Tag Archives: conductor

August 18: On This Day in Music

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• 1750 ~ Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor
More information about Salieri

• 1873 ~ Leo Slezak, Austrian tenor

• 1907 ~ Howard Swanson, American composer

• 1916 ~ Moura Lympany, Saltash England, pianist

• 1937 ~ The first FM radio construction permit was issued. It went to W1X0J (later to become WGTR) in Boston, MA. The station went on the air two years later.

• 1939 ~ Johnny Preston, Singer

• 1944 ~ Carl Wayne, Singer with The Move

• 1949 ~ Ralph Flanagan and his orchestra recorded their first tune on wax, You’re Breaking My Heart.

• 1950 ~ Dennis Elliott, Drummer with Foreigner

• 1957 ~ Ron Strykert, Guitarist with Men at Work

• 1958 ~ Perez Prado, the ‘Mambo King’, received one of the first gold records awarded by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). The single, Patricia, was certified as having sold over one million copies.

• 1973 ~ Jazz drummer Gene Krupa played for the final time with members of the original Benny Goodman Quartet. Krupa, a jazz and big band legend, died on October 6, 1973.

• 1981 ~ Robert Russell Bennett passed away

• 1981 ~ Rex Harrison brought the award-winning My Fair Lady back to Broadway as he recreated the role of Henry Higgins. The play had originally opened in 1956.

• 2001 ~ Jack Elliott, a composer and conductor who worked on numerous hit television shows and movies, died of a brain tumor. He was 74.
Elliott came to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to work as a musical arranger on Judy Garland’s television show.
He gained a reputation as one of the top composers and arrangers in Hollywood. If a television show was popular in the 1970s, it most likely had the music of Elliott and his frequent collaborator Allyn Ferguson. They worked on such shows as: “Police Story,” “Barney Miller,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Love Boat.”
He also worked in films and teamed with director Carl Reiner on several projects, including: “The Comic,” “The Jerk” and “Oh God.”
Elliott served as music director for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, writing the music for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as conducting the orchestra.

• 2003 ~ Tony Jackson, bass player for The Searchers, a Liverpool band best known for the 1964 song “Needles and Pins,” died at the age of 63.
Jackson sang and played bass for The Searchers, a Liverpool band that briefly rivaled The Beatles for popularity in the early 1960s. “Needles and Pins” made the top 20 in the United States after it was released in 1964.
Jackson was lead singer on the band’s first two British hits, “Sweets for My Sweet” and “Sugar and Spice,” but played bass only on the enduring “Needles and Pins” and “Don’t Throw Your Love Away.”
Feeling sidelined, Jackson quit the group in 1964. His follow-up band, Tony Jackson and the Vibrations, failed to score a hit and he drifted out of the music business.

• 2004 ~ Elmer Bernstein, American movie music composer (The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Age Of innocence, Thoroughly Modern Mille), died at the age of 82

August 16: On This Day in Music

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• 1795 ~ Heinrich Marschner, German opera composer

• 1863 ~ Gabriel Pierné, French composer, conductor and organist

• 1929 ~ Bill Evans, American jazz pianist and composer

• 1932 ~ Eydie Gorme (Edith Gormezano), Grammy Award-winning singer, married since 1957 to Steve Lawrence.

• 1938 ~ Robert Johnson passed away

• 1939 ~ The famous vaudeville house, Hippodrome, in New York City, was used for the last time. There were several places called the Hippodrome around the country. They weren’t, generally, theatres, nor true nightclubs. Hippodromes were designed for the wide variety of vaudeville acts available at the time … dancing, music, comedy and skits.

• 1940 ~ Marching Along Together, by Frankie Masters and his orchestra, was recorded for Okeh Records.

• 1942 ~ Barbara George, Singer

• 1945 ~ Suzanne Farrell (Ficker), Ballerina

• 1953 ~ James ‘J.T.’ Taylor, Singer with Kool and The Gang

• 1958 ~ Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone), Singer

• 1962 ~ Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, handed drummer Pete Best his walking papers. Best had been with the group for 2-1/2 years. Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) was picked to take his place. One month later, the group recorded, Love Me Do.

