Obituaries - Feb. 10, 1999

Richard Boone; Jazz Trombonist and Singer

Richard Boone, 68, an American-born trombonist and scat singer who played with Count Basie, Dexter Gordon and other jazz giants. Boone, who was born in Little Rock, Ark., took up the trombone at age 12. In 1956, he moved to Los Angeles, where he played with Gordon, Sonny Criss and Teddy Edwards among others. In the late 1960s, Boone joined Basie’s band. He moved to Denmark in 1970 at a time when many American jazzmen were settling in the Danish capital, which was noted for its relaxed atmosphere and lack of racial tension. From 1973 through 1985, Boone played with the Danish Radio Big Band, considered one of the world’s best. Last year, he issued the album “Tribute to Love,” backed by Danish musicians. In Copenhagen, where a newspaper did not report a date or cause of death.

Marius Schoon; Fought Apartheid

Marius Schoon, 61, a prominent opponent of South Africa’s apartheid government who spent 12 years in prison and lost a wife and daughter to a police letter bomb while they were living in exile in Angola. Schoon, a schoolteacher, was jailed from 1964 to 1976 in South Africa for allegedly trying to blow up a police radio system. His first wife, Diana, committed suicide while he was incarcerated. Schoon remarried after leaving jail, and he and his wife, Jeanette, fled South Africa in 1978 under police pressure. They finally settled in Angola. In June 1984, a letter bomb arrived for Schoon at their home. Jeanette, 35, and daughter Katryn, 6, were killed in the blast. A South African police agent, Craig Williamson, later admitted arranging the letter bomb as well as an earlier letter bomb that killed Ruth First, the wife of South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo. President Nelson Mandela praised Schoon, saying that he was among the very few Afrikaners--descendants of Dutch settlers who imposed apartheid--who fought the system built on the suffering of blacks. Schoon is survived by his third wife, Sherry McLean, along with son Fritz and daughter Diana from his first marriage. On Sunday at Park Lane Clinic in Johannesburg of lung cancer.

Armand Schwerner; Poet and Critic

Armand Schwerner, 71, a poet whose work inspired numerous dances and theatrical presentations. Schwerner, who also wrote criticism and commentary, published about a dozen volumes of poetry. Two works will be published this fall--”Selected Shorter Poems” and “The Tablets,” the complete edition of a work he developed in 27 sections over 25 years. His performances and recordings of his own nonlinear poetry attracted big audiences. Schwerner could read in numerous voices and was a master of rhythm. In the 1980s, the Living Theater presented versions of his “Tablets.” Schwerner taught English at Long Island University in the 1960s and was on the Staten Island Community College faculty for 12 years. He taught at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York from 1976 until his retirement last summer. In New York City of cancer on Thursday.

Frederick Sommer; Influential Photographer

Frederick Sommer, 93, a photographer of Surrealist collages and horizonless landscapes who influenced generations of photographers. Originally a landscape architect, he was forced to forego his career when he developed tuberculosis. He settled in Arizona in 1931 and taught himself photography. Early photographs, which proved to be some of his most lasting images, were of dead carcasses, animal innards and bizarre desert landscapes. In 1994, the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired more than 100 of his photographs and held an exhibition of his work. In Prescott, Ariz., on Jan. 23.