Tag Archives: Liberace

September 25: On This Day in Music

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OCMS 1683 ~ Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer, theorist and organist
Read more about Rameau

 

 

OCMS 1906 ~ Dmitri Shostakovich, Soviet composer
Read more about Shostakovich
Grammy winner
Shostakovich’s music was once condemned as being “un-Soviet” Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto number 2 is featured in Disney’s Fantasia 2000. Read more about Shostakovich

• 1932 ~ Glenn (Herbert) Gould, Canadian pianist, composer, wrote a piano essay about Petula Clark
Read quotes by and about Gould
Read news items about Gould

• 1933 ~ Erik Darling, Folk singer with The Weavers and also The Tarriers

• 1934 ~ Hot Lips was recorded by Henry Busse and his orchestra in Chicago, IL.

• 1943 ~ Gary Alexander, Guitar, singer with The Association

• 1945 ~ Onnie McIntyre, Guitar with Average White Band

• 1950 ~ NBC~TV introduced a new concept in daytime programming. Kate Smith debuted an hourlong show. Her theme song for the show was When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain. Kate’s daytime show ran for four years. God Bless America.

• 1953 ~ John Locke, Keyboards with Spirit

• 1953 ~ Following in the footlights of musical greats like Ignace Jan Paderewski and Victor Borge, a piano player named Liberace made his debut at Carnegie Hall. Liberace performed before a sellout audience. His candelabra and concert grand piano were instant trademarks that lasted throughout his career.

• 1955 ~ Steve Severin (Bailey), Bass with Siouxsie & The Banshees

• 1979 ~ The third musical resulting from the collaboration of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber lit up the Great White Way. Evita opened on Broadway to rave reviews.

• 2002 ~ Bob Radonich, who for 47 years owned a local landmark cafe shaped like a coffee pot, died after suffering a series of strokes. He was 83. His cafe, Bob’s Java Jive, evokes a largely forgotten era of architecture. The street where it sits once featured toy factories shaped like castles, a gas station resembling a colossal neon gas pump and a yellow, lemon-shaped restaurant called the Lemon Lunch. Those other buildings vanished, but the Java Jive survived. Java Jive was originally known as the Coffee Pot Restaurant, built in 1927 by local veterinarian Otis G. Button and designed by an artist, inventor and promoter named Bert Smyser. Radonich bought the cafe in 1955. His wife Lylabell renamed the business for an Ink Spots’ song whose lyrics included I love coffee, I love tea, I love java jive, it loves me. The Java Jive, which was used for a scene in the 1990 movie “I Love You to Death,” was renowned for a pair of chimpanzees, Java and Jive, who played drums while Bobby Floyd, who was Bob and Lylabell’s son, entertained on the organ. Radonich’s daughter now owns and runs Bob’s Java Jive.

• 2009 ~ Alicia de Larrocha, Catalan pianist died. She was considered one of the great piano legends of the 20th century.

• 2012 ~ Andy Williams, American singer, died from bladder cancer at the age of 84

July 31: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

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

 

 

• 1828 ~ François Auguste Gevaert, Belgian composer, musicologist, conductor and organist

• 1845 ~ The French Army introduced the saxophone to its military band. The musical instrument was the invention of Adolphe Sax of Belgium.

• 1847 ~ Ignacio Cervantes, Pianist

• 1886 ~ Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer and pianist died. Originator of the symphonic poem, he was a prolific teacher and a huge influence on Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
More information about Liszt

 

• 1911 ~ George Liberace, Violinist, conductor; administrator of Liberace Museum; brother of pianist/entertainer Liberace

• 1918 ~ Jan La Rue, American musicologist

• 1918 ~ Hank Jones, Pianist. He accompanied Billy Eckstine and Ella Fitzgerald. He led the Hank Jones Trio

• 1919 ~ Mornam Del Mar, British conductor

• 1923 ~ Ahmet Ertegun, Recording Executive

• 1939 ~ John West, Musician, guitarist with Gary Lewis and the Playboys

• 1942 ~ Harry James and his band recorded the classic I’ve Heard that Song Before, for Columbia Records. Helen Forrest sang on the million-seller.

