12-30: The Birthday Party : Peel Sessions 1980-1982 - Richard Rodgers : Victory at Sea 1953 - The Magic of Boney M 1980 - Artie Shaw & His Gramercy Five 1954

Not shown: Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne

1796 – Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (French composer)
1821 – Angelo Maria Benincori (Italian composer & violinist)
1825 – Peter Grønland (Danish composer)
1828 – Waldemar Thrane (Norwegian composer, violinist & conductor)
1922 – Richard Zeckwer (German-born American composer, organist & teacher)
1934 – Peter Cornelius (Danish operatic tenor & baritone)
1940 – Fritz Volbach (German conductor, composer, musicologist, pianist & organist)
1946 – Charles Wakefield Cadman (American composer & pianist, associated with Indianist movement)
1948 – Rosina Buckman (New Zealand soprano)
1949 – Heinrich Rehkemper (German baritone)
1967 – Bert Berns (American songwriter, producer & record executive "Hang on Sloopy", "Twist and Shout")
1971 – Jan Mul (Dutch composer & organist)
1973 – Henri Büsser (French composer, organist & conductor of German ancestry)
1979 – Richard Rodgers (American popular songwriter & composer for theater, film & television)
1986 – Jiří Jaroch (Czech composer)
1993 – Mack David (American songwriter)
1995 – Ralph Flanagan (American jazz bandleader, pianist, composer & arranger)
1998 – Johnny Moore (American R&B singer, The Drifters)
2003 – Anita Mui [梅艷芳] (Hong Kong cantopop singer & actress)
2004 – Artie Shaw (American jazz clarinetist, bandleader, composer & author)
2009 – Rowland S. Howard (Australian post-punk guitarist, songwriter, keyboardist & singer, The Birthday Party)
2010 – Bobby Farrell (Aruban pop & disco dancer & singer, Boney M.)

We've heard from The Birthday Party before, when we were remembering their bass player, Tracy Pew. (Don't bother looking for that post - the links aren't good anymore.) Weird coincidence: On the fifth anniversary of the day Tracy Pew died, R&B musician Carter Cornelius died. Well, now we have The Birthday Party's guitarist, Rowland Howard, dying on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the day Danish opera singer Peter Cornelius died. Something funny is happening with the Birthday Party and Corneliuses (Cornelii?), and I promise to get to the bottom of it! And you know how much my promises are worth!

And as far as Peter Cornelius goes, that's another issue entirely. There are in fact three famous musicians named Peter Cornelius. The most famous Peter Cornelius nowadays is a still-living Austrian pop singer and guitarist who was formerly a member of Enigma. Prior to that Peter Cornelius coming into prominence, the most famous had been a German composer and author of the 19th century, whom we also remembered in a previous post. And do you want to know what's really coincidental about that post?!? I have no idea. At least, I haven't figured it out, YET. Maybe somebody can leave a comment and tell me what it is...

10-09: Marilyn Manson Florida 1992 - Bags & Trane : Milt Jackson / John Coltrane 1959 - Jacques Brel : Olympia 64 | Infinitement (Best Of)

1769 – Marianus Königsperger (German organist & composer)
1781 – Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie (Scottish violinist, composer & Masonic Grand Master, "Fiddler Tam")
1821 – Georg Friedrich Fuchs (German composer & conductor, pupil of Haydn)
1900 – Heinrich von Herzogenberg (Austrian composer & conductor, associate of Brahms)
1907 – Romualdo Marenco (Italian composer, violinist & conductor, noted for his ballet scores)
1937 – August de Boeck (Belgian composer, organist & teacher)
1941 – Helen Morgan (American singer & actress, "Julie LaVerne" in original 1927 Broadway production of Showboat)
1949 – Viktor Uspensky [Виктор Успе́нский](Russian composer & ethnomusicologist, specialist in Uzbek & Turkmen music)
1963 – Thurlow Lieurance (American composer, associated with 'Indianist' movement, "By the Waters of Minnetonka")
1978 – Jacques Brel (Belgian singer, actor & film director)
1994 – Joan Dickson (Scottish cellist & prominent cello teacher, pupil of Enrico Mainardi)
1997 – Arthur Tracy [Abba Avrom Tracovutsky] (Moldovan-born American vaudeville & radio singer ["The Street Singer"] & actor)
1999 – Milt Jackson (American jazz vibraphonist & composer)
2007 – Enrico Banducci (American impresario, violinist & nightclub owner, the hungry i, San Francisco)
2008 – Gidget Gein [Bradley Stewart] (American alt-metal bass guitarist & artist, Marilyn Manson)

