Tag Archives: conductor

February 14: On This Day in Music

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valentine-heart

Happy Valentine’s Day

. 1602 ~ Pier Francesco Cavalli, Italian opera composer

. 1813 ~ Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Russian composer

. 1882 ~ Ignace Friedman, Polish pianist and composer

. 1894 ~ Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky), The stingy, violin-playing, perennial-39- year-old comedian of radio, television and vaudeville

. 1923 ~ Cesare Siepi, Opera basso

. 1925 ~ Elliot Lawrence (Broza), Emmy Award-winning composer, conductor, arranger, musical director of Night of 100 Stars, Night of 100 Stars II,

. 1993, 1994, 1995 Kennedy Center Honors; Tony Award: musical direction: How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying

. 1931 ~ Phyllis McGuire, Singer

. 1934 ~ Florence Henderson, Singer

. 1946 ~ Gregory Hines, Dancer

. 1950 ~ Roger Fisher, Guitarist with Heart

. 1957 ~ Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, “King David”, made its debut at New York’s Town Hall. The four-part symphony jazz suite was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

. 1972 ~ “Grease” opened at the Eden Theatre in New York City. The musical later moved to the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway where it became the longest-running musical ever with 3,388 performances. A hit movie based on the stage play starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and produced the hit song, Grease, by Frankie Valli, You’re the One That I Want and Summer Nights by Travolta and Newton-John.

. 1984 ~ British rocker Elton John married Renata Blauel in Sydney, Australia on this day.

. 1998 ~ Frederick Loewe American composer of musicals, died.

. 2003 ~ Jack Maher, 78, who served more than three decades as publisher of respected jazz magazine Down Beat and its parent company, Maher Publications, died. Down Beat began in 1934 to chronicle the comings and goings of touring swing bands. A previous owner forfeited the magazine to his printer, Mr. Maher’s father, John Maher. After his father died in 1968, Jack Maher put up his own money to acquire Down Beat, outbidding Playboy founder and jazz aficionado Hugh Hefner. Mr. Maher was credited with transforming Down Beat into a leading forum on jazz, with a roster of writers that included Leonard Feather, Nat Hentoff, Dan Morgenstern and Ira Gitler. He changed a number of his father’s policies, including one that had frowned on putting pictures of black musicians on Down Beat’s cover.

. 2004 ~ Joe McFarlin, whose late-night shows on WCCO radio featured big bands, swing and traditional jazz for a quarter-century, died. He was 78. McFarlin was as a nightly presence on 830 AM during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, attracting a following across the country. McFarlin retired from WCCO in 1992. Management and format changes had reduced his broadcast to about two hours on the weekends and he was forced to choose from a jazz-free play list. He served as a U.S. Navy signalman during World War II and was stationed in the Philippines and Pearl Harbor. McFarlin began his radio career in 1947 at WREX in Duluth and worked at several other stations before moving to the Twin Cities in 1961, where he worked at KRSI before joining WCCO.

. 2011 ~ George Shearing, British-American blind jazz pianist (Lullaby of Birdland), died at the age of 91

February 11: On This Day in Music

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. 1830 ~ Peter Arnold Heise, Danish composer

. 1830 ~ Hans Bronsart Von Schellendorf, classical musician, pianist and composer who studied under Franz Liszt

. 1889 ~ John Mills, Guitarist, singer, bass with The Mills Brothers. He was father of the four Mills brothers and took youngest son John, Jr.’s place after his death in 1935

. 1908 ~ Josh White, ‘The Singing Christian’, blues/folk singer, guitarist

. 1912 ~ Rudolf Firkušný, Czech composer, classical pianist

. 1914 ~ Matt Dennis, Pianist, singer, recorded vocals for Paul Whiteman

. 1916 ~ The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presented its first concert. The symphony was the first by a municipal orchestra to be supported by taxes.

. 1941 ~ Sergio Mendes, Brazilian jazz pianist and composer

. 1935 ~ Gene Vincent (Craddock), Singer, actor

. 1938 ~ Larry Clinton and his orchestra recorded Martha on Victor Records. Bea Wain was heard warbling the vocals on the tune.

. 1938 ~ Bobby”Boris” Pickett, American singer-songwriter (Monster Mash), born in Somerville, Massachusetts (d. April 25, 2007)

. 1939 ~ Gerry Goffin, Lyricist with Carole King and with Michael Masser

. 1940 ~ NBC radio presented “The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street” for the first time. The famous Blue network series included several distinguished alumni — among them, Dinah Shore and Zero Mostel. The chairman, or host, of “The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street” was Milton Cross. He would say things like, “A Bostonian looks like he’s smelling something. A New Yorker looks like he’s found it.” The show combined satire, blues and jazz and was built around what were called the three Bs of music: Barrelhouse, Boogie Woogie and Blues.

