Jane Little
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra bass player Jane Little made national news on Sunday after she collapsed onstage near the end of a concert and later died.
The 87-year-old had also made national news earlier in the year for setting a Guinness World Record for playing with the same symphony for 71 consecutive years, surpassing a record set by a Utah woman earlier in the decade.
According to one report, she also played for the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra early in her career to make some extra money.
The article is not clear when that was, but it must have been in the first few years she was a member of the Atlanta orchestra, probably in the late 1940s or 1950s.
The National Public Radio report on her life and death said that she had begun playing for $35 a week at some point during her early years with the Atlanta symphony. But to make more money, she traveled across the South to play with other orchestras, including those in Augusta and Savannah in Georgia and the Chattanooga symphony.
The Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1933, 12 years before the Atlanta group. The Atlanta symphony was initially a youth orchestra, while the Chattanooga symphony was largely made up of students and recent graduates of Chattanooga High School in its early days.
Ms. Little, who was born Jane Findley and later married a flute player in the Atlanta symphony, had come from a musical family, as her mother played the piano by ear.
She attended the old Girls High in Atlanta and wanted to get in the school’s glee club. After taking a music aptitude test, she was called to the office of a female administrator, who noticed her talent but was surprised she did not play an instrument. Ms. Little wanted to play some other instruments, but the woman told her they needed a bass player.
Her father took her down to the Southeastern Music Company in Atlanta, and they bought a giant bass, despite her diminutive 4-foot, 11-inch frame.
By her sophomore year, she joined the newly formed Atlanta Youth Symphony and stayed with the group after it became the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
On Sunday, she and the orchestra were performing the Irving Berlin song, “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” near the end of a Broadway pops concert at the Atlanta Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center when she collapsed.
She was later taken to Grady Hospital, where she died.
Her sudden death sparked a number of online comments. Some thought that was a great way to go out for a beloved, always-smiling woman whose music was a large part of her life and identity.
Others discussed the challenges of people continuing to play music professionally at that age, both in terms of being able to maintain the same skill level, and keeping a spot from opening up for a younger musician. Some also discussed what is equitable pay for someone at that age or what someone might be forced to receive.
Regardless, Ms. Little was an Atlanta legend, and she at least briefly also graced a Chattanooga stage – probably Memorial Auditorium or the old Chattanooga High auditorium on Third Street – with her skills.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net