News from the darkest corners...

Renowned Dutch saxophonist and composer Willem Breuker has died in Amsterdam aged 65. Willem Breuker founded his own eleven-player orchestra in 1974 to perform a unique combination of jazz and contemporary classical music.

The Willem Breuker Kollektief is seen as one of the earliest Dutch ensembles to present improvised music in a way that was accessible to the general public. Amsterdam-born Willem Breuker was awarded many prizes, including the 1993 VPRO Boy Edgar Prize.

Big Star bassist Andy Hummel, a founding member of the cult rock band who performed on the group’s acclaimed first two albums, died yesterday in Weatherford, Texas, following a two-year battle with cancer. Hummel was 59. Hummel’s death comes just four months after he took part in a SXSW tribute to Big Star frontman Alex Chilton, who suffered a fatal heart attack on March 17th.

Hummel’s Big Star roots date back to the Memphis band Icewater, which featured Big Star guitarist Chris Bell (who later died in a 1978 car accident) and Stephens before Chilton joined the group. Hummel played on Big Star’s debut #1 Record and Radio City, both listed on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Hummel wrote “The India Song” and “Way Out West” and has co-writing credits on some of the band’s most beloved songs, including “Back of a Car,” “Life is White” and “Daisy Glaze.” While Big Star developed a cult following decades later thanks to the support of famous fans like Paul Westerberg and R.E.M., the band was underappreciated in its own time, and Hummel quit to finish school prior to recording the group’s epic Third/Sister Lovers.

Hummel went on to become a longtime employee at Lockheed Martin, though he still occasionally played music on the side. When Big Star reunited in the mid-1990s, Hummel elected not to take part; the Posies’ Ken Stringfellow took over bass in his place.

(Source: RolingStone.com)

William Aucoin, record industry executive, manager, entrepreneur, and creative visionary, passed away this morning, Monday, June 28 at the Aventura Hospital and Medical Center in Aventura, Florida, USA.

Born December 29, 1943, Bill was battling prostate cancer, and passed away from surgical complications.

The man known for masterminding the career of the heavy metal group KISS, Bill Aucoin also managed Billy Squier, Lordi, Billy Idol, and numerous other artists. His most recent venture was Aucoin Globe Entertainment, which he founded in 2007. In its three years, Bill and his company developed bands in the U.S. and around the world.

Pianist Hank Jones died yesterday in New York City. He was 91 years old.

Jones was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 31, 1918. He was raised along with his brothers Thad and Elvin in the Pontiac, Michigan area, where their father was a Baptist deacon and lumber inspector. All three brothers went on to prominence as jazz musicians. Hank, the eldest, was the last one to pass on.

In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored Hank Jones with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award. He was also honored in 2003 with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award. In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On April 13, 2009, the University of Hartford presented Jones with a Doctorate Degree for his musical accomplishments.

Hank Jones has recorded over sixty albums under his own name, and countless others as a guest. As a sideman he played with John Coltrane, Milt Jackson, Wes Montgomery, and many others.

Lena Horne, the ground-breaking singer, actress and civil rights activist who, in 1942, became the first African-American performer to be put under contract by a major studio, died on Sunday, May 9, at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92. According to the New York Times, Horne’s death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.

Though her movie career spanned nearly six decades and included a smattering of well-regarded films, like Stormy Weather (1943), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), Horne was best known for her singing. Her music highpoints include collaborations with Tony Bennett, Grammy-winning recordings of her Vegas nightclub act (1981′s The Lady and Her Music, Live on Broadway, and 1995′s An Evening With Lena Horne), and her Tony-nominated performance in the Broadway musical, Calypso.

Horne grew up in an upper-middle-class African American enclave of Brooklyn, raised primarily by her grandparents after age 3, when both her parents left the family. By the time she was 16, Horne had scored a regular singing gig at Manhattan’s Cotton Club. Her knack for dramatic flourish and romantic renditions of jazz standards led to appearances on TV variety shows including The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dean Martin Show, as well as a role in the big-screen musical, The Duke Is Tops (1938). Though she never found the substantial, satisfying work she sought on film, Horne did make an impact, later in life, on TV in recurring roles on The Muppet Show and The Cosby Show.

