Lou Donaldson's career spanned over half a century, and several of his recordings were sampled in some of the most impactful rap, hip-hop and pop records in history.

A player of impeccable technique and a mainstay of the Blue Note label, he recorded constantly as both a leader and a sideman beginning in 1952.

U.S. saxophonist Lou Donaldson, one of jazz music's last remaining links to the era of bebop in the 1950s who went on to develop a soul and Latin-inspired sound in the following decades, has died at 98.