duaneiac

Yes. https://books.google.com/books?id=EgdwSa8x1sQC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=lester+young+kay+starr&source=bl&ots=8wW6pk6W55&sig=nLTSVUjNbfRFdRbPLc-1HfxwyKQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi664uOzI_QAhVqw1QKHYGNAKsQ6AEILjAE#v=onepage&q=lester%20young%20kay%20starr&f=false

Singer Kay Starr passed away yesterday at age 94 as reported in the New York Times: Ms. Starr, whose career began when she was a teenager and continued into her 80s, was a rarity: a singer who blossomed in the big-band era of the 1930s and 1940s, hit it big as a pop and country artist, and scored one of her biggest hits in the emerging rock scene of the mid-1950s. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/arts/music/kay-starr-hillbilly-singer-with-crossover-appeal-dies-at-94.html

The man certainly deserves this honor for his songwriting. "The Tracks of My Tears" is as magnificent a pop music gem as one could ask for. In the 1960's he was just as influential a songwriter as Lennon-McCartney, although many music fans may not have realized it at the time since many of his compositions were recorded by other Motown artists instead of his own group. Plus he went on to write a song which became the standard for a new (at the time) radio format -- "Quiet Storm". Even his late period songs like "Being With You" and "One Heartbeat" are pretty darn good pop songs. His writing genius may not have been consistent over the later decades, but he did have his bouts of rewarding creativity. That's more than satisfactory. How much latter day writing by Paul McCartney or Van Morrison or Stevie Wonder is consistently good?

Some other worthy discs: I'm not sure if the following ever made it to CD: And if you want to hear Red Norvo's group accompanying a popular singer of the day:

An old-fashioned diversion from our present election woes. I'm still not a Frank Capra or Katharine Hepburn fan. For some reason, at the start of the film on DVD, the MGM logo is blacked out even though we can hear the lion's roar and only the Liberty Films logo appears after that. What's that about?

I don't think the Neophonic recordings or the Kenton/Tex Ritter album have ever been officially reissued by Capitol.

The young Humphrey Bogart was not a bad looking guy -- kind of darkly handsome. He wouldn't have made Clark Gable worry about losing his box-office appeal with the ladies, but he wasn't dog butt ugly . . . I think of Humphrey Bogart as a very good character actor who, through the sheer force of his screen personality, made himself a movie star. That is not meant as a put down, but rather a compliment because very few character actors have ever been able to pull off that feat.

But didn't guys like Art Pepper and Frank Morgan keep on playing in makeshift bands while in prison? They may have been out of the public eye, but the continued with their music. Gene Ammons had so much material recorded and kept on the shelf that the casual listener of the day may never have known he was, uh, "retired", since new Gene Ammons albums continued to come out.

Sometimes even young folks "disappear" for health reasons -- think of Pat Martino, Keith Jarrett and Fred Hersch who each had to take extended forced "retirements" from their music careers to recover from health issues. Not jazz related, but Glen Campbell's battle with Alzheimer's was sad to see, both on his final tour and in the documentary film that was made.

First time watching this classic. It's a shame that when most people think of "great film stars", the name "Charles Laughton" rarely comes up. He was a great actor for his era, but I guess lacked the movie star good looks that make the immortals immortal in our collective cultural memories. His performance here is truly unforgettable. The film is a glorious spectacle (1939 seems to have been a year for glorious film spectacles) and the b&w cinematography is marvelous. I've never seen the Disney animated musical version, but how in hell did they make a feelgood, family movie out of this grim, violent tale with a cast of thoroughly unlikable characters?

Kay Starr -- the last I heard from her was a track with Tony Bennett on one of his "duet" CDs last decade. I guess she's retired by now. She's 94 and certainly deserves to enjoy some retirement years. Hopefully "The Wheel Of Fortune" was good to her.