Throughout her career, Horne was equally dedicated to her advocacy for civil rights. She was an early pioneer in the movement for equality, fighting for desegregation alongside such legends of the movement as Paul Robeson and Medgar Evers. She also fought with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. The combination of Horne’s disarming talent and fierce individuality created a powerful force in breaking down racial barriers in Hollywood and beyond.

(Source: EW.com)

It is with sadness that we announce the cancellation of the entire April/May 2010 North American tour for King Sunny Adé and his African Beats.

On March 26th 2010 a tragic car accident took the lives of two members of the African Beats, talking drummer Gabriel Ayanniyi and percussionist Omo Olope, who were en-route to a video shoot for a forthcoming recording. When the US Embassy refused to grant visas to replacement members in a timely manner, there was confusion about the possible courses of action. At the same time, it became clear that the artist and the band had neither recovered from the impact of the tragedy, nor were they able to find consensus on how to move forward with normal touring.

As a result, the North American April/May 2010 tour has been canceled until such a time as King Sunny Adé and his group have sufficiently regrouped and are ready to face the rigors of an International tour again.

Composers James M. Brody and Franz T. Kamin were both killed in a car crash in Roseville, Minnesota, on Sunday, April 11, 2010. Brody was driving when his car left the road, jumped a curb, and hit a tree. Kamin, Brody’s friend and one-time composition teacher, was in the passenger seat.

New Mexico-based James Brody was an important figure in the development of electronic music in the Midwest. While still a student at Indiana University, where he studied with Iannis Xenakis in addition to Kamin, he served as a teaching assistant in IU’s electronic studio during its first years. He also wrote the liner notes for the original Nonesuch LP, Iannis Xenakis: Electroacoustic Music. He composed numerous works that were presented at the annual International Computer Music Conference, Sonic Circuits, and SEAMUS. In addition, he also composed many works for acoustic instruments, including Traces for solo woodwinds and brass, piano, harp, percussion and strings, which was commissioned and performed by the Harrisburg Symphony in 1994. Brody was a co-founder of CAPASA in San Antonio and the Baltimore Composers Forum.

Milwaukee-born composer and pianist Franz Kamin studied composition at the University of Oklahoma with Spencer Norton and at Indiana University with Roque Cordero. At IU, he was also a piano student with Alfonso Montecino. In the late 1960s, working with James Brody, Kamin organized the weekly FIASCO meetings in Bloomington, Indiana. These meetings attracted composers, poets, artists, and other creative persons and became a focal point for experimental projects. After some time, even the university world accepted the creative presence of FIASCO, and faculty persons exhibited and performed under its independent aegis. One of Kamin’s works which he felt was the culmination of this period is The Concert of Doors, a synaesthetic work in which a number of doors, each of vastly differing design, some found, some constructed, ranging from comical to mysterious, were set on a path through a woods to be traversed by the audience-participants. In the 1970s, Kamin lived in New York, where he worked with legendary avant-garde cellist Charlotte Moorman. He later moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where for the past 20 years he had presented a series of Birthday concerts.

(Source: Newmusicbox.org)

Famed rock ‘n’ roll raconteur Malcom McLaren, best known as the manager of the Sex Pistols, died Thursday April 8 in New York City at the age of 64.

McLaren’s spokesman told the U.K.’s Independent that McLaren had been battling cancer “for some time, but recently had been in full health, which then rapidly deteriorated.”

McLaren was born into a working class family in London’s Stoke Newington section. After attending art college, he and designer Vivienne Westwood opened a Kings Road clothing store in 1971 called Let It Rock, later renamed Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die. Having traveled to New York in 1972, McLaren began making stage clothes for the New York Dolls and subsequently managed the group.

In 1975, McLaren renamed the London store yet again — as SEX, which sold S&M-styled gear and put him at the center of Britain’s rock underground.

It was at SEX that McLaren met a green-haired Johnny “Rotten” Lydon, sporting an “I hate Pink Floyd” T-shirt and recruited him to front a group he was managing called the Strand, which he rechristnned the Sex Pistols. The group helped launch Britain’s punk scene with its 1977 hit “God Save the Queen,” and McLaren proved himself an able pitchman with a number of publicity stunts, including staging a boat trip down the Thames for the Pistols to play the song outside the House of Parliament. The ship was raided and McLaren was arrested, turning the prank into national headlines.

