Sports Mentality

Hector Castro KILLED Stepdaughter For Crying During World Cup Game 06/28/10 10 McAllen, Texas

My friend Jeremy just emailed me the above news story along with the following appended observation:

"Funny, you never hear stories about people becoming murderous watching 'Classic Arts Showcase'".

Thanks for all the "thanks." Please note that, to the best of my knowledge, not a single album that I have uploaded is in-print or has been in-print for a month of Sundays. Bit of a sad commentary on the current state of the record industry, doncha think?

Marian Bruce

Lucky To Be Me (Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, Adolph Green)
Let Me Love You (Bart Howard)
It Never Entered My Mind (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart)
Things Are Looking Up (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
Something To Live For (Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn)
Looking For A Boy (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) (Duke Ellington, Paul Francis Webster)
My One And Only (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
A Ship Without A Sail (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart)
No One Ever Tells You (Hub Atwood, Carroll Coates)
The Gentleman Is A Dope (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II)
Don't Like Goodbyes (Harold Arlen, Truman Capote)

Marian Bruce (ldr), Joe Wilder (t), Everett Barksdale (g), Jimmy Jones (p), Al Hall (b), Marian Bruce (v) rec. late 1958

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Marian Bruce Logan's NYT obit

Marian Logan, 73, A Civil Rights Aide And Cabaret Singer

By RICHARD D. LYONS
November 28, 1993

Marian Bruce Logan, a civil rights advocate, former New York City Commissioner of Human Rights and a cabaret singer in her youth, died on Thursday at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Medical Center. She was 73.

The cause was emphysema, her son, Warren Arthur Logan, said.

Mrs. Logan was an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a campaign aide for several political figures, including Nelson A. Rockefeller, Robert F. Kennedy and Robert F. Wagner.

Mayor Abraham D. Beame appointed Mrs. Logan to head the Commission on Human Rights in 1977. During her two-year tenure she worked to stop the practice of redlining, by which banks and savings and loan institutions refuse to make mortgage loans to residents of certain areas. Efforts on West Side

Along with her husband, Dr. Arthur C. Logan, a surgeon, she was involved in efforts to stabilize the West Side as an integrated community during urban-renewal efforts there.

Mrs. Logan was a socially prominent fund-raiser who generated financial backing for both national and local civil-rights issues and causes, particularly those of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Mrs. Logan was at one time the only Northern board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She also raised money for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Urban League.

In 1971 the Citizens Union presented Dr. and Mrs. Logan with awards for outstanding public service for their prominence in campaigning for civil rights and better public health.

During her career in show business she sang using the stage name Marian Bruce. In the 1940's and 1950's she starred in the first all-black show to be presented in a Miami Beach nightclub. She also sang in Europe.

Mrs. Logan's husband died previously. She is survived by her son, who lives in Manhattan, and a sister, Esther Harris of Philadelphia.
_____________________
postscript
Dr. Arthur Logan was Duke Ellington's personal physician. Both he and his wife were also close personal friends of Ellington. Legendarily, "The Duke," reportedly as "great" a hypocondriac as he was an artist (!), spent much of his down time "on the road" on the phone with Dr. Logan.

Marian Bruce appeared on half the tracks on Luther Henderson's MGM album, Last Night When We Were Young, and also a track or two on Clark Terry's Duke With a Difference. A fine singer!

London in Japan

Julie and Don

For those of you who read Japanese, my Q & A with Julie London music director, Don Bagley, has just gone up on the EMI (Japan) Records website. An edited, journalized version of the interview appears in this month's (and, alas, the final issue of) Swing Journal (Japan) magazine. These were done in conjuction with the label's mass release of all of London's recorded material for the Liberty label. Some 30 discs. In Japan, of course. Heaven forfend that any record outfit in this country would see fit to carry out such an auspicious undertaking.

The New Julie* La Rosa (* aka Julius)

Can't find the jacket for this. But it sounds just as good---make that GREAT---without it. A desert island disc for me. . .if there ever was one.

Now I know
Somedays there just ain't no fish
My favorite things
Lonely town-Ohio-bye bye blues
Out of this world
I got plenty o' nothin'
Free and easy
Change partners
Gigi
Luck be a lady

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Kartoon Korner

Pinky Winters Record Date

After completion of her new CD yesterday. L to r: musicians Ralph Penland, drums; Ron Anthony, guitar; la Winters; Pete Christlieb, tenor sax; Tom Warrington, bass; Jim Cox, music director, piano, Hammond B3 organ.

This is Gene Stridel

After You've Gone

Every Time Is The First Time

The Sweetest Sounds

One More Mointain

My Romance

It's You Or No One

Solitude

How Blue The Night

My Life Before You

Song Of The Gypsies

True Love

Hearts Were Never Meant To Be Broken.

Another of John Hammond’s sixties discoveries was Gene Stridel. Curiously, the producer’s liner notes for the singer’s 1964 Columbia LP do not cite Stridel’s past as a rhythm and blues vocalist. Instead, mention is only made of his long history as a cocktail lounge singer. But in fact, The Striders, the group Gene once sang with, had an extensive history both in the recording studio and in live performances. The Striders, with Stridel, had recorded as early as 1948 for Capitol, and had also backed singer Savannah Churchill on a number or recordings, including her rhythm and blues classic, “Walking by the River.” One thing seems certain, either that Hammond was not aware of this somewhat less than acceptable---from a jazz purist point-of view--- background. Or else, Stridel withheld the information. Whichever was the case, there is no question that Stridel was equally adept as a r ‘n’ b shouter AND jazz-oriented singer as evidenced by the tracks from his lone lp, release, This is Gene Stridel.

