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Roy Ayers, a vibraphonist who in the 1970s helped pioneer a new, funkier strain of jazz, becoming a touchstone for many artists who followed and one of the most sampled musicians by hip-hop artists, died on Tuesday in New York City. He was 84.<\/p>\n
His death was announced on his Facebook page. The announcement said he died after a long illness but did not specify a cause or say where in New York he died.<\/p>\n
In addition to being one of the acknowledged masters of the jazz vibraphone, Mr. Ayers was a leader in the movement that added electric instruments, rock and R&B rhythms, and a more soulful feel to jazz. He was also one of the more commercially successful jazz musicians of his generation.<\/p>\n
He released nearly four dozen albums, most notably 22 during his 12 years with Polydor Records. Twelve of his Polydor albums spent a collective 149 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart. His composition \u201cEverybody Loves the Sunshine,\u201d from a 1976 album of the same name, has been sampled nearly 200 times by artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg. The electric piano hook from \u201cLove,\u201d on his first Polydor album, \u201cUbiquity\u201d \u2014 which introduced his group of the same name \u2014 was used in Deee-Lite\u2019s 1990 dance hit \u201cGroove Is in the Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cRoy Ayers is largely responsible for what we deem as \u2018neo-soul,\u2019\u201d the producer Adrian Younge, who collaborated with Mr. Ayers and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest in 2020 on the second album in the \u201cJazz Is Dead\u201d series, which showcases frequently sampled jazz musicians, told Clash magazine. \u201cHis sound mixed with cosmic soul-jazz is really what created artists like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. It was just that groove.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not to say people around then weren\u2019t making music with a groove,” he added, \u201cbut he is definitely a pioneer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Roy Edward Ayers Jr. was born on Sep. 12, 1940, in Los Angeles, one of four children, and the only son, of Roy and Ruby Ayers. His father was a scrap dealer and an amateur trombonist; his mother, a schoolteacher and piano tutor, gave Roy lessons from an early age.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the English newspaper The Nottingham Post in 2013, Mr. Ayers recalled that his first exposure to the vibraphone came via a giant of the instrument, when his parents took young Roy to see him perform:<\/p>\n
\u201cI got my first set of vibraphone mallets from Lionel Hampton when I was 5 years old, so I always wanted to be like Lionel Hampton. At one time, when I was very young, I was thinking I was going to be Lionel Hampton. My mother and father always played his music, so I was reared on Lionel Hampton.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Ayers studied music and music history with the celebrated instructor Samuel R. Browne, whose other students included Dexter Gordon and Charles Mingus, while attending Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
He made his first records in the months after his 21st birthday, under the leadership of the saxophonists Curtis Amy and Vi Redd. He made his debut as a leader before he turned 23 with the aptly titled United Artists album \u201cWest Coast Vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n