Commentator Stacy Horn has an appreciation for a show at the Westbeth Theater in Manhattan's West Village, called Loser's Lounge. It's performed tonight for the first time since Sept. 11. (4:15)
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Thanks so much to Basic hip for putting up the Honey West album. I had never heard any of this stuff before, although I had been vaguely looking for the LP ever since I heard the incredible version of 'sweet honey' on Dick Hyman's 'Man from U.N.C.L.E' LP (still one of my favorite Command LPs). Anyway, it's great to hear it all, and see the cover art too.
As you say, it's not rocket science to convert an album into mp3 format and put it up, but you did it well, man! I can never quite get the knack of scanning entire album covers. Still, maybe I'll have a go some time...
Here's some stuff I've been getting into in the last few days...
L'anamour - francoise hardy
I only recently found out Francoise had recorded this classic Gainsbourg song. It's a very cool version, gentle and catchy with cool strings; apparently arranged by Mike Vickers, who I believe is one of those groovy UK library music composers.
The 8.17 Northbound Success Merry-go round - margo guryan
From the recently released '25 demos' CD, this is a very spare and groovy number with a cool organ sound, nice drums and catchy vocals. A little rougher than the superb 'take a picture' album, but very cool.
The name of the game - John Schroeder
This is on the 'TV Vibrations' LP, which I recently picked up on ebay. A really nice track with brilliant organ work and a strange but catchy beat.
I'm still pretty much hooked on the 1968-72 period, it seems. I can't seem to shake it off...
Old email system is reformatting and I was not able to get to the list!! Have resubscribed with a new address. I hope this works, I've been at this for hours. colleeni@chatini.com
Colleen
==
Colleeni !
~~~^~~~^~~~^~~~^
The problem with the world is that it's about three drinks behind............
Having trouble reply ing to messages. Tried to respond to Sean's message as a reply, but said I had too much quoted material. Jeeze, Sean only had three lines, for heaven's sake...how do YOU do it, AZ? I didn't even think lazlo paid attention to the list anymore.
==
Colleeni !
~~~^~~~^~~~^~~~^
The problem with the world is that it's about three drinks behind............
Subject: Re: (exotica) Ravi Shankar movie soundtracks
Date: 09 Oct 2001 00:04:26 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Can somebody tell me more about Ravi Shankar's movie soundtracks,
>like"Charly"? Also if anybody has heard his other recordings with non-Indian
>musicians, i would like to know more about it. Please
I found a copy of Ravi Shankar's Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra with Andre Previn conducting the orchestra. I had high hopes for it, but unfortunately it's a snoozer.
Manny Albam, a musician, composer and arranger in the jazz world of the 1950's and 60's who also played a major role in the growth of jazz education, died on Tuesday at his home in Croton, N.Y. He was 79.
The cause was cancer, his family said.
Although he was far from a household name even at the height of his career, Mr. Albam did much to shape the sound of jazz between the end of World War II and the rock onslaught of the 60's. As a composer and arranger, he worked with the big bands of Count Basie, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Buddy Rich, as well as with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Coleman Hawkins and others. He wrote arrangements for prominent singers, including Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Dakota Staton.
He also wrote music for television shows and commercials and recorded several critically praised albums under his own name. In recent years, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band commissioned several works from him.
Although education was his primary focus over the last three decades, Mr. Albam was active as an arranger into the 90's. In 1997 he provided most of the arrangements for the saxophonist Joe Lovano's album "Celebrating Sinatra" and the jazz pianist Hank Jones's collaboration with the Meridian String Quartet. In 1999 he worked with the singer Nancy Marano and the 60-piece Netherlands Metropole Orchestra on the album "If You Could See Us Now."
Born in the Dominican Republic on June 24, 1922, Emmanuel Albam was reared in New York City, where he took up the saxophone while he was a student at Stuyvesant High School. He began his professional career in 1940 and over the next few years played alto and baritone saxophone with a number of bands. After getting out of the Army in 1946, while playing with the big bands of Charlie Barnet, Jerry Wald and others, he began to write music. By the early 50's he had given up playing to become a full-time composer and arranger.
Mr. Albam never led a regular working band. But from 1955 to 1966 he recorded several albums as the leader of studio ensembles for labels like RCA Victor, Coral and Solid State. Those albums included some of his most ambitious compositions, among them "The Blues Is Everybody's Business" and the suite "Soul of the City."
In 1964 Mr. Albam became involved in the still young field of jazz education, establishing a summer arranging workshop at the Eastman School of Music. He later taught at Glassboro State College in New Jersey and the Manhattan School of Music. In 1988 he became the associate musical director of the Jazz Composers Workshop, which the music licensing organization BMI established to guide aspiring composers and arrangers in the creation of new works for big bands. He succeeded Bob Brookmeyer as musical director and held the position until his death.
Mr. Albam is survived by his wife, Betty Hindes; a son, Evan, of Nyack, N.Y.; two daughters, Amy Albam of Nyack and Kate Crain of El Sobrante, Calif.; two stepsons, Paul Hindes of New York and Andrew Hindes of Eagle Rock, Calif.; three grandchildren; and four step-grandchildren.
