My readers won’t need to be told who Joe Muranyi — clarinetist, soprano saxophonist, singer, composer, raconteur — was. I am sorry to say was — but Joe died on April 20.
I remember seeing Joe on television with Louis, in person with Roy and at “Highlights in Jazz,” and at a concert in North Babylon, New York, where Joe (alongside Marty Grosz, Peter Ecklund, and Dan Barrett — if I remember correctly) sang LOUISIANA FAIRY TALE, amending the lyrics with a grin, “Can it be / North Babylon at last?” He played in David Ostwald’s Louis Armstrong Centennial Band — and — most recently and bittersweetly — when I called him at the nursing home to ask if I could put my readers in touch with him, he was very kind to me. So that is the way I shall remember him.
But I have help in loving memories: please click josephus to read my friend Ricky Riccardi’s deeply loving tribute to the man Louis Armstrong called “Josephus.”
May your happiness increase.
JAZZ LIVES 
RIP, Joe. Thanks for all the encouragement and joyful music.
Sad news indeed. As well as being a fine player in his own right, he was one of the last direct links to Louis and the All-Stars and his writings and interviews about Pops are unfailingly warm and wise. He was supposed to have been writing a book about Louis: did he ever complete it?
I know the manuscript of the book is in good hands . . . so I believe we shall get to read Joe’s stories.
A wonderful player and a great person. He had worked with my father on and off for many years.
Joe, was a fine clarinetist and I will miss him. His health was failing the last couple of years, in and out of nurseing facilities, etc. He loved working with Louis Armstromg all those years, and now he is playing with Pops again.
Over the years, Joe Muranyi and I have subbed for each other over the years and even have one of his clarinets which is my second backup clarinet and is always with me in my double Clarinet case. so you might say Joe Muranyi is always with me. RIP…..
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