Lou Donaldson, jazz saxophonist who mixed many influences, died at the age of 98

NEW YORK (AP) — Lou Donaldson, a celebrated jazz saxophonist with a warm, fluid style who performed with everyone from Thelonius Monk to George Benson and was sampled by Nas, De La Soul and other hip-hop artists, has died. He was 98.

Donaldson died on Saturday, according to a statement on his website. Additional details were not immediately available.

A native of Badin, North Carolina and a World War II veteran, Donaldson was part of the bop scene that emerged after the war, recording with Monk, Milt Jackson and others early in his career. Donaldson also helped launch the career of Clifford Brown, the gifted trumpeter who was just 25 when he died in a road accident in 1956. Donaldson was also present at some of pianist Horace Silver’s early sessions.

For more than half a century, he would blend soul, blues and pop, gaining some mainstream recognition with his 1967 cover of one of the era’s biggest hits, “Ode to Billy Joe,” featuring a young Benson on guitar. His notable albums include ‘Alligator Bogaloo’, ‘Lou Donaldson at His Best’ and ‘Wailing With Lou’. Donaldson opened his shows with a cool, jazzy jam from 1958, “Blues Walk.”

“That’s my theme song. You have to have a good groove, there has to be a good groove to it,” he said in a 2013 interview with the National Endowment for the Arts, which named him a Jazz Master. Nine years later, his hometown renamed one of its roads to Lou Donaldson Boulevard.