Len Dobbin, the host of the Dobbin’s Den jazz show Sundays on CKUT Radio, died Wednesday night after suffering a stroke at the Upstairs jazz bar … in the middle of the jazz festival.

Dobbin, who also photographed jazz artists and wrote about jazz, was a fixture of CKUT. His show had gone 736 episodes (he would count them), or about 14 years.

He was 74, and he is already being missed by many in the jazz community, his death coming at either the worst or best possible time, depending on your perspective.

You can listen to archives of Dobbin’s Den here. Next Sunday’s show, which Dobbin was scheduled to host, will instead become a special tribute show hosted by Mike Chamberlain. Details are still being figured out. It runs 11am to 1pm on CKUT 90.3FM.

UPDATE: La Presse has a short obit, as does The Gazette, with some thoughts from Bernie Perusse and James Hale. Hour and Mirror also chip in.

UPDATE (July 14): A memorial is planned for August 9.

CKUT has audio of the Len Dobbin memorial show online in MP3 format: Hour 1-2, Hour 3, Hour 4-5.

UPDATE (Sept. 29): A piece in This Magazine.