• 1977 ~ Elvis Presley was rushed from Graceland to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Doctors’ efforts to revive him were fruitless and he was pronounced dead (coronary arrhythmia) at 3:30 p.m. He was 42 years old.

• 1984 ~ Prince was pictured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. He was shown with his left armpit exposed.

• 1984 ~ Though it didn’t make the pop music charts, a new single by Elvis Presley was released by RCA Victor Records. The song was originally recorded in 1956 at the Tupelo (MS) Fairgrounds. It was called, Baby, Let’s Play House.

• 2000 ~ Sally Amato, who founded the Amato Opera Theater with her husband, Anthony Amato, in 1948, died at the age of 82.
Amato, who performed under her maiden name, Serafina Bellantone, was born in Little Italy in 1917. As a child she appeared in vaudeville skits in local movie theaters.
She met her husband when they were both appearing in an operetta at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, and they founded the Amato Opera Theater to provide young singers with a chance to perform.

• 2000 ~ Alan Caddy, English musician (The Tornados) died

• 2007 ~ Max Roach, American percussionist, drummer, and composer died

• 2018 ~ Aretha Franklin passed away at the age of 76. Franklin won 18 Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide. Franklin received numerous honors throughout her career including a 1987 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in which she became the first female performer to be inducted. She was inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. In August 2012, Franklin was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Franklin is listed in at least two all-time lists on Rolling Stone magazine, including the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

 

 

August 14: On This Day in Music

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1778 ~ Augustus Toplady, English hymn-writer who wrote Rock of Ages, died.

• 1868 ~ Leone Sinigaglia, Italian composer

• 1888 ~ An audio recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord”, one of the first recordings of music ever made, is played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison’s phonograph in London, England.

• 1926 ~ Buddy (Armando) Greco, Singer and pianist

• 1937 ~ Brian Fennelly, American composer, pianist and conductor

• 1940 ~ Dash Crofts, Drums, mandolin and keyboard with Champs; singer is a duo with Seals and Crofts

• 1941 ~ David Crosby (Van Cortland), American rock singer, guitarist and songwriter. Performed with The Byrds as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

• 1941 ~ Connie Smith (Meadows), Singer

• 1946 ~ Larry Graham, Bassist and singer with Sly and the Family Stone as well as Graham Central Station

• 1971 ~ Elton John put the finishing touches to his Madman Across the Water LP at Trident Studios, London. Since the album’s release on Feb 2, 1972, it has sold over two million copies in the U.S. alone.

• 1981 ~ The BBC recording of the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana reached number one on the album charts in Britain.

• 2000 ~ Leonard Kwan, a master of slack key guitar whose composition Opihi Moemoe is considered a classic of the genre, died at the age of 69. Kwan began recording in 1957 and most recently recorded two albums for George Winston’s Dancing Cat Records. The second was released in September.

Kwan also was the first slack key guitarist to publicly share his instrument tunings in an instruction book.
Hawaiian slack key, or ki ho`alu, is a unique musical style dating to the 1830s, when Spanish and Mexican cowboys arrived in the islands. Some of the guitar strings are slacked from the standard tuning and songs are played in a finger-picking style, with the thumb playing bass. In 1960, he recorded, Slack Key, the world’s first all-instrumental slack key album.

• 2001 ~ Nicholas Orloff, a dancer and ballet teacher, died at the age of 86.
Orloff was known for his performance of the Drummer, a character he originated in David Lichine’s 1940 “Graduation Ball.”
He was a popular teacher with the Ballet Theater and other schools. He continued to teach in Manhattan schools even after suffering from a stroke three years ago.

Orloff appeared in the 1950 French film “Dream Ballerina” and on Broadway in the musical “Pipe Dream.”
He also was the ballet master of the Denver Civic Ballet in the mid- 1970s.
Born in Moscow, Orloff trained in Paris. He performed with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Original Ballet Russe, Ballet Theater, as the American Ballet Theater was known, and the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Ceuvas.

