BIRTHDAYS
1933     Luis Enriquez Bacalov, composer/arranger/conductor, b. San Martin, Argentina. AKA: Luis Bacalof, and sometimes as Luis Enriquez.
1948     David Berger, trumpet/bandleader/educator, b. New York, NY, USA. As a child, Berger played the trumpet. In the early 1960s, he studied at Berklee College Of Music, and after which he studied composition and arranging at Ithaca College, the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. He enlarged his trumpet playing skills with musicians such as Jimmy Maxwell and by the early 1970s he was playing in New York City bands led by Maxwell, Lee Castle and Mercer Ellington. He also spent time with Chuck Israels' National Jazz Ensemble. Berger is a largely overlooked educator, conductor, and composer of modern day Jazz and Swing music who deserves more recognition. He is recognized internationally as a leading authority on the music of Duke Ellington and the Swing era. From its inception in 1988 through 1994, Berger served as conductor and arranger for New York's 'Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra'. He has transcribed over 500 full scores of classic recordings, -including over 350 works by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. He has contributed music for Broadway and television shows, including "Sophisticated Ladies". For the films, he contributed music for "The Cotton Club" and "Brighton Beach Memoirs". Besides working with dozens of singers, bands, orchestras, he has also contributed to dance companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. His compositions and arrangements have been performed by such musicians as the 'Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band', Lee Konitz, Buddy Rich, Clark Terry, Stanley Turrentine and Wynton Marsalis and the 'Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra'. Berger's own "Sultan's Of Swing" band has performed in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Detroit. The band's 1998 release "Doin' The Do" featured saxophonist Jerry Dodgian, as well as female vocalist Arial Hendricks, the daughter of vocalist and songwriter Jon Hendricks of 'Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross fame'. Berger has taught at numerous learning academies including the Hartt College of Music, New York's The New School, William Patterson College, and the Manhattan School of Music. In 2001, he was appointed Professor of Composition and Arranging for the new Jazz Studies Program at Juilliard School of Music.
1935     Karl Berger, Vibes, composer, arranger, b. Heidelberg, Germany
1895     Amos Binkley, banjo, b. Cheatham County, TN, USA. d. October 1985. For some years, Amos and his brother Gale Binkley led the Grand Ole Opry string band called 'The Binkley Brothers Dixie Clodhoppers'. (Gale Binkley, fiddle, b. Cheatham County, TN, USA. d. April 1979). (They were the first group to record commercially in Nashville.)
1931     Harold Burrage, piano/songwriter, b. Chicago, IL, USA
1964     Tracy Chapman, singer-songwriter, b. Cleveland, OH, USA.
1945     Eric Clapton, guitar/vocals, b. Ripley, Surrey, England, UK, (R&R Hall of Fame.) Grammy Award winner
1903     Will Mercer Cook, (Afro-American) songwriter, b. Washington, D.C., USA.
1947     Marilyn Crispell, Piano, b. Philadelphia, PA, USA.
1950     John D'Earth, Trumpet, b. Holliston, MA, USA.
1968     Céline Dion, vocalist, b: Charlemagne, Montreal Island, Canada. The youngest in a family of 14 children, all musically talented (Celine also plays the piano). Her father, Adhemar, played accordion, and her mother, Therese, played violin in Le vieux Baril (The Old barrel), a piano-bar restaurant in her home town owned by her parents. Céline, At just age 5, was already singing in the establishment, where the townspeople called her "La P'tite Quebecoise" (the little Quebecer). At the age of 12, her mother sent a demo tape of Céline to artist's manager, René Angelil, then residing in Montreal René was very impressed, and even mortgaged his own home to pay for Céline's first two albums! René would not only continue to manage her career, but in 1994, the two were married. (René was 26 years her senior.) Céline made her professional debut on June 19, 1981 (at age 13), with a guest appearance on a Quebec talk-show, then hosted by Michel Jasmin. She sung "La Voix du Bon Dieu", a song composed for her (music and lyric) by Eddy Marnay. In December 1990, Céline, with some other associates, launched what would become a large chain of Nickel's Restaurants, mainly in the Quebec province. She and Rene own one, Some members of her family own one, and the remainder are franchised. She has since gone on to great international fame, -a Grammy Award winner, among other honors.
1935     John Charles Eaton, Piano, b. Philadelphia, PA, USA.
1941     Graeme Edge, drums, b. Rochester, Staffordshire, England. Member group: 'The Moody Blues'
1939     Don Edwards, C&W Singer/songwriter, b. Boonton, NJ, USA.
1956     Nick France, Drums, b. Standon, England
1940     Astrud Gilberto, vocals, b. Brazil, wife of Joao Gilberto - guitarist/composer. Her best: "Ipanema"
1949     Dana Gillespie, vocals, d. Woking, UK
1963     M. C. Hammer, vocals, d. Oakland, CA, USA. né: Stanley Kirk Burrell.
1930     Rolf Harris, vocals, b. Australia. Best recalled release: "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport"
1900     Ted Heath, Trombone/Leader, b. London, England, d. Nov. 18, 1969.
1948     Dave Hole, guitar, b. Heswall, Cheshire UK
1979     Norah Jones, vocalist/piano/composer, b. New York, NY, USA. This daughter of Sitar player Ravi Shankar grew up in Dallas, Texas with her mother. In 1996, while still attending high school, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Norah won the Down Beat Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Vocalist and Best Original Composition, and, in 1997, also earned a second Best Jazz Vocalist award. She then attended the University of North Texas for two years, studying Jazz piano. In 1999, a friend offered a summer sublet of an apartment in New York's Greenwich Village. She intended to return to college for the fall semester, but like a moth drawn to the flame, the lure of the folk coffeehouses and Jazz clubs of the big city proved irrestible. She was soon writing and singing her own songs. Jones appeared regularly with 'Wax Poetic', a funk-fusion band, and later assembled her own group that included songwriters Jesse Harris (guitar), and Lee Alexander (bass), with Dan Rieser on drums. She has had several recent (2002) releases on the 'Bluenote' label.
