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Giuseppe Verdi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi /dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi/ (either October 9 or 10, 1813 - January 27, 1901) was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of Italian opera in the 19th century and went well beyond the work of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture - such as "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto and "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from La traviata. Although his work was sometimes criticized as catering to the tastes of the common folk, using a generally diatonic rather than a chromatic musical idiom, and having a tendency towards melodrama, Verdi's masterworks dominate the standard repertoire a century and a half after their composition.




Biography

Verdi was born in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto in the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. The baptismal register, on 11 October, lists him as being "born yesterday", but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. The next day he was enrolled in the Roman Catholic church in Latin as Joseph Fortuninus Franciscus. The day after that (Tuesday), Carlo Giuseppe Verdi (Verdi's father) took his new born the three miles to Busseto to register him. The baby was recorded as Joseph Fortunin Francois; the clerk wrote in French. "So it happened that for the civil and temporal world Verdi was born a Frenchman[1]." When he was still a child, Verdi's parents moved from Piacenza to Busseto, where the future composer's education was greatly facilitated by visits to the large library belonging to the local Jesuit school. Also in Busseto, Verdi received his first lessons in composition.

Verdi went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies and he took private lessons in counterpoint while attending operatic performances , as well concerts of, specifically, German music. Milan's beaumonde association convinced him that he should pursue a career as a theatre composer.

Returning to Busseto, he became town music master and, with the support of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and music lover who had long supported Verdi's musical ambitions in Milan, Verdi gave his first public performance at Barezzi's home in 1830. Because he loved Verdi's music, Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita's music teacher and the two soon fell deeply in love. They were married in 1836 and Margherita gave birth to two children, both of whom died in infancy, followed by Margherita in 1840. Verdi adored his wife and children, and he was devastated when they all died in the prime of youth.


Initial recognition

The production of his first opera, Oberto, by Milan's La Scala, achieved a degree of success, after which Bartolomeo Merelli, an impresario with La Scala, offered Verdi a contract for two more works.

It was while he worked on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, that Verdi's wife and children died. The opera was a flop, and he fell into despair vowing to give up musical composition forever. However, Merelli persuaded him to write Nabucco in 1842 and its opening performance made Verdi famous. Legend has it that it was the words of the famous "Va pensiero" chorus of the Hebrew slaves that inspired Verdi to write music again.

A large number of operas followed in the decade after 1843, a period which Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". These included his I Lombardi in 1843 and Ernani in 1844.

For some, the most original and important opera that Verdi wrote is Macbeth in 1847. For the first time, Verdi attempted an opera without a love story, breaking a basic convention in 19th Century Italian opera.

In 1847, I Lombardi, revised and renamed Jerusalem, was produced by the Paris Opera and, due to a number of Parisian conventions that had to be honored (including extensive ballets), became Verdi's first work in the French Grand opera style.


Great master

At the age of thirty-eight, Verdi began an affair with Giuseppina Strepponi, a soprano in the twilight of her career. Their cohabitation before marriage was regarded as scandalous in some of the places they lived, but Verdi and Giuseppina married in 1859. While living in Busseto with Strepponi, Verdi bought an estate two miles from the town in 1848. Initially, his parents lived there, but, after his mother's death in 1851, he made the Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata his home until his death.

As the "galley years" were drawing to a close, Verdi created one of his greatest masterpieces, Rigoletto which premiered in Venice in 1851. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, the libretto had to undergo substantial revisions in order to satisfy the epoch's censorship, and the composer was on the verge of giving it all up a number of times. The opera quickly became a great success.

With Rigoletto Verdi sets up his original idea of musical drama as a cocktail of heterogeneous elements, embodying social and cultural complexity, and beginning from a distinctive mixture of comedy and tragedy. Rigoletto's musical range includes band-music such as the first scene or the song La donna è mobile, Italian melody such as the famous quartet Bella figlia dell'amore, chamber music such as the duet between Rigoletto and Sparafucile and powerful and concise declamatos often based on key-notes like the C and C# notes in Rigoletto and Monterone's upper register.

There followed the second and third of the three major operas of Verdi's "middle period": in 1853 Il Trovatore was produced in Rome and La traviata in Venice. The latter was based on Alexandre Dumas, fils' play The Lady of the Camellias.

Between 1855 and 1867 an outpouring of great Verdi operas were to follow, among them such repertory staples as Un ballo in maschera (1859), La forza del destino (commissioned by the Imperial Theatre of Saint Petersburg for 1861 but not performed until 1862), and a revised version of Macbeth (1865). Other somewhat less often performed include Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) and Don Carlos (1867), both commissioned by the Paris Opera and initially given in French. Today, these latter two operas are most often performed in their revised Italian versions. Simon Boccanegra followed in 1857.


