The emotive power of Arthur Blythe's bracing alto saxophone tone and flighty phrasing set him apart from many of his generation. A poet, a muezzin, an angry activist, a lamenting lover: Blythe conjured a broad array of sonic images through his nonpareil approach to music. The beloved altoist, who had battled Parkinson's disease for the past several years, passed away on March 27, 2017 at the age of 76.

Blythe's musical cohorts and fans remember him with deep emotion and respect. As drummer Dougie Bowne recalls: "I saw Arthur Blythe (at the Tin Palace) a bunch, maybe it was three or four times, but it seems like a million, it was so important to me—intense and passionate and intelligent, his robust vibrato shaking off the tin ceiling that the joint was named for... meant the world to me, hearing these guys just then, traveling back and forth between the worlds... I never got to meet the man himself, and that saddens me now. I would like to have told him how important his music was to me, and still is, but I'd want to tell him about the walk from CB's (rock club CBGB) to the Tin Palace, that short, almost a block walk, and tell him how much his shit meant to me. I like to think he'd understand the real distance that the walk described, and I'd also like to think I'd be able to say thank you for being the destination, so often, and so fully."

Born in Los Angeles, Blythe moved to San Diego as a young boy and began playing the saxophone when he was nine. He found work in R&B bands as a teenager but fell in love with jazz before he finished high school.

Back in L.A., Blythe fell in with the circle surrounding pianist/composer