Burt Korall, the director of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop and a friend of Mr. Albam's, said that after Mr. Albam's jazz version of the "West Side Story" score (which was nominated for a Grammy Award) was released in 1958, the composer, Leonard Bernstein, called Mr. Albam. "He was very impressed by Manny's writing," Mr. Korall recalled. "He said, `Anytime you want to write something for the Philharmonic, let me know.' And that frightened Manny so much that he started studying."
Mr. Albam studied with the composer Tibor Serly from 1958 to 1960, and although he never did write anything for the Philharmonic, he went on to compose a number of chamber and orchestral works.
Subject: Re: H.S.G. (was: Re: (exotica) Paul Mauriat (sp??))
Date: 09 Oct 2001 15:50:10 -0700 (PDT)
The Soulful Strings also made one of the hippest Xmas LPs ever called "The Magic of Christmas" Mostly Xmas carols, but funky and with sitars on several tracks.
Dagmar, 79, Foxy Blonde With First-Name Status in 50's, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN,NYTimes
The statuesque performer who won fame as Dagmar, a dumb-as-a- fox blonde on one of television's first late-night shows, died on Tuesday at her home in Ceredo, W.Va. She was 79.
She was born Virginia Ruth Egnor in nearby Huntington and was renamed Jenny Lewis when she came to New York to model and act. She was given the name Dagmar when she became a character in "Broadway Open House," a vaudeville-style mix of music and jokes, which ran on NBC in 1950 and 1951 and was a forerunner of "The Tonight Show."
Standing 5 feet 11 inches in her heels, Dagmar combined "the voluptuous curves of a Venus, the provocative grace of a young Mae West and the virtue of a Girl Scout," Murray Schumach wrote in The New York Times in 1950.
Not to say that sexual innuendo was ignored. Once when she played the president in a comedy sketch, she said: "I've had a very busy day. I passed 19 vetoes and vetoed 19 passes."
She was billed as a singer on the program, but seldom sang. Instead, she recited poems and treatises ù she called them treasises ù in a delightfully ingenuous, deadpan manner.
Dagmar's significance transcended beating Cher and Madonna to first-name-only status. Her necklines were debated on the floor of the House of Representatives, and when her salary soared from $75 a week to $3,000, the government's Wage Stabilization Board took public notice.
In a 1951 profile illustrated with photographs by Alfred Eisenstadt, Life magazine called her a "national institution."
Her casual attitude about names came early, when she asked to be called Ruthie instead of Virginia. "It's easier to spell," she explained.
She graduated from Huntington High School and Huntington Business College, according to Huntington Quarterly, a local journal. She then went to work for a finance company, but quit because. she said, she felt sorry for all those people"who had to pay and didn't have enough to eat." She also worked as a waitress, sandwich maker, soda jerk and cashier. Two of her three husbands, Angelo Lewis and Dick Hinds, a bandleader, were from Huntington. The third was Danny Dayton, an actor. All died before her.
She is survived by her sisters Jean Nichols of Miami, Mary Ann Wolfe of Huntington and Theresa Jacobs of Vancouver, Wash.; and her brothers Jack Egnor of Tuback, Ariz., Robert Joseph Egnor and Dan of Huntington.
As an aspiring actress in New York, her first job was modeling sweaters. She was hired on a show- by-show basis for the new NBC show "Broadway Open House." She was told to wear a low-cut gown, sit on a stool and act dumb. When the host, Jerry Lester, asked where she was from, she smiled brightly and answered, "West Virginia."
"Where's that?" Mr. Lester demanded. She drawled, "In West Virginia," convulsing the host and the audience.
Soon she was receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, more than half of them from women. She lived in a Central Park South penthouse, and was often seen in the Stork Club.
She went on to perform in the theater, summer stock and Las Vegas. She was a regular on "Holiday Squares." Mitch Miller persuaded her to record a duet with Frank Sinatra.
During her run as one of television's early stars, she told an interviewer she thought she was becoming Dagmar. That meant being a "gentlewoman among roisterers" in Mr. Schumach's phrase.
When the heckling got out of hand as she recited yet another inane poem, Dagmar would say in a plaintive southern accent, "Please, you're tinkering with my art."
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> honey west is gone and a new album has replaced it.
>
> A DOG'S LIFE - An Actual Story In Sound As Broadcast On The CBS Radio
> Workshop
>
Thanks again, Mr. Hip, for this incredible service. It's a cute record, although I miss music a bit. The way you do it, is a "classic" from the beginning. The cover, the MP3s and a little comment by yourself about the album on one internet page - perfect. I used all of the information for my cover artwork of A Dog's Life...
It could be a very interesting perspective for mailing lists like this, if more people would join in this kind of service and provide unknown hard to get albums online like this. Often I miss the fun of discussing records simply because I can't listen to them.
I hope to get more web space soon and then start my own first publication of a rare exotica album...
--Mo
...........................
studio «
http://moritzR.de
exotica@web.de
............................