. 1968 ~ The new 20,000 seat Madison Square Garden officially opened in New York. It was the fourth arena to be named Madison Square Garden. The showplace for entertainment and sports opened with a gala show hosted by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

. 1973 ~ Ethan Iverson, US pianist, composer, and critic, born in Menomonie, Wisconsin

. 1982 ~ Eleanor Powell, American actress and tap dancer (Born to Dance), died of cancer at the age of 69

. 1985 ~ Ulysses Simpson Kay, composer, died at the age of 68

. 2001 ~ Dame Sonia Arova, a Bulgarian-born ballerina who danced with Rudolf Nureyev, at his request, in his American debut, died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 74. Arova was knighted by King Olaf V of Norway, only the second woman to receive that distinction. During her years as founding artistic director of the State of Alabama Ballet, Dame Sonia Arova changed the face of dance in Birmingham. Through a stage career that lasted three decades and a teaching career that occupied three more, she lived and breathed ballet. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Arova began dancing at age 6. By 8, she was studying ballet intensively in Paris. When war broke out in 1940, she escaped the Nazis’ advance with her English piano teacher in a harrowing flight during which their train was machine-gunned by German troops. Arriving in England, Arova was enrolled in an arts school and later joined the International Ballet. In 1965, Arova became artistic director of the Norwegian National Ballet, moved to California in 1971 to co-direct the San Diego Ballet and in 1975 accepted a teaching position at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Maintaining her position at ASFA, she took over the newly formed State of Alabama Ballet in 1981 as artistic director, with her husband, Thor Sutowski, as artistic associate and choreographer. In 1996, the couple returned to San Diego, and she spent her last years with the San Diego Ballet.

. 2003 ~ Moses G. Hogan, 45, a pianist and choral conductor known for his contemporary arrangements of spirituals, died of a brain tumor in New Orleans. He was editor of the Oxford Book of Spirituals, published in 2001 by Oxford University Press. The book has become the U.S. music division’s top seller. Mr. Hogan also toured with his own singing groups, the Moses Hogan Chorale and Moses Hogan Singers. His arrangements, more than 70 of which have been published by the Hal Leonard publishing company, were performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, soprano Barbara Hendricks and countertenor Derek Lee Ragin.

. 2003 ~ William L. “Weemo” Wubbena Jr., 72, a retired Army colonel who sang in Washington area barbershop quartets, died of cancer. Col. Wubbena was born in Marquette, Mich., and raised in Washington. He was a member of the Montgomery County chapter of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America.

. 2012 ~ Mega-star and singer Whitney Houston died at the age of 48 in a Los Angeles hotel the night before the Grammy Awards. Plagued by substance abuse in her later life, Houston had become one of the most popular and celebrated singers in her early career.

. 2018 ~ Vic Damone [Vito Farinola], American singer (On the Street Where You Live), entertainer, actor and TV presenter (Vic Damone Show), died at the age of 89

February 8: On This Day in Music

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today

. 1709 ~ Giuseppe Torelli, Italian composer, died at the age of 50

. 1741 ~ Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry, composer

. 1932 ~ John Williams, American Academy Award-winning composer and conductor
More information about Williams

. 1934 ~ Elly Ameling, Dutch Soprano

. 1936 ~ Larry Verne, Singer

. 1937 ~ Joe Raposa, composer/songwriter (Sesame Street)

. 1938 ~ Ray Sharpe, Singer

. 1941 ~ Tom Rush, American folk singer, songwriter and guitarist

. 1943 – Creed Bratton, Guitarist, banjo, sitar with The Grass Roots

. 1963 ~ Joshua Kadison, American pianist and songwriter

. 2001 ~ Leslie Edwards, a dancer and director at the Royal Ballet, died of cancer at the age of 84. Edwards made his debut in 1933 with the Vic-Wells Ballet. Except for a stint with the Ballet Rambert from 1935 to 1937, Edwards spent his entire career with Sadler’s Wells Ballet, which became the Royal Ballet Company in 1956. He appeared in more than 70 roles at the Royal Ballet and was a key figure in its choreographic group, as well as working as ballet master to the Royal Opera for 20 years. Edwards was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1975, and a studio at the rebuilt Sadler’s Wells Theatre was named for him.

