RIP Mike Longo Jazz who succumbed yesterday due to complications from Covid-19. He was 81. He was Dizzy Gillespie's musical director and pianist. Longo's career started in his father's band, but later Cannonball Adderley helped him get gigs of his own. Their working relationship began before Adderley was well known as a bandleader. Adderley approached the teenaged Longo because he needed a pianist at his church. At this time the town was largely segregated, so the white Longo playing at a black

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