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Subject: (exotica) [obits] John Collins, Etta Jones
Date: 17 Oct 2001 12:01:47 -0400
October 17, 2001
John Collins, Noted Jazz Guitarist, Dies at 83
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 (AP) ù The jazz guitarist John Collins, who played with Nat King Cole for more than a decade, died here on Oct. 4. He was 83.
Mr. Collins was born in Montgomery, Ala., and grew up in Chicago. His mother, Georgia Gorham, was a pianist and bandleader.
He briefly played clarinet before switching to guitar and moving to New York, where he played with prominent jazzmen like the pianist Art Tatum.
Mr. Collins accompanied Billie Holiday and the saxophonist Lester Young in the 1940's and played in bands led by Benny Carter and Fletcher Henderson.
He served in the Army during World War II and played in Army bands.
Esquire magazine gave Mr. Collins its New Star award as best guitarist of 1947, his lone jazz poll honor.
Mr. Collins's 14-year association with Cole began in 1951, when he replaced Oscar Moore on guitar in the Cole trio. Mr. Collins played with Cole until the latter's death in 1965.
Mr. Collins went on to tour Europe with his own group. He played occasionally around Southern California in the 1990's but worked mainly as a private teacher.
He is survived by his wife, Naomi; two daughters; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Jay Livingston, Who Co-Wrote Hit Songs for the Movies, Dies at 86
By RICHARD SEVERO,NYTimes
Jay Livingston, the pop composer and lyricist who collaborated with Ray Evans on three movie songs that won Academy Awards - "Mona Lisa," "Que Serß, Serß" and "Buttons and Bows" - died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 86 and lived in Los Angeles.
In their heyday in the 1940's and 50's the team of Livingston and Evans turned out songs for film after film and wrote many tunes that became jukebox hits. They were "the last of the great songwriters in Hollywood," Warren Craig wrote in his book "The Greatest Songwriters of Hollywood." .
The team won their first best-song Oscar for "Buttons and Bows," a bouncy tune from the 1948 comedy Western "The Paleface." It was introduced by Bob Hope, playing the timid dentist Painless Potter, who sang it to a rootin'-tootin' Jane Russell. Dinah Shore recorded it, among others, and had the big jukebox hit.
"Mona Lisa" was written in 1950 for a modest Alan Ladd vehicle called "Captain Carey, U.S.A." In the movie, the song was used to send a signal to Italian partisans during World War II, but Mr. Livingston and Mr. Evans thought that perhaps "Mona Lisa" might have a life after the movie, so one day they visited Nat (King) Cole at his home to interest him in recording the song. They almost didn't succeed. A little girl was playing happily in the house and raised such a ruckus that it was difficult for Mr. Cole to concentrate on the song. "My daughter, Natalie," Mr. Cole explained patiently, as she romped, giggled and screamed. But Mr. Cole decided to record it.
He probably did not know that the song had started out as "Prima Donna" but was changed because Mr. Evans's wife, Wyn, thought that "Mona Lisa" sounded a lot nicer. Mr. Cole liked the tune but was not so sure that a song with the same name as a Renaissance painting would sell to a mass audience. His bosses at Capitol Records put it on the B side of a record that contained a song they thought would surely become a hit, "The Greatest Inventor of Them All."
"Mona Lisa" not only won an Oscar, but also became a huge jukebox success and later a standard. And in 1986 it provided the inspiration for the movie "Mona Lisa," starring Bob Hoskins.
"Que Serß, Serß" ("Whatever Will Be, Will Be") was sung by Doris Day in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956), an Alfred Hitchcock remake of a film of the same name that he had first directed in 1934. In the later movie, Miss Day was in a cavernous house filled with nefarious international wrongdoers, and she belted out "Que Serß, Serß" so that her young son, who had been kidnapped and was being held upstairs, would know that she and her husband (James Stewart) had come to the rescue. Once again the best song Oscar went to Livingston and Evans, Miss Day's recording of the song was a hit.
Other Livingston-Evans songs that received Oscar nominations included "The Cat and the Canary," which was heard in "Why Girls Leave Home" (1945); "Tammy," heard in "Tammy and the Bachelor," which became a hit recording for Debbie Reynolds in 1957; "Almost in Your Arms" from "Houseboat" (1957), with Sophia Loren and Cary Grant; and "Dear Heart" from the 1964 movie of the same name, which starred Glenn Ford and Geraldine Page. Andy Williams had a big hit with "Dear Heart," singing the plaintive Livingston-Evans lyrics with music by Henry Mancini.
Another hit was "Golden Earrings," a wistful song in a minor key from the 1947 movie of the same name, starring Ray Milland, disguised as a Gypsy, and Marlene Dietrich, playing the Gypsy he had learned to love. The music was written by Victor Young from a Hungarian melody; Mr. Livingston and Mr. Evans teamed up to produce the lyrics. In the movie it is sung in a robust basso by Murvyn Vye, but it was Peggy Lee's recording that made the charts.