. 2017 ~ Nicolai Gedda, Swedish opera tenor (Opera Two to Six), died at the age of 91

February 8: On This Day in Music

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today

. 1709 ~ Giuseppe Torelli, Italian composer, died at the age of 50

. 1741 ~ Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry, composer

. 1932 ~ John Williams, American Academy Award-winning composer and conductor
More information about Williams

. 1934 ~ Elly Ameling, Dutch Soprano

. 1936 ~ Larry Verne, Singer

. 1937 ~ Joe Raposa, composer/songwriter (Sesame Street)

. 1938 ~ Ray Sharpe, Singer

. 1941 ~ Tom Rush, American folk singer, songwriter and guitarist

. 1943 – Creed Bratton, Guitarist, banjo, sitar with The Grass Roots

. 1963 ~ Joshua Kadison, American pianist and songwriter

. 2001 ~ Leslie Edwards, a dancer and director at the Royal Ballet, died of cancer at the age of 84. Edwards made his debut in 1933 with the Vic-Wells Ballet. Except for a stint with the Ballet Rambert from 1935 to 1937, Edwards spent his entire career with Sadler’s Wells Ballet, which became the Royal Ballet Company in 1956. He appeared in more than 70 roles at the Royal Ballet and was a key figure in its choreographic group, as well as working as ballet master to the Royal Opera for 20 years. Edwards was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1975, and a studio at the rebuilt Sadler’s Wells Theatre was named for him.

. 2017 ~ Nicolai Gedda, Swedish opera tenor (Opera Two to Six), died at the age of 91

February 5: On This Day in Music

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. 1748 ~ Christian Gottlob Neefe, German composer/conductor/tutor of Beethoven

. 1916 ~ Enrico Caruso recorded O Solo Mio for the Victor Talking Machine Company, which eventually became Victor Records, then RCA Victor.

. 1921 ~ Sir John Pritchard, British conductor

. 1928 ~ Singer Jessica Dragonette was seen on one of the first television shows. She was used only to test the new medium. She didn’t even get to sing.

. 1930 ~ Don Goldie, Trumpeter on Basin Street Blues with vocals by Jack Teagarden

. 1931 ~ Eddie Cantor’s long radio career got underway as he appeared on Rudy Vallee’s “The Fleischmann Hour”.

. 1933 ~ Claude King, Singer

. 1940 ~ One of the great classic songs of the Big Band era was recorded. Glenn Miller and his band played Tuxedo Junction at the RCA Victor studios in Manhattan. The flip side of the record (released on the Bluebird label) was Danny Boy.

. 1941 ~ Barrett Strong, Singer, songwriter

. 1942 ~ Cory Wells, Singer with Three Dog Night

. 1943 ~ Charles Winfield, Musician with Blood, Sweat and Tears

. 1958 ~ A year after its founding, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) formed a New York chapter. NARAS is better known as the Grammy Awards organization.

. 1961 ~ The Shirelles were winding up their first week at #1 on the music charts with Will You Love Me Tomorrow. The song was at the top for two weeks. It was the group’s first #1 tune and the first #1 tune from the pen of a New York Brill Building songwriter who worked right down the hall from Neil Sedaka. She became a huge star in her own right with several #1 singles and albums in the 1970s. Her name: Carole King.

. 1969 ~ Bobby Brown, Grammy Award-winning singer, married singer, Whitney Houston

. 2003 ~ Clyde Douglas Dickerson, 80, a saxophone player who played for four decades at Washington area jazz clubs and held down a day job for 20 years as doorman at the Watergate Hotel, died after a stroke. Mr. Dickerson, known as “Watergate Clyde,” appeared at such spots as Blues Alley, Pigfoot and One Step Down and at jazz joints along 14th Street NW. He freelanced for a number of decades as far away as Upstate New York and Ohio. He collaborated with pianist and trumpet player Jimmy Burrell at the old Crow’s Toe at 10th and K streets NW, the Chaconia Lounge on upper Georgia Avenue NW and Today’s in Rockville. Mr. Dickerson also played with performers who included Oran “Hot Lips” Page, the Mangione brothers, ex-Temptation David Ruffin and Rick James. He also appeared in a Lester Young tribute with Shirley Horn and saxmen Byron Morris and Ron Holloway.

His last performance was on Capitol Hill, at Ellington’s at Eighth, shortly before his death. Washington Post staff writer Eve Zibart wrote of Mr. Dickerson that he might once have thought of himself as a musician who worked hotels on the side, but over the years the occupations began to blur. “You take Rostropovich,” Mr. Dickerson said of the National Symphony Orchestra conductor. “Slava gets up there, and whatever composer it is, he can read the score and tell what the composer felt, and he can get that out to the musicians. “It’s the same with being a doorman: If you really know the general manager, you know how he feels about the hotel — it’s like his home, and the people coming in are like his personal guests. I’m the substitute for the general manager . . . playing the overture to the hospitality.” Zibart interviewed him in 1988, his 16th year at the hotel, shortly after the Watergate management threw him a birthday party.