• 1943 ~ Lobo, Singer

• 1946 ~ Gary Lewis (Levitch), Singer with Gary Lewis and the Playboys, entertainer Jerry Lewis’ son

• 1946 ~ Bob Welch, Guitarist and singer with Fleetwood Mac

• 1947 ~ Karl Green, Musician, guitar and harmonica with Herman’s Hermits

• 1964 ~ Jim Reeves, popular U.S. country music singer, died in an air crash near Nashville.

• 1985 ~ Prince was big at the box office with the autobiographical story of the Minneapolis rock star, Purple Rain. The flick grossed $7.7 million in its first three days of release on 917 movie screens. The album of the same name was the top LP in the U.S., as well.

• 2019 ~ Hal (Harold Smith) Prince died at the age of 91, He was an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the 20th century.

Over the span of his career, he garnered 21 Tony Awards, more than any other individual, including eight for directing, eight for producing the year’s Best Musical, two as Best Producer of a Musical, and three special awards.

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 15, 2023

Posted by MaryO on

 

 

Today’s piece is the one that all kids seem to be able to teach each other without having any lessons at all.

“Chopsticks” (original name “The Celebrated Chop Waltz”) is a simple, widely known waltz for the piano. Written in 1877, it is the only published piece by the British composer Euphemia Allen (under the pseudonym Arthur de Lulli).

Allen, whose brother was a music publisher, was sixteen when she composed the piece, with arrangements for solo and duet.

 

 

A super-easy version

With chopsticks

Follow along

Duet (I have the sheet music!)

Chopsticks Rag for three

Lang Lang

Liberace

Insane piano version

Guitar

 

Instrumental Ensemble

 

Challenge!

May 26: Today’s Music History

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• 1591 ~ Dirk Janszoon Sweelinck, Composer

• 1773 ~ Hans Georg Nageli, Composer

• 1782 ~ Joseph Drechsler, Composer

• 1832 ~ François-Louis Perne, Composer, died at the age of 59

• 1846 ~ Arthur Coquard, Composer

• 1853 ~ Monroe A Althouse, Composer

• 1856 ~ George Templeton Strong, Composer

• 1866 ~ Al Jolson, The first performer to sing in a sound movie ( The Jazz Singer)

• 1871 ~ Aime Maillart, Composer, died at the age of 54

• 1873 ~ August Conradi, Composer, died at the age of 51

• 1880 ~ John Curwen, Composer, died at the age of 63

• 1891 ~ Frederick Bowen Jewson, Composer, died at the age of 67.

• 1898 ~ Ernst Bacon, Composer

• 1898 ~ Gerard Bertouille, Composer

• 1898 ~ Ernst Bacon, American composer

• 1905 ~ Hans Holewa, Composer

• 1912 ~ Jan Blockx, Belgian opera composer, died at the age of 61

• 1920 ~ Peggy Lee, American jazz singer and music composer. She had a career spanning 70 years, during which she recorded 1,100 masters and composed more than 270 songs. She began her music career in the 1940s as a singer for Benny Goodman’s big band. Her most famous recording is a version of Little Willie Johnson’s “Fever” which was nominated for 3 awards at the inaugural Grammys in 1959. She was also an actor and famously voiced several roles for Disney’s Lady and the Tramp while also co-writing all of the original songs in the film. Lee continued to perform throughout the 1990s despite health issues. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999.

• 1924 ~ Johann Heinrich Beck, Composer, died at the age of 67

• 1924 ~ Victor Herbert, Irish/US cellist/composer/conductor, died at the age of 65

• 1926 ~ Maria de Lourdes Martins, Composer

• 1933 ~ Jimmie (James Charles) Rodgers passed away

• 1937 ~ Yehuda Yannay, Composer

• 1937 ~ Lionel Hampton and his band recorded the classic, Flying Home, for Decca Records.

