Christiern Posted July 2, 2003 Report Share Posted July 2, 2003 Some of you will recall him, others will have him on disc, introducing Duke, and others. I have good memories of him from the 1960s. Now he is gone. Couldn't find any details, but someone will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catesta Posted July 2, 2003 Report Share Posted July 2, 2003 (edited) What a shame. I'm guessing this site will have some notice in the near future, O'Connor was on the Board of Trustees. http://www.berklee.edu/about/default.html Edited July 2, 2003 by catesta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted July 2, 2003 Report Share Posted July 2, 2003 Sorry to hear about this. Only knew him through his announcements on records, but never heard anything but good about him. Has the Rev. John Gensel also departed? And since we're dealing with "jazz clergy", is Father Tom Vaughn still with us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted July 7, 2003 Report Share Posted July 7, 2003 Norman O'Connor's obituary: Norman J. O'Connor WAYNE, N.J. (AP) — The Rev. Norman J. O'Connor, a Roman Catholic priest and authority on jazz music, died of a heart attack in his hometown on June 29. He was 81. O'Connor made a name for himself in the jazz world soon after he was ordained as a Paulist priest in 1948. According to The New York Times, his name was seldom mentioned in print without the words "the jazz priest." He was named to the board of the first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, three years after becoming the Catholic chaplain at Boston University. He became a familiar presence at the festival, moderating panel discussions and serving as master of ceremonies for concerts. In the 1950s O'Connor contributed a weekly jazz column to The Boston Globe and articles to Down Beat, Metronome and other magazines. In the 1960s, he moved to New York, where he hosted a local television show called "Dial M for Music" and a syndicated radio show. In the mid-1960s, O'Connor was named director of the Mount Paul Novitiate, a church training center in Oak Ridge, N.J. He became executive director of Straight and Narrow, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Paterson, N.J., in 1980. He retired last year. O'Connor became interested in jazz at a young age. He had decided against music as a career by the time he enrolled at Catholic University in Washington, but wrote his doctoral thesis on the aesthetics of popular music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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