It featured Gerard Schwarz, guest conductor of the Washington Opera and a trumpet virtuoso; pianist Christopher Norton; Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), sponsor of a bill recognizing jazz as a national treasure — and a birthday cake topped by a saxophone. Mr. Dickerson was born in Bristol, Tenn. He attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

. 2014 ~ Richard Hayman, American orchestra leader (Vaughn Monroe Show), died at the age of 93

February 4: On This Day in Music

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. 1677 ~ Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer/violinist and second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. (d. 1731)

. 1893 ~ Bernard Rogers, American composer

. 1894 ~ Adolphe Sax, Belgian musician and inventor of the saxophone, died at the age of 79
More about Sax

. 1912 ~ Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-born American conductor

. 1937 ~ Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra recorded A Study in Brown, on Decca Records.

. 1938 ~ The animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released and had major success in the box-office, making more money than any other motion picture up till that point.

. 1941 ~ John Steel, Singer, drummer with The Animals

. 1944 ~ Florence LaRue (Gordon), Singer with The Fifth Dimension

. 1962 ~ Clint Black, Singer, actor

. 1975 ~ Louis (Thomas) Jordan passed away

. 1983 ~ Karen Carpenter died at 32 of cardiac arrest at her parent’s house in Downey, California; the coroner’s report gave the cause of death of imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa. The Carpenters 1970 album Close to You, featured two hit singles: “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun.”  They peaked at No.1 and No.2, on the US chart. In 1975 – In Playboy’s annual opinion poll; its readers voted Karen Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year.

. 1987 ~ The show-biz world was saddened when Liberace died at his Palm Springs, CA estate. He was 67. Lee, as he was known, was the master of Las Vegas. Hundreds of thousands flock to his museum there (operated by his brother, George) to see Liberace’s garish suits, trademark candelabra, and learn of the myths behind this hugely successful star of television, stage and concerts the world over.

. 2001 ~ James Louis “J.J.” Johnson, an influential jazz trombonist who later forged a career arranging and recording scores for motion pictures and television, died at the age of 77. The Indianapolis native, who began playing piano at age 11, was a perennial winner of “Down Beat” magazine’s reader’s poll as best trombonist. While he was praised by jazz aficionados, Johnson also made his mark in popular culture, writing and arranging music for such television shows as “Starsky and Hutch”, “Mayberry, R.F.D.” and “That Girl”. His film music credits included “Cleopatra Jones” and “Shaft.” During his long career, he performed with such jazz greats as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. While touring with jazz bands during the heyday of those ensembles, he played with the Clarence Love and Snookum Russell bands. He got his first big break with the Benny Carter band in 1942.

. 2016 ~ Leslie Bassett, American classical composer (Variations for Orchestra – Pulitzer Prize 1966), died at the age of 93

February 1: On This Day in Music

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. 1669 ~ Miquel Lopez, composer, born. He died sometime in 1723

. 1671 ~ Francesco Stradivari, Italian violin maker

. 1862 ~ The Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in “Atlantic Monthly”. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is still being sung and to the tune of a song titled John Brown’s Body.

. 1869 ~ Victor Herbert, Composer, cellist and conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He composed operettas such as Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta and songs like Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (At Last I’ve Found You)

. 1877 ~ Thomas Frederick Dunhill, English composer and writer on musical subjects

. 1894 ~ James P. Johnson, American pianist and composer (Charleston), born in New Brunswick, New Jersey

. 1896 ~ Puccini’s “La Bohème” premiered in Turin, Italy. La Bohème is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851) by Henri Murger. The story is set in Paris around 1830, and shows the Bohemian lifestyle of a poor seamstress and her artist friends.

. 1904 ~ Enrico Caruso recorded his first sides for Victor Records. He did ten songs in the session and was paid only $4,000.

. 1907 ~ Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, Brazilian composer

. 1934 ~ Bob Shane, Singer with The Kingston Trio

. 1937 ~ Don Everly born, Singer with his brother, Phil, in The Everly Brothers. Some of their hits were: Wake Up Little Susie, Bye Bye Love, Cathy’s Clown and All I Have To Do Is Dream

. 1937 ~ Ray Sawyer, Singer with Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show

. 1939 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded And the Angels Sing on Victor Records. The vocalist on that number, who went on to find considerable fame at Capitol Records, was Martha Tilton.

