Legendary filmmaker Spike Lee revealed the heartbreaking news via Instagram that his father, renowned jazz composer Bill Lee, has joined the ancestors at his Brooklyn home on Wednesday, May 24. No cause was released.
The elder Lee was a popular jazz bassist since the early 1960s who played with Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, and Harry Belafonte. He later composed the score for many of his son’s movies including “She’s Gotta Have It” (1986), “School Daze” (1988), “Do The Right Thing” (1989), “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990), and “Jungle Fever” (1991).
William James Edwards Lee III was born in Snow Hill, Ala., on July 23, 1928. He grew up in a musical family. His father, Arnold Lee, was a cornet player and band director at Florida A&M University, while his mother, Alberta Grace (Edwards) Lee, was a classical concert pianist. His siblings Clifton, Arnold Jr., Leonard, Clarence, Consuela, and Grace also played musical instruments.
“My learning in music started with my mother and father,” he said in a 2012 interview with jazz bassist Jonah Jonathan.
Saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker served as a major inspiration. While enrolled at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, Lee began playing bass. He also took up music at nearby Spelman College, learning drums, piano and flute early on. His children followed his musical patterns: Son David played piano, daughter Joy practiced bass, son Cinqué played drums, son Chris took up trumpet, and Spike played cello.
After graduating from Morehouse in 1951 and a brief stop at Chicago’s South Side, he settled in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in 1959.
“New York is the epitome of jazz to me,” Lee said. “All the great musicians come here.”
He recorded on the independent Strata-East Records and established the New York Bass Violin Choir, as a “narrative folk, jazz opera” sound that featured pieces like “One Mile East,” “The Depot.” and “Baby Sweets.”
Lee provided his bass to the recordings of artists such as Simon and Garfunkel, Odetta, Woody Guthrie, Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, and John Lee Hooker, as well as Peter, Paul, and Mary. He’s on Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” Lightfoot’s “Oh, Linda,” and also played on Aretha Franklin’s 1960 debut album “Aretha.”
He went on to be featured on more than 250 record albums.
Bill appeared in most of Spike’s films.
“Everything I know about jazz, I got from my father,” Spike said in an interview. “I saw his integrity, how he was not going to play just any kind of music, no matter how much money he could make.”
Bill had five children with his first wife, Jacquelyn (Shelton), who was an art teacher: Shelton (Spike), Christopher (died 2013), David, Joie, and Cinqué. After her 1976 passing, he married Susan Kaplan, and they had a son, Arnold.
Along with Kaplan and Spike, Bill is also survived by sons David, Cinqué, and Arnold; Joie; a brother, A. Clifton Lee; and two grandchildren.