10-16a: Sweelinck: Keyboard Music Koopman 1981 - Bantock The Cyprian Goddess etc. Handley 1995 - Benny Goodman Together Again! 1963 - Puccini Manon Lescaut : Tebaldi / Del Monaco 1954 - Strauss Till Eulenspiegel Gui 1947

1621 – Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (Dutch composer, teacher & organist, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam)
1655 – Joseph Solomon Delmedigo [ישר מקנדיא] (Crete-born Italian rabbi, author, physician, mathematician & music theorist, active in Europe & North Africa)
1750 – Sylvius Leopold Weiss (German composer & lutenist)
1814 – Juan José Landaeta (Venezuelan composer)
1893 – Carlo Pedrotti (Italian conductor & composer)
1920 – Alberto Nepomuceno (Brazilian composer, pianist, organist & conductor)
1946 – Sir Granville Bantock (English composer & conductor)
1949 – Hale Ascher VanderCook (American composer, conductor, cornettist & teacher, founder of VanderCook College of Music)
1959 – Minor Hall (American jazz drummer)
1973 – Gene Krupa (American jazz drummer & composer)
1975 – Vittorio Gui (Italian conductor)
1982 – Mario Del Monaco (Italian dramatic tenor)

October 16th wasn't a very good day for jazz drummers, was it? We just said goodbye to Art Blakely in edition 10-16b, and here in 10-16a we have Minor Hall, a major (heh) New Orleans drummer, who played with Kid Ory, among others, and Gene Krupa, almost surely the greatest drummer of the Big Band/Swing era, who's most famous for his work in the Benny Goodman orchestra, and his highly energetic, almost frenetic style of playing.

We also have Sweelinck, one of the most important keyboard composers active around 1600; Mario Del Monaco, one of the greatest operatic dramatic tenors of the 20th century; a couple of quite notable South American composers; Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, who sounds like a very interesting figure I must get to know better; and Granville Bantock, who provides an interesting comparison with Kaikhosru Sorabji, whom we only just remembered on the 10-15 edition.

For both composers were British and had a spiritual and aesthetic affinity with the East, but Sorabji also had ethnic roots there, while Bantock did not. For him, the legends of those exotic lands, which he toured briefly as a young man while conducting a musical comedy troupe, simply held a special fascination that stuck with him his entire life, and which permeates many of his works, most famously his epic choral work Omar Khayyám, based on the Rubaiyat of that 11th-century Persian poet.

Okay, so there's your write-up. Happy? Oh, I also moved the Follow & Subscribe gadgets to a more convenient place on the page. I think I may monetize the blog soon, so expect to see the place plastered with Donate buttons. I spend a lot of time working on this place, you know.

10-16b: Eyedea & Abilities : By The Throat 2009 - Toše Proeski : Božilak 2006 - Blakey & Jazz Messengers : Free For All 1964 - Mozart String Quintets / Grumiaux et al 1976 - Wagner-Liszt Tannhäuser Overture / Bolet 1973

1983 – George Liberace (American violinist & arranger, older brother & business partner of the pianist)
1983 – Jakov Gotovac (Croatian composer & conductor)
1986 – Arthur Grumiaux (Belgian violinist & pianist)
1990 – Jorge Bolet (Cuban-born pianist & teacher, active mostly in America)
1990 – Art Blakey [Abdullah Ibn Buhaina] (American jazz drummer & bandleader, The Jazz Messengers)
1991 – Ole Beich (American rock bass guitarist, L.A. Guns, Guns N' Roses)
2005 – Len Dresslar (American jazz singer & advertising voice actor, The Jolly Green Giant)
2005 – David Reilly (American rock & electronica singer, songwriter & producer, God Lives Underwater)
2006 – Tommy Johnson (American orchestral & soundtrack tuba player, Jaws, etc.)
2007 – Toše Proeski [Тоше Проески] (Macedonian classical, pop & rock singer, songwriter, keyboardist, guitarist, actor & humanitarian)
2010 – Eyedea [Micheal Larsen] (American rapper, singer, producer & guitarist, Eyedea & Abilities)

I'm doing 10-16b before 10-16a? Well, yes, I am. Why? Because I feel like it. If you don't like it, start your own blog that nobody ever bothers to leave a comment on. ;>

Sorry, but I'll have to skip the write-up tonight. There is just too much on my plate right now. I'd love to drone on and on about Art Blakey, perhaps the quintessential hard bop drummer, but it would take me too long. I don't write quickly, tend to be too perfectionistic about my spellnig & syntax my too also, as well. Even this write-up telling you there will be no write-up is taking me forever!