. 1940 ~ Frank Sinatra sang Too Romantic and The Sky Fell Down in his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. The session was in Chicago, IL. Frankie replaced Jack Leonard as lead singer with the band.

. 1941 ~ “Downbeat” magazine reported this day that Glenn Miller had inked a new three-year contract with RCA Victor Records. The pact guaranteed Miller $750 a side, the fattest record contract signed to that time.

. 1949 ~ RCA Victor countered Columbia Records’ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk with not only a smaller, 7-inch record (with a big hole in the center), but an entire phonograph playing system as well. The newfangled product, the 45- rpm, which started a revolution (especially with the new rock and roll music), soon made the 78-rpm record a blast from the past.

. 1952 ~ Rick James (James Johnson), Singer

. 1954 ~ Mike Campbell, Guitarist with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

. 1968 ~ Elvis Presley celebrated the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie married and divorced the ‘Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ’90s.

. 1971 ~ The soundtrack album from the movie, “Love Story”, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, with music by Frances Lai, was certified as a gold record on this day.

. 1995 ~ Richey Edwards, guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, vanished leaving no clues to his whereabouts. He left The Embassy Hotel in London at 7am, leaving behind his packed suitcase. His car was found on the Severn Bridge outside Bristol, England sixteen days later. Edwards has never been found, despite constant searching, and in November 2008 he was declared officially dead.

. 2002 ~ Hildegard Knef, a smoky-voiced actress and singer who starred in Germany’s first post-World War II movie and scandalized church officials with a 1951 nude scene, died of a lung infection at a Berlin hospital. She was 76. Knef became a star for her role as a former concentration camp inmate returning home in Wolfgang Staudte’s 1946 “Murderers Are Among Us.” Knef, who sometimes went as Hildegard Neff in the United States, appeared in more than 50 films, most of them made in Europe. She reportedly turned down a Hollywood studio contract after being told she would have to change her name and say she was Austrian, not German. She scandalized Roman Catholic authorities with a brief nude scene in the 1951 German film “The Story Of A Sinner.” Her work in the United States included the role of Ninotchka in Cole Porter’s Broadway musical “Silk Stockings” in the 1950s, and a supporting role in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” She launched a career as a singer in the 1960s and wrote a best-selling 1970 autobiography. She continued to act and sing almost until the end of her life, appearing as herself in the 2000 documentary “Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song” and in the 1999 German comedy, “An Almost Perfect Wedding.”

. 2003 ~ Latin jazz musician Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, a Cuban-born percussionist and bandleader known for his conga rhythms, died in Miami at age 85. He was best known for his 1963 recording of Herbie Hancock’s song Watermelon Man, which became his first Top 10 hit. In 1959, Santamaria penned Afro Blue, which quickly became a jazz standard covered by stars such as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Born in Havana, Santamaria performed at Havana’s famed Tropicana Club before moving to New York City in the early 1950s, touring with the Mambo Kings and performing with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader. Santamaria recorded scores of albums in a career that spanned nearly 40 years, mixing rhythm and blues with jazz and hip-swaying conga. In 1977 he was awarded a Grammy for Best Latin Recording for his album “Amancer.” In recent years, he divided his time between Manhattan and Miami.

. 2007 ~ Gian Carlo Menotti, Italian-born composer died

. 2018 ~ Alan Stout, American composer, died at the age of 85

. 2018 ~ Dennis Edwards, who joined the Temptations in 1968 and sang on a string of the group’s hits including “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “Ball of Confusion” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” in an initial tenure that stretched to 1977, died at the age of 74.

January 30: On This Day in Music

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. 1505 ~ Thomas Tallis, English composer

. 1566 ~ Alessandro Piccinini born. He was an Italian lutenist and composer who died sometime in 1638

. 1697 ~ Johann Joachim Quantz, German flutist, flute maker and composer

. 1861 ~ Charles Martin Tornow Loeffler, Alsatian-born American composer

. 1862 ~ Walter Johannes Damrosch, German conductor and composer

. 1911 ~ (David) Roy ‘Little Jazz’ Eldridge, Trumpeter and soloist with Gene Krupa’s Band, U.S. President Carter’s White House jazz party in 1978

. 1917 ~ The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded a classic for Columbia Records titled, The Darktown Strutters’ Ball. It was one of the first jazz compositions recorded.

