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Lawrence "Lo" Leathers, 37, was found dead in a stairwell Sunday outside the East 141 Street apartment he shared with Lisa Harris, police said.
Another man, 28-year-old Sterling Aguilar of Brooklyn, had gotten Leathers into a chokehold while Harris, 41, punched him in the head, they said.
Police charged Aguilar and Harris with assault. Charges could be upgraded depending on the results of an autopsy, they said.
Leathers won both Grammies as part of the Aaron Diehl Trio backing singer Cécile McLorin Salvant.
The most recent came in 2017 for "Dreams and Daggers (Mack Avenue)," recorded mostly at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village.
Leathers performed with, among others, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater and Appel Room.
Tributes mounted Monday.
E.J. Strickland called Leathers “one of the most musical, swingingest, honest drummers out here. Whenever I saw him play, I learned a great deal more about accompaniment, feel, & touch.”
"We called him our prince," vocalist and WGBO radio host Lezlie Harrison told Eyewitness News. "Everybody had their way of greeting Lawrence, or him greeting them, with a bow."
"His swing, the way he could keep time, and the way he could ride a rhythm -- for a young cat like that, he was pretty bad," Harrison said. "And 'bad' meaning excellent."
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