Kind of jazz related since she was once a big band singer is perhaps the most famous recluse since Howard Hughes --- Doris Day. She has been retired from music/show biz/public life for about 30 years, I guess. She did allow some photos to be taken on her 92nd birthday this year. She still looks good.

Terry Gibbs was one musician I was wondering about. I have not heard anything about him in a while (such as a new recording or appearing at a major jazz festival), but I don't know if he might have some steady local gig in L.A. or somewhere. I was wondering about Junior Mance as well. I know his last recording project was supposed to be his "last" one, but does he still tour & perform? I was wondering about Candido too. He's still alive and kicking (95!!!), but is he retired from music? One who, for me, retired far too soon was Esther Satterfield, the vocalist heard on some of Chuck Mangione's records. I have no idea if she is still alive or not. She completely disappeared once she decided to exit from the music biz.

I remember there was an announcement that Leon Redbone retired earlier this year. I think it was due to health issues. Nancy Wilson retired a few years ago. I'm not sure there was any formal announcement, but it has been years since I've seen any news of a performance by Keely Smith, so I assume she is retired. I hope she is in good health.

We jazz fans have been fortunate in that so many of the great musicians who have worked in this field are/were able to keep on working until very late in their lives, sometimes right up to the very end. So many jazz musicians have kept right on performing & recording into their 70's & 80's (and sometimes 90's) that we almost take it as a given that most of them, health permitting, will keep on keepin' on like that. Some musicians, though, do decide to retire whether it be for health reasons, weariness from being on the road or other personal reasons. Who are some of the veteran musicians still with us who have retired from public performance/recording? First one I can think of is Sonny Rollins, obviously. There is also Mose Allison. I think Eugene Wright is retired and I have heard the other long-time DBQ bassist, Michael Moore, is also retired. Who are some others? This thread is mainly about jazz musicians, but musicians you admire from other fields could also be included.

Just last week I was listening to this collection -- All songs from Liberty Records in 1962 and Bobby Vee figures prominently. Sad to hear about his five years with Alzheimer's. May he rest in peace.

Sorry. Looks like I'd have to have an account on that site in order to read the article.

I've been watching some episodes of the old Thriller series. It was an anthology series hosted by Boris Karloff. It started out presenting stories more in the intrigue/mystery/suspense field -- kind of like what you might have seen on Alfred Hitchcock's series at that time. The ratings were not so hot, so midway through the first season, they brought in some new producers and shifted the focus to stories of a more supernatural bent. The episode, Pigeons From Hell, is regarded as one of the best of the series. It was directed by John Newland, the creative force behind the series One Step Beyond. It has some very creepy/scary scenes (especially for primetime TV in 1961), but also some absolutely gorgeous b&w cinematography and masterful lighting techniques. These were skilled craftsmen to be able to create a high quality product like this in just 3 or 4 days of filming. The acting is pretty good too. If you do watch this, please do so late at night with all the lights turned off to get the best effect.

But in The Hand, Michael Caine's writer character has a hand dismembered in a freak accident and they are unable to find it to reattach it. Then the hand seemingly comes back on its own to create mayhem. I never got to see the end of that movie because the disc I got from Netflix was kinda scratched and it just froze while playing at some point. In The Hands of Orlac a murder is committed and the executed murderer's fingerprints are found at the scene of the crime. Who now has the hands which bear those fingerprints? Why, our ol' pal Orlac, of course . . . While looking for the image to post, I discovered there was a 1960 remake of The Hands of Orlac starring Mel Ferrer, Christopher Lee and Donald Pleasance. I wonder how that one is?

It's just your typical "concert pianist loses his hands in a train wreck and a doctor transplants the hands of a recently executed convicted murder onto the pianist's arms" story. Do the hands control the man or vice versa? The first third of the movie is really slow moving even by silent film standards -- how long did it take audiences to understand the concept of "establishing shot" anyway? The movie picks up the pace the rest of the way and leads to an unlikely melodramatic conclusion.