Another Livingston tune with fame was "To Each His Own." The song, which was written to publicize the film of the same title but was not used in it, became a big hit in 1946 for several performers - Eddy Howard, the Ink Spots, Tony Martin, Freddy Martin and the Modernaires.
Mr. Livingston was directed by his wife Lynne to change the lyrics for the song that became "Silver Bells," a Christmas standard first sung by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell in "The Lemon Drop Kid" in 1951. The song was originally written as "Tinkle Bells," but Mrs. Livingston admonished her husband, "Are you out of your mind?" The song remains among the most popular Christmas songs; Mr. Livingston frequently referred to it as "our annuity." By 1995, it had sold 140 million recordings and was sung for years by Mr. Hope in his Christmas specials.
Jay Livingston was born on March 28, 1915, in McDonald, Pa., the son of Alan Livingston and the former Rosa Wachtel. When he went to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1930's he started a dance band and became friendly with Mr. Evans, from the upstate New York town of Salamanca, who played the saxophone and clarinet. After graduation they decided to try their hand at songwriting and moved to New York.
In World War II Mr. Livingston served in the Army and Mr. Evans was employed by an aircraft company. They worked sporadically and part time. One of their earliest writing jobs was creating songs for the popular singer Martha Tilton. They played nightclubs, proms and cruise ships and wrote special material for the comedy team of Olsen & Johnson.
In 1944 they were summoned to Hollywood; their benefactor was Johnny Mercer, the great songwriter, who liked their work. They won their first Oscar nomination for "The Cat and the Canary" in their first year of studio work.
Over the years the team of Livingston and Evans contributed songs to more than 80 movies, many with Bob Hope, some for Hitchcock. Among the films are "Monsieur Beaucaire" (1946), "My Favorite Brunette" (1947), "Whispering Smith" (1948), "Sorrowful Jones" (1949), "The Streets of Laredo" (1949), "Fancy Pants" (1950), "Here Comes the Groom" (1951), "That's My Boy" (1951), "Aaron Slick From Punkin Crick" (1952), "Mr. Roberts" (1954), "Lucy Gallant" (1955), "Istanbul" (1956), "Vertigo" (1957), "The James Dean Story" (1957), "This Happy Feeling" (1958), "Harlow" (1965), "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" (1966), "Torn Curtain" (1966), "Wait Until Dark" (1967) and "Fox Trot" (1976).
They also worked with the great arrangers and composers of movie music, among them Percy Faith, Max Steiner, Neal Hefti, David Rose, Jimmy McHugh, Franz Waxman and Sammy Cahn.
The team tried the theater without much success, and when rock 'n' roll arrived, their kind of music was not much in demand in Hollywood. They would appear from time to time: audiences at the popular "Lyrics and Lyricists" series at the 92d Street Y in New York remember Mr. Livingston, a tall, thin man with a pleasant voice, spoofing the title songs that he had written for movies like "When Worlds Collide" and "The Mole People."
Mr. Livingston is survived by his second wife, Shirley Mitchell of Los Angeles; his daughter, Travlyn Talmadge of Nashville, from his first marriage, to the former Lynne Gordon; his brother, Alan Livingston, the president of Capitol Records, also of Los Angeles; a granddaughter; and three great-grandchildren.
Mr. Evans is still living, in Los Angeles.
After their movie heyday, the pair wrote the theme music for long-running television series like "Bonanza" and "Mr. Ed." It is Ray Livingston's voice heard singing, "A horse is a horse/of course, of course . . ."
Singer Etta Jones Dies at 72; Won Eubie Blake Jazz Award
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 18, 2001; Page B06
Etta Jones, 72, a jazz singer whose sinuous, after-midnight style could be heard on about 25 albums and at countless club dates, and who was best known for her 1960 recording of "Don't Go to Strangers," died of complications from cancer Oct. 16 at her home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. She also had a residence in Washington.
"Don't Go to Strangers" earned more than $1 million for the Prestige label. Since then, Ms. Jones became a respected interpreter of standards like "Stormy Weather," "Say It Isn't So," "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You" and "But Not For Me."
Fond of improvising, she told the audience during a 1998 Kennedy Center concert with pianist Billy Taylor and his trio: "I never sing [a song] the same way again. I can't even sing along to my own records."
Ms. Jones received Grammy Award nominations for "Save Your Love For Me" (Muse, 1981) and "My Buddy: The Songs of Buddy Johnson" (HighNote Records, 1998).
She died on the day her most recent album was released, "Etta Jones Sings Lady Day" (HighNote), a tribute to Billie Holiday.
Of all those with whom she performed, including saxophonist Illinois Jacquet at Carnegie Hall, her most recognizable partner was tenor saxophonist Houston Person.
They were first booked together in 1968 at Jimmy McPhail's Gold Room in the District, and until their final date together three weeks ago, their interaction was often likened to the fruitful pairing of Holiday and saxophonist Lester Young in the 1930s.
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch reviewer called their collaboration "one of those rare musical matches in which each artist complements the other -- without any battles for the spotlight."
"We didn't have any egos or anything," Person said in an interview yesterday.
