12-18: Harmonia : Deluxe 1975 - Dvorak Cello Concerto : Tortelier / Horenstein 1971 - Gottschalk Piano Music Vol 1 & 2 / Martin 1991-94

Not shown: Brian Brockless

1737 – Antonio Stradivari (Italian luthier)
1839 – Charles-Henri Plantade (French pianist, harpist, cellist & composer)
1841 – Felice Blangini (Italian-born French singer, composer, organist & teacher)
1865 – Francisco Manuel da Silva (Brazilian composer, teacher, singer & cellist, Brazilian National Anthem)
1869 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk (American composer & pianist)
1911 – Alberto Randegger (Italian composer, conductor & singing teacher, active in England)
1918 – Henryk Jarecki (Polish composer & conductor)
1919 – Horatio Parker (American composer, organist & teacher whose pupils included Charles Ives)
1928 – Lucien Capet (French violinist, composer & teacher whose pupils included Jascha Brodsky & Ivan Galamian)
1963 – Winfried Zillig (German composer, music theorist & conductor, pupil of Schoenberg)
1982 – Tibor de Machula (Hungarian cellist, active in Germany & Holland)
1987 – Conny Plank (German Krautrock, electronic & experimental record producer & musician)
1990 – Paul Tortelier (French cellist, composer & conductor)
1995 – Brian Brockless (English organist, choirmaster, composer & conductor)
1996 – Irving Caesar (American lyricist & musical theater composer, "Tea for Two")
2000 – Kirsty MacColl (English singer & songwriter, spouse of producer Steve Lillywhite)
2001 – Gilbert Bécaud (French pop & jazz singer, composer & actor, "Monsieur 100,000 Volts")
2001 – Dimitris Dragatakis [Δημήτρης Δραγατάκης] (Greek composer & violist)
2007 – Alan Wagner (American television executive, radio personality, writer & opera historian & critic)

Woo hoo, 10,000 page views. Excitement city. And a few of those pages will even take you to some good links.

Let's see, we appropriately enough have some very notable string players pooping on the same day in history as the greatest violin maker in history. I had plans for an offering from Lucien Capet's Capet Quartet, but my go-to blog for that one had all their files at Megafuckup.

Still, you've got Paul Tortelier playing one of the great cello concertos... a spacey 70s Krautrock classic produced by Conny Plank... and a generous helping from New Orleans piano composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, whose syncopated rhythms and exotic flavors greatly influenced the ragtime style that appeared two decades after his death, making him an important early figure in the history of jazz.

Of course, Gottschalk sounds only a little like Scott Joplin, not much at all like Jelly Roll Morton, and progressively less like Erroll Garner, Bud Powell, or McCoy Tyner. But in his music you can catch an enticing whiff every here and there of where its influence would lead. That's almost as exciting as getting 10,000 page views on your crappy blog.

12-17: Captain Beefheart Bat Chain Puller 1976 original - Cesaria Evora Miss Perfumado 1997 - Don Ellis Electric Bath 1967 - Grover Washington Jr Mister Magic 1974

1870 – Saverio Mercadante (Italian opera composer, flutist & violinist)
1930 – Peter Warlock [Philip Heseltine] (English-born Welsh composer, music critic & music editor)
1975 – Noble Sissle (American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer & playwright)
1978 – Don Ellis (American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer & bandleader)
1981 – Antiochos Evangelatos [Αντίοχος Ευαγγελάτος] (Greek composer & conductor)
1999 – Angelo Mercuriali (Italian operatic tenor)
1999 – Rex Allen (American actor, country singer & songwriter, "the Arizona Cowboy")
1999 – Grover Washington, Jr. (American jazz, R&B & soul saxophonist, singer, composer, arranger & producer)
2000 – Erich Schmid (Swiss composer & conductor)
2001 – Martha Mödl (German dramatic soprano & mezzo-soprano)
2008 – Freddy Breck (German schlager singer, composer, record producer & news anchor)
2010 – Captain Beefheart [Don Van Vliet] (American rock & experimental musician, poet & artist)
2011 – Cesária Évora (Cape Verdean morna & coladeira singer, "the Barefoot Diva")

Okay, I know I've talked about it before, but from now on I really am going to be getting a rid of a lot of the dead weight (heh) from our lists. Most of what takes this blog so long to do is the process of doing all the research, and writing the list, and finding decent images, and putting together the collage. Lately, for obvious reasons, finding viable links has also become a lot more time-consuming, but there's not much I can do about that.

If you think about it, any given day is the anniversary of the deaths of probably thousands of musicians worldwide throughout history, not just the 30 or 40 most famous ones I happen to find out about. Among those 30 or 40 there are likewise some that are going to be less famous than others. So, this is what my rule will be: If you're not famous enough for me to find a Wikipedia article (in some language, not necessarily English) about you, and/or an image of your likeness, you're probably not going to make the cut. Sure, it's brutal. But these people are dead, they can take it.

