Charlie "Bird" Parker (1920-1955)
Mar 12 American jazz saxophonist (Ornithology) and composer, dies of pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer at 34 in NYC
- Mar 16 Mayhew Lake, composer, dies at 75
- Mar 29 Zlatko Baloković, Croatian-American concert violinist, dies at 69
- Apr 10 Oskar Lindberg, Swedish composer (Requiem), dies at 68
- May 2 Tadeusz Jarecki, Polish composer and conductor, dies at 66
- May 4 George Enesco, Romanian violinist, conductor, and composer (Romanian Dances), dies at 73
- May 17 Francesco Balilla Pratella, Italian composer, dies at 75
- May 25 Wardell Gray, American swing and bebop jazz tenor saxophonist, dies at 34
- May 31 Raoul Gunsbourg, French composer, impresario and opera director (Opéra de Monte-Carlo, 1892-1951), dies at 95
- Jun 1 F Melius Christiansen, composer, dies at 84
- Jun 6 Vernon Isley, American rock singer (The Isley Brothers), dies from injuries sustained when he is struck by a car while riding his bicycle at 13
- Jun 11 Marcel Samuel-Rousseau, French organist and opera composer (Le Bon Roi Dagobert), dies at 72
- Jun 18 Walter Rein, German composer, dies at 61
- Jun 18 Willy Burkhard, Swiss composer, dies at 55
- Jul 6 Paolo Gallico, Italian-American pianist and composer (The Apocalypse), dies at 87
- Jul 7 Franco Casavola, Italian composer, music theorist, and futurist, dies at 63
- Jul 17 Bronisław Szulc, Polish conductor and composer, dies at 73
- Jul 25 Ilmari Hannikainen, Finnish composer, drowns during a sailing trip at 62
- Jul 25 Isaak Iosifovich Dunayevsky, Soviet operetta and film composer, dies at 55
- Aug 5 Carmen Miranda, Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer and actress (Down Argentine Way), dies of a heart attack at 46
- Aug 9 Marion Eugene Bauer, American composer, dies at 57
- Aug 28 Bob Gordon, American cool jazz baritone saxophonist, dies in a car accident at 27
- Sep 2 Rudolf Kattnigg, Austrian composer, dies at 60
- Oct 15 Fumio Hayasaka, Japanese film score composer (Rashomon; Seven Samurai), dies of tuberculosis at 41
- Oct 20 Eino Roiha, Finnish pianist, composer, and musicologist dies at 51
- Oct 26 Arne Eggen, Norwegian composer, dies at 74
- Oct 27 Vladimir Mikhaylovich Deshevov, composer, dies at 66
- Nov 17 James P. Johnson, American pianist and jazz composer (Charleston), dies at 64
- Nov 22 Guy Ropartz, French composer, dies at 91 (b. 1864)
Arthur Honegger (1892-1955)
Nov 27 Swiss composer (King David; Pacific 231), dies of a heart attack at 63
- Nov 27 Luis de Freitas Branco, Portuguese composer, dies at 65
- Nov 30 Josip Slavenski, Croatian composer, dies at 59
- Dec 3 Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport, American boogie-woogie and blues musician, dies of hardening of the arteries at 61
- Dec 8 Jacques Handschin, Swiss musicologist (Der Toncharakter), dies at 69
- Dec 11 Franz Syberg, Danish organist and composer, dies at 51
Country Singers
Jazz Musicians
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