In 1869, Verdi was asked to compose a section for a Requiem Mass in memory of Gioacchino Rossini and proposed that this Requiem should be a collection of sections composed by other Italian contemporaries of Rossini. The Requiem was compiled and completed, but it was not performed in Verdi's lifetime. Five years later, Verdi reworked his "Libera Me" section of the Rossini Requiem and made it a part of his Requiem Mass, honoring the famous patriot Alessandro Manzoni, who had died in 1873. The complete Requiem was first performed at the cathedral in Milan, on 22 May 1874.

Verdi's grand opera, Aida, is sometimes thought to have been commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, but, according to one major critic [2], Verdi turned down the Khedive's invitation to write an "ode" for the new opera house he was planning to inaugurate as part of the canal opening festivities. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. It was later in 1869/70, when the organizers again approached Verdi (but this time with the idea of writing an opera), that he again turned them down. When they warned him that they would ask Charles Gounod instead and then threatened to engage Richard Wagner's services, Verdi began to show considerable interest, and agreements were signed in June 1870.

In fact, the two composers, who were the leaders of their respective schools of music, seemed to resent each other greatly. They never met. Verdi's comments on Wagner and his music are few and hardly benevolent ("He invariably chooses, unnecessarily, the untrodden path, attempting to fly where a rational person would walk with better results"), but at least one of them is kind: upon learning of Wagner's death, Verdi lamented: "Sad! Sad! Sad! ... a name that leaves a most powerful mark on the history of our art." Of Wagner's comments on Verdi, only one is well-known. After listening to Verdi's Requiem, the great German, prolific and eloquent in his comments on some other composers, said, "It would be best not to say anything."

Aida premiered in Cairo in 1871 and was an instant success.


Twilight and Death

During the following years Verdi worked on revising some of his earlier scores, most notably new versions of Don Carlos, La forza del destino, and Simon Boccanegra.

Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887. Its music is "continuous" and cannot easily be divided into separate "numbers" to be performed in concert. Some feel that although masterfully orchestrated, it lacks the melodic lustre so characteristic of Verdi's earlier, great, operas, while many critics consider it Verdi's greatest tragic opera, containing some of his most beautiful, expressive music and some of his richest characterizations. In addition, it lacks a prelude, something Verdi listeners are not accustomed to.

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation. It was an international success and is one of the supreme comic operas which shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist.

The ailing Giuseppina Strepponi died quite suddenly on 14 November 1897. While staying at a hotel in Milan, Verdi had a stroke on January 21, 1901. He grew gradually more feeble and died six days later, on January 27, 1901.


Verdi's role in the Risorgimento

Music historians have long perpetuated a myth about the famous Va, pensiero chorus sung in the third act of Nabucco. The myth reports that, when the Va, pensiero chorus was sung in Milan, then belonging to the large part of Italy under Austrian domination, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervor to the exiled slaves' lament for their lost homeland, demanded an encore of the piece. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. However, recent scholarship puts this to rest. Although the audience did indeed demand an encore, it was not for Va, pensiero but rather for the hymn Immenso Jehova, sung by the Hebrew slaves to thank God for saving His people. In light of these new revelations, Verdi's position as the musical figurehead of the Risorgimento has been correspondingly downplayed.[3] On the other hand, during rehearsals, workmen in the theater stopped what they were doing during "Va, pensiero" and applauded at the conclusion of this haunting melody.

The myth of Verdi as Risorgimento's composer also reports that the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used throughout Italy to secretly call for Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II, then king of Sardinia.

The Chorus of the Hebrews (the English title for Va, pensiero) has another appearance in Verdi folklore. Prior to his body being driven from the cemetery to the official memorial service and its final resting place at the Casa di Riposo, Arturo Toscanini conducted a chorus of 820 singers in "Va, pensiero". At the Casa, the Miserere from Il trovatore was sung.[4]


Style

Verdi's predecessors who influenced his music were Rossini, Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer and, most notably, Gaetano Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. With the possible exception of Otello and Aida, he was free of Wagner's influence. Although respectful of Gounod, Verdi was careful not to learn anything from the Frenchman whom many of Verdi's contemporaries regarded as the greatest living composer. Some strains in Aida suggest at least a superficial familiarity with the works of the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, whom Franz Liszt, after his tour of the Russian Empire as a pianist, popularized in Western Europe.

Throughout his career, Verdi rarely utilised the high C in his tenor arias, citing the fact that the opportunity to sing that particular note in front of an audience distracts the performer before and after the note appears. However, he did provide high Cs to Duprez in Jérusalem and to Tamberlick in the original version of La forza del destino. The high C often heard in the aria Di quella pira does not appear in Verdi's score.

