Thirty-two years ago today, Paul Desmond bid his girlfriend goodbye as she set off for London, urging her to have a good holiday. That was on Friday. He would be fine, he told her; he had friends coming the next day. But his only companion that weekend was the lung cancer that had ravaged him during the past year. His housekeeper found him dead on Monday, Memorial Day.
Marian McPartland said, “It’s just like Paul to slip quietly away when everyone’s out of town, not to bother anybody.” Dave Brubeck still says, “Boy, do I miss Paul Desmond.” Details of Paul’s passing–and his life–are in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.
Here he is at the 1975 Monterey Jazz Festival two years before his death.