• 2001 ~ Daniel Adrian Carlin, an Emmy-winning music editor who worked with soundtrack composers Lalo Schifrin and Ennio Morricone, died of complications from lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. He was 73.
Carlin edited the music for “Scorpio,” “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “Ghost,” “Gorillas in  the Mist,” “Dead Poets Society” and “Cliffhanger.” He won a music-editing Emmy in 1987 for his work on the miniseries “Unnatural Causes.”
He was founder in 1972 of La Da Music. Now known as Segue Music, it is considered the leading film and television editing company.

August 12: On This Day in Music

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Be sure your student reads and listens to Today’s Daily Listening Assignment

 

 

 

• 1644 ~ Heinrich Biber, Bohemian violinist and composer

OCMS   1859 ~ Katharine Lee Bates
Listen to Katharine Lee Bates’ music, America the Beautiful
Read about Katharine Lee Bates
More information about Bates

• 1919 ~ Michael Kidd (Milton Greenwald), Choreographer, dancer

• 1926 ~ Joe Jones, Singer, pianist for B.B. King

• 1927 ~ Porter Wagoner, Singer, songwriter

• 1929 ~ “Buck” (Alvis Edgar) Owens, American country-music guitarist, singer and songwriter

• 1941 ~ Jennifer Warnes, Singer

• 1944 ~ Peter Hofmann, German tenor and rock singer

• 1949 ~ Mark Knopfler, Musician, guitar, songwriter, singer with Dire Straits

• 1954 ~ Pat Metheny, Musician, jazz-guitar

• 1959 ~ Suzanne Vega, Musician, folk-guitar, singer, songwriter

• 1961 ~ Roy Hay, Musician, guitar with Culture Club

• 1966 ~ The last tour for The Beatles began at the International Amphitheater in Chicago, and John Lennon apologized for boasting that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. London’s Catholic Herald said Lennon’s comment was “arrogant … but probably true.”

• 1967 ~ Fleetwood Mac made their stage debut at the National Blues and Jazz Festival in Great Britain.

• 1992 ~ John Cage, American composer (Imaginary Landscape No 1/O’O), died of a stroke at the age of 79

August 10: On This Day in Music

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• 1865 ~ Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, Russian symphonic composer, conductor and educator. He wrote eight completed symphonies and two piano concertos. One of his last works (1934) was a concerto for saxophone.

• 1893 ~ Douglas Stuart Moore, American composer and educator

• 1895 ~ The first Promenade concert under conductor Henry Wood took place at Queen’s Hall in London. He remained in sole charge of the “Proms”, the annual British classical music festival, until 1940.

• 1928 ~ Jimmy Dean (Seth Ward), Grammy Award-winning singer, TV host of The Jimmy Dean Show, sausage mogul

• 1928 ~ Eddie Fisher, Singer, TV host of Coke Time with Eddie Fisher, father of Carrie Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher

• 1940 ~ Bobby Hatfield, Singer with The Righteous Brothers

• 1943 ~ Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Spector (Bennett), Singer with The Ronettes

• 1947 ~ Ian Anderson, Musician: flute, singer with Jethro Tull

• 1954 ~ Eliot Fisk, American guitarist

• 1954 ~ Elvis Presley made one of his first professional appearances, at Overton Park, in his hometown of Memphis, TN. He used the occasion to debut his new record, That’s All Right (Mama), and was a big crowd pleaser.

• 1961 ~ Jon Farriss, Musician, drums, singer with INXS

• 1967 ~ Lorraine Pearson, Singer with Five Star

• 1968 ~ Michael Bivins, Singer with New Edition, Bell Biv DeVoe

• 1985 ~ Madonna’s album Like a Virgin became the first solo album by a female artist to be certified for sales of five million copies.

• 1987 ~ A Chorus Line celebrated its 5,000th performance. It was estimated that 25 million theatregoers had seen the musical since it opened in 1975. An estimated 16.7 million people had seen the show on Broadway, with another 8.3 million taking in the touring production. A Chorus Line became the longest-running show on The Great White Way on September 29, 1983 and ended its Broadway run in 1990.

