John Frederickson

07/16/1937 - 02/17/2026

John Brian Frederickson, 88, beloved husband, father, grandfather, bandmate, and friend, died on February 17, 2026, at Sechelt Hospital.

He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Margaret (Marg), his children Kathleen, Megan, and Ben and their spouses (Sal, Antonio, and Tammy, respectively), and his grandchildren Quinn, Madeleine, Lucas, and Elliot, who always put a twinkle in his eyes.

John was born on July 16, 1937, on Vancouver Island and swiftly adopted by Clarence John and Kathleen Frederickson (née Corry). He grew up with his parents and older sister Diane in the Lower Mainland and in Cranbrook, BC. In his youth, he learned to play the trumpet, which kicked off John's lifelong passion for jazz music.

As a young man, he worked as a musician in Vancouver and Winnipeg, where he met Marg. He also
somehow earned a bachelor's degree from the University of British Columbia, despite regularly playing
jazz in bars til dawn and living it up with the friends he made through the UBC Musical Society–friendships that would last a lifetime.

Before becoming a father, John put down his horn and stopped playing music professionally for 35 years, working instead in advertising, writing copy for radio stations, starting a magazine, and programming computers. Once his children were grown, though, he went right back to music.

John and Marg raised their family in Coquitlam, BC, where they lived for over 30 years, but John's ties to the Sunshine Coast run deep. John visited the Sunshine Coast regularly with his parents in the 1950s and built his own cabin on Redrooffs Road in the 1960s, where he and Marg spent weekends and summers with the kids, and eventually retired. In retirement, John played trumpet on the Sunshine Coast with a brass quintet, the Jazz Group of Seven, the Creek Big Band, and the Sunshine Coast Concert Band. He was an integral part of the musical community on the coast, where he also arranged and wrote jazz music, and played publicly until the age of 84, when Parkinson's disease made it hard for him to hold his trumpet.

A master of the Dad joke, John also loved a good pun. In his later years, John kept his mind nimble by thinking up clever wordplay words for an online competition. His winning words include "speculatte" (wondering when the coffee's coming), "ambitextrous" (texting with both thumbs), and "cerebrawl" (fighting words between intellectuals). He might have called this an "omituary" (an obituary that leaves things out), because it is impossible to summarize a richly lived life in a few hundred words.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made in John's honour in support of the Music Diploma Program at Capilano University or to Parkinson Society BC.

A celebration of John's life–with jazz music, of course–will be held in the summer on the Sunshine Coast.