Although his orchestration is often masterful, Verdi relied heavily on his melodic gift as the ultimate instrument of musical expression. In fact, in many of his passages, and especially in his arias, the harmony is ascetic, with the entire orchestra occasionally sounding as if it were one large accompanying instrument - a giant-sized guitar playing chords. Some critics maintain he paid insufficient attention to the technical aspect of composition, lacking as he did schooling and refinement. Verdi himself once said, "Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned." He hastened to add, however, "I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music."

However, it would be incorrect to assume that Verdi underestimated the expressive power of the orchestra or failed to use it to its full capacity where necessary. Moreover, orchestral and contrapuntal innovation is characteristic of his style: for instance, the strings producing a rapid ascending scale in Monterone's scene in Rigoletto accentuate the drama, and, in the same opera, the chorus humming six closely grouped notes backstage portrays, very effectively, the brief ominous wails of the approaching tempest. Verdi's innovations are so distinctive that other composers do not use them; they remain, to this day, some of Verdi's signatures.

Verdi was one of the first composers who insisted on patiently seeking out plots to suit his particular talents. Working closely with his librettists and well aware that dramatic expression was his forte, he made certain that the initial work upon which the libretto was based was stripped of all "unnecessary" detail and "superfluous" participants, and only characters brimming with passion and scenes rich in drama remained.

Many of his operas, especially the later ones from 1851 onwards are a staple of the standard repertoire. No composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of Giacomo Puccini.

Helen Hayes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Helen Hayes Brown
Born October 10, 1900(1900-10-10)
Washington, D.C.
Died March 17, 1993 (aged 92)
Nyack, New York
Spouse(s) Charles MacArthur (1928-1956)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Actress
1932 The Sin of Madelon Claudet
Best Supporting Actress
1970 Airport
Emmy Awards
Best Actress (1953)
Grammy Awards
Best Spoken Word Album
1977 Great American Documents
Tony Awards
Best Leading Actress - Play
1947 Happy Birthday
1958 Time Remembered
1980 Special Award

Helen Hayes (October 10, 1900 - March 17, 1993) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress whose successful and award-winning career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theater", and was one of the nine people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award.




Biography

Early life

Hayes was born Helen Hayes Brown in Washington, D.C. Her father, Francis Van Arnum Brown, worked at a number of jobs, including as a clerk at the Washington Patent Office[1] and as a salesman for a wholesale butcher.[2] Her mother, Catherine Estella Hayes, was an aspiring actress[3] who worked in touring companies.[2] Hayes' Irish Catholic maternal grandparents immigrated from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine.[4] She began a stage career at an early age. By the age of ten, she had made a short film called Jean and the Calico Doll, but only moved to Hollywood when her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur, signed a Hollywood deal.


Career

Her sound film debut was The Sin of Madelon Claudet, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She followed that with starring roles in Arrowsmith (with Myrna Loy), A Farewell to Arms (with actor Gary Cooper whom Hayes admitted to finding extremely attractive), The White Sister, What Every Woman Knows (a reprise from her Broadway hit), and Vanessa: Her Love Story. However, she never became a fan favorite and Hayes did not prefer the medium to the stage.

Hayes eventually returned to Broadway in 1935, where for three years she played the title role in the Gilbert Miller production of Victoria Regina, with Vincent Price as Prince Albert, first at the Broadhurst Theatre and later at the Martin Beck Theatre.

In 1953, she was the first-ever recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, repeating as the winner in 1969. She returned to Hollywood in the 1950s, and her film star began to rise. She starred in My Son John (1952) and Anastasia (1956), and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as an elderly stowaway in the disaster film Airport (1970). She followed that up with several roles in Disney films such as Herbie Rides Again, One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and Candleshoe. Anastasia was considered a comeback having not acted for several years due to her daughter, Mary's death and her husband's failing health.

In 1955 the Fulton Theatre was renamed for her. However, business interests in the 1980s wished to raze that theatre and four others to construct a large hotel that included the Marquis Theatre. To accomplish razing this theatre and three others, as well as the Astor Hotel, the business interests received Hayes consent to raze the theatre named for her, even though she had no ownership interest in the buildings. As a result in 1983, the Little Theater on West 45th Street was re-named The Helen Hayes Theatre in her honor; as was a theatre in Nyack, which has since been re-named the Riverspace-Arts Center.

The Helen Hayes Award for theater in the Washington D.C. area is named in her honor. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6220 Hollywood Blvd.


Personal life

Hayes was a Catholic[5] and a pro-business Republican, who attended the last Republican National Convention before her death, which was held in Colorado, but she was not as far-right as certain others (e.g. Adolphe Menjou, Ginger Rogers, John Wayne, etc) in the Hollywood community of that time.

Hayes wrote three memoirs: A Gift of Joy, On Reflection and My Life in Three Acts. Some of the themes in these books include her return to Roman Catholicism after having been denied communion from the Church for the length of her marriage to MacArthur, who was a Protestant and a divorcé, and the death of her only daughter, Mary, who was an aspiring actress, from polio. Hayes's son, James MacArthur, went on to a career in acting also, starring in Hawaii Five-O on television. (Hayes herself guest starred on a 1975 episode of Hawaii Five-0, playing MacArthur's character's aunt.)