McLaren’s penchant for promotion was chronicled in films “The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle” and “The Filth and the Fury,” and the members of Sex Pistols sued McLaren to win back rights to their music as well as unpaid royalties during the ’80s.

After the Pistols split in 1978, McLaren put together the group Bow Wow Wow and became an artist himself, exploring hip-hop, dance and electronic music on hits such as “Buffalo Gals,” “Double Dutch” and “Madame Butterfly.” He also worked with Yanni on an adaptation of “The Flower Duet” from Leo Delibes’ opera “Lakme” for the latter’s “Aria” and also for a popular British Airways ad campaign.

In recent years, McLaren co-produced the documentary “Fast Food Nation” and competed in the British reality TV series “The Baron” and “Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack.” In 2008, he created a sound painting series called “Shadow” that was premiered on MTV’s HD screen in Times Square.

Jerry Adler, a harmonica virtuoso whose pure, open sound can be heard on the soundtracks to “Shane,” “High Noon,” “Mary Poppins” and other films, but who labored in the shadow of his more famous harmonica-playing older brother, Larry, died on March 13 in Ellenton, Fla. He was 91 and lived in Sarasota.

Adler got off to a flying start in the music business after winning a talent contest at a local theater at 13. It was the same contest, sponsored by The Baltimore Evening Sun, that Larry had won five years earlier, in 1927, and Jerry performed the same piece, Beethoven’s Minuet in G.

First prize was the chance to perform with the theater’s headliner, Red Skelton, for a week. A few years later, looking for work in Manhattan, Jerry talked his way into an audition with Paul Whiteman and soon began appearing with his orchestra at the Palace.

Unlike Larry, who devoted himself to classical music, Jerry stuck with popular tunes. He was highly sought after as a soloist in films from the 1940s through the 1960s.

When stars needed to pick up the instrument for a film role, he showed them how to fake it with conviction, secure in the knowledge that he would be recording the notes offstage. He tutored Jimmy Stewart in “Pot o’ Gold” (1941) and Van Johnson in “The Romance of Rosy Ridge” (1947). In the 1953 Kirk Douglas film “The Juggler,” he appeared on screen taking a solo in a campfire scene.

Beginning in the 1950s, Adler found steady work performing on cruise ships, which provided a good living for decades.

His autobiography, “Living From Hand to Mouth,” was published in 2005.

Singer and guitarist Alex Chilton, known for his influential work with bands the Box Tops and Big Star, died Wednesday. He was 59.

Chilton died at a hospital in New Orleans after experiencing what appeared to be heart problems, said his long time friend John Fry.

As the teenage singer for the pop-soul outfit the Box Tops, Chilton topped the charts with the band’s song “The Letter” in 1967. Their other hits were “Soul Deep” and “Cry Like a Baby.”

His work with Big Star had less mainstream success but made him a cult hero to other musicians, as evidenced by the title of the 1987 Replacements song, “Alex Chilton.” Big Star’s three 1970s LPs all earned spots on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Chilton said in a 1987 interview with The Associated Press that didn’t mind flying under the radar.

Chilton had been scheduled to perform with Big Star on Saturday at the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas.

Here’s a clip of Big Star performing “Thirteen”, live in San Francisco in 2007.

Dale Hawkins, best known for his 1957 hit “Suzie Q” (also known as “Suzy-Q”), has died in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of 73, of complications from colon cancer.

Born August 23, 1936 in Goldmine, Louisiana, Hawkins was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter called “the archictect of Swamp Rock Boogie.”

From his website: “”His swamp rock classic, ‘Susie Q,’ crackles with the manic energy of that restless time, and conjures instant images of steamy Southern nights. It features a 15-year-old James Burton on guitar, the first of many guitar wizards Dale would discover and nurture. Others included Scotty Moore, Joe Osborn, Roy Buchanan, Fred Carter, Jr., and Kenny Paulsen.

“Dale’s early experiments in production in the studios of Shreveport’s KWKH with Merle Kilgore and Johnny Horton developed the skills that would later produce hits for the Uniques, Five Americans, Jon & Robin & the In Crowd, Michael Nesmith, Harry Nilsson, and others. Along the way, he even found time to host “The Big Big Beat” aka “The Dale Hawkins Show” on WCAU-TV in Philadelphia.”

