Louie Bellson, a jazz drummer, composer and bandleader who mixed outstanding instrumental skills with impressive compositional virtuosity, passed away on Saturday at the age of 84.

 

His wife, Francine, announced that Louie Bellson died on February 14 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles as a result of complications of Parkinson’s disease. In addition, the musician suffered a broken hip in November last year.

 

The artist’s extensive and prolific music career unfolded since he was only a teenager and won the Slingerland National Gene Krupa drumming contest opposing more than 40,000 contestants, until last year, when he took part in various tours and seminars.

 

After pioneering the double-bass drum set-up at a relatively early age, Louie Bellson, whose entire name was Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, performed with the Benny Goodman band and Peggy Lee in “The Power Girl,” which marked the first of his numerous movie appearances.

 

Louie Bellson was only 24 and a vet of a U.S. Army Band when he joined important names as Danny Kaye, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton and Tommy Dorsey for Howard Hawks’ “A Song Is Born.”

 

The musician recorded extensively and led his own bands. Among his sidemen were Blue Mitchell, Don Menza, Larry Novak and Snooky Young, as Bellson was similarly successful as a big band drummer and as a small group drummer.

 

In 2006, a new album was released, “The Sacred Music of Louie Bellson and the Jazz Ballet.”

 

A couple of years ago, the jazz drummer recorded several of his compositions and arrangements for big band along with Clark Terry, Kenny Washington and Sylvia Cuenca, while the big band was manned by some of the members of Clark Terry’s Big Band. The ensuing album, “Louie and Clark Expedition 2” was released in January 2008.