• 2003 ~ Gregory Hines, Tony Award winner tap-dancing actor who started on Broadway and in movies including “White Nights” and “Running Scared,” died at the age of 57. The dancer, among the best in his generation, won a 1993 Tony for the musical  “Jelly’s Last Jam.”

Hines became internationally known as part of a jazz tap due with his brother, Maurice, and the two danced together in the musical revue “Eubie!” in 1978. The brothers later performed together in Broadway’s “Sophisticated Ladies” and on film in 1984’s “The Cotton Club.”

In “The Cotton Club,” Hines also had a lead acting role, which led to more work in film. He starred with Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1985’s “White Nights” and with Billy Crystal in 1986’s “Running Scared,” and he appeared with Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett in 1995’s “Waiting to Exhale,” among other movies.

On television, he had his own sitcom in 1997 called “The Gregory Hines Show,” as well as a recurring role on “Will and Grace.” March 2003, he appeared in the spring television series “Lost at Home.”

• 2013 ~ Eydie Gorme, American singer, died at the age of 84

August 9: On This Day in Music

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• 1874 ~ Reynaldo Hahn, Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor and music critic

• 1902 ~ Solomon Cutner, Classical pianist. A virtuoso performer, he played Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto at the age of 10. His career was stopped after a stroke in 1965.

• 1902 ~ Zino (Rene) Francescatti, French concert violinist; passed away in 1991

• 1910 ~ A.J. Fisher of Chicago, IL received a patent for an invention that moms, grandmas and single guys certainly came to appreciate: the electric washing machine. Previous to Mr. Fisher’s invention, washing machines were cranked by hand (not easily done) – or you used a washboard (also sometimes used as a musical instrument).

• 1919 ~ Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Italian composer and librettist, died. He is famous for the single opera “Pagliacci” but never repeated the success with his other works.
More information about Leoncavallo

• 1932 ~ Helen Morgan joined the Victor Young orchestra to record Bill, a popular tune from Broadway’s Showboat.

• 1934 ~ Merle Kilgore, Songwriter Hall of Famer

• 1939 ~ Billy Henderson, Singer with Spinners

• 1955 ~ Benjamin Orr (Orzechowski), Musician, bass guitar, singer with The Cars

• 1963 ~ Whitney Houston, Grammy Award-winning singer

• 1963 ~ The TV program Ready, Set, Go! premiered on the BBC in London, England. The show gave exposure to such music luminaries as Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones.

• 1964 ~ Joan Baez and Bob Dylan shared the stage for the first time when the singers performed in a concert in Forest Hills, NY.

• 1969 ~ Hot Fun in The Summertime, by Sly and the Family Stone, and Easy to Be Hard, from the Broadway production Hair, were released on this day. Hot Fun made it to number two on the music charts and Easy to Be Hard climbed to number four.

• 1975 ~ Dmitri Shostakovitch, Russian composer, died. He wrote 15 symphonies as well as operas, ballets and film and theater scores.
More information about Shostakovitch

• 1995 ~ Jerry Garcia passed away

• 2003 ~ Chester Ludgin, a baritone in the New York City Opera for more than 30 years, died at the age of 78.
Ludgin sang a host of lead baritone parts, but was most recognizable in operas including “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and “Susannah.” He debuted at the City Opera in 1957 in Johann Strauss II’s “Fledermaus.”
He also portrayed the part of Sam for Leonard Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place” at the Houston Grand Opera in 1983. He also sang for the San Francisco Opera and other North American companies.
His last appearance at City Opera was in 1991, but he remained on the stage, singing in musical comedies. His most recent lead was in “The Most Happy Fella.”

• 2003 ~ Gregory Hines, American actor and dancer, died of liver cancer at the age of 57

• 2005 ~ News Item:  New Vivaldi work heard for first time in 250 years.