• 1938 ~ William Bolcom, American pianist, composer and writer
More information about Bolcom

• 1941 ~ Imants Kalnins, Composer

• 1942 ~ Lenny Kravitz, Musician

• 1942 ~ Ray Ennis, Musician, guitar, singer with The Swinging Blue Jeans

• 1943 ~ Levon Helm, Drummer

• 1944 ~ Verden Allen, Keyboards

• 1948 ~ Stevie Nicks, Singer and songwriter

• 1949 ~ Hank Williams, Jr, Singer

• 1949 ~ Teresa Stratas, Canadian soprano

• 1950 ~ Antonina Neshdanova, Russian soprano (Bolshoi Theater), died

• 1954 ~ Liberace presented a three-hour, one-man concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. 13,000 women and 3,000 men attended. The performance nearly broke the box office mark of 18,000 set by pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski.

• 1967 ~ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, by The Beatles, was released. It took the Fab Four only 12 hours to record their first album, “Please, Please Me”. It took them 700 hours to complete “Sgt. Pepper’s”.

• 1973 ~ Tippett’s 3rd Piano sonata, premiered

• 1993 ~ Cor de Great, Pianist, conductor and composer, died at the age of 78

• 1994 ~ Michael Jackson (35) and Elvis and Pricilla Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie (26) were married.

• 1995 ~ Ron Weatherburn, Jazz pianist, died at the age of 61

• 1996 ~ Matima Kinuani Mpiosso, Musician, died at the age of 45

• 2002 ~ Oscar Florentino Tellez, one of San Antonio’s best-known bajo sexto players who was a regular with the Grammy-winning Texas Tornados, died in a one-vehicle traffic accident near Cotulla. He was 56. Tellez, a native of Laredo, taught himself to play music as a small boy. By his teens, he had learned to play the bass, drums, accordion, the keyboard and the bajo sexto, a Mexican bass guitar that resembles a 12-string guitar. In Europe, Tellez was affectionately called the ‘Frito Bandito.’

• 2003 ~ Almir Chediak, a music producer who dedicated his life to preserving the memory of Brazilian popular music, was shot to death. He was 52. Chediak was best known for transcribing the music of Brazil’s top musicians such as Caetano Veloso and Antonio Carlos Jobim and publishing them in the form of songbooks. He was also a music professor who taught some of Brazil’s top stars, including Gal Costa, Tim Maia, Cazuza and Morares Moreira, and in recent years he had gone on teach a new generation of Brazilian musicians. He also wrote two music textbooks that took harmonic theory out of the conservatory and made it more accessible for popular musicians. His publishing company, Lumiar, also produced CDs of important Brazilian musicians.

May 16: Today’s Music History

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• 1892 ~ Richard Tauber (Ernst Seiffert), Austrian-born British tenor. He sang a wide range of music and was as equally at home in opera, notably Mozart, as in Austrian operetta.

• 1913 ~ Woody (Woodrow Charles) Herman, American jazz clarinetist, bandleader and composer

• 1919 ~ (Walter) (Wladziu Valentino) Liberace, American concert pianist and showman. His trademark was a candelabra on his piano.
More information about Liberace

• 1922 ~ Eddie Bert, Jazz musician, trombone

• 1929 ~ The first Academy Awards were presented on this night, hosted by Douglas Fairbanks and William C. de Mille. This first awards ceremony of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. It attracted an audience of 200 people.

• 1929 ~ Paul Whiteman and his orchestra backed Bing Crosby for the tune, Sposin’, which ‘Der Bingle’ recorded for Columbia Records. Betty Carter (Lillie Mae Jones) (1930) Jazz singer: toured with Lionel Hampton & Miles Davis

• 1930 ~ Friedrich Gulda, Austrian pianist/composer

• 1946 ~ The Irving Berlin musical, Annie Get Your Gun, at New York’s Imperial Theatre. One of the most successful shows presented on a Broadway stage, the show ran for 1,147 performances.

• 1947 ~ Barbara Lee, Singer with The Chiffons

• 1947 ~ Darrel Sweet, Drummer, singer

• 1953 ~ Bill Haley and His Comets made it to the Billboard music charts for the first time with Crazy Man Crazy. The tune went to number six and became the first rock ’n’ roll record to make the pop music chart.

• 1965 ~ The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd, a Broadway musical starring Anthony Newley, made its premiere at the Shubert Theatre in New York City. Cyril Ritchard appeared in the production which entertained audiences for 231 performances.

• 1966 ~ Janet Jackson, Singer

• 1990 ~ Jim Henson, the famous creator who of the Muppets, a cast of puppets including Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, Elmo, Ernie and Bert, died at the age of 54.