Despite her long career, Ms. Jones never achieved household name recognition and was considered a hidden treasure to fans such as Taylor.
"All I want to do is work, make a decent salary and have friends," she once told an interviewer. "What's so good about this singing business is that I have friends all over the world. And without singing, I wouldn't have that."
Ms. Jones, a native of Aiken, S.C., grew up in New York, where her parents encouraged her singing. At 15, she lost a talent contest, but pianist-bandleader Buddy Johnson hired her anyway. In 1944, she made her first recording, for composer-critic Leonard Feather.
Through the 1940s, she recorded with clarinetist Barney Bigard, guitarist Kenny Burrell and vibraphonist Milt Jackson, among others. She became a vocalist for three years with legendary pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines.
Beginning in 1952, she tried to carve a solo career but had to work as an elevator operator, a seamstress and an album stuffer to make ends meet. Then came "Don't Go to Strangers."
She worked for the Prestige label during the next five years and then toured Japan with drummer-bandleader Art Blakey in 1970. She made many recordings for the Muse label from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s, when she became affiliated with its successor firm, HighNote.
During the past decade, she performed with pianist Benny Green and blues pianist and singer Charles Brown.
"When I first started, I had to do some songs I didn't care for, but now I more or less sing what I want to sing," she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1993. "I want a good lyric. I don't want nonsense. I like heavy dramatic tunes -- a tune that's saying something, like Sammy Cahn's 'All the Way.' "
She received the Eubie Blake Jazz Award and the International Women in Jazz Foundation's lifetime achievement award.
Survivors include her husband, John Medlock of Washington; two sisters; and a granddaughter.
A daughter from a previous marriage predeceased her.
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19 (AP) ù Joe Lubin, who wrote numerous songs for popular Doris Day movies during the 1960's and later wrote "Tutti Frutti" with Little Richard, died on Oct. 9. He was 84.
Born in London, Mr. Lubin began his career as a teenager under the guidance of the composer Noel Gray. With songs like "The Shoemaker's Serenade," "I Keep Forgetting to Remember" and "Till Stars Forget to Shine," he became one of England's most successful songwriters during World War II.
After coming to the United States in 1947, he wrote songs recorded by Pat Boone, Bob Hope, Petula Clark, Denny Vaughn and Lainie Kazan, among others.
In the 1960's he began writing music for Ms. Day, including title songs for the films "Teacher's Pet," "Move Over Darling," "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "The Glass Bottom Boat." During the 70's he composed for the television series "Bonanza" and "High Chaparral."
The Rev. Howard Finster, Georgia Folk Artist, Dies at 84
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Howard Finster, a Baptist preacher whose evangelical faith, outgoing personality and compulsive work habits made him one of the most prominent and prolific folk artists of the 20th century, died yesterday in a hospital in Rome, Ga. He was 84 and lived in Summerville, Ga., a few miles from the Paradise Garden, the junk-and-cement environment that brought him his first recognition in the middle 1970's.
His death was announced on his Web site, www.finster.com, and on his phone message at 1-800-FINSTER. Both said that "he is more alive now than he ever has been" and that "he never met a person that he didn't love."
By the time he died, Mr. Finster, who called himself a "second Noah," was a celebrity in his own right. He played his banjo on Johnny Carson's television show, designed an award- winning record album cover for the Talking Heads and executed paintings to hang in the Library of Congress. He appeared at folk music festivals, a conference on Elvis and art schools around the country.
Lee Kogan, director of the Folk Art Institute at the American Museum of Folk Art, called him "one of the most important self-taught artists of the 20th century" and cited his ability to "imaginatively transform humble everyday material others would call junk." She noted that a wire construction of a train in the museum's collection includes a long written list of possible art materials that begins, "There is no limit what you can make with fence wire, yard chairs, tables, houses. . . ."
A list of the detritus that went into Mr. Finster's Paradise Garden, located 90 miles northwest of Atlanta, would probably fill a book. The other cornerstone of his fame is his densely apocalyptic text-image paintings, which he seemed to produce at assembly-line rates. Their lush, extravagantly crowded surfaces form latter-day illuminated manuscripts and cover subjects that include heaven and hell, tales from the Bible and American history and popular culture.
But his prominence was certainly aided by his stream-of-consciousness talk, his combination of modesty and absolute certainty in both his faith and his talent, and his nonstop religious visions. He claimed to have had his first at the age of 3 when he was visited by his dead sister, Abby.
Mr. Finster's work emerged at a time when traditional definitions of folk art were being expanded to include a diverse range of faith-driven, stylistically raw work known as outsider art that was frequently made by Southern blacks and whites who eked out livings as farmers or repairmen. Mr. Finster both benefited from and helped define this change.
While other outsider giants like Martin Ramirez, Bill Traylor and Henry Darger were discovered after their deaths, Mr. Finster was very much alive. He reveled in the attention, seeing it as a means to spread the word of God.
He once told an interviewer that he was drawn to Elvis Presley not so much for his music but because "he could have won more souls than anybody in the world."
