George Shearing dies age 91

George Shearing, the British piano virtuoso who overcame blindness to become a worldwide jazz star, and whose composition “Lullaby of Birdland” became an enduring jazz standard, died on Monday 14 February 2011 in Manhattan. He was 91.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his manager, Dale Sheets. Mr. Shearing had homes in Manhattan and Lee, Mass.

In 1949, just two years after Mr. Shearing immigrated to the United States, his recording of “September in the Rain” became an international hit. Its success established him as a hot property on the jazz nightclub and concert circuit. It established something else as well: the signature sound of the George Shearing Quintet, which was not quite like anything listeners had heard before — or have heard since.

“When the quintet came out on 1949, it was a very placid and peaceful sound, coming on the end of a very frantic and frenetic era known as bebop,” Mr. Shearing said in a 1995 interview on the Web site newyorkcritic.org. What he was aiming for, he said, was “a full block sound, which, if it was scored for saxophones, would sound like the Glenn Miller sound. And coming at the end of the frenetic bebop era, the timing seemed to be right.”

The Shearing sound — which had the harmonic complexity of bebop but eschewed bebop’s ferocious energy — was built on the unusual instrumentation of vibraphone, guitar, piano, bass and drums. To get the “full block sound” he wanted, he had the vibraphone double what his right hand played and the guitar double the left. That sound came to represent the essence of sophisticated hip for countless listeners worldwide who preferred their jazz on the gentle side.

The personnel of the Shearing quintet changed many times over the years, but except for the addition of a percussionist in 1953 — the band continued to be called a quintet even after it became a sextet — the instrumentation and the sound remained the same for almost three decades.

When Mr. Shearing disbanded the group in 1978, it was less because listeners had grown tired of that instrumentation and sound (although the group’s popularity, like that of mainstream jazz in general, had declined considerably) than because Mr. Shearing himself had.

“I had an identity. I held on to it for 29 years. Eventually I held on like grim death,” he told John S. Wilson of The New York Times in 1986. “The last five years I played on automatic pilot. I could do the whole show in my sleep.”

Shortly after breaking up the group, Mr. Shearing said, “There won’t be another quintet unless Standard Oil or Frank Sinatra want it.” Standard Oil never asked, but in 1981 Mr. Shearing reassembled the quintet for a Boston engagement and a series of Carnegie Hall concerts as Mr. Sinatra’s opening act. He returned to the quintet format on occasion after that, but it was never again his primary focus.

His preferred format became the piano-bass duo, originally with Brian Torff and later with Don Thompson and Neil Swainson. He also performed with bass and drums and, on occasion, unaccompanied. In the 1980s and ’90s he had great success in concert and on record with the singer Mel Tormé.


[George Shearing at “Remembering Mel,” a tribute to his collaborator Mel Tormé, at Feinstein’s at the Regency in 2002. ]




By his own estimate Mr. Shearing wrote about 300 tunes, of which he liked to joke that roughly 295 were completely unknown.

He nevertheless contributed at least one bona fide standard to the jazz repertory: “Lullaby of Birdland,” written in 1952 and adopted as the theme song of the world-famous New York nightclub where he frequently performed. Both as an instrumental and with words by George David Weiss, it has been recorded by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Bill Haley and His Comets, who improbably cut a version called “Lullaby of Birdland Twist” in 1962.

George Albert Shearing was born on Aug. 13, 1919, in the Battersea area of London, the youngest of nine children. His father, James Phillip Shearing, was a coal worker; his mother, the former Ellen Amelia Brightner, took care of the family during the day and cleaned trains at night.

In his autobiography, “Lullaby of Birdland” (2004), written with Alyn Shipton, Mr. Shearing recalled that his first attempts at making music involved throwing bottles from an upstairs window: milk bottles for a classical sound, beer for jazz. More conventionally, he began picking out tunes on the family piano at 3, even though it had some broken keys.

