09-06: Atari Teenage Riot The Future of War 1987 - Jeff Beck Truth 1968 - Nico Chelsea Girl 1968 - Hanss Eisler Deutsche Sinfonie - Ernest Tubb Say Something Nice To Sarah 1972 - Marcel Journet 78s 1906-1919

1811 – Julien-Amable Mathieu (French violinist & composer)
1819 – Georg Druschetzky [Jiří Družecký] (Bohemian composer, oboist & timpanist)
1831 – Johann Ernst Friedrich Wollank (German composer)
1933 – Marcel Journet (French operatic lyric bass)
1937 – Henry Hadley (American composer & conductor)
1949 – Walter Widdop (English Heldentenor)
1952 – José Forns y Cuadras (Spanish musicologist & author)
1956 – Felix Borowski (English-born American composer, music critic, teacher, pianist & violinist)
1962 – Hanns Eisler (German-born composer, pupil of Schoenberg, friend & colleague of Brecht)
1965 – Konstantin Mostras (Russian violinist & composer, pupil of Auer, teacher of Galamian)
1966 – Luigi Perrachio (Italian composer & pianist)
1968 – Karl Rankl (Austrian-born British conductor (Covent Garden) & composer (pupil of Schoenberg & Webern))
1973 – Sir William Henry Harris (English organist, choirmaster & composer, New College & Christ Church, Oxford & St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle)
1977 – Paul Burkhard (Swiss composer & songwriter, "O mein Papa")
1977 – Guido Pannain (Italian musicologist, author & composer)
1978 – Tom Wilson (American record producer)
1979 – Ronald Binge (English composer & arranger of light music)
1981 – Joseph Yasser (Polish-born American music theorist, organist & composer)
1984 – Ernest Tubb (American country singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1985 – Léon Orthel (Dutch composer, pianist & teacher)
1985 – Franco Ferrara (Italian conductor & teacher of many conductors)
1985 – Johnny Desmond (American jazz & pop singer)
1990 – Tom Fogerty (American rock guitarist, songwriter & singer, older brother of John, CCR)
1994 – Max Kaminsky (American jazz trumpeter & bandleader)
1994 – Nicky Hopkins (English session keyboardist & vocalist, Rolling Stones et al.)
1995 – Joanne Gail Abbott (MTV executive)
1996 – Esther [Ester] Soré (Chilean popular singer & actress)
1998 – Ric Segreto (American pop singer, actor, teacher & journalist, active in the Philippines & Guam)
2001 – Carl Crack (Swazi-born German techno musician, Atari Teenage Riot)
2007 – Luciano Pavarotti (Italian operatic lyric tenor)

Weren't we just talking yesterday about the tragic recent passing of Salvatore Licitra, who'd been hailed as "the New Pavarotti," and who'd made his Met debut as a stand-in for Pavarotti on just 2 hours' notice? And now look who's on our list... the old Pavarotti! And the image I used of Luciano is of him making his curtain call for the same role Licitra sang that night: Cavaradossi from Puccini's Tosca... I'll bet you're grateful I used that pic instead of the usual concert-performance-in-formal-attire-with-white-hanky photos we're used to seeing of the great and now 4-years defunct tenor. I was tempted to make a mini-collage of him in photos alongside various pop stars... Michael Jackson, Bono, Julio Iglesias, Vanessa Williams... aren't you also grateful I resisted that impulse?

And weren't we just remembering Gisele MacKenzie yesterday? Well, turns out that one of the most memorable television appearances by singer Johnny Desmond, whom we remember today, was with Boris Karloff in 1957, on guess whose show on  NBC... that's right, The Gisele MacKenzie Show!

And wasn't it just a week ago that we were remembering Carl Wayne from the Move, specifically with their 1968 album that included session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins on a few tracks? And so who makes it to the list today? Yep, it's the "Sixth Stone" himself... (Read more about him below)

And then in the comments to the post from a few days ago in which we remembered Feldman and Partch, weren't Wes and I (Say "hi" to Wes everybody - he's the one person who reads this blog - say "hi" to yourself, Wes) discussing equal divisions of the octave, in which I mentioned 19-tone equal temperament? And now along comes none other than Joseph Yasser, one of the main theorists to suggest this very tuning way back in the 30s, and poops on September 6th!

