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."
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Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 10:40:16 -0400
From: lousmith@pipeline.com
Subject: (exotica) [obit] Princess Soraya
October 26, 2001
Princess Soraya, Shah's Wife, Dies at 69
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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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Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:30:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: chuck <chuckmk@yahoo.com>
Subject: (exotica) Stuck in Houston
I'm in Houston for a while and want to thrift, go to record stores
or enjoy a cool spot, preferably Tiki if I get a chance. Any
