Claude Luter, a horn player who hobnobbed with Louis Armstrong and was one of France's most celebrated jazz musicians, has died, his son said Tuesday. He was 83.
Best known for boosting the trans-Atlantic transferal of New Orleans-style jazz to Paris, Luter suffered complications after a fall and died Friday at a hospital outside Paris said his son, Eric.
A trumpeter who later took up the clarinet and saxophone, Luter met Louis Armstrong at the Nice Jazz Festival in 1948. The following year, he began accompanying Sidney Bechet, like Armstrong one of the fathers of New Orleans jazz.
As recently as 2005, Luter played twice a month at a Paris club, the "Petit Journal" and had dreams of fully returning to the jazz scene shortly before he died, his son said.
Luter held a full rehearsal with his band, "Claude Luter and his Orchestra" in September, his son said.
Born July 23, 1923 in Paris, Luter discovered jazz in his adolescence and built his reputation at private gatherings during World War II. Luter's popularity surged after the war, as France discovered jazz.
His band, the Lorientaise, charmed Paris' intellectual elite.
Luter played in clubs in New Orleans and around the world. He took part in a tribute to Bechet in 1997 in New Orleans and attended a 1970 tribute to Armstrong in Los Angeles.
Luter's last public appearance was in September, when he attended a ceremony at the Culture Ministry where a model of New Orleans was given to Paris, his son said. Luter is also survived by one daughter, Isabelle.
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