Dr. Lonnie Smith, Chick Corea, Pat Martino, Curtis Fuller, George Mraz, Pee Wee Ellis…
The list of legendary jazz musicians who died in 2021 is unusually long. In total, more than fifty major figures were lost within a single year — artists who had shaped the music over decades.
Rather than putting together a conventional retrospective, NPR’s Jazz Night in America approached it differently. Instead of interviews or archive footage, they asked a musician to respond through a new piece of music.
They chose John Patitucci.
The video below features One More Angel in full, as part of Jazz Night in America’s tribute to the musicians lost in 2021.
It’s a short performance, but worth watching closely — particularly for how much is left unsaid.
Why John Patitucci?
As NPR noted at the time, the “low end” had been particularly hard hit. Several of the musicians lost were bassists, or closely tied to that role in the music.
Patitucci was an obvious choice in that context. Over a long career — including his work with Chick Corea — he has often operated in a role that’s less about leading from the front and more about shaping what happens around him.
For this project, he wrote a short piece, One More Angel, and recorded it as a duet with his cellist wife Sachi Patitucci.
The Setting
The performance was filmed in the showroom at Upton Bass in Mystic, Connecticut — a space filled with instruments rather than an audience.
There’s no introduction and no attempt to explain the piece. It simply begins.
That choice matters. Rather than framing the performance as a formal tribute, it keeps the focus on the music itself.
The piece is deliberately simple.
There’s no rhythm section, no harmonic backing, and no sense of build towards a climax. Instead, the focus is on tone, timing and space.
With just bass and cello, everything is exposed. The bass doesn’t drive in the usual sense — it settles into the centre of the sound, leaving room around it. The cello moves in and out of that space, sometimes taking the lead, sometimes not.
Nothing is overstated. The performance avoids obvious gestures or dramatic moments, which makes it feel more observational than expressive.