Bill Lee, the Jazz musician and songwriter who played with superstars and scored films for his son Spike, died Wednesday. He was 94.
Lee died at his home in Brooklyn, according to a publicist for his son. His cause of death was not immediately announced. The director also confirmed the news on his Instagram.
Before his son became a world-renowned filmmaker, Lee himself was a highly regarded jazz bassist and played with Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and Harry Belafonte, among others.
Lee was also the composer for soundtracks to Spike’s early films, including “Do The Right Thing.”
“Everything I know about jazz I got from my father,” Spike told the New York Times in 1990. “I saw his integrity, how he was not going to play just any kind of music, no matter how much money he could make.”
Despite their strong relationship for years, the two became estranged in the mid-1990s.
“I don’t have anything to do with Spike now,” the elder Lee told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. “We haven’t talked for two years.”