Russell Malone: 8/11/1963 – 23/8/2024
Alyn Shipton
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Alyn Shipton salutes the much loved and highly acclaimed guitar virtuoso who has died aged 60
Raised in Albany, Georgia, where Russell Malone started to play the guitar as a child, it was his move to Houston, Texas, in his late teens that got him started as a professional musician, working with the organist Al Rylander. He was 22, when, back in Atlanta in his home state, Sting came to town, and members of his backing band, including Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland, sat in with Malone at a local jazz club. Realising his extraordinary talent and encyclopedic knowledge of jazz guitar, Branford urged him to go to New York. Before long he was there, playing with Jimmy Smith, but it was joining Harry Connick Jr. in 1990 that first brought him to national attention. He was soon signed to Columbia as a solo artist and his first album for the label appeared in 1992.
I first heard him live in 1996, when Ray Brown took me to New York’s Iridium to hear a new singer called Diana Krall. Her Nat King Cole-influenced album, All For You, was about to appear. The set proved she was — as Ray predicted — destined for great things, but Malone’s guitar was equally impressive. His work in that vein was highly authentic, as he’d been playing with Nat’s brother Freddy, and informally studied with Cole’s long-term guitarist John Collins.
In 2002, Malone came to the Barbican with Monty Alexander and Ray Brown, for a truly memorable concert, Malone’s fleet lines and subtle chords blending perfectly with Monty’s nimble piano and Ray’s agile basslines. By then, Malone was already one of the finest guitarists on the world scene, appearing with a who’s who of jazz, including not only Jimmy Smith, but Gary Burton, Regina Carter, Benny Green, Roy Hargrove, Shirley Horn, and a host of others.
Subsequent years saw him in a consistently dazzling set of partnerships, with highlights including Ron Carter’s 2003, Golden Striker album, and his collaborations with Sonny Rollins (notably Road Shows II). He continued to record under his own name and a pre-Covid highlight was 2016’s All About Melody, which is a fine sentiment by which to remember him.