. 1921 ~ Bernie Leighton, Jazz pianist

. 1928 ~ Ruth Brown, R&B and jazz singer

. 1928 ~ Harold Prince, Broadway producer and director of A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

. 1936 ~ Horst Jankowski, Pianist, most famous work was A Walk In The Black Forest

. 1938 ~ Norma Jean (Beasler), Country singer

. 1941 ~ Joe Terranova, Singer with Danny and the Juniors

. 1943 ~ Marty Balin (Buchwald), Singer with Jefferson Airplane/Starship

. 1943 ~ The Nat King Cole Trio reached the top of the charts with the song “That Ain’t Right.” It stayed there for one week before dropping off the top spot.

. 1944 ~ Lynn Harrell, American cellist

. 1947 ~ Steve Marriott, Singer, songwriter, guitarist

. 1949 ~ William King, Trumpeter, keyboard with The Commodores

. 1951 ~ Phil Collins, English singer-songwriter, drummer, keyboard player with Genesis.  As a solo performer he had a number of world wide singles to his credit including “You Can’t Hurry Love”, “Take a Look at Me Now)” “One More Night”, “A Groovy Kind of Love” and “Another Day in Paradise”. He is also remembered for his role in Live Aid 1985 when he performed at Wembley Stadium, England and JFK Stadium Philadelphia using the Concorde to fly from England to the US.

. 1959 ~ Jody Watley, Singer with Shalamar

. 1963 ~ Francis Poulenc died.

. 1969 ~ The Beatles made their last public appearance. It was at a free concert at their Apple corporate headquarters in London. The group recorded Get Back and also filmed the movie “Let It Be”.

. 2004 ~ Jazz bassist Malachi Favors, who played with such bandleaders as Dizzy Gillespie and Freddy Hubbard before beginning a 35-year association with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, died. After service in the Army during the Korean War, he studied with the bassists Wilbur Ware and Israel Crosby, and worked with the pianists Andrew Hill and King Fleming. After playing with Gillespie, Hubbard, and other members of the bebop revolution, Favors joined the band of Chicago saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and played a major part on Mitchell’s influential free-jazz album, “Sound”, in 1966. Mitchell’s band soon evolved into the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which combined traditional elements of jazz and blues, West African music, chanting, ritual, abstract sound and silence. Although founded in Chicago, the group was based in Europe until 1971. In addition to his distinctive bass sound, Favors also added vocals and such folk instruments as banjo, zither and harmonica to group’s compositions. He also recorded a solo bass album, “Natural and the Spiritual”.

. 2011 ~ John Barry, English film score composer died at the age of 77

. 2013 ~ Patty Andrews, American singer (Andrews Sisters), died at the age of 94

Composers – J

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Jackson

Michael Joe Jackson
A star was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana. Singer, songwriter, dancer, actor Michael Joe Jackson started on the road to stardom while at Garnett Elementary School in Gary. Michael performed for his class by singing Climb Every Mountain. Within just a few years, he took his act to the stage joining his brothers as The Jackson Five. They were entertaining at Mr. Lucky’s, also in Gary, Indiana. Michael was only 8. By the time he was 11, Michael, the youngest of the five brothers, was the lead singer of the group.

And their hits were hitting the top of the charts: I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, I’ll Be There. Then young Michael started recording solo hits like Ben, also #1.

And the hits just kept on coming … and the awards came with them: A Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal in 1979 for Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough, 5 Grammy Awards in 1983 — Best Male Pop Vocal and Album of the Year (Thriller), Best Male R & B vocal and Best R & B song (Billie Jean), and Best Recording for Children: E.T., the Extraterrestrial; 2 in 1984 — Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal (Beat It); another in 1985 with Lionel Richie for Song of the Year (We are the World); a Best Music Video/Short Form Grammy in 1989 for Leave Me Alone; and finally, The Legend Award Grammy — for the living legend in the music industry, Michael Jackson.

Whether Michael sings with his brothers, his sisters, alone or in duets with fellow performers, the results are hit, after hit, after hit … The Girl is Mine and Stay, Stay, Stay with Paul McCartney; I Just Can’t Stop Loving You with Siedah Garrett; Rock with You, Bad, Smooth Criminal … Ease on Down the Road with Diana Ross (from Broadway’s The Wiz in which Michael played the scarecrow). Michael, the actor, was also seen as a hologram, Captain Eo in Epcot Center’s multimedia show.

A celebrity for most of his life, he is both magic and tragic … the gloved one’s fame and infamy well-known throughout the world: he made $70 million from Thriller; he paid $50 million for the rights to the Beatles’ 251 songs; his Bad album was number one in 23 countries; he has an amusement park and zoo at his California estate; he married and divorced Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the King of Rock.

He remarried, became a father … and the rest of the story is still being written …. To date, Michael Jackson remains the King of Pop.