• 1990 ~ The entertainer who could do it all, Sammy Davis, Jr., died this day, in Beverly Hills, California, USA. From vaudeville at age three (with his father and uncle) to the star of Broadway’s “Mr. Wonderful”, from Las Vegas nightclubs to hit records, the actor, singer, dancer, impersonator, and musician performed his way into the hearts of young and old everywhere. The world mourned the passing of Sammy Davis, Jr. at age 64 of throat cancer.

• 1993 ~ Marv Johnson passed away.  He was an American R&B and soul singer.

• 1995 ~ Lola Flores, fiery Spanish dancer and singer, died. She made many films but was best known for her flamenco movements and passionate songs.

• 2010 ~ Hank Jones, American jazz pianist and composer, died at the age of 91

April 23: Today’s Music History

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. 1756 ~ Alexander Reinagle, English-American composer, born

. 1882 ~ Albert Coates, British conductor and composer

OCMS 1891 ~ Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer and pianist
More information about Prokofiev
 Grammy winner

. 1924 ~ Arthur Frackenpohl, American composer

. 1928 ~ Shirley Temple, American actress best known for her parts as a child actress / singer / Tap Dancer. Possibly her best known part was as Shirley Blake in the movie Bright Eyes when she first performed the song that would become one of her trademarks, “On the Good Ship Lollipop”. She won an Academy Award for best Juvenile Performer in 1935. She went on to star in Stand Up and Cheer!, The Littlest Rebel, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Just Around the Corner. She was cast alongside some of the great actors of the time including John Wayne, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda and Ronald Reagan to name just a few. After ending her acting career she became a successful diplomat including a delegate to the United Nations (1969), United States Ambassador to Ghana (1974), United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the velvet revolution (1989–92). She was also one of the celebrities featured in the cover of the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper.

. 1936 ~ Roy Orbison, American rock-and-roll singer, songwriter and guitarist

. 1939 ~ Ray Peterson, Singer

. 1947 ~ Keith Moon, Drummer for the rock band The Who

. 1952 ~ Narada Michael Walden, Musician: drums with the group Mahavishnu Orchestra, record producer, singer, songwriter

. 1952 ~ Elisabeth Schumann, German soprano, died. Best known for her roles in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “Cosi Fan Tutte,” she was also a popular recitalist

. 1985 ~ This was a big day for the flamboyant Liberace. Lee, as he was called by those close to him, first appeared on the TV soap opera, Another World. The sequined and well-furred pianist appeared as a fan of Felicia Gallant, a romance novelist. Later in the day, Liberace was a guest video jockey on MTV!

and

. 1985 ~ The first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize in over a decade was Sunday in the Park with George.

. 1986 ~ Harold Arlen [Hyman Arluck], American composer of Over the Rainbow died at the age of 81

. 2001 ~ Genji Ito, the resident composer for the experimental theater club La MaMa E.T.C. and a music collaborator with many other groups, died of cancer at the age of 54. Ito composed scores for more than 25 theatrical productions at La MaMa. He received an Obie Award in 1986 for sustained excellence. Working closely with Ellen Stewart, La MaMa’s founder, Ito produced scores notable for their stylistic variation and diversity. For 1986’s “Orfei,” a retelling of the Orpheus myth, Ito composed a score that mixed traditional folk instruments with modern electronic ones. For 1993’s “Ghosts: Live from Galilee,” the story of a group of black men accused of raping a white woman in 1931, Ito composed a score that combined blues with country and vaudeville. Ito also wrote 15 compositions for the Ubu Repertory.

April 18: Today’s Music History

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. 1796 ~ The Archers, the first opera composed by Benjamin Carr, an American composer, was performed in New York City.

OCMS 1819 ~ Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer and conductor
More information about von Suppé

OCMS 1882 ~ Leopold Stokowski, British-born American conductor
More information about Stokowski

. 1918 ~ Tony Mottola, composer, guitarist: played with Al Caiola, George Hall’s orchestra, CBS radio studio orchestra, worked with Raymond Scott backing up young  Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, arranger for Como’s TV variety show

. 1929 ~ Red Nichols and his Five Pennies recorded the Glenn Miller arrangement of Indiana for Brunswick Records. Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Jack Teagarden were all part of the recording session that took place in New York City.