Blind from birth, Mr. Shearing attended the Shillington School for the Blind and the Linden Lodge School for the Blind, both in London. It was at Linden Lodge that Mr. Shearing, captivated by the recordings of American jazz pianists like Art Tatum and Fats Waller, began to study piano.

He was discouraged from pursuing his interest in the classics, he later recalled, by a teacher who recognized his gifts as an improviser and felt that studying classical music would be a waste of time. He nonetheless came to see the value of classical training; he later returned to the classics and eventually performed Bach and Mozart on several occasions with symphony orchestras.

Mr. Shearing began his career at 16, when another blind pianist gave up his job playing in a London pub and recommended Mr. Shearing as his replacement. He eventually had his own 15-minute show on the BBC and was voted Britain’s best jazz pianist seven consecutive years in the poll conducted by the magazine Melody Maker. He was indisputably a star at home; the next stop, clearly, was the United States.

Glenn Miller and Fats Waller, among others, encouraged Mr. Shearing to try his luck in the United States after World War II ended. But the booking agents were not especially impressed. At home he had sometimes been billed as “England’s Art Tatum” or “England’s Teddy Wilson.” But, he told The Times in 1986, when he performed for one American agent he received a curt response: “What else can you do?” It was not enough, he realized, to sound like other pianists. He needed to develop a sound of his own.

Mr. Shearing found it with the help of a fellow Englishman, the jazz critic and pianist Leonard Feather, who like him had moved to the United States, and who suggested what became his signature instrumentation. With Margie Hyams on vibraphone, Chuck Wayne on guitar, John Levy on bass and Denzil Best on drums, Mr. Shearing recorded “September in the Rain” in 1949. The distinctive sound of both the quintet and Mr. Shearing himself — he used a so-called locked-hands style in which his hands played melody and harmony in close quarters, with the melody line harmonized by the right hand and doubled by the left hand an octave below — caught listeners’ fancy, and stardom soon followed.

In the early years of Mr. Shearing’s renown he recorded for the MGM label, but his longest professional relationship was with Capitol, where he was a mainstay of the roster from 1955 to 1969. In addition to recording him with his quintet, Capitol teamed him with a number of singers, including Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson and even Nat (King) Cole, an accomplished jazz pianist in his own right, who relinquished the piano chair to Mr. Shearing on a memorable 1961 album.

With the market for jazz shrinking in the late 1960s, Capitol chose not to re-sign Mr. Shearing. He then formed his own small record company, Sheba, but that enterprise was short-lived. In 1979, a year after disbanding his quintet, he signed with Concord, a jazz label, and his career soon underwent a resurgence.

It was under Concord’s aegis that he first recorded with Mel Tormé. Their albums “An Evening With George Shearing and Mel Tormé” and “Top Drawer” won Grammys — for Mr. Tormé but not for Mr. Shearing, who despite his many other accomplishments never won one.

In his later years, Mr. Shearing also recorded unaccompanied; in duet with his fellow pianists Marian McPartland and Hank Jones; and in settings as uncharacteristic as a Dixieland band. He continued performing into his 80s and stopped only after a fall in 2004, which led to a long hospital stay.

Mr. Shearing’s marriage to Beatrice Bayes ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, the former Ellie Geffert, and a daughter, Wendy.

Mr. Shearing was invited to perform at the White House by three presidents: Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He performed for the British royal family as well. The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters gave him the Ivor Novello Award for lifetime achievement in 1993. In 1996 he was invested as an officer in the Order of the British Empire, and 11 years later he was knighted.

“I don’t know why I’m getting this honor,” he said shortly after learning of his knighthood. “I’ve just been doing what I love to do.”

Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes dies aged 66

Gladys Horton, (in the middle of the photo) the Detroit native whose voice led such Marvelettes hits as "Please Mr. Postman" and "Beechwood 4-5789," died late Wednesday 26 January 2011 at a nursing home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She was 66.

"My mother died peacefully," Horton's son, Vaughn Thornton, said in a statement issued by the Motown Alumni Association. "She fought as long as she could."

Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. paid tribute to Horton, lauding her as one of the first Motown greats.

"Gladys was a very, very special lady, and I loved the way she sang with her raspy, soulful voice," Gordy said through a spokesperson. "We will all miss her, and she will always be a part of the Motown family."

Horton had lived in the nursing facility since a stroke last year.

She had retired from the music business in spring 2009, noting that travel was no longer enjoyable, effectively ending the 48-year reign of the original Marvelettes.

"Love comes in two directions, from your hearts to us and from our hearts to you, and it has always been that way!" she wrote in a statement at the time.

As a student at Inkster High School, Horton helped found the group that would eventually become the Marvelettes, linking up with fellow glee club members Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart, Georgeanna Tillman and Georgia Dobbins.

A successful audition for Motown Records was followed in 1961 by the group's debut single, "Please Mr. Postman," with 17-year-old Horton on lead vocals. It became Motown's biggest pop crossover hit to that point, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Horton was the lead singer on follow-up hits such as "Beechwood 4-5789," "Playboy" and "Too Many Fish In The Sea" before losing her lead role to Wanda Young in 1965. Horton departed the group in 1967 and moved to the Los Angeles area in the early 1970s.

She performed in later years as Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes, though she complained that her ability to tour was hampered by other "Marvelettes" incarnations with dubious ties to the original group. Her example was frequently cited amid legislative attempts to protect the naming rights of original artists.

Horton is survived by two sons.

email from music maestro Mark

Don Kirshner dies

Don Kirshner, the music publisher of Brill Building hits like “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin,’ ” who later served as a deadpan Ed Sullivan for Kiss, the Ramones and others with his 1970s television show, “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert,” died on Monday 17 January 2011, in Boca Raton, Fla., where he lived. He was 76.

The cause was heart failure, his family said.

The Brill Building age of pop, named after the Manhattan building where many of its songwriters labored, lasted from the mid-1950s to the mid-’60s and is celebrated for the people behind its innocently aching music: producers like Phil Spector, writing teams like Carole King and Gerry Goffin (“The Loco-Motion”).

But the guiding force behind many of those people was Mr. Kirshner, whose hustle, hit-trained ear and good timing helped shape pop in the days when Tin Pan Alley’s song-craft traditions were being mingled with the rhythms of rock.

As a pioneering musical matchmaker, Mr. Kirshner discovered many of the era’s best songwriters, prodded them for hits and shopped the results to top artists. Later in the 1960s he married bubblegum to television with two manufactured, semifictitious bands: the Monkees and the cartoon Archies.

“He had a great sense of commerciality and song, the ability to hear a song and know it’s a hit,” said Charles Koppelman, a veteran music executive who began his career in Mr. Kirshner’s company, Aldon.

Yet to music fans who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Kirshner is best known as the leisure-suited, monotonous host of the syndicated “Rock Concert,” which from 1973 to 1982 presented live performances byLynyrd Skynyrd, the Sex Pistols, David Bowie and Ted Nugent, among many others.

Unlike “American Bandstand” and other early TV rock shows, on which performers lip-synched their music or played a song or two in a sterile studio, “Rock Concert” featured full, loud performances in an arena or club setting. In his spoken introductions, however, Mr. Kirshner often seemed strangely out of place, as if he barely knew the acts he was introducing — which was sometimes the case.

“Someone once told me I had to put on Alice Cooper,” he recalled in a 2004 interview with The Washington Post. “I said, ‘Well, is she any good?’ ”

Donald Kirshner was born in the Bronx on April 17, 1934, the son of a tailor. He had hopes of being a songwriter, and got his start in the music business when he met a brash young singer named Robert Cassotto at a candy store in Washington Heights. They became partners, working on jingles and pop ditties (their first: “Bubblegum Pop”), but their collaboration ended after Mr. Cassotto — under his new stage name, Bobby Darin — scored a hit in 1958 with“Splish Splash,” which he wrote without Mr. Kirshner.