Janácek

Leos Janácek lived from 1854 until 1928. It was relatively late in life that the Moravian composer Janácek won more than local recognition. He made his early career in the capital of his native province, Brno, coupling an interest in regional folk music with a study of speech intonations, echoed in his instrumental as well as vocal writing. His opera Jenufa was first staged in Brno in 1904, but it was the performance in Prague in 1915 that brought the work of the composer a much wider public. The seven operas that followed have formed a very idiosyncratic part of current operatic repertoire, culminating in From the House of the Dead, completed in 1928, the year of Janácek’s death, and based on the novel by Dostoyevsky.

The best known of Janácek’s music for orchestra is the Sinfonietta, derived from an original festival piece of 1926. To this may be added the rhapsody based on the work of Gogol, Taras Bulba, and the Lachian Dances, based on folk-dances.

Joachim

Joseph Joachim lived from 1831 until 1907. He was a Hungarian violinist, conductor and composer whose exceptional talent was recognized by Mendelssohn. He was also a close friend of Brahms. His music had much in common with the music of Schumann.

John

Elton Dwight John was born in 1947 and is a rock singer and pianist. He was born in Pinner, NW Greater London, England. He played the piano by ear from age four, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music at 11. From 1967, he and Bernie Taupin began writing songs such as “Rocket Man’ (1972), “Honky Cat’ (1972), and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ (1973). Their publisher pressed John to perform them, for which he obscured his short, plump, myopic physique in a clownish garb that included huge glasses, sequined and fringed jump suits, and ermine boots. The top pop star of the 1970s, he later became chairman (1976 to 1990) and then honorary life president in 1990 of the Watford Football Club and a stock-market speculator. Despite health problems in 1993 brought about by his stressful lifestyle he continues to perform live across the world.

Johnson

James Price Johnson, Ragtime composer

Jolivet

André Jolivet lived from 1905 until 1974. Versatile in the arts, André Jolivet was a pupil of Le Flem and later of Varèse and was, with Olivier Messiaen, Daniel Lesur and Yves Baudrier, a member of the composers grouped together as Jeune France. As director of music for the Comédie française he wrote a quantity of incidental music and elsewhere based his work on principles that stemmed from his interest in the magical and incantatory element fundamental to human music.

Jolivet wrote a number of concertos, all demanding considerable virtuosity from the soloist. These include a concerto for the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument developed in France in the 1920s, and concertos for trumpet and piano, for flute, for piano, for harp, for bassoon and harp, for percussion, for cello and for violin.

In addition to his varied incidental music, whether for Molière, Claudel, Corneille or Plautus, Jolivet wrote music for the ballet and for marionette plays.

Jolivet made an early impression on Messiaen with the six piano pieces that constitute Mana. Chamber music includes music involving the flute, an instrument he particularly favoured for its primitive human associations.

Joplin

Scott Joplin (1868-1919) was the most influential and famous composer of the ragtime era, and one of the most daring pioneers in the history of American music. He was known as the Father of Ragtime. At first, the musical establishment absolutely refused to acknowledge ragtime as a worthy means of musical expression, dismissing it as catastrophic noise that had little musical meaning at all. Only within the last few decades has his work finally been truly appreciated and accepted as a truly great form of art, and as a unique and substantial contribution to music.

Ragtime, which first emerged in the 1890’s, is a style of piano playing with an up-and-down “ragged time” rhythm. Joplin made ragtime an international dance craze with “Maple Leaf Rag”. “The Maple Leaf Rag”, became the first song to sell over one million copies of sheet music.

The remarkable part of his success as a musician was the fact that he was African American. His success paved the way for all black musicians who would come after him, breaking a long-standing race barrier: acceptance as a performer.

Joplin’s music enjoyed renewed popularity with the use of “Solace” in the 1973 movie The Sting. Solace was not a typical rag, although it does have similar rhythmic elements.

Treemonisha was an opera composed by Joplin, although it was not produced until 1975, 58 years after his death.

Some other ragtime composers were Joseph Lamb and James Scott. Eventually, ragtime was replaced by jazz.

January 28: On This Day in Music

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. 1722 ~ Johann Ernst Bach, German composer of the Bach family

. 1791 ~ Ferdinand Herold, French composer

. 1887 ~ Artur Rubinstein, Polish-born American pianist, played solo for the Berlin Symphony at the age of 12.
Read quotes by and about Rubinstein
https://youtu.be/2zSqYDH8hbw

. 1904 ~ Enrico Caruso signed his first contract with Victor Records. He had debuted at the Metropolitan Opera just two months before.