It's unfortunate that I couldn't find any Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) for you. Warlock was one of the more curious musical figures in early-20th-century Britain. He was a fine song composer and music critic who counted composers as diverse as E.J. Moeran and Khaikosru Sorabji among his friends. He took an avid interest in medieval and Renaissance music, and as his pseudonym would suggest, the occult. He experimented with cannabis, wrote dirty limericks, took nude spins on his motorcycle, and practiced flagellation. He was probably bipolar (some have even suggested multiple personality disorder), and his mental instability was not helped by his habit of drinking large quantities of ale. The valves of his gas cooker were left open while he was in his kitchen a week before Christmas in 1930. The cat had been put out of the room. He was 36.

12-16: The Skids : Scared To Dance 1979/2005 - Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf : Big Shots 2003/2011 - Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony / Comissiona 1982 - Hasse Sonatas / Epoca Barocca 2004

Not shown: George Simon Löhlein, Ludwig August Lebrun, Friedrich August Kanne, Henri-Jean Rigel, Otto Vrieslander & Boris Shekhter

1781 – George Simon Löhlein (German composer & music theorist, active also in Poland)
1783 – Johann Adolph Hasse (German composer, singer & teacher, active also in Italy)
1790 – Ludwig August Lebrun (German oboist & composer)
1833 – Friedrich August Kanne (German composer & music critic, active in Vienna, friend of Beethoven)
1852 – Henri-Jean Rigel (French pianist & composer, took part in Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, c. 1800)
1861 – Karol Lipiński (Polish violinist & composer)
1870 – Stanisław Duniecki (Polish composer & conductor)
1914 – Ivan Zajc (Croatian composer, conductor & teacher)
1921 – Camille Saint-Saëns (French composer, organist, conductor & pianist)
1923 – Pongrác Kacsóh (Hungarian composer, teacher & writer)
1927 – Hugh Archibald Clarke (Canadian composer, organist & teacher)
1940 – William Wallace (Scottish composer, writer & opthamologist)
1950 – Otto Vrieslander (German composer & musicologist, pupil of Heinrich Schenker)
1961 – Boris Shekhter (Ukrainian composer)
1961 – Cato Engelen-Sewing (Dutch soprano)
1978 – Blanche Calloway (American jazz singer, bandleader & composer, sister of Cab, first woman to lead an all-male orchestra)
1988 – Sylvester (American disco & soul singer & drag performer)
1993 – Charizma (American hip-hop MC, associate of Peanut Butter Wolf)
1994 – Samuel Lipman (American music critic, pianist & founder of literary magazine The New Criterion)
1995 – Mariele Ventre (Italian founder & director of Bolognese children's choir Piccolo Coro dell'Antoniano)
1997 – Nicolette Larson (American country & pop singer & guitarist)
2001 – Stuart Adamson (English-born Scottish singer, guitarist & songwriter, The Skids, Big Country)
2003 – Gary Stewart (American country pianist, guitarist, bassist & songwriter)
2006 – Pnina Salzman (Israeli pianist & teacher)
2006 – Taliep Petersen (South African singer, composer & music theater director)
2007 – Dan Fogelberg (American rock & folk singer, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist)

I'm liking this post. It's a good mix of different stuff. Hey... you know, all of you who are hunting around the blog would help me out if you could leave a comment at specific posts where the links aren't good any more. That way I can look for replacement links for those posts first... or else you might have to wait a long time!

12-15: Beethoven 3 Eroica : Munch 1957 | Wand 1990 - Stan Getz & Bob Brookmeyer Recorded Fall 1961 - Fats Waller 1922-1926

Not shown: Manuel Jerónimo Romero de Ávila, Gordon Frederic Norton, Orest Alexandrovich Evlahkov & Hans de Jong

1779 – Manuel Jerónimo Romero de Ávila (Spanish composer)
1792 – Joseph Martin Kraus (German composer, active in Sweden, "the Swedish Mozart")
1816 – Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian von Lobkowitz [Lobkowicz] (Czech nobleman, musician & patron of Haydn & Beethoven)
1861 – Gualtiero Sanelli (Italian composer)
1892 – Charles Balmer (German-born American composer, organist & music publisher)
1901 – Elias Álvares Lobo (Brazilian composer, first Brazilian to write an opera in Portuguese, A Noite de São João)
1909 – Francisco Tárrega y Eixea (Spanish composer & guitarist)
1937 – Vilhelm Herold (Danish operatic tenor, teacher & theatrical director)
1940 – Blanche Marchesi (French mezzo-soprano & teacher of Italian & German descent)
1943 – Fats Waller (American jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer & comedian)
1944 – Glenn Miller (American jazz trombonist, arranger, composer & bandleader)
1945 – Tobias Matthay (British pianist, teacher & composer)
1946 – Gordon Frederic Norton (composer)
1949 – Ludwig Ermold (German bass)
1950 – Robert Müller-Hartmann (German composer, teacher, music critic & author)
1953 – Kishio Hirao (Japanese composer)
1967 – Valeria Barsova [Валерия Барсова] (Russian soprano)
1972 – Herbert Eimert (German music theorist, musicologist, music critic, editor, radio producer & composer)
1973 – Orest Alexandrovich Evlahkov (composer)
1974 – Karin Branzell (Swedish mezzo-soprano)
1974 – Erich Walter Sternberg (German-born Israeli composer, co-founder of Israel Philharmonic)
1975 – Muxtor Ashrafiy [Мухтар Ашрафи] (Uzbek composer & conductor)
1984 – Jan Peerce (American tenor)
1994 – Hans de Jong (Dutch choral conductor, Amsterdams Vrouwenkoor)
1996 – Tristan Keuris (Dutch composer)
2004 – Sidonie Goossens (British harpist, sister of Sir Eugene)
2001 – Rufus Thomas (American R&B, funk & soul singer, comedian, TV host & DJ)
2011 – Bob Brookmeyer (American jazz valve trombonist, slide trombonist, pianist, composer & arranger)

