OBITUARIES

This folder includes obituaries for jazz musicians or persons of significance to the Australian jazz community, written by several contributors. Click on the INDEX box to access a list of obituaries contained in this folder.

OBITUARY: VERDON MORCOM 1926–2019

by Bill Haesler OAM

AJAZZ 85, February 2020

Australian jazz lost another fine pianist with the death of Verdon Morcom on October 24, 2019. A gentle, retiring person whose familiar face would be known to many on the jazz scene, but not his name, despite his long commitment and contribution to our music and his acknowledged talent as a working graphic artist and exhibited painter. Verdon Langford Morcom was born in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria on December 8, 1926 and came to jazz through his late brother George who befriended jazz luminary Ade Monsbourgh on a Kew tram in the early 1940s by commenting that he had heard him in the band at a Melbourne Grammar School dance the previous Saturday night. Following this chance encounter, Ade became their musical mentor…

OBITUARY: LYN CHRISTIE 1928-2020

by Unknown Author

F Ruggiero & Sons Inc Website

Lyndon Van Christie, a resident of Yonkers passed away on March 28, 2020 at the age of 91. Lyn was born during the Great Depression on 3 August 1928 in Sydney Australia with music in his blood. His father, the late Clarence Lyndon Piatara Christie, was leader of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra at the time while his mother, Clive Grace Christie, was a concert pianist. The family moved back to Christchurch New Zealand to help run the Christie family printing business where Lyn attended St Andrews College and Canterbury College in Christchurch before graduating as a Doctor of Medicine from Otago University in Dunedin. He went on to practice medicine in New Zealand and Sydney Australia, then in 1965 to the USA and Yonkers General Hospital…

OBITUARY: PETER BOOTHMAN 1943-2012

by Alison Johnson

May, 2012

The Australian jazz guitarist, composer, and educator Peter Boothman was born on September 2, 1943 at Buena Vista Hospital in Woollahra, Sydney NSW. He was told that his birth was the result of a wartime romance between a local girl and an American serviceman who was a piano player. So he was born with music already in his blood. He was adopted at the age of 18 months from Scarborough Boys Home by Ruth Boothman. Ruth's husband left her shortly after the adoption, and she brought Peter up on her own. Peter always spoke of Ruth with great affection and respect. Peter went to Sydney Boys High but left in 1960 to join the Bank of NSW. In March of 1961 he bought his first guitar…