Taking a final bow

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BEEN AND GONE By Bob Chaundy BBC News Profiles Unit Brecker's constant flow of ideas and rhythmic momentum drew praiseOur regular column covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - characters of the past month.

•Michael Brecker was perhaps the most influential saxophone player since John Coltrane. He has died of leukaemia aged 57. His physical dexterity and emotional intensity were admired not only in the jazz world but also those of blues, rock and funk. In addition to co-fronting the Brecker Brothers fusion band with his trumpet-playing brother Randy, he founded the groups Dreams and Steps Ahead. He also played with such legendary figures as Herbie Hancock and Horace Silver, and took part in literally hundreds of sessions with artists as diverse as Yoko Ono and Joni Mitchell.

Lakwena died in exile• If Michael Brecker's playing lifted the spirits, Alice Lakwena claimed to possess spiritual powers of a different sort. As leader of an insurgency movement in the north of Uganda in the 1980s, she told members of her Holy Spirit Movement that they would be protected from bullets by rubbing themselves with oil pressed from shea nuts. The uprising by her Acholi people against the government of President Youwerie Museveni failed and Lakwena fled to Kenya in 1987. She has died of an unknown illness, aged 50, in a refugee camp.

Rattray's death sparked a protest on crime in South Africa

• A different African tribe, the Zulus, was the passion of David Rattray, an historian of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. He has been killed at his travel lodge, Fugitives' Drift, which lies close to the battlefields of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift, the latter memorably commemorated in the film Zulu. A great raconteur and orator, David Rattray was well known to members of the Royal Geographical Society who lapped up his accounts of the Zulu wars. Fugitives' Drift drew 60,000 visitors including the Prince of Wales who became a close friend.

Kapuscinski was Poland's most celebrated journalist• Another champion of Africa was the Polish writer and journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski who was 74. He spent more than 40 years travelling on the continent, working mainly for the Polish news agency, PAP, but also gathering material for several books. Most notably, The Emperor (1978) was an account of the machinations within the court of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia which Jonathan Miller adapted for the Royal Court Theatre in 1985. Another Day of Life (1976) described the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Angola. Kapuscinski's style of writing became known as "literary reportage".

Buchwald's sharp wit was celebrated• While Richard Kapuscinski's books were translated into 20 languages, Art Buchwald's columns were syndicated to 530 newspapers. His wry political and social satire made him a pillar of the Washington political elite. "If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough," he once said, "they'll make you a member of it." His writing earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. His barbed humour masked years of depression, yet he once told readers "Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time you've got." Buchwald has died of kidney failure aged 81.

Hunt went to jail over Watergate• Among those mentioned in Buchwald's columns was E. Howard Hunt, the man who organised the break-in at the Watergate Hotel which led to a 33-month spell in prison, not to mention President Nixon's downfall in 1974. Hunt has died aged 88 from pneumonia. As an agent of espionage, Hunt led a US conspiracy that brought down the President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, and helped plan the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He was also accused of an involvement in the assassination of President John Kennedy but nothing was ever proved.

Others who have died in January include: musicians <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6243901.stm">Pete Kleinow</a>, Alice Coltrane, Pookie Hudson, Gracie Cole and <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6281309.stm">Denny Doherty</a>; broadcasters <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3561915.stm"> Magnus Magnusson</a> and <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6263709.stm">Barbara Kelly</a>; actors <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6250933.stm">Yvonne de Carlo</a>, <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6287037.stm">Ron Carey </a> and Larkin Ford; film producer <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1743086.stm">Carlo Ponti </a> and the founder of the Emmaus movement, <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6285805.stm">Abbe Pierre</a>.