“Suzie Q” was covered by among others, the Rolling Stones in 1964, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, who recorded an 11-minute quasi-psychedelic version on their first LP in 1968.

Among Hawkins’ other hits were “La Do Da Da,” later recorded by the Blue Things. He has been inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and The Lousiana Music Hall of Fame.

Saxophonist Sir John Dankworth, one of the leading figures in British jazz for more than half a century, has died on february 6th. He was 82.

The saxophonist worked closely with jazz legends like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson during his career. He also wrote the first theme for the classic television series “The Avengers.”

His wife, the singer Cleo Laine, announced the death from the stage during a concert to mark the 40th anniversary of a music venue they founded next to their home in Buckinghamshire, north of London.

Born in Essex, southeast England, in 1927, Dankworth played the clarinet as a boy before entering the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London at 17.

Inspired by the American jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, he switched instruments and soon began composing, arranging and recording music on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1959, Dankworth and his jazz orchestra began touring the United States and they performed with Duke Ellington, who later became a close friend.

Over the next decade, he wrote scores for 1960s films like “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” and “Modesty Blaise.” One of his most famous pieces of work was the original theme for “The Avengers,” the British spy drama starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.

Memphis musician Jay Lindsey, better known as Jay Reatard, was found dead in his Midtown home this morning, according to family and friends.

Memphis police have opened a death investigation, spokesman Jennifer Robinson said. Lindsey was found around 3:30 a.m. in his bed, Robinson said.

On the Web site of Goner Records, the following statement was posted this afternoon: “It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public.”

We just learned that New York street/performance poet Bingo Gazingo died on january 1st.

Bingo Gazingo (June 2, 1924 – January 1, 2010) was an elderly poet and former postal worker from New York City. Two versions, each also titled Bingo Gazingo, have been released of the only single-artist album ever released by WFMU — the first on cassette, the second on CD.

The album consists of Bingo’s reading his poems to an improvised musical accompaniment by WFMU DJs R. Stevie Moore, Bob Brainen, Dennis Diken, Dave Amels, Chris Bolger and Chris Butler, and engineered by Amels. Often, while performing live, the background music to his frantic, poetic incantations is nothing more than a cassette tape inserted into a cheap cigar-box tape recorder and miked.

Bingo’s poetry often contain hilarious rhyme schemes and crude language, with titles like “Up Your Jurassic Park” and “I Love You So Fucking Much I Can’t Shit”. In the past he has penned hyper-caffeinated odes to Madonna, Tupac Shakur, and Beavis and Butthead, and had his “Everything’s O.K. at the O.K. Corral” (a dreamy remniscence of the cowboy movie serials by an old nurse-attended man) featured on a 1996 CD produced by the famed Greenwich Village coffeehouse Fast Folk Cafe.

Born Murray Wachs in Queens in 1924, Bingo Gazingo wrote music for most of his life, struggling on the edge of obscurity. He continued to actively write, record and perform perverse, edgy music until the day he died at 85 years old, struck down by a cab on his way to perform at the Bowery Poetry Club in late 2009.

Liam Clancy, the man Bob Dylan described as the “greatest ballad singer” he had ever heard has died. He was 74.

Clancy died at Bon Secours Hospital in Cork after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis – scarring of the lungs. In an interview with The Irish Times in September to promote The Yellow Bittern, a film about his life, he admitted that he was on his “last legs” from the disease.

Liam was the youngest of the four Clancy brothers and Paddy, Bobby and Tom all predeceased him. Tommy Makem died two years ago.

Born in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, Liam Clancy emigrated to the United States to join his brothers in 1956. They began their singing careers around the pubs of Greenwich Village where they met a young Bob Dylan who has claimed them as one of his biggest influences.

Together the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem began a transatlantic phenomenon after a break on the coast-to-coast Ed Sullivan Show in 1961 where they filled in for a guest who could not turn up.

They were then offered a record deal with Columbia and were hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic resurrecting Irish songs such as Roddy McCorley, Brennan on the Moor and The Jug of Punch.