1913     Frankie Laine, Vocals, b. Chicago, IL, USA. d. Feb. 6, 2007, San Diego, CA, USA. (complications due to Hip replacement Surgery). Age: 93. né: Frank Paul LoVecchio. Laine first sang in the local church choir and was already performing professionally at the age of 15. He moved to nightclubs by his later high-school years, and began traveling around the country, performing as a singing waiter, dance instructor, and participating in Dance Marathons. In his later years, Laine told one interviewer that he first became excited about music when he listened to one of his mother's records on a windup Victrola: Bessie Smith singing "Bleeding Hearted Blues," with "Midnight Blues" on the flip side. It is little recalled now, but his early years were spent singing Jazz and Blues. In 1937, he replaced Perry Como in a regional big band led by Freddy Carlone. One night, composer Hoagy Carmichael was in the audience when Laine sang Carmichael's song "Rockin' Chair" It was Carmichael who found Laine a job at Hollywood's Vine Street Club and funded Laine's first recording session. However, it was arranger and A&R man Mitch Miller, who induced Laine into giving up Jazz for 'Popular' music. Miller produced most of Laine's hits in the 1940s and 1950s, including "Mule Train" and "That Lucky Old Sun." In 1945, he recorded "We'll Be Together" for Mercury Records. Two years later, "That's My Desire" hit number four in the American charts, and Laine re-entered the Top Ten in 1948 with "Shine." He hit the big time the following year, with two huge number one hits, "That Lucky Old Sun" and "Mule Train." Another chart-topper, 1950's "The Cry of the Wild Goose," was his last for Mercury, and he signed with Columbia just one year later. In all, Laine sold well over 100 million records and was hugely popular not only in the United States but in Britain and Australia.
1949     Lene Lovich, vocals, b. Detroit, MI, USA. née: Lili-Marlene Premilovich. Interestingly, both Suzi Quatro and Stevie Wonder were about the same age, and were also growing up in Detroit at the same time. Perhaps Lene's biggest hit was "New Toy" which was written by Thomas Dolby (b. Oct. 14, 1958, Cairo, Egypt, --who had played keyboards in her backing band. In the 1960s, her parents (Yugoslav and British) split up when her father (who was somewhat unstable) was threatening to take the family to Russia. Her mother took Lene and they settled in Hull, England. In Autumn 1968 Lene and long time friend (since teenage years) Les Chappell relocated to London to attend art school. That's where Lene first tied her hair into the plaits that would become her most famous visual trademark. (She did it to keep her hair out of the clay when studying sculpture.) In 1978, Lene signed with the influential new-wave label Stiff Records.
1948     Jim Mangrum, Piano/Keyboard/vocals, b. Black Oak, AR, USA. Member group: 'Black Oak Arkansas'.
1961     Tina May, Vocals, b. Gloucester, England
1983     Scott Moffatt, acoustic/electric guitar/vocals, b. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Member group: 'The Moffats'
1934     Lanny Morgan, Alto Sax, b. Des Moines, IA, USA.
1932     Marvin Pontiac, Is truth stranger than fiction. It has been variously reported that Pontiac was born "the son of an African father from Mali and a white Jewish mother from New Rochelle, New York." Some sources say he went insane after having been abducted and mind-probed by extra-terrestrial aliens, and he died in 1970 at the Esmerelda State Mental Institution in Detroit, Michigan. Other reports have him killed after being hit by a bus in June of 1977. For all the lurid details of Pontiac's life, please see our December 14, John Lurie, entry.
1957     Dave Stryker, guitar
1914     John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, blues vocals/guitar, b. Jackson, TN, USA, d. June 1, 1948, Chicago, IL, USA (killed during a robbery), Biggest hit: "Down & Out Blues"
1942     Bobby Wright, (C&W) vocals, b. Charleston, WV, USA. Talk of a musical family, his mother is Kitty Wells, and his father is Johnny Wright.
Notable Events occuring this date include:
1923.    New York City's 'Audubon Ballroom' was the scene of the first 'dance marathon'.
1978.    Larry Young, organ, died in New York, NY, USA. Age: 38
1981.    George J. Watts, guitar, died in Atlantic City, NJ, USA. Age: 24
1981.    Edith Wilson, vocals, died in Chicago, IL, USA. Age: 84
1995.    Rozelle Claxton, piano/arranger, died in Lake Forest, IL, USA. Age: 82
1995.    Paul Rothchild, producer, died in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Age: 59
Songs Recorded/Released this date include:
     1944 "I Love You", Enric Madriguera Orch.
     1944 "Mairzy Doats", Pied Pipers
     1959 "Happy Organ, The", Dave "Baby" Cortez,
     1959 "Fool Such As I, (Now And Then There's) A", Elvis Presley
     1959 "I Need Your Love Tonight", Elvis Presley
     1963 "Puff The Magic Dragon", Peter, Paul & Mary
     1968 "Honey", Bobby Goldsboro
     1974 "Loco-Motion, The", Grand Funk Railroad
     1974 "Dancing Machine", Jacksons
     1974 "Tubular Bells", Oldfield, Mike
     1985 "Some Like It Hot", Power Station
     1985 "Smooth Operator", Sade