01-17b: Junior Kimbrough : Most Things Haven't Worked Out 1997 - Czesław Niemen : Enigmatic 1970 | Strange Is This World 1972 - Philip Jones Brass Ensemble : BBC Archive Recordings 1970-1979

1994 – Noël Chiboust (French jazz trumpeter, saxophonist, clarinetist & bandleader)
1996 – Robert Covington (American blues drummer & singer)
1996 – Mostafa Sid Ahmed [مصطفى سيد احمد] (Sudanese singer, songwriter, oud player & teacher, active also in Russia, Egypt & Qatar)
1998 – Junior Kimbrough (American blues singer & guitarist)
2000 – Philip Jones (English trumpeter & leader of Philip Jones Brass Ensemble)
2002 – Eddie Meduza [Errol Leonard Norstedt] (Swedish rockabilly & Dansband composer, singer & guitarist)
2003 – Balint Vazsonyi (Hungarian pianist & political journalist)
2004 – Czesław Niemen (Polish rock & folk singer, songwriter & keyboardist)
2011 – Don Kirshner (American pop & rock songwriter, music publisher & manager, The Monkees, The Archies, Kansas)

12-04: Zappa : Mount St Mary's 1963 | Montreux 1971 - Britten : Billy Budd Gunn / Bostridge 2008 | 4 Sea Interludes & Passacaglia / Bernstein 1973 - Tommy Bolin / Billy Cobham Spectrum Sessions 1973 - Hubert Sumlin I Know You 1998

Not shown above: Petronio Franceschini, Daniel Read, Maria Koubatová & Karl Walter

1676 – Johann Georg Ebeling (German composer, cantor & teacher)
1732 – John Gay (English poet & dramatist, The Beggar's Opera)
1680 – Petronio Franceschini (Italian composer & cellist)
1836 – Daniel Read (American composer)
1867 – Constance Nantier-Didier (French mezzo-soprano)
1884 – Alice Mary Smith (English composer)
1897 – Caradog [Griffith Rhys Jones] (Welsh conductor, South Wales Choral Union)
1902 – Fyodor Stravinsky [Фёдор Стравинский] (Russian operatic bass & actor, father of Igor)
1913 – Maria Koubatová (Czech soprano)
1915 – Gustav Hollaender (German violinist, conductor & composer)
1929 – Karl Walter (German organist, teacher, musicologist & authority on organ & bell construction)
1935 – Johan Halvorsen (Norwegian composer, conductor & violinist)
1938 – Dina Appeldoorn (Dutch composer & pianist)
1953 – Daniel Gregory Mason American composer & music critic)
1959 – Hubert Marischka (Austrian tenor, actor, film director & screenwriter)
1964 – Vera Schwarz (Croatian soprano)
1965 – Franz Völker (German dramatic tenor)
1969 – Alceo Toni (Italian composer & author)
1976 – Tommy Bolin (American rock guitarist, Zephyr, Energy, James Gang, Deep Purple, Billy Cobham, Moxy)
1976 – Benjamin Britten (English composer, conductor & pianist)
1980 – Zdeněk Otava (Czech operatic baritone)
1985 – Marcel Boereboom (Belgian musicologist)
1993 – Frank Zappa (American composer & rock songwriter, guitarist & singer)
2004 – Teo Peter (Romanian rock bass guitarist, Compact)
2004 – Elena Souliotis [Έλενα Σουλιώτη] (Greek operatic soprano)
2005 – Gloria Lasso (Spanish pop singer, active in France)
2007 – Pimp C (American rapper, singer & producer)
2009 – Liam Clancy (Irish folk singer, guitarist & concertinist)
2011 – Hubert Sumlin (American blues guitarist, Howlin' Wolf)

Here's one of those big days I was talking about... although tomorrow promises to be even bigger.

I don't need to tell you anything about Frank Zappa, do I? To me, he's the figure who represents, more than anyone else, the state of Western music in the late 20th century. He's the man who embraced rock 'n' roll and the avant garde with equal gusto, who took on those powers who called for censorship on behalf of the age-old reactionary quest for "decency"... and he could play a hell of a guitar solo too!

And then there's Benjamin Britten, the composer who with his Peter Grimes and subsequent works single-handedly revitalized the state of English opera, which had declined ever since the death of Henry Purcell two and a half centuries earlier. And it's appropriate that he should have passed on the anniversary of the passing of John Gay, not just because he was (the relationship between Britten and Peter Pears, in fact, being famously among the most successful artistic/romantic collaborations in modern history), but because Britten made his own excellent adaptation of The Beggar's Opera in 1948, fleshing out all the many harmonic and instrumental details that were missing from the original Gay-Pepusch political satire that's been handed down to us.