Well, it's all uncanny or whatever, and if you like you can imagine me as Jack Palance from Ripley's Believe It Or Not with that creepy grin on my face, talking about how very uncanny it is. Oh, and Jack Palance. I'll bet you're just dying (like just about everyone we ever talk about has) to know what day he met his maker, aren't you? You'll never guess... it was... it was... November 10th. Why, that's only about a month away! It's positively canny, I tell you!
 

08-31: The Move 1968 - John Ward / Rose Consort of Viols - Lionel Hampton Complete Jazztone Recordings 1956 - Verdi Otello arias / Francesco Tamagno 1903 - Bartók / Spivakovsky / Balsam 1947

1604 – Giovanni Giovenale Ancina (Italian priest, scholar & composer, beatified 1889)
1616 – Gemignano Capilupi (Italian composer)
1631 – Nicolaus Erich (German composer & church musician)
1638 – John Ward the younger (English composer, chorister & lawyer)
1667 – Johann von Rist (German poet, playwright & hymnist)
1730 – Gottfried Finger (Moravian composer)
1795 – François-André Danican Philidor (French composer & chess master)
1805 – Joseph dall'Abaco (Belgian cellist & composer, active in Germany, England & Italy)
1832 – Jean Nicolas Auguste Kreutzer (French violinist & composer, younger brother of Rodolphe)
1862 – Ignaz Aßmayer (Austrian composer, organist & church musician)
1905 – Francesco Tamagno (Italian operatic tenor)
1910 – Pierre Aubry (French musicologist, 13th-century specialist)
1910 – Emīls Dārziņš (Latvian composer, conductor & music critic)
1923 – Ernst Van Dyck (Belgian operatic tenor)
1946 – Paul von Klenau (Danish composer & conductor, active in Germany & Austria)
1949 – Paul Höffer (German composer, pianist & teacher)
1964 – Désiré Defrère (Belgian operatic tenor)
1965 – Antonin Trantoul (French operatic tenor)
1969 – Ottmar Gerster (German composer, violinist & pianist)
1975 – Jonny Born (German operatic baritone)
1994 – Artur [Arthur] Balsam (Polish-born American pianist & teacher)
2002 – Lionel Hampton (American jazz vibraphonist, drummer, pianist, bandleader & actor)
2002 – Farhad Mehrad (Iranian rock singer, songwriter, guitarist & pianist)
2003 – Jaap Geraedts (Dutch composer & flutist)
2004 – Carl Wayne (English rock singer, keyboardist & electric bassist, The Move)

Well, I'm not going to say "write-up pending" today, because I already have three posts I have to go back and amend, so today I'm just going to keep it short and sweet for a change.

On August 31st we remember John Ward, English composer of viol music (Read more below); F.-A. Danican Philidor, whose family formed a long lineage of French court musicians, and who also has two chess moves named after him; Auguste Kreutzer, brother of Rodolphe Kreutzer, to whom Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" (the sonata after which Tolstoy's novella (the novella by which Janáček's first string quartet was inspired) was named) was dedicated; and Ignaz Aßmayer, who gave organ lessons to Anton Bruckner, and whose name looks very funny if you don't have a German double-s handy.

We also remember Francesco Tamagno, the tenor who created the title role of Verdi's Otello in 1887 (that's to say, he was the very first to sing the role of Otello - well, unless you count the much less famous Otello by Rossini from 1816, for which Andrea Nozzari created the title role - Read more below); Ernst Van Dyck, the tenor who created the title role of Massenet's Werther in 1893; Pierre Aubry, an early scholarly specialist in medieval music; and Artur Balsam, a pianist who made many recordings in the late 78 and early LP era (Read more below).

Finally, we remember Lionel Hampton, who for all intents and purposes invented jazz vibraphone during the swing era (Read more below); Farhad Mehrad, who pioneered Persian rock music in the 70s, and had his music banned in Iran after the revolution, but has grown to be more accepted by the religious establishment as Iran's population has become younger and more liberal; and Carl Wayne, lead singer for The Move (Read more below), the British psychedelic rock group that later metamorphized into E.L.O. after Jeff Lynne joined it.

There! That was so short I needn't even bother with the usual "jump." But if you really feel like doing some more "reading," I think you know what to do...

Read more...