Hayes was hospitalized a number of time for her asthma condition, which was aggravated by stage dust. The asthma eventually forced her to retire from the theater. She spent most of her later years writing and raising money for organizations that fight asthma.


Death

Hayes died on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1993 from congestive heart failure in Nyack, New York, aged 92, not long after the death of her friend Lillian Gish, with whom she had been friends for many decades. Gish made Hayes the beneficiary of her estate, but Hayes only survived her by a month. Hayes was interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery, Nyack, New York. [6]


Quotes

"The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy." (at age 73)

Johnny Green
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johnny Green (10 October 1908 in New York City, New York - 15 May 1989 in Los Angeles) was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger.




Early years

John Waldo Green was the son of musical parents, and was accepted by Harvard at the age of 15, entering the University in 1924. Between semesters, bandleader Guy Lombardo heard his Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra and hired him to create dance arrangements for his nationally famous orchestra. His first song hit, Coquette (1928), was written for (and possibly with) Lombardo. Green was educated in music, history, economics, and government before returning to pursue a master's degree in the field of English literature. His instruments were the piano and the saxophone, although he abandoned the latter after college. He married three times, had a daughter with actress Betty Furness and two daughters with MGM "Glamazon" Bunny Waters.

His father interrupted his education and compelled him to take a job as a stockbroker. Disliking the job, and encouraged by his young bride, the former Carol Faulk (to whom he dedicated I'm Yours), he left Wall Street to pursue a musical career. Before the marriage ended in the mid '30s, Carol remarked, "We didn't have children, we had songs." It was during his first marriage that most of his hit standards were composed, including Out of Nowhere (1931), Rain Rain Go Away (1932), I Cover the Waterfront, You're Mine You, and I Wanna Be Loved (all 1933), and Easy Come Easy Go (1934).

His earliest songs appeared with the billing "John W. Green," a styling he reverted to in the 1960s. After that anyone addressing "Johnny" was put right with the statement, "You can call me John - or you can call me Maestro!"


Career

Green wrote a number of songs which have become jazz standards, including Out of Nowhere and Body and Soul. He wrote the scores for various films and TV programmes.

At the beginning of his musical career he arranged for dance orchestras, most notably Jean Goldkette on NBC. He was accompanist/arranger to musicians such as James Melton, Libby Holman and Ethel Merman. It was while writing material for Gertrude Lawrence that he composed Body and Soul, the first recording of which was made by Jack Hylton & His Orchestra eleven days before the song was copyrighted.


Carnegie Hall and Astoria Studios

Nathaniel Shilkret and Paul Whiteman commissioned Green to write larger works for orchestra, such as Nightclub, premiered by Whiteman at Carnegie Hall in 1933 with Green on solo piano. During tthe early '30s he also wrote music for numerous films at Paramount's Astoria Studios; conducted in East Coast theatres; and toured vaudeville as musical director for Buddy Rogers. During his two and a half years at Paramount Astoria, he was able to learn more about film scoring from veterans Adolph Deutsch and Frank Tours.


London, radio, and recordings

Green spent much of 1933 in London, where he contributed songs to both Mr. Whittington, a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan at the London Hippodrome, and to Big Business, the first musical comedy ever written especially for BBC Radio.

On Green's return to the U.S.A. early in 1934, William Paley, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System and an investor in New York's St Regis Hotel, encouraged him to form what became known as Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra. (Green added, "My arm didn't need much twisting.") The orchestra, based for a time at the St Regis, featured Green's piano and arrangements, whose harmony and mood were among the most sophisticated of the day. It made dance records for the Columbia and Brunswick companies, although in the Depression even the most popular records sold only in small numbers.

In 1935 Green starred on CBS' Socony Sketchbook, sponsored by Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. He lured the young California singer Virginia Verrill to headline with him on the Friday evening broadcasts. His regular cast of vocalists included his band singers Marjory Logan and Jimmy Farrell, and stage-screen favorites the Four Eton Boys. A bigger venture yet in commercial radio was The Fred Astaire Hour, sponsored by Packard Motors over NBC in 1936 and co-featuring tenor Allan Jones and the comedy of Charles Butterworth. Green's band also backed Astaire on a series of classic recording dates, in both New York and Hollywood, in 1935-'37.


Piano, film, and MGM

Green is also well known for his piano playing. He was one of the best in New York, his warmly paced, full-chord style showing a rare command of harmony. He continued conducting on radio and in theatres into the 1940s, also leading a dance band for the short-lived Royale Records label in 1939-40, until he decided to move permanently to Hollywood and work in the film business. Green particularly made an impression at MGM, where in the 1940s, along with orchestrator Conrad Salinger, he was one of the musicians most responsible for changing the overall sound of the MGM Symphony Orchestra, partially through the re-seating of some of the players. This is why the overall orchestral sound of MGM's musicals from the mid 1940s onward is different from the orchestral sound of those made from 1929 until about 1944.


