Louie Bellson's drums fall silent: Rock Falls' favorite son dies at 84

Jazz legend's death leaves local music scene kind of blue

There is a third story in the Sterling Gazette/Sauk Valley Newspapers, but I think it would be rejected since I am posting as a guest
http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2009/02/17/opinion/editorials/doc499af58022056475215364.txt

And here's the Wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Bellson

I didn't know Louie Bellson, more's the pity, as I born about the time he moved away from our mutual birthplace of Rock Falls, Illinois, but I certainly knew who he was and followed his musical career for many years.

People great and small had nothing but praise for Bellson's music, but perhaps more importantly, Louie as a person. Born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni on July 6, 1924, Louie started taking drum lessons from his father when he was less than four years old. He performed on over 200 albums, with some of the greatest Big Band musicians, Louie Armstrong, Dizzie Gillespie, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, the list goes on and on. He married singer Pearl Bailey in 1952 after a two week courtship, a marriage that lasted until her death in 1990.