Art Scatter

UPDATE: Stuart Tomlinson and Kimberly A.C. Wilson have this good obituary on the Metro cover of this morning’s Oregonian. Good pictures at the link, too.

Dick Bogle was a Portland cop, and a television newscaster, and a newspaper reporter, and a city councilman, and he distinguished himself in all four fields, partly by being a pioneer African American locally in each.

But I like to think of him as one of Portland’s most devoted jazz aficionados, a man who loved the music, had strong opinions about it, and spread the good word about it whenever and however he could. He took wonderful black-and-white photographs of jazz greats and local luminaries in the clubs. He was Oregon correspondent for Downbeat. And he reviewed new releases on his own jazz blog.

Bogle died this morning at age 79. Willamette Week’s Hank Stern has the story here, complete with excerpts from a short profile WW published in 2007. Bogle’s wife, the singer Nola Bogle, said the cause of death was congestive heart failure.

Dick Bogle was one of those people of whom you can honestly say, this city is a better place because he lived here. I didn’t really know him, although I talked with him a few times. But I’ll miss knowing he’s around. I wish I knew where to find some of those jazz photos, so I could show you how he saw his city.

This entry was posted Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Bob Hicks, Cities, General, Music. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.