Notable works

Musical director

Johnny Green's credits as musical executive, arranger, conductor and composer are considerable, but include such highlights as Raintree County, Bathing Beauty, Something in the Wind, Easter Parade (for which he won his first Academy Award), Summer Stock, An American in Paris (which won him his second Academy Award), Royal Wedding, High Society and West Side Story (another Academy Award winner for him). Although Green was musical director on these films, however, the orchestrations were usually done by someone else - in the case of the MGM musicals, it was usually Conrad Salinger, and in the case of West Side Story, it was Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal.


Conductor

In 1965, Green conducted the music for that year's new adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's only musical for television, Cinderella, starring Lesley Ann Warren, Walter Pidgeon, Ginger Rogers, and Stuart Damon.

Johnny Green also adapted, orchestrated and conducted the music for the film version of Oliver! (1968), and won an Academy Award for his efforts. He also wrote much of the incidental music heard in the film, basing it on Lionel Bart's songs for the original show.


Accreditations

Green was a respected board member of ASCAP, and guest conductor with symphonies around the world, including the Hollywood Bowl, Denver Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and more. He was a chairman of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, leading the orchestra through 17 of the Academy Award telecasts, and a producer of television specials.

Thelonious Monk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Thelonious Sphere Monk
Also known as Monk
Born October 10, 1917(1917-10-10)
Origin Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S.
Died February 17, 1982 (aged 64)
Genre(s) Jazz, bebop, hard bop
Occupation(s) Pianist, composer
Instrument(s) Piano
Label(s) Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Columbia

Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer.

Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire (including his classic works "'Round Midnight" and "Blue Monk"). He is often regarded as a founder of bebop, although his playing style evolved away from the form. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.




Life and career

Early life

Little is known about Monk's early life. He was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk, two years after a sister named Marian. A younger brother, Thomas, was born a couple of years later. Monk started playing the piano at the age of nine; although he had some formal training and eavesdropped on his sister's piano lessons, he was essentially self-taught.

In 1922 the family moved to Manhattan living at 243 West 63rd St., and Monk attended Stuyvesant High School, but did not graduate.

He briefly toured with an evangelist in his teens, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz. He is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at Minton's Playhouse, the legendary Manhattan club where Monk was the house pianist. His style at the time is described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences include Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists.

Monk's unique piano style was largely perfected during his stint as the house pianist at Minton's in the early-to-mid 1940s, when he participated in the famous after-hours "cutting competitions" that featured most of the leading jazz soloists of the day. The Minton's scene was crucial in the formulation of the bebop genre and it brought Monk into close contact and collaboration with other leading exponents of bebop including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Milt Jackson.


First recordings (1944-1954)

In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was among the first prominent jazz musicians to promote Monk, and Monk later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on the 1957 session with John Coltrane. Monk made his first recordings as leader for Blue Note in 1947 (later anthologised on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1) which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T.S. Monk, who later became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953.

In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. The police found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without the all-important cabaret card he was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several crucial years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs.

After his cycle of intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note during 1947-1952, he was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige he cut several under-recognized, but highly significant albums, including collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Blakey. In 1954, Monk participated on the famed Christmas Eve sessions which produced the albums, Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Miles Davis. Davis found Monk's idiosyncratic accompaniment style difficult to improvise over and asked him to lay out (not accompany), which almost brought them to blows. However in Miles Davis' autobiography Miles, Davis claims that the anger and tension between Thelonious and him never took place and that the claims of them exchanging blows were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding."

In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Europe, performing and recording in Paris. It was here that he first met Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, "Nica", member of the Rothschild banking family of England and patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She would be a close friend for the rest of his life.


Riverside Records period (1954-1961)

At the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records did not sell in significant numbers, and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for mass-market acceptance. Indeed, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. His breakthrough came thanks to a compromise between Monk and the label, which convinced him to record two albums of his interpretations of jazz standards.

His debut for Riverside was a 'themed' record featuring Monk's distinctive interpretations of the music of Duke Ellington. The resulting LP, Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington, was designed to bring Monk to a wider audience, and pave the way for a broader acceptance of his unique style. According to recording producer Orrin Keepnews, Monk appeared unfamiliar with the Ellington tunes and spent a long time reading the sheet music and picking the melodies out on the piano keys. Given Monk's long history of playing, it seems unlikely that he didn't know Ellington's music, and it has been surmised that Monk's seeming ignorance of the material was a manifestation of his typically perverse humor, combined with an unstated reluctance to prove his own musical competency by playing other composers' works (even at this late date, there were still critics who carped that Monk "couldn't play"). The album is generally regarded as one of the less successful Monk studio outings but one that encouraged more consumer interest to the point where Riverside felt ready to try out an album featuring Monk's own compositions.[citation needed]

Finally, on the 1956 LP Brilliant Corners, Monk was able to record his own music. The complex title track (which featured legendary tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins) was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from three separate takes. The album however, was largely regarded as the first success for Monk; according to Orrin Keepnews, "It was the first that made a real splash."