I believe I've left enough links up there for you to start learning whatever you'd like to know about some of the particularly colorful figures and pursuits represented on today's list - such as Scotland's aristocratic, talented, hard-drinking and rakish "Fiddler Tam"; Heinrich von Herzogenberg, a mostly-forgotten composer who's been assumed to be a Brahms clone, but whose music is actually quite fresh and original in sound (I linked to clips from his string trios in the list - other clips are linked to on this page); two composers who spent much time studying the traditional music of ancient cultures - Viktor Uspensky those in Central Asia, and Thurlow Lieurance those in North America; Jacques Brel, Belgian chansonnier and star throughout the French-speaking world; Arthur Tracy, the Moldavian emigré to America who, due to an exclusive vaudeville contract he was under, identified himself merely as "The Street Singer" when he first appeared on radio; Milt Jackson, known best for his work with the Modern Jazz Quartet, who remains truly the central figure in the world of jazz vibraphone; San Francisco's Enrico Banducci, owner of the hungry i club (but also a good violinist and lover of classical music and jazz), where the careers of many of the "edgy" comedians and folk musicians of the 1950s and 60s got their start (along with that of a 20-year-old singer who had a voice like buttuh); and finally Gidget Gein, who played bass in The Spooky Kids before the band hit it big and started going just by their lead singer's name.

See, now... that was a nice, easy day. If I had more days like this one, maybe I wouldn't be three weeks behind. :/

Oh, there was something else I wanted to mention. It has nothing to do with either music or death. It has to do with comedy, and while I do know a lot about certain kinds of music, I know almost nothing about comedy (which should hardly be news to any of you who've been reading this blog), and so this information is something I hadn't been aware of before. You know how when you see someone doing a standup routine, on television, or at the Laugh Factory, or wherever, and they're standing in front of a brick wall? That's something that comes directly from the interior decor of the hungry i:

The above appears to be an art installation featuring one of Phyllis Diller's getups. Anyway, I thought that was kind of interesting, and demonstrates the importance of this particular venue, in having had such a subtle but unmistakeable influence on the very conventions of standup comedy. And come to think, this observation isn't entirely unrelated to the subject of death. It's when someone has just such a wall behind them that they're heard to whisper "Come on! I'm dyin' up here!" to someone in the wings...

09-20: Sibelius 1 2 5 7 Barbirolli - Link 80 Killing Katie 1997 - Ben Webster Ballads 1955 - Gilles Binchois / Discantus 2009 - Sarasate Zigeunerweisen Heifetz 1937

1460 – Gilles Binchois (Franco-Flemish composer)
1590 – Lodovico Agostini (Italian composer, singer, priest & scholar)
1630 – Claudio Saracini (Italian composer, lutenist & singer)
1648 – Ivan Lukačić (Croatian-born composer & church musician, active in Italy)
1896 – Johan Gottfried Conradi (Norwegian conductor & composer)
1897 – Karel Bendl (Czech composer & conductor)
1908 – Pablo de Sarasate (Spanish violinist & composer)
1957 – Jean Sibelius (Finnish composer)
1957 – Heino Kaski (Finnish composer & pianist)
1960 – Michel Brusselmans (Belgian soundtrack composer)
1967 – Henri Mulet (French organist & composer)
1968 – Frank Pelleg (Czech-born Israeli harpsichordist, pianist, conductor, composer & teacher)
1973 – Ben Webster (American jazz tenor saxophonist & pianist)
1973 – Jim Croce (American singer-songwriter & guitarist)
1974 – Robert Herberigs (Belgian composer)
1984 – Steve Goodman (American folk singer-songwriter, "City of New Orleans")
1994 – Jule Styne (English-born American Broadway composer & pianist)
1994 – Jimmy Hamilton (American jazz clarinetist, tenor saxophonist, arranger, composer & teacher)
1996 – Paul Weston (American pop pianist, arranger, composer & conductor)
1997 – Nick Traina (American punk/ska singer, Link 80, son of Danielle Steel)
2006 – Armin Jordan (Swiss conductor)
2006 – John W. Peterson (American composer of hymns & cantatas)
2010 – Leonard Skinner (American high school gym teacher, namesake of Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Some great favorites here. Both Gilles Binchois and Ben Webster were one of the Big Three in their day. "Wha??" you say? That's right... Binchois, considered by some the finest melodist of the 15th century, was one of the most prominent members of the Burgundian School, along with Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstable - composers who served the court of Burgundy and represented the first generation of composers we think of as "Renaissance." And Ben Webster was one of the three greatest tenor sax players to come out of the swing era, along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young.

They called Webster "The Brute" or "Frog" because of the rough, raspy tone he used on rhythm tunes - although his sound became sweetly coy and sentimental on ballads. In fact, it's safe to say that with Ben Webster, we get a greater timbral variety, from wispy, breathy warbles to petulant growls, than we do with just about any other sax player in jazz. And look, there's reedman Jimmy Hamilton on the list, too! Both Webster and Hamilton were alumni of Duke Ellington's great orchestra in the 30s & 40s... Hamilton stayed on with Ellington for decades longer, but Webster had a falling-out with the Duke (in which he apparently cut up one of Ellington's suits - ouch!) and went off on his own in 1943. Webster would go on to do his best work in the 50s, perhaps most notably on Soulville from 1957, considered to be the very first soul jazz album in the history of jazz... and, soul.

