Cicely Tyson has Passed

[sgcim]

40 minutes ago, Al in NYC said:

A truly great actress RIP.  I was fortunate enough to see her in her late career Tony-winning star turn in Trip to Bountiful on Broadway.  She was indeed amazing and touching in a role that put her on stage for about 2 hours straight at 88. 

As for the Miles connection, a close friend of my parents who was not a jazz fan but knew Cicely Tyson well through her work in the civil rights movement always referred to Miles as "that awful little man", and said of their marriage "I have no idea why she married him, I don't know why anyone even likes him".

Further into Ms. Tyson's connection to jazz, she can be seen on Sunday night 1/31 on TCM in an extensive early film role in the pretty strange 1966 jazz movie A Man Called Adam.  Starring Sammy Davis Jr. as a rather Milesesque character, with a supporting cast of Louis Armstrong, Ossie Davis, Frank Sinatra Jr., Mel Torme, Kai Winding, Peter Lawford, and Lola Falana, a Benny Carter score, and Sammy's trumpeting dubbed by Nat Adderley.  Crazy baby.

Yeah, she was great in that movie! Great B&W cinematography, and some wild dialogue and acting. I wonder if Miles ever had to get on his knees and crawl to a booking agent like Sammy Davis Jr. did in that flick?

It is believed that the scene where SD Jr. completely freaked out and started playing loud wrong notes and then started banging the hell out of his trumpet, inspired both the free jazz movement of the 60s, and Peter Townshend and Jimi Hendrix's destruction of their instruments at the Monterey Pop Festival...

Great story of that "awful little man" by your parent's friends!

[BFrank]

On 1/30/2021 at 0:04 PM, Al in NYC said:

Further into Ms. Tyson's connection to jazz, she can be seen on Sunday night 1/31 on TCM in an extensive early film role in the pretty strange 1966 jazz movie A Man Called Adam.  Starring Sammy Davis Jr. as a rather Milesesque character, with a supporting cast of Louis Armstrong, Ossie Davis, Frank Sinatra Jr., Mel Torme, Kai Winding, Peter Lawford, and Lola Falana, a Benny Carter score, and Sammy's trumpeting dubbed by Nat Adderley.  Crazy baby.

Caught part of that film tonight. Both Sammy and Frank Jr portrayed trumpeters. Interesting film and cast.