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!

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.