I'm thinking I might go back and start trying to fix some of these links that are no longer any good, because I'm sure you've all been having trouble with a lot of them. I'd fix 'em a few posts at a time, starting with the most recent ones and working backwards. Then I'd put up a new post with the new links for you, so you'll know when I've fixed what. We'll see.

I found a link for something by Herbert Eimert, but it's at Filesonic, and as some of you may have discovered, you have to actually try to start the download over there for them to tell you that the file isn't available. Which the Eimert isn't any more. Sneaky bastards.

So anyway, you get two Eroica Symphonies, which isn't much of a substitute for Eimert, but whatever. The Eroica was premiered at the home of Prince Lobkowitz, who's on our list. The prince also became the dedicatee of the symphony after Beethoven changed his mind about dedicating it to Napoleon. Everybody's heard that story, right? Napoleon puts the crown on his own head, the Bee hears about it, gets mad and scratches his name off the title page, bla bla bla. Well, anyway... whatever.

12-14: Keith Jarrett : Life Between the Exit Signs 1967 | El Juicio 1971 - Dinah Washington Sings Bessie Smith 1958 - C.P.E. Bach Magnificat & Sinfonias / Haenchen 1995

Not shown above: Johann Philipp Förtsch & Don Anthony

1732 – Johann Philipp Förtsch (German composer, statesman & scholar)
1788 – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (German composer, keyboardist, author & teacher, son of Johann Sebastian)
1829 – Luigi Marchesi (Italian castrato singer)
1849 – Conradin Kreutzer (German composer & conductor)
1861 – Heinrich August Marschner (German composer known mainly for his operas)
1886 – Antoni Wincenty Rutkowski (Polish composer)
1901 – Adolf Müller, Jr. (Austrian operetta composer & conductor)
1914 – Giovanni Sgambati (Italian composer, singer & conductor)
1923 – Giuseppe Gallignani (Italian composer, organist & conductor)
1938 – Maurice Emmanuel (French composer & musicologist, pupil of Delibes & Franck, peer of Debussy, teacher of Messiaen & Dutilleux)
1945 – Constantino Gaito (Argentine composer of Italian ancestry)
1948 – R. O. Morris (English composer & teacher of Finzi, Tippett, Lambert & Rubbra)
1952 – Fartein Valen (Norwegian composer & music theorist)
1962 – Nazzareno De Angelis (Italian operatic bass)
1963 – Dinah Washington (American blues, R&B & jazz singer, "Queen of the Blues")
1965 – Herman Sandby (Danish composer & cellist)
1968 – Margarete Klose (German operatic mezzo-soprano)
1973 – Yitzhak Edel [לדא קחצי] (Israeli composer & violinist)
1994 – Mary Ann McCall (American jazz & pop singer)
1995 – Don Anthony (American bandleader & songwriter)
1997 – Kurt Winter (Canadian guitarist & songwriter, The Guess Who)
1999 – Gré Brouwenstijn (Dutch operatic soprano)
2006 – Ahmet Ertegün (Turkish-born American record executive, talent scout & songwriter, Atlantic Records)

Relax. Keith Jarrett is still alive. Trust me, I'll be crying my eyes out the day that cat poops. But I wanted to have something from Atlantic Records, in honor of Ahmet Ertegun, and at first I was really stumped at where to begin. Then I figured since we haven't had much jazz in a while, Jarrett's stellar debut on Atlantic subsidiary Vortex would be as good a choice as any. This issue was packaged with another one of his early Atlantic albums, too... one of the earliest of Keith with his "American Quartet." So, enjoy.

And to those of you who are fans of the Guess Who, my apologies. The studio albums the band made when Kurt Winter was in the fold (1970 thru '74, after the Randy Bachman years) weren't all that great, but I'd wanted to still give you some live stuff - preferably the very good Live at the Paramount from 1972, or else a boot from those years, but what little I did turn up was unavailable, for whatever reason. And yes, in some cases the reason was because the files were being hosted at one of those places where we can't go any more! So, we'll just have to take what we can get.