Brian Case, the acclaimed jazz and popular music writer who spent 18 years at Time Out magazine during its golden era, has died aged 88. He was known for his pungent prose and broad cultural references, which he applied to subjects ranging from Dexter Gordon to Ian Dury.
Early Career and NME Years
Case began his journalism career in 1974 when he started submitting pieces to the NME. His writing quickly stood out for its allusive style. In a 1974 piece introducing readers to Miles Davis, he wrote: “By the close of the 50s, Miles’s trumpet was the most syndicated sound in jazz. That lovely, elegiac, choked-down tone evoked rain on windows, the exquisite melancholia of Roderick Usher. It could have been Montgomery Clift playing taps for dead Maggio, Gatsby lounging at the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.”
That style encouraged readers to explore the cultural references he cited, from Edgar Allan Poe to F. Scott Fitzgerald. He later worked at Melody Maker before joining Time Out, where he served as film editor, senior feature writer, and books editor over an 18-year stint.
Time Out and Later Work
At Time Out, Case was often the oldest member of staff, having completed national service in the RAF, where he watched radar screens in Germany. He embraced the role of an ultra-cool elder statesman, dispensing wisdom and firing enthusiasm over long lunches. Colleagues remembered his bebop vocabulary, button-down shirts, and silvered military moustache.
He also wrote about film and literature, profiling figures such as Al Pacino and James Ellroy. His 2015 book, On the Snap, collected his reflections on interview subjects.
Personal Life and Legacy
Brian was born in Deptford, south London, to Anne (née Davies), a Welsh nurse and midwife, and Harry, an Irish officer in the City of London police. He attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s grammar school in New Cross and studied history at Hull University. Before journalism, he worked as a teacher while writing his first novel, The Users (1968), which Anthony Burgess praised as “a remarkable debut”.
He married Pam Jones, a teacher, but the marriage ended in amicable divorce. In 1980, he married Sonia (née Meller), an actor he met in a pub; she later became a headteacher in south London schools. She survives him with their daughters, Daisy and Molly.