His work also dovetailed with developments in contemporary art, specifically the return of figurative painting in the 1980's.
Mr. Finster was born in 1916 in Valley Head, Ala., one of the 13 children of Samuel and Lula A. Finster. He left school at 14 after completing the sixth grade and became a Baptist preacher two years later. In 1935 he married Pauline Freeman, who survives him along with four daughters, Earlene Brown, Gladys Wilson and Beverly Finster, all of Summerville, and Thelma Bradshaw of Conyers, Ga.; a son, Roy Finster, of Summerville; and 15 grandchildren, more than 20 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Over the next three decades he toured Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee preaching at tent revivals and conducting baptisms, weddings and funerals. In an effort to reach more people, he published his sermons in local newspapers at his own expense. He also began to write poetry, both about preaching and about his job in a fabric mill.
In 1941 he settled with his family in Trion, Ga., supporting them by doing carpentry, plumbing and even house building, as well as Finster's Arts & Crafts, which produced "family picture" clocks by the hundreds. He also began repairing and rebuilding bicycles to sell cheaply to families that could not afford new ones.
His art evolved organically out of his activities as a preacher and his growing body of self-taught artisanal knowledge. His first combinations of words and images occurred in the blackboard diagrams that he made while teaching Sunday school and called "chalkwork."
He began to build his first garden museum in Trion in 1945. In 1961 he bought land in Pennville, Ga., just outside Summerville, and began constructing the Paradise Garden. Over an infrastructure of bicycle frames, he fashioned a concrete surface of sculptured faces, figures and animals and expanses of exuberant mosaic incorporating bottle caps, jewelry, glass, machine parts, dashboard figures, even his son's tonsils in a jar.
In 1981 Mr. Finster expanded the garden in an adjacent lot with an abandoned church, converting the structure into the World's Folk Art Church by adding a 16-sided cupola that he built without plans. By the late 1970's, the garden was a pilgrimage for folk-art groupies and religious believers alike, the East Coast equivalent of Simon Rodia's great Watts Towers in Los Angeles.
Mr. Finster began to paint in 1976 after an image appeared on his thumb while he was painting a bicycle. His paintings, which have the same crowded lushness as the garden and are more intricately interwoven with language, were not limited to flat surfaces, but spread across objects, like shoes, metal barrels, gourds, even his white Cadillac.
Mr. Finster had his first solo show in a commercial gallery at Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago in 1979, and another at Ms. Kind's New York gallery in 1981. His work is in the collections of dozens of museums.
Until slowed by illness and rheumatism, Mr. Finster worked incessantly, carefully numbering each effort. A 1995 article in The New York Times began by noting that he was finishing up his 36,892nd piece of art. He said he slept in his clothes and subsisted on 20-minute naps, working around the clock.
In a 1989 monograph by J. F. Turner, Mr. Finster said he did not fear death. "Death is not my problem. My problem is getting all my jobs done well before I leave, for I know there's nothing to do in the holy land where I am going."
I've got another Tak Shindo LP called "Sea Of Spring" which has a similar sound to the tracks Shindo did for "The Yellow Unicorn" It's not as essential as "Mganga" but well worth having.
Those interested in Lai should visit his official site at:
http://www.francis-lai.com/lai/eng/homeus.html
At the site is this news:
We are pleased to announce that the official release of the complete works of Francis Lai is due in April 2001. You may now view the complete list of songs, film soundtracks, television or film themes that will be included in this special edition of 15 CDs.
Does anyone recall some weird rumors about Lai's actual musical abilities? I seem to recall some scuttlebutt that he could only whistle a melody line - it was his "arranger" who composed the music. After this arranger died, Lai would still take on commissions but never deliver any music. Am I inventing this memory? Has anyone else ever heard this??
Lou
Clayton Black <clayton.black@washcoll.edu> wrote:
>
Are
>> there other greats by Lai or does this pretty much exhaust the good stuff by
>> him?
>
> Are you kidding?
>
Unfortunately, I'm not kidding. All I've ever seen have been Live for Life
and A Man and a Woman, and he doesn't generate as much discussion as people
like Morricone or Umiliani, and certainly not Les Baxter, so I'm looking for
enlightenment. I take it the other stuff is hard to come by? El Maestro's
post leads me to think that I may never see another Lai album unless I'm
really lucky. But at least I'm glad to know that there's yet another
treasure trove out there waiting for me to discover.
