Canadian-born jazz authority, author, singer, songwriter Gene Lees has died at his home in Ojai, Calif., at the age of 82.
Born Frederick Eugene John Lees, he began as a freelance journalist in the late 1940s, working for the Hamilton Spectator, the Toronto Telegram, and the Montreal Star, and for American magazines Stereo Review and High Fidelity. By the mid-50s, he was a music critic at for the Louisville (Kentucky) Times, and left there in 1959 to edit the Chicago jazz magazine Down Beat until 1962.
A versatile writer, Lees penned liner notes for almost 100 artists , including Stan Getz, John Coltrane and Quincy Jones. His first novel, And Sleep Until Noon, was published in 1967. The second, Song Lake Summer, came out in 2008.
He also wrote a rhyming dictionary, produced three compilations of his jazz newsletter, and biographies of Oscar Peterson, Lerner and Loewe, Woody Herman, and collaborated with Henry Mancini on Mancini's autobiography.
In other books, he chronicled the effect of racism on the careers of Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Milt Jackson and Nat King Cole. With photographer John Reeves, he produced Jazz Lives: 100 Portraits in Jazz. His own memoirs, Friends Along the Way: A Journey Through Jazz, were published in 2003.
After studying composition by correspondence with the Berklee College of Music, Lees became a lyricist and wrote English language lyrics for several Bossa Nova songs, including Antonio Carlos Jobim's Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars, Someone to Light Up My Life, Song of the Jet, This Happy Madness and Dreamer.
He also wrote lyics for Charles Aznavour's Paris Is at Her Best in May and Venice Blue; contributed lyrics to Bridges, by Milton Nascimento; and Yesterday I Heard the Rain, by Armando Manzanero; and Bill Evans's Waltz for Debby.
Poems by Pope John Paul II were translated by Lees and recorded by Sarah Vaughan as the song cycle One World, One Peace in 1985.
Although he lived most of his adult life in the U.S., Lees did return for a few years to Canada in the early 1970s. He recorded an LP, Bridges: Gene Lees Sings the Gene Lees Song book, and from 1971 to 74 served as president of Toronto-based Kanata Records.
He also had his own late-night CBC TV show in 1971, appeared as a commentator or singer on other CBC stations and hosted a jazz show for Toronto radio station CKFM-FM.
He released a second album in 1998, Gene Lees Sings Gene Lees, and a third, Yesterday I Heard The Rain, with a group of jazz all-stars led by Don Thompson.
He leaves his wife of 39 years, Janet.