Anyway, Eyedea. He wasn't one of those rappers who sang about "ho's" a lot, but we'll we're on the subject, of course the guy who voiced the Jolly Green Giant was a legitimate musician, even if you never heard him sing anything but three different notes and just that one syllable. And that little tune was so short and simple: first down a major 2nd, and then down a perfect 4th. But I bet it made you run out and grab some Niblets, didn't it?

Veterans' /Armistice / Remembrance Day + Nigel Tufnel Day SPECIAL : Songs of the Great War | Spinal Tap : Break Like The Wind 1992

Well, as some of you may have noticed, the post for 10-16 hasn't shown up yet. That isn't so much because October 16th is a veritable massacre of musicality (which, rest assured, it is), but because I've been a little busy with other things lately. However, that post will be arriving much later today, with any luck. To tide you over until then, there's this: a remembrance of our fallen heroes of the Great War, as well as to all those Spinal Tap drummers who expired of one bizarre gardening accident or another. In what ever way you choose to commemorate this very special day of 11/11/11, be sure you make it go to eleven, whatever that means to you!

10-15: Sorabji Transcendental Studies 1-62 / Ullén - Mabel Mercer Sings Cole Porter 1954 - Seven Samurai Soundtrack 1954 - Zdeněk Fibich Symphonies Jarvi 1998

1682 – John Ferrabosco (English composer & organist at Ely Cathedral Cambridgeshire, son of Alfonso II)
1883 – Francesco Schira (Italian composer, conductor & singing teacher, active in Portugal & England)
1899 – Johann Nepomuk Fuchs (Austrian composer, conductor, music editor & teacher)
1900 – Zdeněk Fibich (Czech composer, music critic & teacher)
1914 – Aleksander Różycki (Polish composer, pianist & teacher)
1955 – Fumio Hayasaka (Japanese composer of film & concert music)
1964 – Cole Porter (American pop songwriter, composer, pianist & singer)
1965 – Carl Hoff (American jazz bandleader & arranger)
1968 – Franz Reizenstein (German-born British composer, pianist & teacher)
1988 – Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (British composer, music critic & pianist of Parsi heritage)
1999 – Josef Locke (Irish tenor)
2008 – Edie Adams (American pop singer, actress & comedienne, spouse of Ernie Kovacs)

Well, Cole Porter... there's a name you should all know. Porter is in that very upper tier of songwriters from Tin Pan Alley - the writers and publishers of traditional American pop in the first half of the 20th century, on whose works generations of the record-buying, theater-attending, and movie-going public have been fed. Of the other songwriters who occupy that tier, only Porter and Irving Berlin were known for writing both the music and words to most of their songs, which almost puts the two of them in an even more exalted tier all their own.

What's funny about Berlin and Porter being grouped together in this way is that the two otherwise couldn't be more different from one other. Berlin arrived in America as a nearly penniless young Jewish kid from Russia. Porter came from an old monied family of Indiana Baptists, and attended Yale University. He was a classically trained musician, sang in the glee club and the vocal group The Whiffenpoofs at Yale, and was drawn to musical theater even as a youth. Berlin could't read a note of music, relied on scribes to notate the staggering thousands of songs he wrote, peddled his songs as a teen on Tin Pan Alley (back when there still really was such a place - West 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenue), and played all of his songs in the same key on the piano - the rather unlikely tonality of F-sharp!

And in contrast to the earthier, sweeter quality of Berlin's compositions, Cole Porter's songs had a rare wit, urbanity, and sophistication to them, both musically and lyrically. It was a quality that helped the songs transcend the style of the time - the biggest hits anyone's ever had with Cole Porter songs came in the late 1950s and early 60s, when Frank Sinatra and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra recorded several of them, producing some of Sinatra's biggest hits a good 20 to 30 years after the songs had been composed. And like the works of Irving Berlin, and the brothers Gershwin, Cole Porter's catalog is one of those everyone and their dog has dipped into, and still does. Yours truly has even tried his hand at some Cole Porter tunes here and there. :>

Well, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji... there's a name you should... have some trouble pronouncing. Perhaps you haven't heard of Sorabji, unless you're a classical piano virtuoso, or some kind of musicologist. But if you haven't, then he's one of the most fascinating composers you never heard of.

