Lawrence Leathers, Jazz Drummer on Grammy-Winning Albums, Found Dead After Assault – The New York Times

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A successfully-known jazz drummer identified for his crisply swinging vogue used to be came staunch via ineffective on Sunday in a Bronx stairwell, and two of us were charged with assault in connection alongside with his death, the police mentioned.

Lawrence Leathers, 37, used to be came staunch via about noon on Sunday by every other tenant sprawled on the steps on the first floor of the Bronx residence constructing on East 141st Boulevard the build he lived. Emergency scientific technicians pronounced him ineffective at the scene, the police mentioned.

Sterling Aguilar, 28, and Lisa Harris, 41, were arrested Monday in connection with Mr. Leathers’s death. In step with the police, Ms. Harris lived within the identical constructing as Mr. Leathers, nonetheless his relationship to her used to be unclear.

Mr. Leathers’s gated constructing, located on a peaceable aspect aspect road in Mott Haven, remained cordoned off and a police officer used to be standing guard on Monday evening.

Mr. Leathers had established himself over the last dozen years as a rising talent on New York’s straight-forward jazz scene. He used to be scheduled to play an after-hours demonstrate Monday at Smalls, a club in Greenwich Village the build he seemed most incessantly.

Mr. Leathers spent many of the past decade playing within the backing trio for Cecile McLorin Salvant, arguably jazz’s premier younger vocalist, and he is featured on two of her recordings, “For One to Admire” (2015) and “Dreams and Daggers” (2017), both of which won Grammy Awards for a spread of efficient jazz vocal album.

Born in Lansing, Mich., on Nov. 23, 1981, Mr. Leathers started playing professionally at age 15, and studied jazz at Michigan Narrate College sooner than animated to New York City. He arrived in New York in 2007 to wait on the Juilliard College.

Mr. Leathers speedily grew to alter into heads at dens savor Dizzy’s Membership and Smalls, the build he grew to alter into a fixture, carrying forward a custom of unflashy nonetheless vigorously swinging drumming that harkened aid to the likes of Jimmy Cobb and Arthur Taylor.

At Juilliard, Mr. Leathers met Aaron Diehl, a pianist, and Paul Sikivie, a bassist, and the students within the close shaped a trio under Mr. Diehl’s management. It later grew to alter into Ms. Salvant’s backing band, and went on to tour the field, playing at a pair of of jazz’s most prestigious fairs.

In a 2015 interview with Lansing City Pulse, Mr. Leathers mentioned he sought to entwine his exact-minded drumming with Ms. Salvant’s vocals. “Quite a lot of time, of us play with vocalists and there’s a separation between the vocalist and the relaxation of the band,” he mentioned. “She’s moral every other instrument on the bandstand.”

Mr. Leathers studied and performed with a series of elder musicians. Among them, the trumpeter and impresario Wynton Marsalis grew to alter into a mentor, supporter and occasional jam-session associate. It used to be essentially essentially based mostly partly on Mr. Marsalis’s advice that Ms. Salvant chose the Aaron Diehl Trio as her backing band.

Emily Palmer contributed reporting.