By Clay Risen
Russell Malone, a jazz guitarist whose encyclopedic knowledge of musicians and songs, combined with a precise yet relaxed playing style, earned him jobs with Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall and many others, as well as a dedicated following as a solo artist, died Friday in Tokyo. He was 60.
His death, from a heart attack, was announced on social media by bassist Ron Carter, in whose trio Malone had worked for many years. The trio, with Donald Vega on piano, was touring Japan and had just finished a performance at the Blue Note Tokyo when Malone died.
Carter said that he and Vega would continue the tour as a duo.
Malone was highly regarded for his versatility: He was able to support a variety of singers and instrumentalists in a range of styles, but he also had his own well-defined sound as a bandleader and soloist.
He was open about his influences — among them B.B. King, Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino — and he was never shy about pointing out how much he had learned from them, and how much of their sound showed up in his playing.
“When I hear a player play, if I don’t hear a smidgen of influences, I get suspicious,” he said in a 2023 interview with the online magazine Jazz Guitar Today.
He managed to carry the weight of those influences without sounding derivative. He was known for a distinctive style that was precise and spare but at the same time warm and luscious.
“He was an absolute natural musician,” pianist Bill Charlap, who worked closely with Malone over the years, said in an interview. “He had perfect time and rhythm, and you heard the whole history of jazz guitar in the way he played.”
Malone emerged on the jazz scene in the late 1980s with organist Jimmy Smith. He joined Connick in 1990 and played with him on tour and on seminal albums like “We Are in Love” (1990) and “Blue Light Red Light” (1991). He was with Krall from 1995 to 1999.
He recorded 10 albums as a leader, beginning with “Russell Malone” in 1992, while continuing to work with a long list of notable artists, including B.B. King, Branford Marsalis, Christian McBride, David Sanborn and Sonny Rollins — all of whom said they valued his ability to fit into, and elevate, their own sound.
“He had great swing,” drummer Lewis Nash, who frequently played with Malone, said, “but he was also like a chameleon, in the sense that he could play in so many scenarios.”
Russell Lamar Malone was born Nov. 8, 1963, in Albany, Georgia. His father, Robert Barnes, died in the Vietnam War when Russell was 2 years old. His mother, C. Veronice Malone, who worked in a warehouse, later married Jimmy Jones, and raised Russell with him.
He started playing music at 4, after his mother gave him a green, four-string plastic guitar. He gravitated toward blues and gospel and played in his church band. He fell in love with jazz at 12 after watching George Benson play with Benny Goodman on television.
He began teaching himself licks by listening to records by Benson, Montgomery and other guitar greats and practicing them over and over.
By the time he graduated from high school, he was playing professionally around Atlanta, both alone and in groups. The repertoire he played ranged far beyond jazz to include country (Chet Atkins), rock ’n’ roll (Elvis Presley) and even punk (the Ramones).
After wrapping up a gig at a Holiday Inn one evening in 1987, he went to see Jimmy Smith perform at a club. When Smith saw the young player in the audience, still dressed in a tuxedo and sitting anxiously beside his guitar, he invited him up to play.
Malone started out cocky, he later recalled, but couldn’t keep up with the renowned organist.
After Malone stepped down from the stage, red-faced, Smith turned to the crowd.
“Now, whenever we let youngsters sit in with us, we always like to make sure that they learn something,” Smith said. “Now, did you learn something, junior?”
“I said, ‘Yessir,’” Malone recalled.
As a consolation, Smith invited Malone to his hotel room, where they talked and played until 6 a.m. A year later, Smith asked him to join his band.
Malone’s wife, Belinda (West) Malone, died in 2006. He is survived by his companion, Mariko Hotta; his children, Darius and Marla; his mother; his brothers, Tony Barnes, Ricardo Jones and Stanley Jones; and his sisters, Tametrice Jones and Felicia Campbell.
Malone joined the jazz faculty at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, as an adjunct professor in 2021, when guitarist Gene Bertoncini retired. Though he had never taught before, he proved a natural in the classroom.
“On the days he taught, he changed the whole building with his energy,” David Demsey, the coordinator of jazz studies at William Paterson, said in an interview. “He treated everyone the same.”
Malone brought the same sort of humility to his playing.
“I’m not concerned about living up to someone else’s idea of the perfect jazz guitarist,” he told The St. Louis Post Dispatch in 2001. “Or what’s considered to be cutting edge. But I’m committed to being the best musician I can be.”
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