Charnett Moffett, the Bay Area jazz star who worked with Art Blakey, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and many other legendary artists during his nearly 40-year career, has died at age of 54.
“I am deeply saddened and shocked to confirm that the beloved and iconic jazz bass innovator, composer, and leader Charnett Moffett suddenly passed away due to a heart attack early Monday, April 11th,” publicist Lydia Liebman wrote in a news release. “He was with Jana Herzen, his wife of two years and musical collaborator of 12 years at the time. He was pronounced dead at Stanford University Hospital.”
Moffett, an acclaimed bassist, composer and bandleader, had been dealing with “bouts of intense pain from trigeminal neuralgia for the past few years and Herzen and the family suspect that the heart attack was a complication of that condition,” Liebman said in the statement.
“The family is in shock and devastated, but also thankful that he is released from the intense pain, and invites all his fans and loved ones to celebrate with them that his indomitable, vastly creative, high flying, and joyful spirit is now free to fly even higher and even freer … ,” she added.
Born on June 10, 1967 in New York, Moffett was still a child when his family relocated to Oakland. He was part of a musical family; his siblings included drummer Codaryl “Cody” Moffett, vocalist Charisse Moffett, trumpeter Mondre Moffett and saxophonist Charles Moffett, Jr. The patriarch of the family was drummer Charles Moffett, who played with such jazz talents as Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Carla Bley as well as rock ‘n’ roll founding father Little Richard.
Thanks to his father, Charnett Moffett experienced a lot of jazz music at a young age, attending a number of shows at the famed Keystone Korner in San Francisco’s North Beach area. His first instrument was reportedly the trumpet, although he did receive some advice about rethinking that choice.
“I remember meeting Miles Davis at Keystone and he said, ‘Don’t play the trumpet, play the drums like your dad,’” Moffett said to jazz journalist Andrew Gilbert for an article in The Oaklandside. “I saw so many great musicians. I can remember seeing the great McCoy Tyner, who I went on to work with for six or seven years.”
Moffett ended up focusing on the bass and, after high school, would go on to study at the Juilliard School of Music. His professional career took off in the first half of the 1980s, as he appeared on two of the Marsalis brothers’ albums — Branford Marsalis’ “Scenes in the City” (1984) and the Wynton Marsalis Grammy-winner “Black Codes (From the Underground).”
By that point, everybody seemed to know about this young jazz bass sensation; not coincidentally, mighty Blue Note Records soon came calling and inked him to a deal. He’d make his recording debut as a leader with 1987’s “Net Man,” the first of more than a dozen solo albums he’d deliver over the next 35 years. His most recent release was last year’s “New Love,” which was recorded with wife Jana Herzen on guitar.
“If one thing is obvious from this CD, it is that electric bassist Charnett Moffett is a happy man these days,” Jerome Wilson wrote in his 2021 review of “New Love” on allaboutjazz.com. “His playing leaps out of the speakers on these tracks with joy and high spirits. That may be because he works here in the company of his ‘new love,’ his wife, guitarist Jana Herzen.”
The family is planning a private memorial service in California on April 24 and is reportedly “looking into arrangements to honor Charnett’s musical and spiritual contributions with a life celebration ceremony in New York City in late August or early September.”
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