Leroi Moore died yesterday. He was a founding member of my favorite band, The Dave Matthews Band, and it was probably his saxophone and jazz experience that first turned me on to the group. I've seen Leroi in concert over 20 times, collected hundreds of his live shows with the band, and listened to their albums over and over. I really love the music he made, and I'm very sad that he won't be making any more. I'll have to think about some of my favorite Leroi moments and figure out a way to share audio on this blog.Looking beyond these feelings about the tragedy of his sudden death, it will be interesting to see how the band moves forward without him. It has been years since I obsessively read everything published about them, so I won't even try to speculate how his loss will effect the personal dynamic among the other four members and their regular supporting cast. But from a musical perspective it could be an opportunity to inject some fresh creativity if they choose to bring in one or more new woodwind players. It must be pretty hard for those guys play the songs they've been performing together for almost two decades (seriously, 17 years? how did that happen?) without being able to look over and see Roi wailing from behind his sunglasses, but they actually played what must have been an intensely emotional show last night in LA, featuring the amazing Jeff Coffin from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones on sax. So I can't really imagine the band doing anything other than moving on together, trying to have fun and keep playing.
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