WTIC Radio remembers Ray Conniff Choral Conductor

Ray recalls his early days in Boston playing trombone with the Society Bands, including Dan Murphy’s Musical Skippers, performing in New York with Bunny Berrigan, Artie Shaw, and Bob Crosby and his eventual glory years at Columbia records...

DOWNLOAD Webpage

SHOP Ray Conniff

WEB LINKS

birth anniversary conductor Ray Conniff

November 6, 2008... Ray would have been 92. In order to commemorate his birthday, watch YOUtube and sing along.
Joseph Raymond Conniff (November 6, 1916 - October 12, 2002) was an American musician. He was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and learned to play the trombone from his father. He studied music arranging from a course book.

Wiki Bio - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Ray Conniff

California Melodies 44

Faust Waltz
Amapola
I Guess It's Better That Way
MAXINE GRAY sings There'll Be Some Changes Made
Vienna Waltz
OFFENBACH Orpheus In The Underworld
MAXINE GRAY sings It All Comes Back to Me Now
Indefinate Ryhthm

Ray Ellis, conductor, has died

Conductor/arranger Ray Ellis, who arranged such classics as "Chances Are" by Johnny Mathis, "Splish Splash" by Bobby Darin and "Standing on the Corner" by the Four Lads, died Monday, 27 October 2008, in Encino of complications from melanoma. He was 85. During a career that spanned almost 65 years, the Philadelphia native also arranged for acts including Tony Bennett, Doris Day, the Drifters, Connie Francis, Judy Garland and Ray Price.

MORE - Wiki Bio - SHOP Ray Ellis

California Melodies 43

My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice
DELIUS Dance for Harpsichord
Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
Do I Worry? vocalist maxine Gray
Cari Mia Rhumba
RUBINSTEIN Melody in F
Come Down To Earth, My Angel Maxine Gray
Plantation Moods

Neal Hefti dies

Neal Hefti (born October 29, 1922, Hastings, Nebraska Died October 11, 2008)

...American jazz trumpeter, composer, tune writer, and arranger. He began arranging professionally in his teens, when he wrote charts for Nat Towles. He became a prominent composer and arranger while playing trumpet for Woody Herman; while working for Herman he provided new arrangements for "Woodchopper's Ball" and "Blowin' Up a Storm," and composed "The Good Earth" and "Wild Root." After leaving Herman's band in 1946, Hefti concentrated on arranging and composing, although he occasionally led his own bands. He is especially known for his charts for Count Basie such as "Li'l Darlin'" and "Cute". The wikipedia bio goes on...In the 1960s and later he composed and arranged mainly for movies and television. He wrote the background music for movies such as Sex and the Single Girl, How to Murder Your Wife, Synanon, Boeing Boeing, Harlow, Lord Love a Duck, Duel at Diablo, Oh Dad Poor Dad Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, and Barefoot in the Park. His best-known contributions of this period are the themes for the TV series Batman and The Odd Couple.

WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Neal Hefti

Tony Bennett Robert Farnon 'SNOWFALL' album

Tony Bennett says it was the genius of the late Toronto-born composer Robert Farnon that led to his long break from producing Christmas albums.
Bennett's new record "A Swingin' Christmas," being released this week, is just his second holiday album. The first was 1968's "Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album," and the iconic crooner says the 40-year gap is a result of Farnon's superb orchestrations on that disc...MORE - WEB - IMAGES - Available Here

Happy Birthday Nana Mouskouri

NANA MOUSKOURI born 12 or 13 OCTOBER 1934. The pop singer from Greece became an international singing sensation and is credited with selling more records worldwide than any other female singer. She recorded for Philips, Polydor. Nana Mouskouri (in Greek, Nάνα Μούσχουρη), born as Ioanna Mouskhouri, in Chania, Crete, Greece. She was known as Nana to her friends and family as a child. (Note that in Greek her surname is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable rather than the second.) She has recorded in many different languages, including Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Welsh, among others.

WEB - Wiki Bio - Shop: NANA MOUSKOURI - IMAGES -

David Rose ' California Melodies 42 '

Juanita
Years From Now
SIBELIUS: Valse Triste
Cantcha Tell with vocalist Maxine Gray
La Paloma
Ruby
Frenesi with Maxine Gray
Opus 6, Number 6 aka Jitterbug Fantasie

Tuxedo Junction Juke Box Pages

George Spink's handy guide to the 12 Juke Box podcast pages he has completed on his Tuxedo Junction Juke Box website:

Airmen of Note click here | Available Recordings

Benny Carter click here | Available Recordings

Variety 3 click here

Charlie Barnet click here | Available Recordings

Tommy Dorsey click here | Available Recordings

Variety 4 click here

Count Basie click here | Available Recordings

Variety 1 click here

Variety 5 click here

Les Brown click here | Available Recordings

Variety 2 click here

Variety 6 click here

Simply click on any link to visit that page.

The Andre Kostelanetz papers

The papers of legendary conductor, arranger and broadcaster Andre Kostelanetz have been donated to the Library of Congress by his estate. Kostelanetz died in 1980. The gift is a veritable treasure trove for students of 20th century music and broadcasting. The archive of Kostelanetz' personal property, papers, clippings, letters, sound recordings, posters, and photographs spans some 73 crates. It documents in detail the career of one of America's most remarkable men of music. The gift from Kostelanetz' estate will complement the gift of scores and parts for many of his arrangements Kostelanetz made to the Library of Congress. His papers will join those of George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner, and Irving Berlin, among others in the Library's collection of material belonging to eminent American musicians.