Sorabji was born in Britain, to a Spanish-Sicilian mother and a Parsi father. The Parsis are a people from India, but they are ethnically Persian. To be more specific, they're descended from a group of Persians who emigrated to India about 1000 years ago. Sorabji considered himself to be a Parsi, not a Brit. He even chose to eschew the Church of England and adopt the religions of his ancestors - specifically, Zoroastrianism from Iran, and Tantric Buddhism from Bhārat.

Sounds like a pretty interesting character so far, doesn't he? Well, we're only just getting started with Sorabji. For one thing, he was gay; in fact, the most famous Parsi in music history was also British and gay. He was a rock singer and pianist born with the name Farrokh Bulsara - but you probably know him better as Queen's Freddie Mercury. It wasn't enough that Sorabji was gay, though - he even published an article blasting Britain's discriminatory attitude towards homosexuals, and in particular the horrible treatment Oscar Wilde had received several years earlier because of it. And this article was published in the 1910s, no less!

Sorabji was later to become well-known to the British public as a writer, specifically of music criticism, more specifically of a particularly invective brand of music criticism in which he took a number of well-known British composers to task quite mercilessly. He had particular scorn for the music of Gustav Holst, for some reason. He was among that group of Brits who held up Frederick Delius as Britain's great composer. Other composers who felt similarly about Delius included Constant Lambert and Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), the latter of which Sorabji counted among his rather limited set of close friends (he was notoriously reclusive).

Now try this on for size: from about 1935 onward, Sorabji FORBADE all performances of his works, without his express written consent. That's correct. Now, why would he do such a thing? Well, you have to understand what Sorabji's music is like. If you were to cross the highly complex musical styles of Alexandre Scriabin and Ferruccio Busoni, and then compound that with the long-windedness of late Morton Feldman, and then extend that long-windedness to truly unbelievable proportions, you'd be approaching what much of Sorabji's music is like. So, you see... Sorabji forbade his music to be performed because his music is nigh-well impossible to perform... at least much of it is. 

And when I'm talking about long-winded, I'm not sure you get what I mean. Sorabji's most famous work, the Opus Clavicembalisticum (1930) for solo piano, takes about 4 to 4-1/2 hours to perform. But this work is short... short... compared to some others. Sorabji's Organ Symphony No. 2 (1932) takes about 8 hours to play; its second movement alone is as long as the Opus Clavicembalisticum. Sorabji's longest work is said to be his Fifth Piano Sonata (Opus archimagicum), which is estimated to take 11 hours to get through. Many of Sorabji's more gargantuan works are still unpublished, and have never been played, much less recorded, by anyone.

Really something to think about the next time you hear about how long "Stairway To Heaven" or "Layla" is...

10-14b: Hate Eternal : King Of All Kings 2002 - Mahler 1 2 3 & 10 Adagio / Bernstein 1987 - Freddy Fender Greatist Hits 2 CDs

1990 – Leonard Bernstein (American composer, conductor & pianist)
1994 – Gioconda de Vito (Italian-born British violinist)
1998 – Frankie Yankovic (American Slovenian-style polka accordionist)
2002 – Norbert Schultze (German film composer & songwriter, "Lili Marleen")
2004 – Vlassis Bonatsos [Βλάσσης Μπονάτσος] (Greek singer, actor & entertainer)
2006 – Freddy Fender (American country, Tejano & rock singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2006 – Jared Anderson (American death metal bassist & singer, Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel)
2007 – Big Moe (American rapper & soul singer)

Being from South Texas myself, it's hard for me to say what people elsewhere think of Freddy Fender, or even if they think of him at all. He does have a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, but then again so do Kenny G, Rip Taylor, and Woody Woodpecker. Of course, none of the three of them have attained virtual sainthood anywhere like Freddy has 'round these parts. But perhaps I speak too soon; any residents of Fire Island, please let us know in the comments how well Rip's reputation is holding up. Wait a tick... Rip isn't R.I.P. yet, is he? I was certain he was, but he apparently is still with us, along with Abe Vigoda, Richard Dawson, Jim Nabors, and Rick Perry's presidential aspirations. See, now, belonging to the When You Die I'll Be Surprised Because I Thought You Were Dead Already Club probably qualifies one for a certain level of sainthood all on its own.