After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet that included John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. Unfortunately little of this group's music was documented, apparently because of contractual problems (Coltrane was signed to Prestige). One studio session was made by Riverside but only later released on Jazzland; an amateur tape from the Five Spot (not the original residency, it seems, but a later 1958 reunion) was uncovered in the 1990s and issued on Blue Note. On November 29 that year the quartet performed at Carnegie Hall and the concert was recorded in high fidelity by the Voice of America broadcasting service. The long-lost tape of that concert was rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress in January 2005. In 1958 Johnny Griffin took Coltrane's place as tenor player in Monk's band.

In 1958, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer the policemen's questions or cooperate with them, they beat him with a blackjack. Though the police were authorized to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as given under duress. State v. De Koenigswarter, 177 A.2d 344 (Del. Super. 1962). Monk was represented by Theophilus Nix, the second African-American member of the Delaware Bar Association.


Columbia Records period (1962-1970)

In 1964, Monk appeared on the cover of Time magazine. By now he was signed to a major label, Columbia Records, and was promoted more widely than earlier in his career. Monk also had a regular working group, featuring the tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse. He recorded a number of well-reviewed studio albums, particularly, Monk's Dream (1962) and Underground (1968). By the Columbia period his compositional output had reduced in number. Only his final Columbia record, Underground, featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only waltz-time piece, "Ugly Beauty."

His period with Columbia Records is well-represented with well-received live albums. These included Miles and Monk at Newport (1963), Live at the It Club (1964) and Live at the Jazz Workshop (1964). (The rhythm section of Monk's quartet during the peak years (1964-1967) of his Columbia period was rounded out by Larry Gales (bass) and Ben Riley (drums).)

He disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last recording was completed in November 1971.


Later life

Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctively "hip" sartorial style in suits, hats and sunglasses, and he developed an unusual, highly syncopated and percussive manner of playing piano. He was also noted for the fact that at times he would stop playing, stand up from the keyboard and dance in a counterclockwise fashion, ring-shout style, while the other musicians in the combo played.

It is said that he would rarely speak to anyone other than his beloved wife Nellie, and certainly in later years it was reported that he would go through an entire tour without speaking to the other members of his group. Bassist Al McKibbon, who had known Monk for twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said "On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning', 'Goodnight', 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." [1]

Although these anecdotes may typify Monk's behavior in his later life, in Lewis Porter's biography of John Coltrane, the saxophonist reveals a very different side of Monk; Coltrane states that Monk was, in his opinion:

"... exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]. He talks about music all the time and wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you."

There has been speculation that some of Monk's quirky behaviour was due to mental illness. In the documentary film Straight, No Chaser (produced in 1989 by Clint Eastwood on the subject of Monk's life and music), Monk's son, T.S. Monk, reported that Monk was on several occasions hospitalized due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No diagnosis was ever made public, but some have noted that Monk's symptoms suggest bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or Tourette's Syndrome. Whatever the precise diagnosis, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that Monk was suffering from some form of pathological introversion and that from the late sixties onward he became increasingly uncommunicative and withdrawn. As his health declined, his last years were spent as a guest in the New Jersey home of his long-standing patron, Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, who had also nursed Charlie Parker during his final illness.

He died of a stroke on February 17, 1982 and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Since his death, his music has been rediscovered by a wider audience and he is now counted alongside the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and others as a major figure in the history of jazz. In 1993, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Monk's music is arguably the most recorded of any jazz composer. In 2006, Monk was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music "Special Citation." [2]