August 8: On This Day in Music

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Be sure your student reads and listens to Today’s Daily Listening Assignment

 

 

 

• 1886 ~ Pietro Yon, Italian composer
More information about Yon

• 1899 ~ Russell Markert, Choreographer, founded and directed the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes

• 1905 ~ André Jovilet, French composer and conductor

• 1907 ~ Benny Carter, American jazz solo saxophonist, trumpeter, composer and arranger

• 1921 ~ Roger Nixon, American composer

• 1921 ~ Webb Pierce, Singer

• 1923 ~ Jimmy Witherspoon, Singer

• 1923 ~ Benny Goodman was 14 years old as he began his professional career as a clarinet player. He took a job in a band on a Chicago-based excursion boat on Lake Michigan.

• 1926 ~ Urbie (Urban) Green, Musician, trombonist who played with Cab Calloway

• 1932 ~ Mel Tillis, Singer, songwriter

• 1933 ~ Joe Tex (Arrington, Jr.), Singer

• 1934 ~ Bing Crosby became the first singer to record for the newly created Decca Records. His songs, Just A-Wearyin’ For You and I Love You Truly, were recorded as Decca number D-100.

• 1938 ~ Connie Stevens (Concetta Ingolia), Singer

• 1939 ~ Philip Balsley, Singer with The Statler Brothers

• 1941 ~ Les Brown and His Band of Renown paid tribute to baseball’s “Yankee Clipper”, Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees, with the recording of Joltin’ JoeDiMaggio on Okeh Records. From that time on, DiMaggio adopted the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.

• 1949 ~ Keith Carradine, Actor and composer, whose recording of I’m Easy reached No. 17 on the U.S. charts in 1976.

• 1950 ~ Andy Fairweather-Low, Musician, guitar, singer with Amen Corner

• 1958 ~ Harry (Harry Lillis III) Crosby, Singer and actor, son of Bing Crosby and Kathryn Grant

• 1958 ~ Chris Foreman, Musician, guitar with Madness

• 1960 ~ Tell Laura I Love Her, by Ray Peterson, wasn’t a big hit in Great Britain. Decca Records in England said the song was “too tasteless and vulgar for the English sensibility.” They destroyed 25,000 of the platters this day.

• 1961 ~ The Edge (David Evans), Musician, guitar with U2

• 1974 ~ Roberta Flack received a gold record for the single, Feel Like Makin’ Love. Flack, born in Asheville, NC and raised in Arlington, VA, was awarded a music scholarship to Howard University in Washington, DC at the age of 15. One of her classmates became a singing partner on several hit songs. Donny Hathaway joined Flack on You’ve Got a Friend, Where is the Love and The Closer I Get to You. She had 10 hits on the pop charts in the 1970s and 1980s.

• 1975 ~ Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderly passed away

• 1997 ~ Duncan Swift, jazz pianist, died at the age of 74

• 2017 ~ Glen Campbell died at the age of 81. He was an American singer, songwriter, musician, television host, and actor.

August 5: On This Day in Music

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• 1397? ~ Guillaume Du Fay, French composer. Considered the leading composer of the early Renaissance.
More information about Du Fay

• 1694 ~ Leonardo Leo, Italian composer and organist

• 1811 ~ Ambrose Thomas, French composer, primarily of operas

• 1890 ~ Erich Kleiber, Austrian conductor

• 1891 ~ Henry Charles Litolff, French pianist/composer, died at the age of 73

• 1924 ~ The comic strip Little Orphan Annie debuted in the New York Daily News. Annie and her little dog, Sandy, were creations of cartoonist Harold Gray. His work would come to life in the Broadway and film adaptations of Annie a half-century later, with great success.

• 1926 ~ Jeri Southern (Genevieve Hering), Singer

• 1940 ~ Damita Jo (DuBlanc), Singer

• 1942 ~ Rick Huxley, Bass with Dave Clark Five

• 1943 ~ Sammi Smith, Singer

• 1947 ~ Rick Derringer (Zehringer), Singer, songwriter with The McCoys, record producer

• 1953 ~ Samantha Sang, Singer

• 1957 ~ Dick Clark’s American Bandstand caught the attention of network executives at ABC-TV in New York, who decided to put the show on its afternoon schedule.  Many artists, acts and groups of the rock ’n’ roll era debuted on American Bandstand – Simon and Garfunkel, Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker – catapulting Clark into the spotlight as one of TV’s most prolific producers and hosts.