MORE - Official Site - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Andre Kostelanetz

David Rose 'California Melodies' 41

FLOTOW's Martha
Deserted City
Walking By The River with vocalist Maxine Gray
The Old Oaken Bucket
RAVEL's Pavanne
All I Desire with Maxine Gray
Ukelele Finale Melody on notes G C E A
Boomp3.com

Diahann Carroll

The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying and Other Things I Learned the Hard Way
All Things Considered, September 26, 2008 · For more than 50 years, actress and singer Diahann Carroll has been breaking barriers. She was the first black woman to win a Tony for best actress, and the first black woman to star in her own TV show — while not playing a maid. As the title character in that sitcom, Julia, Carroll became the model for one of the first black Barbie dolls...MORE - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Diahann Carroll

BURT BACHARACH

Burt Bacharach's official press biography is effusive, impressive, overwhelming - and almost beside the point. The 14-page document dutifully lists the tangible signs of recognition given to the 80-year-old composer. There are chart-toppers and megahits, Grammys, Oscars and other awards, tributes from fellow legends - and even a placing on People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive list as recently as 2000. But Bacharach's importance can't possibly be measured in statues, statistics and statements. What matters, in the end, is the groundbreaking level of sophistication he brought to pop music.---Bernard Perusse, Montreal Gazette
Published: Thursday, September 25

MORE - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Burt Bacharach

Pop singer Connie Haines dies at 87

Connie Haines, a peppy, petite, big-voiced singer with a zippy, rhythmic style who most famously teamed up with Frank Sinatra as lead vocalists with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, then went on to a prolific career of her own, died on Monday, 23 SEP 2008, in Clearwater Beach, Fla. She was 87. Born Yvonne Jasme she began singing and dancing at an early age. Her big break came in 1935, at age 13, when she won an amateur contest on Fred Allen's NBC radio program. During the late 1930s she worked for Howard Lally's orchestra. In 1939 bandleader Harry James heard Haines rehearsing at a New York music publishing company and hired her for his band, changing her name. She left the following year and kept busy with solo engagements around the New York area before being hired by Tommy Dorsey, where she joined former James bandmate Frank Sinatra. In 1941 Haines landed the spot as featured vocalist on Abbott and Costello's radio program.

NYTimes Obit - WEB - Shop: CONNIE HAINES

Tribute Recalls Hits of Lyricist Sammy Cahn

Composer Sammy Cahn wrote the lyrics to some of America's most popular songs, recorded by Frank Sinatra and dozens of other artists. Cahn died 15 years ago, but Mike O'Sullivan reports, a recent tribute to the composer reintroduced his music to a new generation.

MORE - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Sammy Cahn

California Melodies with David Rose No. 40

Wagner's Hymn To the Evening Star
Time Stood Still
Rimsky-Korsakov's Hymn To the Sun
It All Comes Back To Me Now vocalist Maxine Gray
Perfidia
Dvorak's Slavonic Dance No. 10
So You're The One vocalist Maxine Gray
Silver Threads Among the Gold

Kenny Rogers at 70

US country singer Kenny Rogers, whose hits like Lucille and Lady capitulated him to the top of both pop and country charts, turns 70 on Thursday...Kenneth Ray "Kenny" Rogers (born August 21, 1938, in Houston, Texas) is an American country music singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor and entrepreneur. He has been very successful, charting more than 70 hit singles across various music genres and topping the country and pop album charts for more than 420 individual weeks in the United States alone.

MORE - kennyrogers.com/ - IMAGES - Available Recordings

Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick (born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1940), is an acclaimed five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, actress, activist, United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, former United States Ambassador of Health, and humanitarian. She is best known for her partnership with songwriters and producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

Wiki Bio - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Dionne Warwick

Anita Baker

Anita Baker (born 26th January 1958 in Toledo, Ohio, USA) is an eight-time Grammy Award-winning, multi-Platinum rhythm and blues and soul singer and songwriter.Anita Baker has been something of a recluse for the better part of a decade. Baker may not record much these days. (Her last album, the pleasant if unremarkable My Everything, came out in 2004 after a 10-year recording hiatus.) But she's a much better singer today than she was and Baker has just launched a comeback, performing a string of national dates in the last few years...

MORE - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Anita Baker

Happy 89th Birthday...GEORGE SHEARING

GEORGE SHEARING born 13 August 1919 in Battersea, England. Pianist, combo leader - now Sir George Shearing OBE who, during the 1950s, had one of the most popular jazz combos on the planet and sold millions of records for MGM and Capitol in his heyday. He has written over 300 compositions and has had multiple albums on the Billboard magazine charts throughout the '50s, '60s, '80s and '90s. Was a member of Ambrose big band in the late 30s and worked with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli in London in early 40s. Shearing came to the USA in 1947 where he replaced Erroll Garner in Oscar Pettiord's group. He formed his first quartet in 1949. Recorded for Savoy, MGM, Capitol, Sheba (His own named after his seeing-eye dog), Concord and Telarc. He composed the jazz-pop standard Lullaby of Birdland...

MORE Wiki Bio - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Shearing

BRIGHT Instrumentals Medley from radio

Harry James

Harry James was one of the most outstanding instrumentalists of the swing era, employing a bravura playing style that made his trumpet work instantly identifiable. He was also one of the most popular bandleaders of the first half of the 1940s, and he continued to lead his band until just before his death, 40 years later...

MORE wiki Bio - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Harry James

Harry James w/ Helen Forrest You Made Me Love You:

Harry James Band plays...

Who's Sorry Now (1945) HCO1630 - COLUMBIA 36973 COLHCO1630

I've Heard That Song Before (1943) - CAPITOL

Heartaches (1947) - Columbia, 37305

;-)

Trumpet Rhapsody (1941) - V-disc, 213A2