GA Russell

Dalton was my favorite too. I haven't seen any since Goldeneye. I guess that was about ten years ago.

Sid Feller has died. Here's the obit from today's LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...news-obituaries Sidney H. Feller, 89; Producer-Arranger Helped Create Rich Orchestral Sound for Ray Charles By Valerie J. Nelson, Times Staff Writer Sid Feller, a producer and arranger who helped create the rich, orchestral big band sound for Ray Charles that resulted in such hits as "Georgia on My Mind" and "I Can't Stop Loving You," has died. He was 89. Feller, who had a history of heart trouble, died Feb. 16 at his home in the Cleveland suburb of Orange Village, said his daughter, Debbie Feller Glassman. From the moment they stepped into a recording studio in 1959, Feller and Charles clicked. Their musical partnership lasted 30 years and resulted in hundreds of songs. Feller also regularly toured with Charles as a conductor. "When they were working together, they were soul brothers," Michael Lydon, author of the 1998 biography "Ray Charles: Man and Music," told The Times. "Musically, Sid and Ray understood each other perfectly." Charles, famous for being prickly about his music, "just adored" Feller, said David Ritz, who co-wrote Ray's 1978 autobiography, "Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story." "Ray told me that 'Sid Feller is as close as I'm ever going to come to having a Jewish mother.' That's how Sid was — very warm and patient," Ritz said. In a 2002 interview with Billboard magazine, Charles said of Feller, "That's my angel. He … knew exactly what I wanted …. [and] how to make them strings cry." Charles' improvisational flourishes were, in reality, carefully orchestrated. "Ray and I had worked out the charts weeks before, and Ray didn't change a note," Feller recalled in "Ray Charles: Man and Music." "Take after take, he'd sob and crack his voice in the same places." Sidney Harold Feller was born Dec. 24, 1916, in New York City, one of three children of Michael Feller, an Austrian Jew who sold citrus fruit in a downtown market, and his wife, Riva. While a Boy Scout, Feller learned to play trumpet and performed in New York City and the Catskills. The piano entered his life through a third-floor window after his mother agreed to have one hoisted into his family's Brooklyn apartment. A friend helped him learn music theory, but he was self-taught as an arranger. He was taking trumpet lessons in 1938 when he spotted Gertrude Hager, a 16-year-old chorus girl. They got married three years later while Feller was learning to become a bandleader at Army music school at Ft. Knox, Ky. In 1951, he became a conductor and arranger for Capitol Records and made his reputation arranging easy-listening music for Jackie Gleason. Instead of creating a standard big band sound with strings, Feller used orchestral touches and interesting melodic lines, Lydon said. Oboes were a signature touch. At Capitol and ABC Records beginning in 1955, Feller also worked with Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Paul Anka, guitarist Charlie Byrd and Woody Herman's big band. He had few writing credits but received one for "You Can't Say No in Acapulco" for the 1963 Elvis Presley movie "Fun in Acapulco." In 1965, Feller moved to Los Angeles to work as a freelance arranger and producer, including arranging music for NBC's "The Flip Wilson Show" (1970 to 1974). He also worked with jazz singer Nancy Wilson and with Eddie Fisher. In an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in the 1970s, Paul McCartney was asked which covers of his music he most liked. "He said, 'I love Sid Feller's arrangements of 'Yesterday' and 'Eleanor Rigby' for Ray Charles,' " recalled Tony Gumina, president of the Cleveland-based Ray Charles Marketing Group. Feller moved to Camarillo in 1977 and retired from arranging in the late 1980s. He no longer kept a piano in his house, which baffled Charles. "How could someone with such music in him just stop?" Charles asked Lydon. With his health failing — he had a quadruple bypass in the late 1990s — Feller and his wife moved to Ohio to live with his daughter Debbie. At a screening of the 2004 biographical movie "Ray," Feller cried throughout because he felt Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance brought his friend back to life. Charles had died four months before the movie's release. Eight of the 17 soundtracks on "Ray" credited Feller as producer. Recently, Feller's conducting baton — and a photograph of him with Charles — became part of the Smithsonian Institution's permanent collection. In addition to his wife and his daughter Debbie, Feller is survived by two other daughters, Lois of Northridge and Jane Toland of Loyalton, Calif.; a son, Bill, of Cotati, Calif.; a brother; and five grandchildren.

Congrats guys!

Happy Birthday!

Nat Cole had a daily weekday morning show. I remember my mom never missed it.

Happy Birthday!

When I ws a pre-schooler we lived in Boston, and I remember my dad watching the Red Sox games on TV with Curt Gowdy announcing. Later I was an AFL fan, and having moved to New Orleans we saw the Houston Oilers games every week with Curt Gowdy and Paul Chrisman. Chrisman is still my favorite analyst. In the 70s I lived in Pittsburgh, and Gowdy called the Steelers games each week with Al DeRogatis, as Chris Olivarez mentioned. DeRogatis was the most unpopular announcer in Pittsburgh at the time. The callers of the radio talk shows couldn't stand him! And of course, I remember all the World Series Gowdy called. I remember that Charlie Finley once complained about Gowdy, saying that it was obvious that he still rooted for the Red Sox. I didn't watch The American Sportsman. But it appeared to me that they didn't have any trouble getting celebrities to sign up for a fishing trip with Curt Gowdy!

