Merry Christmas from me via Kurt Reichenbach

"He sees you when you're sleeping..."

Happy Holidays!

This year I am sending a few of "gifts" to my list. I hope you like them.

 

First-Above you see one of my old Christmas cards. For 12 years in the 70s & 80s I designed a yearly Christmas card. I thought it would be fun to recycle this one.

 

Second-A few years ago I recorded Christmas Lullaby, a  "lost" Peggy Lee / Cy Coleman song. It was recorded originally by Cary Grant! There have been two subsequent recordings--one by Michael Feinstein on a private label/limited edition CD long out of print, and one by Petula Clark on a hard to find Christmas album. And then there's mine! Hope you like it. Click here.

 

Third-In 1978 I wrote and recorded a fantasy Christmas story and sent it out as a Christmas card. Over the years it has been sent out a couple more times but I figure it might be time to share it on a broader scale. Fair warning, it's about 45 minutes long.  I have been told by a number of folks that listening to the story has become a family Christmas Eve tradition. I am thrilled and humbled. To hear the story click here.

 

My best wishes to all for a safe and happy holiday season!

 

Kurt

The Jonathan Channel

To "turn on the radio" and hear Ray Charles and Betty Carter singing "Side by Side" followed by Eva Cassidy, and Tony DeSare is akin to dying and going to heaven. Maybe Western Civilization hasn't quite finished with its decline and fall after all. I refer to Jonathan Schwartz's 24/7 streaming Great American Songbook channel. He plays singers of whom even I have never heard. Even spins my 2005 Bill Black CD production almost every day. Also dips his toe a bit into the waters of hard jazz, i.e. Coltrane, Miles et al. http://www.wnyc.org/ on occasion. Now if he would only play the audio channel of his wife Zohra Lampert's  '70s Cranapple commercial. Or send me a video copy. Or respond to my emails from time-to-time. But I digress. Would somebody please give this guy a George Foster Peabody award?

Joan Fontaine (R.I.P.) and Olivia de Havilland

No disrespect intended, BUT I always assumed that neither sister was going to give the other the satisfaction of dying first. Maybe, I thought, both might live forever. Today, Joan finally, so to speak, lost. A few decades ago they were seated on that riser for the 50th Anniversary Oscarcast and perched as far away from one another as was physically possible. At least they didn't have to work together 24/7 like soulistes Sam and Dave who also were total non-communicado.

Alas, Audrey Totter, Eleanor Parker, Fontaine, and Peter O'Toole all within a few days of one another.

Happy Birthday, Frank!

The big event in our high school one year was the result of a classmate sending Frank Sinatra a birthday card---probably addressed to Capitol Records, or. . .?---informing him that it was her birthday, too. Lo and behold, a short while later, she received a phone call from the man himself. All very, very avuncular, asking about her school activities, college plans, etc. Wished her a long, happy life and signed off. Don't know how he obtained her phone number, but as we all know by now, he definitely had his ways and means. This was in Charleston, WV circa 1958. Might have even made the local paper. Sort of changed her life. She's probably still talking about it even as I write this.

And natal felicitations to Bob ("Blue Christmas") Dorough, too. Wonder if he's just about ready to return to perform in Japan?