Well, that was one of my more tangential tangents in recent memory. And I didn't even mention how Fender took country music, old-time rock 'n' roll, Tejano and Cajun music, and fused them into a style all his own. And while we're on the subject of things I must not forget to mention, no, Frankie Yankovic was not the father, or the uncle, or whatever, of "Weird" Al, at least as far as I know. But like Freddy Fender, he could sure play a mean polka!

I'm going to resist saying anything about Leonard Bernstein. If I get started, I'll never be able to stop. Podium histrionics. Whoops... I let something slip out... see how dangerous this is? Bernstein was only the most famous orchestra conductor the U.S. ever produced; in fact, he may be the most famous conductor in world history, possibly even more famous than Herbert von Karry-On Luggage. Yes, I have taken my medication today. No, I don't feel like being not-silly, just because I'm talking about one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Maybe, one day I'll say something relevant about him, or anybody. But for now, you're getting exactly what you paid for. Oh, just go to the damned supplemental reading, already...

10-14a: Arcadelt Madrigals : Rooley 1987 - Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong 1960 - Grieg Lyric Pieces / Gilels 1974

1568 – Jacob Arcadelt (Franco-Flemish composer & singer, active in Italy & France)
1669 – Antonio Cesti (Italian composer, singer & organist)
1771 – František Xaver Brixi (Czech composer, organist & music director)
1847 – William Michael Rooke (Irish violinist & composer)
1857 – Ignacy Marceli Komorowski (Polish composer, pianist, violinist, cellist & teacher)
1877 – Antoine Elwart (French composer, musicologist & writer on music)
1900 – Sándor Erkel (Hungarian composer & conductor)
1909 – Gottfred Matthison-Hansen (Danish organist, composer & teacher)
1919 – Jean Louis Nicodé (German composer, conductor, pianist & teacher of French ancestry)
1923 – George Whiting (American composer, organist & teacher)
1929 – Henri Berger (German composer & royal bandmaster of the Kingdom of Hawai'i)
1957 – Natanael Berg (Swedish composer)
1958 – Jean Poueigh (French music critic)
1966 – Arcady Dubensky [Аркадий Дубенский] (Russian-born American composer, violinist &pianist)
1972 – Joseph Kaminski (Polish-born Israeli violinist & composer, concertmaster of Israel Philharmonic)
1977 – Bing Crosby (American pop singer & actor)
1981 – Ingemar Liljefors (Swedish composer, pianist, writer on music & teacher)
1985 – Emil Gilels [Емі́ль Гі́лельс, Эми́ль Ги́лельс] (Ukrainian pianist & teacher)
1987 – Rodolfo Halffter (Spanish composer)

Well, crap. It's another one of THOSE days! It'll be in two separate posts again. In the second one, I'll be taking advantage of one of our best opportunities yet to commemorate the centennial of Gus Mahler's death. It's a very, very, very prominent Mahlerian in this case! As far as this first post goes, I'd urge you to check out that supplemental reading. It broaches on one of the most treasured enregistral contributions by one of the most celebrated pianists of the mid-to-late 20th century, Emil Gilels.

The reading also tells of Jacob (or Jacques) Arcadelt, one of the greatest Franco-Flemish composers of the generation who were born just after the turn of the 16th century, along with Clemens non Papa and Cipriano de Rore. I'd especially urge you to investigate the readings on Arcadelt since they feature some great singers, most notably Emma Kirkby, that heavenly voice that has contributed so much to historically-informed performances of Renaissance and Baroque music since the 1960s.

Finally, I'd like you to imagine something. Imagine Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong on an album, together. They're singing and playing a lot of those old tunes from the New Orleans days, like "At the Jazz Band Ball" and Kid Ory's "Muskrat Ramble." Now, imagine they add some great bluesy numbers from the early swing period, such as Hoagy Carmichael's "Lazy River." Now imagine this: they also do that great gospel-tinged number "The Preacher" by hard bop master pianist & composer Horace Silver! Okay, you can stop imagining now. It's there in the extra reading, too!