The real bigwig on the list, however, is the national composer of Finland, Jean Sibelius. It must suck to be any Finnish composer coming after Sibelius - always being compared to this musical giant who had such an idiosyncratic artistic voice. And boy, it must have really sucked to be poor Heino Kaski... a much lesser-known Finnish composer, pooping on the same day as Sibelius. Sibelius, who for many years was widely performed little elsewhere than in the Nordic countries and Britain, is known primarily for his seven symphonies, his violin concerto, and his many symphonic poems based on Finnish lore and legend. He's also known as one of the last of the great late Romantic composers, who somewhat like Richard Strauss lived into the mid-20th century as a symbol of a bygone era as several fads of modernism came and went. Unlike Strauss, Sibelius decided he'd said all he wanted to by the late 1920s, and committed hardly a note to music paper for the last 30 years of his life, preferring instead to focus his energies on fostering interest in performances and recordings of his existing body of works. See you on the other side of the early retirement...

09-03: Morton Feldman : Coptic Light / Tilson Thomas 1995 | Rothko Chapel / New Albion 1990 - Harry Partch : The Bewitched 1957 / CRI - Canned Heat : Living the Blues 1968 - Noah Howard : The Black Ark 1969 - Coleman Hawkins : The Hawk Flies High 1957

1708 – Christian Liebe (German composer & organist, teacher of Andreas Silbermann)
1714 – Pietro Antonio Fiocco (Italian composer & choirmaster)
1790 – Thomas Norris (English organist, composer & singer)
1811 – Ignaz Fränzl (German violinist & composer)
1871 – Václav Emanuel Horák (Czech composer, church musician & teacher)
1914 – Albéric Magnard (French composer)
1944 – František Drdla (Czech violinist & composer)
1946 – Paul Lincke (German composer & violinist, "Berliner Luft")
1946 – Moriz Rosenthal (Polish pianist, composer & wit)
1951 – Robert Hernried (Austrian composer, musicologist & music editor)
1960 – Joseph Lamb (American ragtime composer)
1963 – Frico Kafenda (Slovak composer, teacher, pianist & conductor)
1964 – Joseph Marx (Austrian composer, teacher & music critic)
1970 – Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson (American blues-rock singer, songwriter, guitarist & harmonica player, Canned Heat)
1974 – Harry Partch (American experimental composer, instrument inventor, music theorist & hobo)
1981 – Mafalda Favero (Italian operatic soprano)
1984 – Dora Labbette (English operatic & concert soprano, mistress of Sir Thomas Beecham)
1985 – Johnny Marks (American writer of many Christmas songs, e.g. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer")
1985 – Papa Jo Jones (American jazz drummer)
1985 – John Herbert McDowell (American composer for dance, theater & film)
1987 – Morton Feldman (American experimental composer)
1994 – Major Lance (American R&B & soul singer)
2007 – Carter Albrecht (American rock keyboardist & guitarist, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
2010 – Noah Howard (American free jazz alto saxophonist)

Well, what a banner day for good, old-fashioned, solid American experimental composition... it's a tradition that started with Charles Ives and Henry Cowell, and continues up to this very day! We have Harry Partch and Morton Feldman, both pooping on September 3rd. Partch - gay, iconoclastic, and a man who spent much of the Great Depression as a train-hopping vagabond - stretches our ears with his unequal 43-note scale that maps closely onto an 11-limit just intonation (a tuning system which is derived from acoustically pure intervals through the first 11 partials of an overtone series, if that's any easier for you to understand), and the truly weird-looking and even weirder-sounding instruments he had to design and build himself so that one could play in this scale. A few of them are seen above in our little Partch mini-collage: the Cloud Chamber Bowls, the Chromelodeon, the Bamboo Marimba, the Adapted Viola, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Gourd Tree. Partch's collection of exotic instruments continues to be curated and used in performance by Dean Drummond and the ensemble Newband.

In contrast, Feldman (a member of the so-called "New York School," which also includes John Cage, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff) stretches our musical perceptions in a very different way, requiring us to recalibrate our relationship to musical sonority and musical time. (Feldman has his own mini-collage up there. He was a curiously photogenic and charismatic individual - I love how even the Iranian teen next to the gong seems intrigued by the man. Go here to look at some rarely-seen vacation slides of Feldman.) He came to prefer softer sounds only, finding them more interesting than louder ones. This causes the sound of "silence" - really, the ambient sounds of the space, especially those of the performers themselves moving around, breathing, etc. - to be bumped up in Feldman's sound-world. In his mature style of the late 60s and thereafter, a Feldman work consists of dissonant yet delicate patterns and textures that evolve so slowly they almost create an effect of complete stasis. This is extended over longer and longer time-spans throughout the 70s, culminating in the String Quartet II of 1983, which takes several hours to perform. So both Partch and Feldman are composers who require some major adjustments to the ways we're accustomed to listening to and processing music. To some, maybe frightening... to you and me, full of the excitement of discovery... (Read more about both Partch and Feldman below)

There's so much more to say about so many others (like jazz drummer Jo Jones... no, not "Philly" Joe Jones, but "Papa" Jo Jones - people have been getting the two of them confused for 60 years, and the situation isn't helped by the fact that they died not just in the same year, but within four days of one another), but I'll just have to say "Remainder of write-up pending" for now...