{"id":7580,"date":"2016-06-09T20:24:57","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T03:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=7580"},"modified":"2016-06-10T11:25:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T18:25:44","slug":"jeremy-steig-1942-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2016\/06\/jeremy-steig-1942-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Steig, 1942-2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Flutist Jeremy Steig died on April 13 at his home in Japan. He was 73. His death was<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7581\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeremy-steig1.jpg\" alt=\"jeremy-steig1\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeremy-steig1.jpg 252w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeremy-steig1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeremy-steig1-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeremy-steig1-200x200.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/> confirmed days after the fact.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like to read about musicians\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 deaths in newspaper obituaries,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d his wife Asako told <em>The New York Times<\/em>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He wanted me to delay the announcement of his death, so that it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really be \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnews\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to be written up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Unlike most jazz flutists, Steig (pictured circa 1965) did not make his instrument secondary to the saxophone; he devoted himself solely to the flute. He first recorded in 1963 with <em>Flute Fever<\/em> on Columbia Records. The album also introduced another musician destined to be a major jazz artist. From a 2006 <em>Rifftides<\/em> review:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Steig, son of the brilliant cartoonist William Steig, was, and is, a flutist of audacity, force and humor. <em>Flute Fever<\/em> was his debut recording, as it was for his pianist, a young medical student named Denny Zeitlin. On the Sonny Rollins composition \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oleo,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d each of them solos with ferocious thrust, chutzpah, swing and\u00e2\u20ac\u201done of the most challenging accomplishments in jazz\u00e2\u20ac\u201da feeling of delirious freedom within the discipline of a harmonic structure. The structure in question\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe chord pattern of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Got Rhythm\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis one of the most flexible in jazz apart from the blues. Steig and Zeitlin used it for two of the most exhilarating rides anyone since Charlie Parker had taken on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rhythm\u00e2\u20ac\u009d changes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t1bX-9Q6Qsc?rel=0\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p>For fifty years, Columbia let <em>Flute Fever<\/em> languish unissued in its vaults. Presumably with Columbia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approval, In 2013, a company called International Phonograph, Inc. remastered it with high quality sound and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Flute-Fever-Jeremy-Steig\/dp\/B00EYCMOTA?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;keywords=jeremy%20steig&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1385687642&amp;s=music&amp;sr=1-1&amp;tag=rifftidougram-20\" target=\"_blank\">reissued the album on CD<\/a>. Steig and Zeitlin went on to extensive achievement, but <em>Flute Fever<\/em> remains a high point in their discographies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">For a comprehensive summary of Jeremy Steig\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/06\/03\/arts\/music\/jeremy-steig-jazz-flutist-dies-at-73.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">see his obituary<\/a> by Peter Keepnews in <em>The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flutist Jeremy Steig died on April 13 at his home in Japan. He was 73. His death was confirmed days after the fact. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like to read about musicians\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 deaths in newspaper obituaries,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d his wife Asako told The New York Times. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He wanted me to delay the announcement of his death, so that it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}