John Defauw worked in Chicago’s jazz scene much the way he backed a sextet: as a steady but self-effacing force that made things jell.
As jazz evolved, Mr. Defauw held tight to the inspirations he first heard as a teenager in Europe: Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong and other famous players of the day.
In the late 1960s he introduced “Jazz at Noon” aboard the Showboat Sari-S, a paddle-wheel steamer moored on the Chicago River, which he later moved to Marina City and other locations. With a former wife, he started “Jazz at Five” at Andy’s, a bar and grill on East Hubbard Street.
“He was responsible for putting a whole lot of musicians to work in Chicago,” said Tom Buckley, a friend and vice president of the Jazz Institute of Chicago.
Mr. Defauw, 86, who also had a career designing business interiors, died Sunday, Aug. 22, of complications from emphysema in St. Margaret Mercy Healthcare Center, Hammond, his wife, Vi, said.
His father, Desire, was a classical music conductor, and his mother, Jeanne, was a pianist and dancer.
Born outside London and raised in Belgium, Mr. Defauw left Europe with his family as the Nazis advanced westward. His father’s visa to the United States was sponsored by Arturo Toscanini, the legendary conductor, said Mr. Defauw’s daughter Jeanne Horney.
After his father began a short-lived tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1943, Mr. Defauw moved to the Chicago area and later lived in the Indiana Dunes area, east of Gary. His first marriage, to Gladys Louise Timmerman, ended in divorce.
He was a quiet man who didn’t seek publicity, Buckley said.
It was the same when he took the stand to play one of several instruments he had mastered, especially guitar.
As a rhythm guitarist he almost never took a solo, content to supply his front men with dependable chord changes and an unerring rhythm. Freddie Green, the Count Basie band’s longtime guitarist, was his hero.
“He wasn’t out front,” said Joe Segal, the owner of the Jazz Showcase on Grand Avenue. “He sat in the background and plunked away on the guitar.”
Mr. Defauw was a founding member of the Jazz Institute of Chicago and a member of the Illiana Club of Traditional Jazz. With Penny Tyler, his second wife, he organized jazz shows throughout the city.
“They were the entrepreneurs and talent scouts of this running series of jazz concerts when Chicago was really a desert for traditional jazz. They kept it alive,” said Richard Wang, acting president of the Jazz Institute of Chicago.
Mr. Defauw had trained in Belgium as an architect and industrial engineer, and at such Chicago firms as the defunct Equipment Manufacturing Co. and his own Ideations.
Personally, Mr. Defauw cut a dashing figure as well, his voice revealing a trace of Europe and his neck often adorned with an ascot.
“He was just classy,” his wife said. “Very sophisticated-looking and classy.”
Mr. Defauw is also survived by two other daughters, Linda Sotero and Tammy Wilson; a son, John; 17 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
Services are pending.
