01-07: Bruckner 7 / Schuricht 1964 - Feeder : Echo Park 2001 - Tesla Louisville 1989 - Bartok Complete String Quartets / Vegh Quartet 1972

Not shown: Jacobus de Kerle, Gallus Zeiler, Antonio Corbisiero, Josef Lipavský, Ramón Félix Cuéllar y Altarriba, Bobby Pratt & Arthur Leavins

1591 – Jacobus de Kerle (Flemish composer & organist)
1625 – Ruggiero Giovannelli (Italian composer & singer)
1678 – Johannes Flittner (German composer & poet, active in Sweden)
1736 – Ceslav Vanura (Czech composer)
1755 – Gallus Zeiler (German Benedictine abbot & composer)
1783 – William Tans'ur (English hymnist, teacher, music theorist  & composer of West Gallery music)
1790 – Antonio Corbisiero, composer, dies at 69
1810 – Josef Lipavský (Czech pianist & composer)
1833 – Ramón Félix Cuéllar y Altarriba (Spanish composer & organist)
1843 – Franz Schoberlechner (Austrian composer)
1868 – William Batchelder Bradbury (American organist & hymn composer, "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know")
1890 – Hans Matthison-Hansen (Danish organist, composer & painter)
1891 – Wilhelm Taubert (German pianist, composer & conductor)
1922 – Antonio Scontrino (Italian composer & bassist)
1936 – Guy d'Hardelot [Helen Guy Rhodes] (French composer, pianist & teacher, "Because")
1943 – Nikola Tesla [Никола Тесла] (Serbian-born American inventor, electrical engineer & pioneer of wireless transmission)
1946 – Adamo Didur (Polish operatic bass)
1960 – Luiz António Ferreira da Costa (Portuguese composer & pianist)
1964 – Colin McPhee (Canadian composer & ethnomusicologist, specialist in the music of Bali)
1964 – Cyril Davies (English blues harmonica player & singer)
1967 – Carl Schuricht (German conductor)
1979 – Zbigniew Turski (Polish composer)
1980 – Carl White (American R&B singer, The Rivingtons)
1980 – Larry Williams (American R&B & rock singer, songwriter, producer & pianist)
1981 – José Ardévol (Spanish-born Cuban composer & conductor)
1983 – Dame Edith Coates (English operatic mezzo-soprano)
1985 – Johnny Guarnieri (American jazz pianist)
1994 – Bobby Pratt (American jazz trombonist & pianist)
1994 – Jay Blackton (American music theater conductor & arranger)
1995 – Arthur Leavins (English violinist)
1997 – Sándor Végh (Hungarian violinist, conductor & teacher)
1998 – Owen Bradley (American country & rock record producer)
2001 – James Carr (American R&B & soul singer)
2002 – Jon Lee (Welsh rock drummer & guitarist, Feeder)
2009 – Maria Dimitriadi [Μαρία Δημητριάδη] (Greek singer & leftist political activist)
2010 – Willie Mitchell (American R&B, soul, rock & funk singer, trumpeter, record producer & arranger)

Today it's hard rock, and Bartók, and Bruckner. And rest assured the humor is not lost on me at how the presence of Tesla the band here is a bit of a stretch in more ways than one. But if you've been reading this blog for a while, you realize that it's entirely appropriate for us to be remembering Nikola Tesla on his deathday; for Tesla can claim as much right as Guglielmo Marconi to being called the "Father of Radio," and of course the effect of radio on the dissemination of music in the 20th century was incalculable.

And the pathway from Tesla the man to Tesla the band is shorter than it may seem, at least in this case. The live show presented here (in .wma format - I hope that isn't terribly inconvenient for most of you) is from 1989, when the band were touring in support of their second album, The Great Radio Controversy, whose liner notes indeed posit the notion that Tesla deserves more credit than Marconi for the earth-shaking invention. So, as you would expect, five out of the nine songs that make up this short but sizzling set are from that album.

Not only that, but it's also extremely likely that AC power (which, as used today, hinges largely on the work of Nikola Tesla) will come into play at one or more points when you're downloading, unpacking, importing, synching up, and listening to this Tesla show... so you see, it's all making sense here at YiDM!

09-26: Bartók Miraculous Mandarin | Music for Strings etc / Boulez - Baden Powell Solitude 1971 - The Audience With Betty Carter 1980 - Jonas Hellborg / Shawn Lane Zenhouse 1999 - Bessie Smith Empress of the Blues 1923-1933

1788 – François Bainville (French organist & composer)
1800 – William Billings (American choral composer & tanner)
1808 – Pavel Vranický [Paul Wranitzky] (Moravian composer & conductor, active in Austria)
1871 – Cipriani Potter (English composer, pianist & teacher)
1937 – Bessie Smith (American blues singer)
1944 – Ernst Isler (Swiss organist, pianist, composer & music critic)
1945 – Béla Bartók (Hungarian composer, pianist & folksong collector)
1968 – Władysław Kędra (Polish pianist)
1979 – Seymour Shifrin (American composer)
1983 – Tino Rossi (Corsican-born French cabaret singer & actor)
1989 – Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay [হেমন্ত কুমার মুখোপাধ্যায়] (Indian singer & film composer, director & producer)
1991 – Billy Vaughn (American country, R&B & pop singer, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader, & A&R man for Dot Records)
1998 – Betty Carter (American jazz singer & songwriter)
2000 – Baden Powell [de Aquino] (Brazilian jazz & classical guitarist, composer & singer)
2003 – Shawn Lane (American rock & jazz guitarist & pianist, Black Oak Arkansas, Jonas Hellborg)
2003 – Robert Palmer (English rock, pop & R&B singer, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist)
2008 – Marc Moulin (Belgian jazz pianist, composer, journalist, humorist, economist, animator & radio producer)

Wow... what a bunch for today! A couple of amazing guitarists, a couple of amazing African-American women of song, a legendary Bengali singer & composer, a Corsican cabaret singer who made all the ladies swoon, a very talented Wallonian touche-à-tout, one of the great composers in early American history... and the greatest Hungarian composer of the 20th century!

Don't get any funny ideas, though... this is NOT a write-up. Like I said last time, it's gonna be boom-boom-boom for a few. And then some write-ups. "Boom-boom-boom"... do you know what that means? Of course you don't, all you readers from... everywhere in the world, including our first readers from Africa (the Sudan, to be specific - مرحبا! ترحيب !), who just showed up this past week. This is just a placeholder. One day, there will be an actual write-up here, and what you're reading now will be GONE... forever! Doesn't that make you feel sad? Tough shit. Oh, my. Did I use potty-mouth? Are you offended that I haven't classified this as an "adult" blog because of my foul language? Too fucking bad.

La Commedia è finita!

If you've reached this post, it could be because I ran out of room for all the labels I needed for the last post! And it really is those operas that get you. Get one with a really big cast... and by "big" I mean... I mean really BIG... you know..? you know what I mean, really, really... BIG? We're talking BIG here... and that could be your whole 200-per-post character limit right there! Anyway, this other post is the one you want to read if you're interested in the labels for this post.  :B

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...