Trivia

The unusual name of Thelonious is given in many translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses as an alternate spelling for Philonius, Mercury's son. Today, most scholars agree that the spelling should have been Thelonious. [citation needed]
The 1920 US Federal Census lists Thelonious and his father (a laborer) as "Theloins".
Asteroid (11091) Thelonious has been named in honor of Thelonious Monk.
An episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is sub-titled "Felonius Monk", an obvious reference to Thelonious Monk.
Pharrell Williams has used the nickname Thelonius P, a homage to Thelonious Monk.
Lupe Fiasco has mentioned Thelonious Monk in many of his songs, both homaging Pharrell in some, and Thelonious himself.
The coffee-shop that is frequented in the show Seinfeld is called Monk's after Thelonious Monk. Apparently there was a Thelonious Monk poster hanging in the room Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld would write the script.
In The Simpsons episode "Trilogy of Error", Lisa encounters a boy at another school named Thelonious who seemingly matches her intelligence and loneliness:
Thelonious: My name's Thelonious.
Lisa: As in "Monk?"
Thelonious: Yes. The esoteric appeal is worth the beatings.
John Coltrane described the difficulties of playing with Monk: "I always had to be alert with Monk, because if you didn't keep aware all the time of what was going on you'd suddenly feel as if you'd stepped into an empty elevator shaft." Another time he commented that if one didn't pay close attention while accompanying Monk, he could get so lost (in Monk's complex musical structures) he'd never find his way back.
North Coast Brewery brews a beer named Brother Thelonious, a Belgian style abbey ale, in honor of Thelonious Monk. North Coast Brewery is associated with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and donates $2 to the institute from every case of Brother Thelonious sold.
Steely Dan gives a nod to Thelonious in their 1972 song "Midnight Cruiser," the first verse of which begins "Felonious my old friend, Step on in and let me shake your hand, So glad you're here again, For one more time, Let your madness run with mine."
There is a track entitled 'Thelonius' on the rapper Common's breakthrough album, Like Water for Chocolate.

Richard Jaeckel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Hanley Jaeckel (October 10, 1926 - June 14, 1997) was an American actor.

Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters in his 50 years in movies and television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors. Jaeckel got his start in the business at the age of 17 while working as a mailboy at 20th Century Fox studios in Hollywood. A casting director audtioned him for a key role in the 1943 film Guadalcanal Diary, Jaeckel won the role and settled into a lengthy career in supporting parts.

He served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1949, then starred in two of the most remembered war films of 1949, Battleground and Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne.

The highlight of Jaeckel's career was in 1971, when he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Sometimes a Great Notion. He had a recurring role in the short-lived Andy Griffith vehicle Salvage 1. In his later years, Jaeckel was known to TV audiences as Lt. Ben Edwards on the series Baywatch. He also appeared on TV Series Spenser: For Hire.

Jaeckel died in 1997, aged 70, after a three year battle with melanoma, at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

A biker is riding a new motorcycle on the highway.
While passing a car, he knocks on the window.
The driver of the car opens the window: 'Yes?'
Biker: 'Ever driven a Honda motorcycle?'
Driver: 'No I haven't'
The Biker drives on, until he sees the next car. While
passing it, he knocks on the window.
The driver of the car opens the window: 'Yes?'
Biker: 'Ever driven a Honda motorcycle?'
Driver: 'No I haven't'
Then suddenly there is a curve, the Biker sees it too late.
He crashes off the road into a ditch.
A car stops and a man runs to the unlucky Biker.
Covered in blood and surely dying, the Biker
asks: 'Ever driven a Honda motorcycle?'
'Yes I have. I had a Honda for 20 years'.
The Biker says: "Tell me, where are the brakes?'

Well, hawkman, I am glad you won as we don't like venom on our radio station.

Too little too late for our Honda man, but I must say it gave our audience a smile, Bob. Thanks again for all the great bio's, and until it tickles the fancy of our Raggedy and her contribution to our gallery of great photo's, here is one of my favorite arias by "Joe Green" (glad Wagner coerced him in to doing Aida)

(Aida)(Heavenly Aida)

Celeste Aida, forma divina,
Mistico serto di luce e fior,
Del mio pensiero tu sei regina,
Tu di mia vita sei lo splendor.
Il tuo bel cielo vorrei ridarti,
Le dolci breeze del patrio suol;
Un regal serto sul crin posarti,
Ergerti un trono vicino al sol, ah!
o them. The Egyptian General Radames falls in love with the beautiful Aida and dreams of setting her upon a throne.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Heavenly Aida, goddess of beauty,
garland of flowers and of bright light.
You are the ruler of all of my thoughts,
you are the splendor of my whole life.
I'll bring you back, yes, to your lovely skies
to the soft breezes of your native land.
I'll place a royal wreath upon your crown,
and build you a throne close to the sun!

Again? Well, folks, while we await our Raggedy, guess what.



Gerhard Ertl of Germany wins the 2007 Nobel prize in chemistry for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces. His findings are the key to understanding questions like why the ozone layer is thining.
Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells work, how catalytic converters clean up car exhaust and even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Ertl, who won the prize on his 71st birthday, told reporters that it "is the best birthday present that you can give to somebody."
"I am speechless," Ertl told The Associated Press from his office in Berlin. "I was not counting on this."
The academy said Ertl provided a detailed description of how chemical reactions take place on surfaces and studied some of the most fundamental mysteries in that field.
Ertl showed how to obtain reliable results in this difficult area of research, and his findings applied in both academic studies and industrial development, the academy said.

Fancy's tickled.