. 1927 ~ Ronnie Scott (Schatt), Jazz musician: tenor sax, bandleader, jazz club owner in London

. 1927 ~ Twenty years before the famous record by Art Mooney was recorded, Jean Goldkette and his dancing orchestra recorded, I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover. Though the name of the bandleader may not be so famous, two of his sidemen on this Victor recording session certainly were: Big band fans know Bix Beiderbecke and Joe Venuti.

. 1929 ~ Acker (Bernard) Bilk, Clarinetist, composer

. 1935 ~ Mikhail Mikhaylovich Ippolitov-Ivanov, Russian composer, died at the age of 75

. 1938 ~ Bill Phillips, Country singer

. 1940 ~ “Beat the Band” made its debut on NBC radio. The band was that of Ted Weems and his 14-piece orchestra, who were joined by Elmo ‘The Whistling Troubadour’ Tanner, Harry Soskind and Country Washington. One other star of the show was a barber from Pittsburgh, PA (nearby Canonsburg, actually), who would record many hits for RCA Victor from 1943 right through the dawn of the 1970s. His name was Perry Como. Beat the Band was a funky show where listeners’ questions were selected in the hopes of stumping the band. If a listener’s question was chosen, he or she received $10. The questions were posed as riddles: What song title tells you what Cinderella might have said if she awoke one morning and found that her foot had grown too large for her glass slipper? If the band played the correct musical answer, Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?, the listener lost.

. 1943 ~ Dick Taylor, Bass, guitar with The Pretty Things

. 1944 ~ John Tavener, British avant-garde composer
More information about Tavener

. 1944 ~ Brian Keenan, Drummer with groups Manfred Mann and The Chambers Brothers

. 1948 ~ Mikhail Nikolayavich Baryshnikov, Russian-born American ballet dancer Washington Honored Eastwood, Baryshnikov, Others

. 1959 ~ Dave Sharp, Guitarist with The Alarm

. 1956 ~ Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national television. No, he didn’t appear on some teenage dance show; but rather, “The Dorsey Brothers Show”, starring Tommy and Jimmy. Elvis sang Blue Suede Shoes and Heartbreak Hotel. He was backed by the instruments of the Dorsey band.

. 1968 ~ Sarah McLauchlan, Singer

. 1985 ~ 45 of the world’s top recording artists were invited to an all-night recording session at the A&M studios in Los Angeles. As each of the artists walked through the studio door, they were greeted by a hand-lettered sign — put there by Lionel Richie. It simply said, “Check your ego at the door.” The session started at 10 p.m. with producer Quincy Jones conducting. At 8 o’clock the following morning, the project, “USA for Africa”, spearheaded by promoter, Ken Kragen, was recorded and mixed. The resulting song, We Are the World, featuring Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Sting, Harry Belafonte, Diana Ross, Paul Simon and many others became the top song in the U.S. on April 13, 1985.

. 2002 ~ Michael Hammond, who became chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts just a week earlier, died apparently of natural causes. He was 69. A native of Kenosha, Wis., the conductor and composer had been dean of the School of Music at Rice University in Houston when President Bush nominated him to lead the federal agency that decides grants for the arts. After being confirmed by the Senate on Dec. 20, 2001, Hammond had assumed the post-Jan. 22, 2002, and was still in the process of moving to Washington. A student of music and medicine, Hammond’s interests included music from Southeast Asia, the Renaissance and medieval times and the intersection between music and neuroscience. He received a Rhodes scholarship to study philosophy, psychology and physiology at Oxford University. He also studied Indian philosophy and music at Dehli University in India. In 1968, he left his post as director of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee to become the founding dean of music at the State University of New York at Purchase. He later served as president of the school, until he left for Rice’s Shepherd School of Music in 1986. All the while, he retained his interest in medicine, teaching neuroanatomy and physiology at Marquette Medical School and at the University of Wisconsin. Hammond also served as the founding rector of the Prague Mozart Academy in the Czech Republic, now the European Mozart Academy was on the board of the Houston Symphony, and was vice chairman of the board of Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

. 2002 ~ Steve Caldwell, who sang and played saxophone for the Swingin’ Medallions at the time of the band’s 1966 hit Double Shot (of My Baby’s Love), died of pancreatic cancer. He was 55. Caldwell was with the group from 1963 to 1969. After getting his master’s degree in chemistry at the University of South Carolina, he returned to his native Atlanta and ran the Norell temporary staffing agency until starting his own company in 1976. His wife, Lynn Caldwell, said he raised $1 million for charity through World Methodist Evangelism.