Director Spike Lee has announced the death of his father, Bill Lee, an award-winning jazz bassist and composer, at the age of 94 at his home in Brooklyn, New York.

Bill Lee starred in many of the early films of his director, Spike Lee, and was an acclaimed session musician in his own right.

Spike Lee confirmed his father’s death in a short Instagram post. Further information about the death has not yet been released.

The Oscar-winning director posted a series of black-and-white portraits of his father taken by his younger brother David Charles Lee.

Lee wrote: ‘Our father William James Edwards Lee. Born on 23 July 1928. Switched on 24 May 2023’ and captioned the post: ‘Deeds not words’.

Director Spike Lee, right, and his with sister, screenwriter Joie Lee, left, appear with their father Bill Lee at a screening of Do The Right Thing in New York on June 29, 2014

Mr Lee was known for his compositional work and performed with legendary musicians such as Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington and Aretha Franklin.

He was known for the rich tone he could produce from his bass, and was a favorite among music producers.

The father and son duo worked together on a number of Spike Lee’s early films. Mr Lee scored movies She’s Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do The Right Thing (1989) and Mo’ Better Blues (1990).

Mr. Lee was born William James Edwards Lee III in the town of Snow Hill, Alabama, in 1928.

The bass player was also the son of two musicians and started playing instruments from a very early age.

It was at this point that Mr. Lee became immersed in jazz music and began learning the bass while at Morehouse College in Atlanta, even though the school did not have a music department.

After graduating from college, the musician sought out the New York and Chicago jazz scenes.

‘New York is the epitome of jazz for me. All the big musicians come here,’ said Mr Lee Los Angeles Times in a 2012 interview.

He then worked a music company Strata-East Records while also founding the New York Bass Violin Choir.

Spike Lee confirmed his father’s death in a short Instagram post. Further information about the death has not yet been released

Much of Mr Lee’s music was influenced by his enslaved ancestors and growing up near former slave quarters.

After collaborating on his son’s early films, Mr Lee and Spike Lee were estranged after a falling out in the 1990s. Both said the disagreement was long in the future. The father attributed his remarriage to Susan Kaplan.

Mr Lee told the Los Angeles Times in 1994 that he asked his son to borrow money after an arrest for possession of heroin.

‘I’m glad I was arrested. It woke me up. … Dope wasn’t part of my life until I was 40 years old,’ the musician told the publication.

In addition to Kaplan and Spike Lee, the elder Lee is survived by his sons, David, Cinque and Arnold; a daughter Joie; a brother, A. Clifton Lee; and two grandchildren.