10-13: Earth, Wind & Fire 1971 - Tchaikovsky 4 Mengelberg 1929 - François Roberday : Fugues & Caprices / Fretwork 2002

1680 – François Roberday (French organist, composer & court musician)
1701 – Andreas Anton Schmelzer (German court composer at Vienna)
1777 – Dismas Hataš (Czech composer)
1805 – Johann Christoph Kuhnau (German composer, singer & academician)
1819 – Giovanni Battista Gaiani (Italian organist & composer)
1855 – Gottfried Rieger (Moravian-Czech composer & multi-instrumentalist)
1958 – Alexander Weprik [Александр Веприк] (Ukrainian composer, pianist & teacher)
1959 – Rudolf Mengelberg (Dutch composer, musicologist & CEO of Concertgebouw Orchestra, nephew of Willem)
1970 – Julia Culp (Dutch concert & art song mezzo-soprano, the "Dutch Nightingale")
1979 – Rebecca Clarke (English composer & violist)
1987 – Kishore Kumar [কিশোরে কুমার, किशोर कुमार] (Indian playback, Rabindrasangeet & rock singer, actor, songwriter & filmmaker)
1993 – Wade Flemons (American soul singer & keyboardist, Earth, Wind & Fire)
2001 – Peter Doyle (Australian pop singer & songwriter, The New Seekers)
2009 – Al Martino (American jazz & pop singer & actor, Johnny Fontane in The Godfather)

Hahahaha... you only get THREE today! HAHAHAHAHA!! What nerve I have! WHO THE HELL DO I THINK I AM?!?

10-12: Blue Cheer Japan 1999 - Sex Pistols Indecent Exposure 6 CDs - Franco & TP OK Jazz : 1972/1973/1974 - B-52's Dortmund 1983 - Rameau Zoroastre : Kuijken 1983 - Hollywood SQ : Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht | Schubert Quintet

1692 – Giovanni Battista Vitali (Italian composer, violone player & church music director)
1794 – James Lyon (American composer & sacred tunebook compiler)
1797 – Pierre de Jélyotte (French operatic haute-contre, harpsichordist, guitarist, violinist & composer, created roles in several Rameau operas)
1817 – Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel (German composer, pianist & priest)
1865 – William Vincent Wallace (Irish composer, violinist, pianist & adventurer, active in Australia & the Americas)
1924 – Monroe Althouse (American military band composer, violinist, cornetist & trombonist)
1956 – Don Lorenzo Perosi (Italian monsignor, composer, organist, pianist & teacher)
1966 – Arthur Lourié [Артур Лурье] (Russian composer & painter, active in France & the U.S., friend of Stravinsky)
1971 – Gene Vincent (American rock singer & guitarist)
1974 – Joseph Frederick Wagner (American composer, conductor, teacher & author)
1978 – Nancy Spungen (American rock groupie, girlfriend of Sid Vicious)
1982 – Chris Reumer (Dutch operatic tenor)
1985 – Ricky Wilson (American New Wave guitarist, bass guitarist, keyboardist, singer & songwriter, The B-52's)
1989 – Franco [François Luambo Makiadi] (Congolese rumba singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1995 – Eleanor Aller (American cellist, Hollywood String Quartet, mother of Leonard Slatkin)
1996 – Vernon Elliott (English bassoonist, conductor & composer)
1997 – John Denver (American folk, country & pop singer, songwriter, guitarist, activist & humanitarian)
2002 – Ray Conniff (American pop, rock & jazz bandleader, arranger, composer, trombonist & singer)
2009 – Dickie Peterson (American bass guitarist, singer, guitarist & songwriter, Blue Cheer)

More insanity, another big opera, it never ends. We had bel canto opera two days ago, Teutonic music drama yesterday, and today it's Baroque opéra tragique, courtesy of Monsieur Rameau. Pierre de Jélyotte (that's him - yes, him - just to the left of  Franz X. Sterkel; with his high tenor voice, many of Jélyotte's roles were female) sang in the premiéres of several Rameau operas, including Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Indes galantes, Dardanus, and Zoroastre. He created the title roles in many of them, including Zoroastre, who was... A MAN! Thus Sang Zarathustra.

Well, I could tell you a lot more about a lot of these folks, but you've got a lot of homework to do already down there ↓↓↓.  I guess before I sign off I should apologize for flipping that photo of Eleanor Aller backwards. It became sort of unavoidable for the sake of the continuity of the collage. You string players probably already noticed it, because one holds the bow with the right hand, not the left!