Clayton
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AMG EXPERT REVIEW: One of vibraphonist Gary Burton's most intriguing recordings, A Genuine Tong Funeral (Carla Bley's suite which musically depicts attitudes toward death) was called by its composer a "Dark Opera Without Words." Burton's classic Quartet (which also includes guitarist Larry Coryell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bob Moses) is augmented by six notable all-stars: soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trumpeter Mike Mantler, Gato Barbieri on tenor, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, Howard Johnson on tuba and baritone and Bley herself on piano and organ. The music is dramatic, occasionally a little humorous, and a superb showcase for Gary Burton's vibes. ù Scott Yanow
1. The Opening (Bley) - 1:27
2. Interlude: Shovels - :43
3. The Survivors (Bley) - :34
4. Grave Train - 3:57
5. Death Rolls (Bley) - 1:34
6. Morning, Pt. 1 (Bley) - 1:42
7. Interlude: Lament/Intermission Music (Bley) - 4:28
8. Silent Spring (Bley) - 8:00
9. Fanfare - :40
10. Mother of the Dead Man (Bley) - 2:14
11. Some Dirge (Bley) - 7:49
12. Morning, Pt. 2 - 1:19
13. The New Funeral March - 2:43
14. The New National Anthem [*] (Bley) - 5:54
15. The Survivors [*] (Bley) - :48
16. Lofty Fake Anagram: June 15, 1967 - 4:55
17. Feelings and Things [*] (Bley) - 4:09
18. Fleurette Africaine [*] (Bley) - 3:43
19. I'm Your Pal (Swallow) - 3:07
20. Lines [*] (Bley) - -5:-3
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Q: What is the best way to clean really dirty old records?
A: The purist, or someone with many records to deal with, should investigate the various wet/vacuum record cleaners from Nitty Gritty, VPI, or The Audio Advisor. Although the cost of these machines is high, users are uniformly positive about them.
A description of "archivally correct" storage and cleaning of sound recordings can be found at:
However, people on a budget or with more casual needs usually do fine washing records in the kitchen sink with dish soap and a clean sponge. Tap water in many areas can leave behind a "crunchy" mineral residue when it evaporates, so give a final rinse in distilled water--or at least be vigilant in shaking and blotting away any water droplets clinging to the disk.
---------
I use a VPI 16.5 with the VPI cleaning fluid, no alcohol added. This is the greatest sound system upgrade I've ever made -- not even a new stylus produces as much of a sonic improvement.
The Disc Doctor's products (http://discdoc.com/) are also highly recommended.
And a carbon fibre brush is an excellent investment as well:http://www.sleevetown.com/vinyl-cleaning.shtml
Lou
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Subject: Re: Re: (exotica) water, water everywhere
Date: 24 Oct 2001 17:57:31 -0400
paul dean <epauldean@home.com> wrote:
> The cleaning fluid for VPIs and Nitty Grittys are both pretty expensive;
I've heard from people who always cut it with distilled water. But my point
is . . . does anyone know what's in the "real" juice?
And are there any other recipes out there?
-----------
You want to go to:http://www.laventure.net/tourist/pvx.htm
and order this issue of Primyl Vinyl:VOL 2 #1 - Do It Yourself vacuum record cleaning machines under $50./ Ten Home brew cleaning formulas
Essentially, cleaning fluids include distilled water, oil soluble surfactants and water soluble surfactants to dissolve oil, grease and dirt. There's a tendency now to stay away from alcohol, which can leach out crucial components of the vinyl's structure.
Here's what one archive recommends:
The Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) recommends the use of nonionic, ethelyne oxide condensates surfactants to clean sound recordings. The CCI does not foresee long-term problems associated with the use of nonionic surfactants such as Tergitol. Tergitol 15-S-3 is an oil soluble surfactant and 15-S-9 is a water soluble surfactant. Combined they remove a wide range of dirt and greases and can safely be used on sound recordings. Use 0.25 part of Tergitol 15-S-3 and 0.25 parts of Tergitol 15-S-9 per 100 parts of distilled water. (These products are available in small quantities from TALAS (Division of Technical Library Service Inc) 213 West 35th Street, New York, N.Y. (212) 465-8722. http://talasonline.com/) The recording must then be rinsed thoroughly with distilled water to eliminate any trace of detergent residue.
-------
As you can see, it doesn't take a lot of the surfactant added to the distilled water in order to produce a safe and effective cleaner.
Lou
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Subject: Re: Re: (exotica) water, water everywhere
Date: 24 Oct 2001 17:57:31 -0400
paul dean <epauldean@home.com> wrote:
> The cleaning fluid for VPIs and Nitty Grittys are both pretty expensive;
I've heard from people who always cut it with distilled water. But my point
is . . . does anyone know what's in the "real" juice?
And are there any other recipes out there?
-----------
You want to go to:http://www.laventure.net/tourist/pvx.htm
and order this issue of Primyl Vinyl:VOL 2 #1 - Do It Yourself vacuum record cleaning machines under $50./ Ten Home brew cleaning formulas
Essentially, cleaning fluids include distilled water, oil soluble surfactants and water soluble surfactants to dissolve oil, grease and dirt. There's a tendency now to stay away from alcohol, which can leach out crucial components of the vinyl's structure.
Here's what one archive recommends:
The Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) recommends the use of nonionic, ethelyne oxide condensates surfactants to clean sound recordings. The CCI does not foresee long-term problems associated with the use of nonionic surfactants such as Tergitol. Tergitol 15-S-3 is an oil soluble surfactant and 15-S-9 is a water soluble surfactant. Combined they remove a wide range of dirt and greases and can safely be used on sound recordings. Use 0.25 part of Tergitol 15-S-3 and 0.25 parts of Tergitol 15-S-9 per 100 parts of distilled water. (These products are available in small quantities from TALAS (Division of Technical Library Service Inc) 213 West 35th Street, New York, N.Y. (212) 465-8722. http://talasonline.com/) The recording must then be rinsed thoroughly with distilled water to eliminate any trace of detergent residue.
