NEW YORK (AP) – Bob Belden, a jazz musician, composer and producer who was the first American musician to perform in Iran since its 1979 revolution when he took the stage there this year, has died in New York City. He was 58.
His sister, Elizabeth Belden Harmstone, says he died Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan after suffering a heart attack.
A saxophonist, Belden often mixed the traditional and avant-garde and turned the music of artists such as Puccini, Prince and Sting into jazz. His 2008 record, “Miles From India,” combined U.S. and Indian musicians performing Miles Davis tunes.
Belden earned a Grammy for “The Black Dahlia,” an album based on the 1947 murder case of a young actress.
Harmstone described him as a pioneer and a “jazz musician true and true.”