So much that I could say as well about Tommy Bolin, about Stravinsky's father Fyodor, about Liam Clancy and Teo Peter and Hubert Sumlin... but we've got to keep moving around here...

09-07: The Who 1974 Charlton Football Club - Britten War Requiem 1963 - Erma Franklin Soul Sister 1969 - Cecilia Bartoli Rossini Heroines

1741 – Henri Desmarets (French composer)
1775 – Johann Georg Holzbogen (German composer to Prince Clemens Franz de Paula of Bavaria)
1819 – Jean-Louis Duport (French composer & cellist)
1838 – Joseph Panny (Austrian composer & violinist)
1845 – Isabella Colbran (Spanish dramatic coloratura soprano sfogato & song composer, wife of Rossini)
1872 – Antoni Stolpe (Polish composer & pianist)
1881 – Sidney Lanier (American poet, composer & flutist)
1902 – Franz Wüllner (German composer & conductor)
1916 – Junius W. Hill (American organist, teacher & music editor)
1925 – John Wesley Work, Jr. (American collector of African-American folk songs, songwriter & director of Fisk Jubilee Singers)
1944 – Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes (Cuban composer, music folklorist & author)
1971 – Ludwig Suthaus (German operatic Heldentenor)
1977 – Gustave Reese (American musicologist & teacher, medieval & Renaissance specialist)
1978 – Cecil Aronowitz (South African-born British violist, founding member of Melos ensemble)
1978 – Keith Moon (English rock drummer, The Who)
1978 – Charles Williams (English composer & conductor of soundtracks & light music)
1983 – Hans Münch (Alsatian conductor, composer, cellist, pianist, organist & teacher)
1986 – Vladimir Vlasov (Russian composer & conductor)
1989 – Mikhail Goldstein (Ukrainian composer & violinist)
1991 – Archie N. Menzies (American playwright & composer, Under Your Hat)
1992 – Indra Kamadjojo (Javanese-born Dutch dancer & actor)
1994 – Eric Crozier (English librettist & stage director, associate of Britten)
1996 – Niccolò Castiglioni (Italian composer, pianist & writer on music)
2001 – Igor Buketoff (American conductor, arranger & teacher)
2002 – Erma Franklin (American gospel & R&B singer, older sister of Aretha)
2003 – Warren Zevon (American rock & folk singer-songwriter, guitarist & pianist)
2005 – Sergio Endrigo (Italian singer-songwriter)
2008 – Dino Dvornik (Croatian singer, songwriter, record producer & actor)
2008 – Peter Glossop (English operatic dramatic baritone)
2008 – Nagi Noda (Japanese pop artist & video director)

A lot of Brits here, in particular three who interestingly had connections to composer Benjamin Britten: Eric Crozier, who wrote libretti for and worked closely with Britten in the production of a number of his operas; violist Cecil Aronowitz of the Melos Ensemble, who comprised the chamber group in the premiere performance and recording of Britten's War Requiem in 1962–63 (and it was also for Aronowitz that Britten arranged a string-orchestra accompaniment in 1976 of his Lachrymae (1950), originally written with piano accompaniment for William Primrose); and baritone Peter Glossop, seen above in one of his signature roles, Verdi's hunchbacked jester Rigoletto, whose other roles included Balstrode in Britten's Peter Grimes, and the title role and Mr. Redburn in his Billy Budd - Glossop also sang Billy Budd on two recordings of the opera, the first a television film transmitted by BBC-2 on December 11th, 1966 (conducted by Charles Mackerras, with Peter Pears as Vere, Robert Langdon as Claggart, and John Shirley-Quirk as Redburn), and the second a studio audio recording for Decca from the following year, with the same cast conducted by the composer... (Read more below)

Also from the world of opera, Isabella Colbran, spouse of Gioachino Rossini between 1822 and 1837, and the soprano sfogato (basically, an alto or mezzo with a very extended upper range) for whom he wrote leading roles in about a dozen of his operas between 1815 and 1823, including Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, Otello, Armida, Ricciardo e Zoraide, La donna del lago, Maometto II, Zelmira, and Semiramide. Unfortunately, Colbran's voice already began changing and showing signs of strain by 1817 (perhaps the wear and tear caused by a mezzo or alto singing in a high soprano range!), and by 1824 she had decided to retire completely from the opera stage. Rossini himself retired from the opera business after William Tell in 1829, apparently deciding that after 20 years he'd had quite enough of the exhausting work of putting on operas. Colbran and Rossini would live on another 20 years and 40 years after their respective retirements... (Read more below) ...see you on the other side of the injured vocal cords...