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Don Lanphere
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E-mail article:Seattle Jazz Patriarch' was top bebop artist Friday, October 10, 2003 - Page updated at 12:00 AM E-mail article Print 'Seattle Jazz Patriarch' was top bebop artist By Stephen H. Dunphy Seattle Times associate editor Benefit concert Earshot Jazz Festival opens this year with "A Concert for Don Lanphere," a tribute featuring many Seattle jazz stars, 8 p.m. Oct. 24, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, $25. For information, call 206-547-9787, or www.earshot.org. Proceeds will benefit Midge Lanphere. Don Lanphere, the legendary Wenatchee-born bebop jazz saxophone player who overcame dependence on drugs and alcohol to become one of the deans of Seattle jazz musicians, died yesterday at Group Health Eastside Hospital in Redmond. He was 75. Mr. Lanphere, of Kirkland, was a regular at jazz events in the region, playing a gig at Tula's, in numerous festivals and as featured tenor sax with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. He was among the top bebop jazz musicians, improvising with the rapid-fire riffs that characterized that style of jazz. But he was more than that. He could write a chart — a musical arrangement used as the base for improvisation — on the sound of water dripping in a tub. He could bring listeners to tears, playing a solo jazz version of the Lord's Prayer on the soprano sax at a Sunday brunch at the end of a weekend jazz festival. "He was a candidate for sainthood around here," said Bud Young, of Bud's Jazz Records, a longtime friend and colleag
