins could pen a fitting tribute, and there are any number of other competent professional journalists there who are undoubtedly capable of handling a routine obituary. My guess is that with the recent sale of the paper and the buyout and/or retirement of many long-time staff members, the institutional memory at the Post has deteriorated to the point that John Hicks was simply not on anyone's radar down there, and that's just, well, shampitiful.
(Edited 5/12/06 to fix a typo.)
2 comments:
I agree 100% It is a shame. Mention was made at Spruills on Sat.
Thanks for stopping by and for your comment, soulnoir. And yeah, John Hicks deserved better from St. Louis' only daily newspaper.
To their credit, the St. Louis American was on top of the story and had something online within a day of Hicks' passing. Their story is linked in last week's initial post about Hicks, which can still be seen on StLJN's main page.
Post a Comment