• 1958 ~ Joseph Holbrooke, English pianist, conductor and composer (3 Blind Mice), died at the age of 80

• 1975 ~ Singer Stevie Wonder signed the recording industry’s largest contract: $13 million over a seven-year period. Wonder stayed with his original label, Tamla/Motown, while other major Motown artists, including Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and The Four Tops had left the label over creative differences and financial accounting disputes.

• 2018 ~ Charlotte Rae, American character actress, comedian, singer and dancer (Edna-Facts of Life), died at the age of 92

August 3: On This Day in Music

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Monday Music Quiz

 

 

 

 

• 1778 ~ La Scala, one of the world’s great opera houses, opened on this day. They premiered William Tell by Gioachino Rossini

• 1823 ~ Francisco Asenjo Babieri, Spanish composer

• 1884 ~ Louis Gruenberg, Polish-born American composer

• 1902 ~ Ray Bloch, Conductor and orchestra leader

• 1917 ~ Charlie Shavers, Trumpeter with the John Kirby Sextet and composer of Undecided

• 1918 ~ Les Elgart, Lead trumpet, bandleader for Les and (brother) Larry Elgart

• 1921 ~ Richard Adler, Broadway Composer, lyricist

• 1926 ~ Tony Bennett (Benedetto), Grammy Award-winning American singer of popular music

• 1941 ~ Beverly Lee, Singer with The Shirelles

• 1949 ~ B.B. (Morris) Dickerson, Bass and singer with War

• 1951 ~ Johnny Graham, Guitarist with Earth, Wind and Fire

• 1963 ~ The Beatles made their final appearance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. The group was about to leave its hometown behind for unprecedented worldwide fame and fortune.

• 1963 ~ The Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl, was released on Capitol Records. It became one of their biggest hits. Surfer Girl made it to number seven on the hit music charts  on September 14, 1963

• 1963 ~ Comedian Allan Sherman’s summer camp parody, Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh! (A Letter from Camp) was released on Warner Brothers Records. The melody was based on the Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli’s opera La Giaconda. This dance was also performed in the original Disney movie Fantasia.

• 1971 ~ Paul McCartney formed a new band called Wings. Joining McCartney in the group were Denny Laine, formerly of The Moody Blues, Denny Seilwell and McCartney’s wife, Linda.

• 1998 ~ Alfred Schnittke, one of the most original and influential composers to emerge from the Soviet Union, died. He was 63.

• 2001 ~ Jeanne Loriod, the leading performer of an electronic instrument used in film scores and symphonic works to produce mysterious glassy tones, died in southern France. She was 73. Loriod, who played the ondes martenot – invented by the French musician Maurice Martenot – died of a stroke in Juan-les-Pins, Le Monde newspaper reported.

She was the younger sister of pianist Yvonne Loriod, who was married to composer Olivier Messiaen. The three musicians often collaborated.

The ondes martenot – which translates as “Martenot waves” – produces electronic waves from a system of transistors, a keyboard and a ribbon attached to a ring on the performer’s forefinger.

Loriod’s career took her all over the world. She performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic, among others.

Composers such as Tristan Murail, Jacques Charpentier and Michael Levinas wrote works for her, according to Le Monde. Loriod had also been planning to collaborate with the pop group Radiohead, the paper wrote.

• 2008 ~ Louis Teicher died at 83.  He was half of the piano duo Ferrante & Teicher, which toured for four decades and released 150 albums, some as suitable for elevators as for concert halls.

• 2016 ~ Ricci Martin, an entertainer/musician son of Dean Martin, died at the age of 62.

August 2: On This Day in Music

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• 1891 ~ Sir Arthur Bliss, British composer
Read quotes by and about Bliss

• 1900 ~ Helen Morgan (Riggins), Pop Singer

• 1905 ~ Karl Amadeus Hartmann, German composer

• 1924 ~ Joe Harnell, Conductor and arranger

• 1925 ~ John Dexter, Opera director, Mid-America Chorale

• 1921 ~ Enrico Caruso, Italian operatic tenor, died in Naples.

