Antonei Sergejvitch Tartarov was a fictional Russian pianist whose real name was Jean-Jacques Hauser.
He had an exceptional gift for improvisation.
On April 16, 1968 Hauser fooled an audience of 2,000 people in Zurich into thinking not only that he was a little-known Russian virtuoso (Tartarov), but that much of the improvised material in his program was composed by Beethoven, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Liszt.
Imagine when it was announced that the music the audience had just applauded as works of genius had actually been improvised on the spot by a home-grown Swiss pianist.
• 1964 ~ Rolling Stones recorded their 12×5 album at Chess Studios Chicago
• 1966 ~ The BeatlesPaperback Writer was released in England
• 1966 ~ The Beatles recorded Rain, first to use reverse tapes
• 1966 ~ Janis Joplin’s first live concert in the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco
• 1966 ~ The Mamas and The Papas won a gold record for Monday, Monday
• 1968 ~ Yury Sergeyevich Milyutin, Composer, died at the age of 65
• 1972 ~ Elvis Presley recorded a live album at NY’s Madison Square Garden
• 1972 ~ Sammy Davis, Jr. earned his place at the top of the popular music charts for the first time, after years in the entertainment business. His number one song, The Candy Man, stayed at the top for three consecutive weeks. The Candy Man was truly a song of fate for Sammy. He openly did not want to record the song, but did so as a favor to MGM Records head Mike Curb, since it was to be used in the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Davis said he would give the tune one take, “and that’s it!” Sure enough, in that one-time recording, Sammy nailed it. The Candy Man stayed on the pop charts for 16 weeks. The best the legendary performer had done before was 12 weeks for Love Me or Leave Me in 1955 and 11 weeks for I’ve Gotta Be Me (from Golden Rainbow) in 1969. After TheCandy Man became a hit, Davis included it in his stage shows and concerts — and collected huge royalties from it.
• 1976 ~ Paul McCartney and Wings set a record for an indoor concert crowd as 67,100 fans gathered in Seattle, WA to hear the former Beatle and his new group.
• 1982 ~ Addie “Micki” Harris, American singer with the Shirelles, died at the age of 42
• 1985 ~ Nineteenth Music City News Country Awards: Statler Brothers, BarbaraMandrell
• 1990 ~ “Meet Me St Louis” closed at Gershwin Theater NYC after 253 performances
• 1992 ~ Hachidal Nakamura, Composer, died at the age of 61 of heart failure
• 1996 ~ Thirtyth Music City News Country Awards: Alan Jackson
• 2001 ~ Pianist Yaltah Menuhin, last of three famous siblings whose musical talents brought them fame at an early age, died at the age of 79. Yaltah, the youngest, and her sister Hepzibah, also a pianist, did not achieve the international renown of their brother, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. But they often appeared with him in concerts around the world, including the Bath Festival in Britain, where Yehudi was artistic director in the 1960s. Yaltah Menuhin was born in San Francisco, to Russian-Jewish parents. Like her siblings, she began studying music as a child, and moved about the world performing. Her brother was astonishing audiences with his virtuosity by the age of 7. Yaltah Menuhin and her husband, pianist Joel Ryce, often performed together as a duo in the United States, and she also performed with violist Michael Mann.
• 2001 ~ Harold S. Grossbardt, a founder of Colony Records, the famed record collector’s store in Manhattan, died at the age of 85. Grossbardt founded the store in 1948 with his partner, Sidney Turk, and the shop quickly became popular with music lovers. Hundreds of musicians, including Frank Sinatra, John Lennon and Michael Jackson, shopped at the store. Grossbardt worked at Colony Records until his retirement in 1988.