I wonder if there were similar controversies regarding playwrights who were awarded the Nobel Prize. Plays, like lyrics, are not meant to be read; they are meant to be performed. Plays, like lyrics, can be about an infinite number of topics: love, war, family, idealism, struggle, conflict, heartbreak, adventure, cruelty, faith, mystery, self-identity, mortality, etc. Yet plays are somehow considered literature and students from middle schools to universities are forced to read Shakespeare's plays (which has probably successfully turned more people off of theater than any other single action). I would venture to say, very, very few people read plays for pleasure or enlightenment. Our expectation is to see the playwright's words & characters brought to life on the stage -- even if it's only a select few who continue to go to the theater to see plays performed. Would not a bad staging/performance of a play possibly undercut the playwright's intent/meaning? Would that bad staging mean the playwright's work itself was substandard because it could not overcome the misfortune of a bad staging/performance? If it were truly world class literature, would not the intrinsic merits of the playwright's words/meaning rise above all other factors? A novel inhabits its own world on the page, but a play is trapped on the page until it can be realized, through an extensively cooperative effort, on the stage. A bad play cannot be redeemed by even the most creative staging (musicals are a whole different category; many lame musicals have thrived due in no small part to unique staging or an outstanding performance), but a good play can be harmed by inept staging/acting. If plays are considered literature, then why not screenplays? Certainly movies are far more important to our cultural lives now than plays or even books. The film version of a best selling/critically acclaimed book -- even one by a Nobel Prize winning author -- will very likely reach millions and millions more people than did the book upon which it was based. I wonder how many people have actually read Doctor Zhivago over the decades vs. how many have seen the film version? Perhaps the expectation for poetry is that, as literature, it is meant to live on the page. However, people have always gone to poetry readings and sometimes hearing an author read his/her own work provides a new insight into that work -- maybe a word or phrase is spoken with a certain emphasis or quietness by the poet which differs from how you yourself had read the poem on the page. Many people attend slam poetry performances, wherein the poems exist only as spoken words, not as items on a page. Should the artistic works of slam poets be considered literature even if there is no written documentation of their works? I guess the question comes down to what is literature today. Is literature something that is academically and critically lauded while it gathers dust on library shelves, largely removed from everyday lives of 99% of the world's population? Or is literature something which tries to engage people to think about some "big ideas" by using the communication means and vernacular with which they are familiar. I'm not arguing for the "dumbing down" of literature. Shakespeare wrote his plays using the communication means and vernacular of the people of his time and his work seems to still be well regarded. Bob Dylan is a writer who is very concerned with words. I'm not saying every song of his is a literary gem, but what writer can claim that his/her every work was a masterpiece? His best writing creates vivid images of characters, settings and experiences which, for me at least, ultimately fall within the realm of poetry. Whether it should be considered some of the best poetry in the world, I have no idea.

I ordered Vol. 1, but maybe I'll have to get Vol. 2 in the future.

I have ordered some Ace compilations dealing with the music of Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King and Jackie DeShannon. Look forward to hearing them.

Thanks for bringing these discs to our attention. I'm listening to the Bless You California disc right now and there is much to enjoy here. For me, what is particularly beneficial about compilations like this is that it not only sheds some light on lesser known works of Randy Newman, but that it also provides a glimpse into the pop music world of the 1960's. What most people today probably know about the music of the 1960's would be just the hits, but there was also the other world inhabited by the album tracks/singles that did not become hits. These songs were sometimes just "filler", but often they reflected what was going on in pop/rock music of the time and in many cases served as a kind of workshop to try out new things/styles/approaches which would go on to become the next "in" thing in pop music. There's quite a variety on this disc, ranging from Lou Rawls to Linda Ronstadt, from Peggy March to the Doobie Brothers. That speaks well of the craftsmanship of Mr. Newman as a songwriter and of the communicative qualities of his songs; they not only "spoke" to a wide array of performers, but these performers each found something within the songs that they felt they wanted to express to/share with their audiences.