-------
As you can see, it doesn't take a lot of the surfactant added to the distilled water in order to produce a safe and effective cleaner.
Lou
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George Feyer, Cafe Pianist and Entertainer, Dies at 92
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
George Feyer, a gifted pianist and delightfully versatile entertainer who charmed Manhattan cafe society at the Carlyle, Stanhope and Waldorf-Astoria hotels for three decades, died on Sunday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 92 and lived in Manhattan.
Mr. Feyer mixed an education in classical music with a love of pop, then added a dash of his Maurice Chevalier singing voice and a spicy pinch of topical comment to concoct an entertainment cocktail to amuse his sophisticated audiences.
Among Mr. Feyer's witty specialties was linking pop lyrics to classical tunes, mixing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," for example.
Mr. Feyer was born in Budapest on Oct. 27, 1908. His mother, a piano teacher, tied his legs to the piano bench to force him to practice, Mr. Feyer's son, Robert, said. Mr. Feyer nonetheless went on to become a brilliant student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where one of his classmates was Georg Solti, the conductor, who became a lifelong friend.
He then disappointed teachers and others who expected him to follow a classical career by turning to pop music after his graduation in 1932. His son said his decision was treated as a minor scandal at the time.
One of his first jobs was playing the accompaniment for silent movies, but he soon graduated to nightclubs. He and his partner, a drummer, began working around Europe. In Paris one of their fans was the exiled Duke of Windsor; he liked accordion music, and the two drew straws to see who would learn to play the instrument. Mr. Feyer won; the drummer had to learn the accordion.
He made many recordings, mainly on the Vox label in the mid-1950's, his son said. His "Echoes" album series included "Echoes of Paris" and "Echoes of Broadway."
"If there is any originality in my arrangements, it lies in the fact that they do not try to be original," he wrote in an essay. "They are based on the eternal laws of music, which apply equally whether you play classical or popular, Mozart or Jerome Kern, Brahms or Johann Strauss."
PARIS, Oct. 25 (AP) ù Princess Soraya Esfandiari Bakhtiari, the second wife of the former shah of Iran, has died in Paris, a former Iranian official close to the family said today. She was 69.
She died in her Paris apartment, according to a former minister of the shah, A. M. Madjidi. The cause and day of death were unclear.
The princess was born on June 22, 1932, to a German mother and a father who was a member of Iran's powerful Bakhtiari family.
She married Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi on Feb. 12, 1951, after his divorce from Princess Fawzia, sister of King Farouk of Egypt, who had had no sons who could have inherited the throne.
In 1958, the shah divorced Soraya after they failed to have children. Though she lost the title of empress, the shah conferred on her the title of "royal princess" at the time of the divorce.
He later married a French-educated architecture student, Farah, who became empress, bearing two sons and two daughters in their two-decade marriage.
The shah died of cancer in 1980 after being swept from the throne by the Islamic revolution. One of the shah's daughters, Leila, 31, died in London in June from a drug overdose.
Soraya never remarried. She traveled extensively in Europe, aspiring at one point to a movie career.
The story of her divorce inspired a French songwriter, Franτoise Mallet-Jorris, to write "Je Veux Pleurer Comme Soraya" ("I Want to Cry Like Soraya"). The former empress published an autobiography in 1991, "Le Palais des Solitudes" ("The Palace of Solitudes").
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Serge Gainsbourg has several songs with loud moaning (don't know if someone has mentioned the epic Love on the Beat).
Also the new Stereo Total record (I saw them live at the Knitting Factory and they were GREAT!!!) has a couple of songs with moaning, but these are fun and smiley moans, nothing like Love on the Beat -where you begin to think that someone was being ripped apart. The two songs are in fact the same one (about the pleasures to be had when three people share a bed), only that one of them has French and the other English vocals.
By the way, the new record is called Musique Automatique, it is great as ever and I think it's available now in the US.
Bye,
Manuel
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> This week's upload is Chiitra Neogy's sensuous reading of The Perfumed
> Garden.
>
> Enjoy the entire LP here:
>
> http://basichip.com/album/album.htm
Thanks for another edition of UotW. I already scared my girlfriend away with the "content" of this album. She thought it's horrible. I thought it's cute, although I'm not sure how to react, if exposed in reality to a girl like that. Looks like your upload specials are dedicated to word music however...
--Mo
...........................
studio «
http://moritzR.de
exotica@web.de
............................
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> Am listening to a few of his LP's on the net at work - interesting stuff with a lot of samples from obscure exotica/rockabilly (some *really* obscure rockabilly).............
>
> Any comments on this guy?
I think a few people here (inc. me) liked the SuperModified LP when it
came out. along with The Cinematic Orchestra, he's better than most of
those sort of Ninja Tune types
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