Jazz funeral held for Savannah musician Ben Tucker

By DASH COLEMANMORRIS NEWS SERVICE – updated Monday, June 10, 2013 - 10:40pm

Hundreds of friends and family remembered Ben Tucker on Monday for his kindness, talents, leadership, sense of humor and contributions to the Savannah community. The jazz music legend, recognizable across Savannah by his trademark “Hey partner” greeting and his skills with the bass, died a week earlier at age 82.

“It didn’t matter where you were from or how old you were, Ben was your friend,” said Tucker family friend Pete Chaison. “He’d find the best of each of us and every one of us and treat us all like family.”

Monday’s memorial service reflected the them of “Going Home Baby.” The ceremony featured music, personal reflections and one last standing ovation for a man showered with much applause in six decades as a professional musician. Tucker’s bass stood like a sentry near his casket at the front of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension sanctuary.

“The bass section in heaven just got a little more vibrant,” Ascension’s pastor, the Rev. Carl Yost, said. “Ben is going home.”

A day earlier, Savannahians paid their respects to the late jazz musician at a viewing Sunday.

Throughout the afternoon, people filed in to the upstairs chapel at Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension on Wright Square, where Tucker lay in an American flag-draped casket.

The 82-year-old musician, community leader and businessman died Tuesday after the golf cart he was driving was struck by a speeding car on Hutchinson Island.

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