Michael Denny

Noted copywriter, author and jazzman Michael Denny, 65, died June 4 at the Morris Hills Nursing Home in Morristown following a long illness. Members of the New Jersey Advertising Club graciously donated to a fund formed by the club to help offset mounting medical bills following a stroke he suffered in 2002. Denny worked for Grey Advertising
and D’Arcy McManus in New York and Young & Rubicam in San Francisco before joining Schuler, Sadowski & Bloodgood in Flanders in 2000. He was a longtime member and former board member of the New Jersey Advertising Club and frequent contributor
to Adtalk. He also wrote and published the humorous pet book How to Get a Cat to Sit in Your Lap.

His second love — Jazz!
An accomplished clarinetist, Denny formed the six-piece band Good Time Jazz Babies in 1977. In 1990, the group became the Centennial Band and played weekly at the French Quarter in Wayne as well as performing annually at the Jersey Awards dinner.

A former board member of the New Jersey Jazz Society, Denny developed International Jazz Day in 1991, which was endorsed by the United Nations, accepted in 99 nations around the world and celebrated annually on the Saturday before Memorial Day.
Born in LaSalle, Ill., he received a B.A. degree from the University of Illinois and was a graduate of the Naval Officers Candidate School in Newport, R.I. He served as a naval gunfire liaison officer at Camp Le Jeune, N.C., before leaving the service in 1965 as a lieutenant j.g.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy; daughters, Clarissa, Amanda and Emily; his mother, Della Denny, and his sister, Susan.