My copy arrived in the mail the other day. This is a boatload of good music for the price of one CD. It sounds fine to my ears, but I don't see any reference to K2 mastering, as was suggested above. The liner notes say that The Prelude was a Harlem nightclub. The first CD has all eight songs of the first set and the first three of the second set, totalling 72 minutes. The second CD has the remaining four songs of the second set and all seven songs of the third set, totalling 66 minutes. Garland wrote two numbers, both blues. All the others are standards, either jazz standards or Great American Songbook standards. When I get a multi-CD set, I usually like to focus on one CD at a time. That is, I listen to one for six months or so, and then listen to the next. In this case, I think I will burn three CDs, one for each set. That will make it like the Japanese issue. I'll focus on the first set for the next few months. When I first got into jazz, my first two LPs were piano trios by Ramsey Lewis and Ray Bryant. This set is better than those, but it sort of carries me back to that time. I wouldn't say that this is indespensible or anything like that. It's just good music. This will make a nice change of pace after listening to a few 60s Blue Notes in a row. Also good for listening in the car, I expect.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Garth, perhaps apropos of what you are saying, I listened to JuJu more than any other album last year, and I always found that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. I enjoyed that album more than I enjoyed any of its songs individually.

Jim, I don't know what Feinery's connection with Concord is. It may be an ownership issue, or it may be just distribution. Whatever it is, I bet it is the same situation as Concord's relationship with Chick Corea's Stretch Records. Some time ago, maybe fifteen years ago, I saw in the store a Doris Day CD that featured songs from movies like Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back. In other words, early 60s material. From time to time I have wished that I had picked it up, but never so much that I would go to the effort of ordering it online (if I could ever find it). Bright Moments, thanks for posting that. One of these days I'm going to have to learn how to do that! I've read that it's easy with Firefox, which is what I use.

Not long ago my girl friend informed me that she went to high school with Michael Feinstein. They didn't know each other. He was two years ahead of her. But she said that everyone knew him because he was in all the school musicals. So now Feinstein has his own record label, called Feinery. And Feinery has obtained and issued an album recorded by Doris Day in 1967 called The Love Album. Day had just left Columbia after 20 years when she recorded this. As I recall she regularly put out albums for Columbia, but I never got a sense of how well they sold. I never liked Columbia's 60s adult pop recordings, because the arrangements were always too sappy. Not long ago, I read that Frank Sinatra felt the same way, so that made me feel like my opinion was validated! The Love Album was not released when it was recorded. In the 90s it was made available in Germany and England, but this is its first release in the US. There are 14 tracks totalling 43 minutes. All of the songs except Sentimental Journey are quiet. Only one song is a nod to the times, Both Sides Now. The string arrangements are by Sid Feller, who also worked with Ray Charles. I like the sound of them. They are not sappy, and they remind me of the albums Julie London recorded in the 60s. I'm of the school that says that the great ones make it look easy. That's why I like Julie London so much. No Aretha Franklin or Celine Dion for me. In this album, Day sings effortlessly. She has a very small warble in her voice which I could do without. She was 43 when she recorded this, and perhaps the warble is a result of age. This is my first Doris Day album, so I can't compare it to anything. Because of Day's warble, I prefer Julie London to this. But if you like London like I do, you might want to try this album for more of the same by a different singer. edit for typo

I agree, but I have a copy of the Torme Verve compilation Finest Hour that I haven't heard yet. I believe that his Verve albums were often with Marty Paich as his Bethlehems were.

Happy Birthday!

Uh oh. Those are all Concord/Fantasy titles. I had mentioned earlier that I have not noticed any new Concord/Fantasy titles being added since Concord bought Fantasy. One thing that Concord did was retain a different distributor. It looks to me like this new distributor is going to discontinue Concord/Fantasy's relationship with BMG/Your Music. Hope I'm wrong!

And speaking of death wish, I suppose you saw that the amateurs of American Idol clobbered in the Nielsen ratings the "stars" on the Grammy Awards show. Our discussion on the Grammy show was about how bad it was. But for American Idol to do so well suggests to me tht most Americans didn't bother to tune in to the Grammys in the first place. The people are speaking, and they don't want the stars even for free, apparently.

Chet had one hit with this studio band - a cover of the Statler Brothers' Flowers on the Wall. I remember Dick Clark playing that song once on American Bandstand, and saying "Chet Baker" as if everyone had heard of him. LOL! Only kids watched that show, and we didn't know Chet Baker. Anyway, I have two of the LPs you listed, both of which I picked up used for a buck - Hats Off!! and In the Mood. In answer to your question, yes, they are just Herb Alpert ripoffs. But in my view they are excellent rip offs. They are adult pop music, not jazz. They get sneered at because they are what they are, not because they were done poorly. If you like Herb Alpert and Chris Botti, I think you will like these too. edit: By the way, another song, included on In the Mood I think, became more widely known than Flowers on the Wall, and that is the closing theme to The Dating Game, which as I recall was written by Chuck Barris.

Thanks Ron!

Congratulations Duke City!

Sal, tell us more! When was it recorded? Who's on it?

But the climate is always changing, isn't it? It's either getting warmer over the long term or getting colder, right? My understanding is that the real dispute is over the extent to which the change is accelerated and increased by man's actions. And from what I read there is no consensus among the scientists. There are plenty on the pro side and plenty on the con side. Most of the talk seems to come from the politicians, not the scientists. That said, it is my opinion that there wouldn't be pollution if somebody weren't making millions of dollars by creating it. edit for typo

Thanks for that!

CD #3 of the Miles 65-68 Quintet box.