• 1926 ~ The first demonstration of the Vitaphone system, that combined picture and sound for movies, was held at the Warner Theatre in New York City. John Barrymore and Mary Astor starred in the demonstration film for the new moving picture projector.

• 1935 ~ Hank Cochran, Pop Singer and songwriter

• 1937 ~ Garth Hudson, Musician, keyboard with The Band

• 1937 ~ Benny Goodman and his quartet recorded Smiles for Victor Records. Playing with Goodman’s clarinet on the famous song were Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa.

• 1939 ~ Edwin Patten, Singer with Gladys Knight & The Pips

• 1941 ~ Doris Kenner-Jackson (Coley), Singer with The Shirelles

• 1943 ~ Kathy Lennon, Singer with The Lennon Sisters

• 1951 ~ Andrew Gold, Singer, son of composer Ernest Gold

• 1991 ~ Jeri Southern passed away

• 1997 – Nigeria’s musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who popularized the Afro-music beat globally, died of AIDS aged 58.

• 2000 ~ Helen Quinn, who for more than 30 years presided over the Metropolitan Opera patrons who lined up to buy standing-room tickets, died at the age of 76. Often called the Queen of Standees by those who allowed her to take charge of the ticket queue, Quinn was herself a veteran of standing-room lines at the Met, and attended five or six performances a week, almost always as a standee. In 1966, on her own initiative, she imposed a system on the standee process that the throng of regulars was apparently happy to abide by, and to which the Met gave tacit approval.

• 2001 ~ Ron Townson, the portly centerpiece singer for the Grammy-winning pop group  The 5th Dimension, died of renal failure after a four-year battle with kidney disease. He was 68.  Other members of the reconstituted group – known for such 1960s hits as Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In, Wedding Bell Blues and Stoned Soul Picnic – performed at the Capitol Fourth music and fireworks show on July 4 in Washington, D.C.   Declining health had forced Townson to retire from The 5th Dimension in 1997, bringing to an end a career that saw him tour with such music legends as Nat King’ Cole and Dorothy Dandridge, appear in operas and direct choirs. He helped front The 5th Dimension when the group’s smooth mixture of pop, jazz, gospel, and rhythm and blues won it four Grammys in 1968 for the Jimmy Webb song Up Up and Away. Other hits included One Less Bell to Answer and Sweet Blindness. As various members left The 5th Dimension in the 1970s to pursue solo projects, Townson formed the group Ron Townson and Wild Honey. Later, he reunited with McLemore and LaRue in a new version of The 5th Dimension that included Phyllis Battle and Greg Walker. He also appeared on television and in films, including the 1992 movie The Mambo Kings.

• 2002 ~ Freidann Parker, co-founder of the Colorado Ballet, died at the age of 77.  Colorado Ballet co-founder Lillian Covillo met Parker in the late 1940s in a dance class taught by Martha Wilcox. The two began the Covillo-Parker School of Dance, and then a fledgling ballet company. After an ambitious double bill in 1961, they created Colorado Concert Ballet, which presented Denver’s first Nutcracker the following season. Every performance sold out. By 1978, the board of directors more than doubled its budget to $100,000, and Colorado Ballet was born. Today its budget has grown to $7 million with a roster of 40 dancers. Parker’s first dance lessons were with Iris Potter. She later trained with modern-dance pioneer Hanya Holm.

 

• 2020 ~ Leon Fleisher, American pianist and conductor, died at the age of 92. He was one of the most renowned pianists and pedagogues in the world. Music correspondent Elijah Ho has called him “one of the most refined and transcendent musicians the United States has ever produced”.

In 1964, Fleisher lost the use of his right hand, due to a condition that was eventually diagnosed as focal dystonia. Fleisher commenced performing and recording the left-handed repertoire while searching for a cure for his condition. In addition, he undertook conducting during this time, serving at one time as Music Director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra in Maryland. In the 1990s, Fleisher was able to ameliorate his focal dystonia symptoms after experimental botox injections to the point where he could play with both hands again.