Bill Lee (musician)

William James Edwards Lee III (July 23, 1928 – May 24, 2023) was a jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, his compositions for jazz percussionist Max Roach, and his session work as a "first-call" musician and band leader to many of the twentieth-century's most significant musical artists, including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Strayhorn, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, among many others.

Lee recorded three critically acclaimed albums at the Black independent label Strata-East Records: (1) The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe: A Spirit Speaks; (2) The Brass Company: Colors, in collaboration with his two sisters; and (3) The New York Bass Violin Choir, a collaboration of seven basses, which JazzdaGama described as "a true Holy Grail for all musicians," and which Lee classified as one of his "narrative folk, jazz operas" along with "One Mile East," both of which were inspired by memories of the former slave quarters near his childhood home.

Stagings at New York City's Central Park, Lincoln Center and Newport Jazz Festival followed all of these recordings.

Trumpeter Theo Croker called Lee "... [O]ne of the great American composers of our time. His harmonic beauty was unique and his choice of melody always struck a chord inside of the listener. He was a masterful orchestrator of imagery."

One of seven musical siblings born in Snow Hill, Alabama, in 1928, Lee was the son of Arnold Wadsworth Lee, a cornet player and band director at Florida A&M University, and Alberta Grace (née Edwards), a concert pianist.

"My learning in music started with my mother and father," Lee said.

A 1951 graduate of the historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Lee "discovered the bebop recordings of Charlie Parker," which led to him "master[ing] the double bass, the largest and lowest-pitched stringed instrument, and performing with small jazz groups in Atlanta and Chicago before migrating to New York City in 1959".

In 1954, Lee married Jacqueline ("Jackie") Shelton, an art teacher, the same year she graduated from Atlanta's historically Black Spelman College.

Together, they had five children: film director Spike Lee (b. 1957), Christopher (b. 1959, d. 2014), still photographer David Lee (b. 1961), screenwriter and actress Joie Lee (b. 1962), and filmmaker Cinqué Lee (b. 1966).

In 1959, the family moved to Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

A sideman for some of the most famous names in music, Lee was also often the only other musician performing, including on the original release of Dylan's 1965 classic "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and on Gordon Lightfoot's "Oh, Linda" from the prize-winning 1964 eponymous album.

Other musical collaborators included:

In 1976, Jackie died of cancer, and Susan Kaplan, whom Lee later married, moved in.

They are the parents of alto saxophone player Arnold ("T@NE") Lee (b. 1985).

Spike Lee had a negative public reaction to his father's new relationship, and has been quoted as saying, "My mother wasn't even cold in her grave."

Hard feelings between the two intensified after Spike Lee released Jungle Fever, a film about the beginning and end of an extramarital interracial relationship, which was interpreted as a judgment on Lee and Kaplan's relationship, given the latter's race.

Featured in more than 250 record albums, and on such songs as "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "Mr. Tambourine Man," Lee also appeared in several movies made by his son, acclaimed film-maker Spike Lee, in addition to creating original soundtracks for She's Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), and Mo' Better Blues (1990).

Lee's childhood was described by Strata-East co-founder Charles Tolliver as "the personification of the Black musicians' experience after Reconstruction."

On October 25, 1991, Lee was arrested for carrying a small bag of heroin during a police drug sweep of a park near his home.

Although the case was dismissed, Lee would later say of his arrest, "'I'm glad I was arrested. It woke me up.... Dope was not part of my life until I was 40 years old,' which means he started getting involved with heroin ... around the time his wife was dying of cancer."

Soon after, however, Lee and Spike Lee had a falling out.

In 1994, the elder Lee said they had not spoken in two years.

On May 24, 2023, Lee died at his home in Fort Greene.

He was 94.

In 2008, The New York Times noted that "His music has the complex harmonies of bebop and hard bop, but it also has a sincere, down-home, churchy feel. His passages move to interesting and unexpected places, but they resolve before long in a way that is simple and sincere, earthy and somehow very satisfying."