. 1936 ~ Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer, died. Best known for his orchestral pieces including the “Pines of Rome.”
More information about Respighi

. 1938 ~ Catherine Malfitano, American soprano

. 1938 ~ Hal Galper, jazz pianist

. 1939 ~ Gene Autry recorded the popular song “Back in the Saddle Again.” Several decades later, the rock band Aerosmith recorded a song that shares the same title.

. 1941 ~ Mike Vickers, Musician: guitar, reeds played with the group Manfred Mann

. 1946 ~ Hayley Mills, Singer, actress

. 1946 ~ Alexander Spence, Musician: guitarist and singer with the group Moby Grape

. 1965 ~ Contralto Marian Anderson ended her 30-year singing career with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

. 1974 ~ James Brown, the ‘Godfather of Soul’, received a gold record this day for the single, The Payback. Of the 44 hits that Brown would put on the charts over three decades, he received only one other gold record – for Get on the Good Foot – Part 1 in 1972. His biggest pop hits include: I Got You (I Feel Good) at number three in 1965, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag at number eight in 1965, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World at number eight in 1966, I Got The Feelin’ at number six in 1968 and Living in America at number four in 1986. This song was featured in the Sylvester Stallone film, Rocky IV.

. 1984 ~ Michael Jackson faced surgery in Los Angeles. Doctors performed scalp surgery to repair the damage done after the megastar’s hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial on January 27. Jackson was hospitalized and recuperated for months before he could return to work. His single recording of Thriller had been certified platinum in February 1984.

. 1985 ~ The sequined ‘King of Show Business’, Liberace, broke his own record for ticket sales at Radio City Music Hall. Liberace grossed more than $2,000,000 for his engagement in the historic New York City venue. His previous record was set in 1984 ($1.6 million in tickets sold).

. 2001 ~ Billy Mitchell died at the age of 74. He was a saxophonist who played with jazz greats Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman.

. 2012 ~ One of the most well-known television personalities from the US, Dick Clark, died at the age of eighty-two from a heart attack. Clark gained his popularity through hosting the American Bandstand show that introduced up and coming music stars to the nation and had also hosted ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Clark also ran a production company that produced several movies, game shows, beauty contests, and music programs like the American Music Awards.

March 9: Today’s Music History

Posted by MaryO on

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. 1706 ~ Johann Pachelbel, German organist/composer, died at the age of 52
More about Pachelbel

 

Just the cello part:

and a bit of humor

 

. 1745 ~ The first carillon was shipped from England to Boston, MA.

.1903 ~ “The Master of Charms“. ~ Claude Debussy on fellow composer Gabriel Fauré in the Paris periodical Gil Blas

. 1910 ~ Samuel Barber, Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer
Read quotes by and about Barber
More information about Barber

. 1925 ~ Billy Ford, Singer with Billy & Lillie

. 1927 ~ John Beckwith, Canadian composer and music critic

. 1930 ~ Thomas Schippers, American conductor

. 1930 ~ Ornette Coleman, American jazz saxophonist and composer (Downbeat Musician of Year 1966), born in Fort Worth, Texas

. 1932 ~ Keely Smith (Dorothy Keely), Singer, was married to Louis Prima

. 1942 ~ Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded Well, Git It! for Victor Records. Ziggy Elman was featured on the session which was recorded in Hollywood. Sy Oliver arranged the Dorsey classic.

.1950 ~ Howard Gordon Shelley OBE, British pianist and conductor

. 1974 ~ Many new musical faces were on the scene, including Terry Jacks, who was starting week two of a three-week stay at the top of the pop charts with his uplifting ditty, Seasons in the Sun. Other newcomers: Jefferson Starship, Billy Joel, Kiss, Olivia Newton-John, Kool & the Gang and The Steve Miller Band.

. 1985 ~ The most requested movie in history, “Gone With The Wind”, went on sale in video stores across the U.S. for the first time. The tape cost buyers $89.95. The film, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, cost $4.5 million to produce and has earned over $400 million, making it one of the biggest money-makers in motion picture history. “GWTW” is now the cornerstone of the massive MGM film library owned by Ted Turner.

