St. Louis, Missouri - Ryan Anthony, 48, a jazz drummer and music educator with an uncommon genius for empathy and human connection, died of lung cancer in St. Louis, Missouri, on Jan. 10, 2026.

Ryan prized kindness, a quality that people from every part of his life remember about him. Some also remember how Ryan, given a scrap of lettuce, could do an impression of a brontosaurus eating. Very slowly.

"Everyone loved him," one of his friends and longtime musical collaborators wrote. "Ryan Anthony was a prince of a human being. He was joyful, funny, self-deprecating. He was deeply intelligent. He was a consummate musician. Most of all, he was kind. He made all of us better versions of ourselves."

Ryan loved helping musicians who were new to improvisation discover their own voices in an ensemble. He found joy watching students become themselves through whatever he was teaching.

Ryan Michael Anthony was born in Anderson, Indiana, on Aug. 11, 1977, the son of Marlin and Diana (Stover) Anthony. With no audition, he made his first television appearance as a squinting toddler in a commercial for Acres of Fun, a nearby artificial beach. As a child, Ryan loved his dog, Garfield comics, birthday parties, baby seals and a Miss Piggy doll with nylon hair that he once vomited all over during a trip home from Myrtle Beach. With shampoo, Ryan's mom saved the hard-working Muppet from a rest stop trash can, affirming Ryan's belief that you never ditch a friend, even a plastic one you've puked on.

Ryan's dad took him to his first drum lesson at the age of 10. Ryan earned a junior black belt in Tae Kwon Do at 13 and drew upon his martial arts training for highly physical performances in Greenfield-Central High School stage productions. In pep band, he delivered rafter-rattling adrenaline for home basketball games. More than one fledgling rock outfit used Ryan's house as their regular practice space and counted his parents as devoted fans.

Hours of Ryan's youth were spent bringing to life imaginary worlds with his friend Steve McFarland. Steve passed away in May 1995, at the end of Ryan's junior year. The kindness and generosity of friends, teachers and family got Ryan through his final year of high school and the demands of college applications and music auditions. Over the years, Ryan came to realize that celebrating Steve's life was the best way he could overcome the grief.

Ryan met flutist Monica Sauer, a musical collaborator and his future wife, at Arizona State University. After graduating, he joined a community of musicians in Albuquerque who performed, composed and blended jazz, metal, country and other popular genres in the belief that all musical traditions deserve respect and irreverence. Ryan delighted in the humor, creativity and utter lack of snobbery.

Ryan and Monica married in 2007 in Phoenix. A brief New Jersey interlude was followed by 18 years in Phoenix. Ryan taught music performance, history and theory, and played regularly with jazz ensembles Running from Bears, Union32 and Mary Petrich and OpenHand. His compositions include "77 of 79," which he wrote for Monica, and "Lunch with Burroughs," an homage to a favorite writer.

Ryan valued empathy and authenticity in both art and life. He often struggled to square those values with the competitive worlds of jazz performance and academia. Several important teachers helped Ryan understand that his values and his creative voice were one and the same. "With Ryan, whether behind the drums or just in life in general, it was never about him," another colleague wrote. "You didn't hire him because he sounded great. You hired him because he was going to make everyone sound great. When you are as kind and talented as he was, that's what happens."

Ryan and Monica relocated to St. Louis in April 2025. The move brought them within driving distance of Ryan's Indiana family and allowed Monica to teach at her sister's dance studio. Ryan was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer in early November 2025.

A huge ensemble of family and friends are bewildered by Ryan's passing. Some of us talk to him daily. Some of us may never stop looking for him to walk through the door with his mischievous smirk and slight tilt of the head. That ensemble includes his wife, Monica Sauer, of St. Louis; his parents, Marlin and Diana, of Pendleton, Indiana; his brother and sister-in-law, Jarrett Anthony and Christy Croxall, of Louisville; his parents-in-law, Dan and Marion Sauer, of Phoenix; and a big band of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws and friends all over the world.

A memorial concert featuring Ryan's compositions and musical collaborators will be held in Phoenix later this year. A memorial celebration of Ryan's life will be held June 13 at 3:30 p.m. in Falls Park in Pendleton, Indiana. Contributions in Ryan's name may be made to The Nash jazz performance and education center at https://thenash.org/ways-to-give/donate-now/.