Verdi; Helen Hayes; Johnny Green; Theo Monk; Richard Jaeckel and Tanya Tucker

Marvelous quintet, puppy, and we are glad that you are not like Queen Victoria. (" We are not amused")

The Monk is one of my favorite jazzmen, and I haven't had much luck locating his songs. Will try later, but until then, let's listen to Tanya.

Artist: Tucker Tanya
Song: Pecos Promenade

If you've got a road map of Texas,
You can see that it's a wide open state.
From Amarillo down to Boulder,
You can bet that it's a honky-tonky place.

They might like to rock 'n roll in Dallas,
Or disco down on Galveston Bay.
But when God made them West Texas cowboys,
He gave them the Pecos Promenade.

Lead off with the Cotton-Eyed Joe,
Buckin' winged, and heel and toe,
Hold me close for the Pecos Promenade.
Big sign hangin' by the door,
Sawdust on an old dance floor.
Tip your hat for the Pecos Promenade.

When the sun starts goin' down on the prairie,
And the starlight, falls on the state.
That's when this cowgirl needs me a cowboy,
To do the Pecos Promenade.

Tonight's the first I saw him,
We can hear those twin fiddles play.
Well Houston starts to feel like Lonestar heaven,
As we dance the Pecos Promenade.

Lead off with the Cotton-Eyed Joe,
Buckin' winged, and heel and toe,
Hold me close for the Pecos Promenade.
Tip your hat for the Pecos Promenade

That's when this cowgirl needs a cowboy,
To do the Pecos Promenade.

Round Midnight
Thelonious Monk

It begins to tell,
'round midnight, midnight.
I do pretty well, till after sundown,
Suppertime I'm feelin' sad;
But it really gets bad,
'round midnight.

Memories always start 'round midnight
Haven't got the heart to stand those memories,
When my heart is still with you,
And ol' midnight knows it, too.
When a quarrel we had needs mending,
Does it mean that our love is ending.
Darlin' I need you, lately I find
You're out of my heart,
And I'm out of my mind.

Let our hearts take wings'
'round midnight, midnight
Let the angels sing,
for your returning.
Till our love is safe and sound.
And old midnight comes around.
Feelin' sad,
really gets bad
Round, Round, Round Midnight

by Thelonious Monk

Ah, I know that one, Bob. I really have spent a lot of time searching, honey, and came up with this one by the Monk.

SURE IT CAN BE DONE (MONK'S DREAM)
(Music : Thelonious Monk - Lyrics : Soesja Citroen)

I never could tell what I wished to be
but deep in my heart lived this fantasy
Tried never to reveal it
now it is done
I couldn't go on

At times when a way out is hard to find
and all kinds of problems may blur your mind,
then pull yourself together
better be wise,
start paying the price

Now look at me
what do you see
I'm feeling absolutely free
Don't ever try to hide
fight it wlth all your might
wishes come true eventually

So I started singing and making rhymes
my bread comes in quarters or mostly dimes
Life isn't always easy
but it's great fun
sure it can be done
if you only try.

and I did and still will, Mr. Monk.

Monk. A bit too clever for me.
I´m a dropping in after a short break, Letty.
Glad to see you´re keeping everyone happy.
All is good in Denmark.
hebba

WOW, hebba! Welcome back

For those of you who don't recall our hebba, he is a marvelous sculptor who works in wood, and a Briton who relocated to Denmark. We discussed Girl in a Swing, a rather odd book and one that I still recall with chills.

A welcome back song for him, folks.

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me

I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat
Through the harbour and up to the quay
And there she stands waiting for me
With a welcome so warm and so gay
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me.

Don't "sail" away to stay, hebba.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
"Istanbul" 1953

Words by Jimmy Kennedy
Music by Nat Simon

"It's Istanbul, not Constantinople now ...." Leave it to Tin Pan Alley to turn centuries of ethnic and religious struggles into a catchy ditty. This song, although copyrighted by Kennedy and Simon, is a direct descendant of the humourous piece, "Al-Bar the Bubul Emir" that could be found in the pages of "Captain Billy's Whizbang," an early 20th century precursor to "Mad Magazine."

Lyrics:

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul (Istanbul)
Istanbul (Istanbul)

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul

Love that one, edgar. So now we have Denmark and Instanbul. How about one from the islands where the tiki torches glow at night.



Radon


Yes, I'm glad you made it,
'cause I got a lot to say about a little country in the water.
See, they're not so happy on an island in the Caribbean.
The folks, their luck has all run out
and they're drownin' all the opposition.
Travel down this road to the port of Miami,
they're turning them away every day.
And look who's sitting on that city commission,
well they came here not long ago.
And It's the thoughts that cover up a 'weak heart
and that marks a shallow soul.
The front that blocks off the sight of the spectrum of life
tries to polarize the whole...
I guess I'll never know...
If we all came over on a boat,
how can you act like you walked here on the water?

good evening all !