Ed Shaughnessy, a drummer who for nearly three decades anchored the rhythm section of Doc Severinsen’s “The Tonight Show” band on NBC, died May 24 at his home in Calabasas, Calif. He was 84 and had a heart attack.
William Selditz, a family friend, confirmed the death to the Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Shaughnessy, who was born in Jersey City, became a mainstay in New York’s thriving jazz scene in the late 1940s, when he was still in his teens. He worked with such renowned performers as Billie Holiday, George Shearing and Charlie Ventura. He worked with a series of big bands in the 1950s, including ones led by Benny Goodman and Count Basie, and replaced the drum virtuoso Buddy Rich in the Tommy Dorsey Band.
He was a member of studio orchestras with CBS in the 1950s and worked on the Steve Allen and Garry Moore shows. He joined “The Tonight Show” band in 1963 and moved with the show from New York to California in the early 1970s.
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Mr. Shaughnessy was known primarily as a jazz drummer, but he worked with musicians from many different musical genres, including rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix, soul singer Aretha Franklin and classical conductor and pianist Leonard Bernstein.
Share this articleShareIn Mr. Shaughnessy’s 2010 memoir, Severinsen, the trumpeter and longtime leader of “The Tonight Show” band, described Mr. Shaughnessy as “the superb engine that drove our ... band for thirty years.”
Leonard Feather, a former jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times, said Mr. Shaughnessy “does what jazz drummers were originally called on to do: Keep a firm swinging beat and play a supportive role.”
Mr. Shaughnessy was part of “The Tonight Show” band until host Johnny Carson retired in 1992.
He gave hundreds of drumming clinics around the country and was a member of the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.
Ilene Woods, his wife since 1963, died in 2010. She was the voice of Cinderella in a 1950 Disney film. A son died in 1984.
Survivors include a son and three grandchildren.
— From wire and staff reports
Notable deaths of 2013
A look at those who died last year.
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