Art Taylor, 65, a drummer whose crisp, hard-driving work is heard on classic recordings by John Coltrane, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, died suddenly yesterday in New York, friends said. Besides performing and pioneering modern jazz drumming, he was the author of a classic book of jazz interviews called "Notes and Tones." The book vividly set forth the concerns of America's jazz musicians -- from anguish and bitterness over racism to record company exploitation to worries over the loss of jazz musicians to drug use.
John Smith, 63, who changed his name from Robert Earl Van Orden as a joke, then gained starring roles in the TV westerns "Laramie" and "Cimarron City," died Jan. 25 at his Los Angeles home of what was probably a combination of cirrhosis and heart problems, according to his former wife, actress Luana Patten Smith.