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This just in

Sunday, June 20th 4:00 pm $30

Students (21 and under with ID) - $15

"Two by Two for Father's Day"

Sue Raney & Alan Broadbent

Kalil Wilson & Dan Marschak

VENUE: Kirk Douglas Theatre

9820 Washington Blvd, Culver City CA 90232ticketsThe Kirk Douglas Theatre is the Jewel of the Culver City Theater District.

Free Covered Parking at Culver City City Hall, enter on Duquesne Ave.

The Unknown Rodin

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Real George

The Joker
In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning
Get Me To The Church On Time
Feeling Good
I Was Doing All Right
Black Coffee
No More
Music Maestro Please
This Is The Life
In a Shanty In Old Shantytown
Talk To Me Talk To Me
You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You

Impressionist George Kirby singing and sounding like himself and no one else.

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New SSJ Releases

Audrey Morris

Renée Raff

Ted Rosenthal

Eiji Taniguchi w/ Eden Attwood

Pinky Winters

The above just-reissued Pinky Winters CD collects her first LP along with the rehearsal session for the 1954 album, and the Pinky/Zoot Sims sessions from around the same period. . .for a total of twenty tracks. Coincidentally, today Pinky takes part in a full-band rehearsal for her next CD, Winters in Summer (her 10th), a bossa affair featuring some of SoCal's finest players. I've been privileged to attend most of the smaller-scale rehearsals, and I've never seen Pinky in a happier or more creative state. The album will be recorded in late June with a scheduled release date of early 2011 on SSJ Records.

David E's interview w/ Tilda Swinton. . .

. . .in the L.A. Weekly.

Not my idea. . .

But it just might work. Why don't they try stuffing old copies of The Collected Works of Ayn Rand (aka Alice Rosenbaum) down the oil well in the Gulf?

Signed,

Fearless

Claire, I declare! Hogan, that is.

I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco
Boozers and Losers

Good Times

I'll Pay the Check
Whiffenpoof Song

Sometime When You're Lonely

Falling In Love With Love

After the Ball

Travelin' Light

I'm Gonna Laugh You Right Out
Here I Go Again

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Dorothy Dean Day Redux

DDD went down in flames when Dennis Cooper's original blog was hacked to death, but he is now slowly resurrecting various posts here. Hard to believe that Dorothy became a rather staunch Christian in her final days. But as the saying goes: "Whatever gets you through the night." Arrived there via AA. Which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes. It seems that:

Two comics encounter one another on the street. One says to the other:

"Where're you headed?" To which the other replies:

"An AA meeting."

"But you're not an alcoholic," says comic one. To which the other funny guy replies:

"Yeah, I know. But I need the floor time."

Fire up the Muntz

Back in the paleolithic era of steam-driven television (when I was in high school), I thought that the Howard Duff - Ida Lupino TV series "Mr. Adams and Eve" was just about the funniest thing on the medium. There were 66 episodes circa 1957-58. Alas, the series was never revived after it went off the air (some sort of legal entanglements). Thus, all I possessed to help reinforce these favorable sentiments was a recollection of some of the plot outlines.

One that I recall involved "Howard Adams" and "Eve Drake", the movie stars Duff and Lupino played on the show, developing guilty consciences over the commercial direction their film careers had taken, and so they participated in a little theatre, experimental production of something called---get this!--- "Dinosaur on a Bicycle."

Another episode had to do with one of the couple being loaned out to another studio with the result that both ending up appearing in separate GWTW knockoffs.

Another episode I recall had Eve believeing that she had been invited to a dinner party, but it turned out that the occasion was a cocktail party, with the famished actress having to drink too moony martonis. I mean too many martinis in order to snag olives to solve her hunger problem (you hadda be there, I guess).

And then, not long ago, my friend Alan gave me a DVD burn of two of what might possibly be the few scraps that remain of Mr. A & E (most epidoes are believed lost). After taking a look at them, it turns out that my memory of the show's quality---IMHO--- was not all that far off-base after all. If Noel Coward had written a sitcom for 4-Star TV Productions, this might be the way it would look. All in all, not exactly Comedie Francaise, but still pretty funny stuff for mid-fifties commerical TV. (Olive Carey and Lee Patrick!!!!!!) And check out that low-key laugh track.

Enjoy.

pt.1


pt. 2


pt. 3

If you would like to see the other Adams and Eve in my possession, the one where Eve Drake is the surprise guest on "This is Your Life," please let me know. Or a real "This is Your Life" where Ida Lupino herself is the subject. (Warning: contains Keefe Brasselle content.)

Lola/Edie Wants YOU

arr and cond by Dean Elliott

1. A man, a man, a man

2. Candy

3. Put your arms around me

4. Goodbye my lover

5. Aren't you kinda glad we did

6. I've got a crush on you

7. Here 'Tis

8. All of you

9. There's a man in my life

10. Think of me

11. Do what you gotta do

12. He's my guy

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