. 1986 ~ Bill Cosby broke Liberace’s long-standing record and earned the biggest box-office gross in the 54-year history of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

. 1993 ~ Bob Crosby, swing-era bandleader, passed away

. 2001 ~ Richard Stone, whose musical compositions for such popular cartoon shows as “Animaniacs” and “Freakazoid” won him more than a half-dozen Emmys, died Friday at the age of 47. Stone grew up watching Warner Bros. “Looney Tunes” cartoons in the 1950s and ’60s before going on to study cello and music composition in college. He not only emulated the style of Carl Stalling, who composed hundreds of musical scores for classic Warner Bros. cartoons in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, but also incorporated elements of jazz, Broadway, country and rock music into his work. Stone also carved out his own style on modern-day shows, winning seven Emmys since 1994 for such cartoons as “Animaniacs,” “Freakazoid” and “Histeria!” He also worked on the cartoons “Pinky & the Brain,” “Taz-Mania,” “Road Rovers” and “The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries” and scored several movies, including the cult classics “Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat” and “Pumpkinhead.”

. 2016 ~ George Martin, British record producer (The Beatles), died at the age of 90

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.
More information about Liberace

. 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

September 25: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

OCMS 1683 ~ Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer, theorist and organist
Read more about Rameau

 

 

OCMS 1906 ~ Dmitri Shostakovich, Soviet composer
Read more about Shostakovich
Grammy winner
Shostakovich’s music was once condemned as being “un-Soviet” Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto number 2 is featured in Disney’s Fantasia 2000. Read more about Shostakovich

• 1932 ~ Glenn (Herbert) Gould, Canadian pianist, composer, wrote a piano essay about Petula Clark
Read quotes by and about Gould
Read news items about Gould

• 1933 ~ Erik Darling, Folk singer with The Weavers and also The Tarriers

• 1934 ~ Hot Lips was recorded by Henry Busse and his orchestra in Chicago, IL.

• 1943 ~ Gary Alexander, Guitar, singer with The Association

• 1945 ~ Onnie McIntyre, Guitar with Average White Band

• 1950 ~ NBC~TV introduced a new concept in daytime programming. Kate Smith debuted an hourlong show. Her theme song for the show was When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain. Kate’s daytime show ran for four years. God Bless America.

• 1953 ~ John Locke, Keyboards with Spirit

• 1953 ~ Following in the footlights of musical greats like Ignace Jan Paderewski and Victor Borge, a piano player named Liberace made his debut at Carnegie Hall. Liberace performed before a sellout audience. His candelabra and concert grand piano were instant trademarks that lasted throughout his career.

• 1955 ~ Steve Severin (Bailey), Bass with Siouxsie & The Banshees

• 1979 ~ The third musical resulting from the collaboration of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber lit up the Great White Way. Evita opened on Broadway to rave reviews.

• 2002 ~ Bob Radonich, who for 47 years owned a local landmark cafe shaped like a coffee pot, died after suffering a series of strokes. He was 83. His cafe, Bob’s Java Jive, evokes a largely forgotten era of architecture. The street where it sits once featured toy factories shaped like castles, a gas station resembling a colossal neon gas pump and a yellow, lemon-shaped restaurant called the Lemon Lunch. Those other buildings vanished, but the Java Jive survived. Java Jive was originally known as the Coffee Pot Restaurant, built in 1927 by local veterinarian Otis G. Button and designed by an artist, inventor and promoter named Bert Smyser. Radonich bought the cafe in 1955. His wife Lylabell renamed the business for an Ink Spots’ song whose lyrics included I love coffee, I love tea, I love java jive, it loves me. The Java Jive, which was used for a scene in the 1990 movie “I Love You to Death,” was renowned for a pair of chimpanzees, Java and Jive, who played drums while Bobby Floyd, who was Bob and Lylabell’s son, entertained on the organ. Radonich’s daughter now owns and runs Bob’s Java Jive.

• 2009 ~ Alicia de Larrocha, Catalan pianist died. She was considered one of the great piano legends of the 20th century.

• 2012 ~ Andy Williams, American singer, died from bladder cancer at the age of 84