EKE BBB

Benny Golson, R.I.P.

Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal’s “Chico y Rita”, based on the life of Bebo Valdés: Together with the same director and cartoonist’s “Dispararon Al Pianista” (“They Shot The Piano Player”) from 2023, on bossa nova scene:

Man On The Moon Michael Stipe Andy Kauffman

She’s “only” 95. Amazing!

From Loren Schoenberg’s page on FB: ”It breaks my heart to write this, with the family's permission. More thorough obituaries and reminiscences will be sure to follow, sooner rather than later. Dan Morgenstern Born: October 24, 1929, Munich, Germany Died: September 7, 2024, New York, New York Dan Morgenstern has left this earthly vale after a lengthy illness. He leaves a void for his family (wife Ellie, sons Adam and Josh) and friends and the untold numbers around the world who valued his words on jazz and life. Dan's footprint on our culture also went way beyond words. It’s not just musicians who have influenced the ecology of jazz during its century of ascendency. Although neither a grandstander nor a bandstander, Dan Morgenstern deserves a special place in the history and continuing evolution of this great American art form. Dan was at root a mentor and a humanitarian: through his voluminous writing, pioneering leadership of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, and stewardship of major jazz publications, Dan always remained far above the partisan battles that mar what is known as the “critical community”. He championed the cause of so many artists paying no heed to the fads of the day, while never attaching himself like a barnacle to their careers, as so many “critics” have. He sat on innumerable arts foundations panels, always as an advocate for deserving talent and sensitive to the proper respect for the art form. He saw the glass as far more than half full. Dan was not a “jazz critic”, oh no. His purview was far wider. He survived the ascent of Nazism in his native Europe and, by the time he arrived in New York at the age of 18, had the ability to appreciate jazz and its makers for what they truly were. Dan told the harrowing story of those years in his indispensable book LIVING WITH JAZZ. Legendary trumpeter Hot Lips Page picked up on Dan’s essence right away, and took him under his wing. Under Page’s patronage, the 18 year-old Dan was able to hear/see/meet Art Tatum, Billie Holiday and untold others in the Harlem after-hour spots. Like a moth to the flame, Dan soon wound up in Louis Armstrong’s sphere, where he gradually became a member of the family. His major achievement was to translate the essence of that music and those lives into his life’s work, no matter what professional hat he wore. Dan’s true peers are the great jazz musicians he has lived among all these years. Who else do you know who was beloved by Alban Berg, Louis Armstrong, Randy Weston, and Ornette Coleman, to name just a handful of his friends, and also by so many of us today as mourn his loss? I find solace in imagining the look on his dear departed friends’ faces as Louis plays a fanfare welcoming Dan into eternity.” “

Awful news! 😔 R.I.P.

Yes, this album was recorded in October 1996, just ten months before his passing in August 1997, due to lung cancer, at the age of 64. He had recorded another album with Joan Manuel Serrat compositions (plus Catalan trad songs) for the Spanish label Discophon, much earlier in his career, back in 1969. This one: Yes, he was a character, and very critical and dismissive with weak rhythm sections. He did the same (fire bassist and drummer and keep playing duo with the horn) while playing alongside George Coleman at Ronnie Scotts, very late 70s.

She died a couple of years ago, at the age of 80. Strong personality, as well. Now listening to:

Not that I regard Núria Feliu's voice as very jazzy, but I have always found that the combination of Jaume Picas' adaptation of the English lyrics to Catalan, and Feliu's somehow unorthodox phrasing, sum up for a strongly appealing mix. With the added value of Ervin's tenor sax on several tracks. And Tete plus Peter plus Brooks is always a winner!

Spurred by some conversation with our Gheorghe, listening again to his...