That year Mr. Kirshner founded Aldon with Al Nevins, who had played in a successful instrumental group, the Three Suns. Mr. Kirshner and Mr. Nevins opened an office at 1650 Broadway — a block away from 1619 Broadway, the Brill Building — and soon signed two struggling songwriters, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. By 1962 they had 18 writers on staff.

The list of Aldon alumni includes Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Neil Diamond, Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. To some degree the company operated as an assembly line: teams of writers in piano cubicles churned out songs that would be recorded immediately, as demos or sometimes as finished productions.

In 1963 Mr. Kirshner and Mr. Nevins sold Aldon to Screen Gems, a Columbia Pictures subsidiary, for more than $2 million, and moved to a luxe new office on Fifth Avenue. Meanwhile, with the arrival of the Beatles, the American pop landscape was shifting toward bands that wrote their own material. Mr. Nevins died in 1965.

Yet one of Mr. Kirshner’s biggest achievements was in some ways an adaptation to the Beatles era. In 1966 he was hired to put together the music for the Monkees, a Beatles-y group assembled by television executives. Mr. Kirshner commissioned songs from many of the best Aldon songwriters, like Mr. Diamond (“I’m a Believer”) and the Goffin-King team (“Pleasant Valley Sunday”).

When tensions arose with the band, Mr. Kirshner moved on to the Archies, an animated version of the clean-cut comic strip. “I want a band that won’t talk back,” Mr. Kirshner later said.

The Archies’ music, performed by uncredited studio musicians, brought bubblegum to the pinnacle of its success: its still-ubiquitous “Sugar, Sugar” was the best-selling song of 1969.

In 1972 Mr. Kirshner began to work with ABC on a live performance show, “In Concert”; he left that show the next year to begin “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert,” which had its premiere in September 1973 with the Rolling Stones. In the 1970s Mr. Kirshner also continued his work as a music executive, signing the band Kansas (“Carry On Wayward Son,” “Dust in the Wind”) to his CBS-affiliated Kirshner label, but by the early 1980s he had retired.

He is survived by his wife, Sheila; his son, Ricky Kirshner, a producer of the Tony Awards show; his daughter, Daryn Lewis; and five grandchildren.

Though he began his career as a songwriter, Mr. Kirshner said he realized early that he was better at recognizing talent in others than at creating the work itself.

“My idols were people like Walt Disney, and I feel that what he did with Pinocchio and Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse I had the ability to do in my own right — build the stars as a star maker,” he told The New Yorker in 1993. “And maybe it’s because, you know, I don’t read or write music — and I guess I live vicariously through these people, ’cause I don’t have the talent myself — but, you know, I’m the man with the golden ear.”
(email from Music Maestro Mark)

Indian Origins Of Jazz

Indian origins of Jazz

My Poppadam tol me

Although jazz has thrown up an abundance of controversies over the
years, the one element on which there has hitherto been universal
agreement is that concerning the origins of the music.

It has long been accepted that jazz evolved from a combination of
African music, introduced into America by the slaves, and European dance
music.

Now, however, comes a remarkable book, Jazz Is Where You Sikh It, by P.
Vencatachellum, which threatens to cause a gigantic upheaval in jazz
circles by claiming that jazz had its origins in India in the middle of
the 19th century.

In a fully documented survey of the beginnings of jazz, Venatachellum
traces its origins to an eating house in New Delhi where the
specialities were particular spicy jhals. The resident musicians led by
Ali Zanda, specialised in syncopated improvised music which quickly
became associated with the food being served. It became known locally as
hot jhals music and, as the musicians played the l out of it, this became
corrupted to hot jhas From there it was a short step to hot jazz or jazz.

If this were all the evidence that Vencatachellum was able to provide,
it would be derisory indeed. But he goes on to trace the spread of the
music to other towns in India where, during the days of prohibition,
musicians would get together for what were known as chutney sessions in
the local Sikheasies.

Meanwhile the original New Delhi band was gaining a wide following among
the Sikhs who derived, it is said, great élan from the music. As a
result of this the band became known as the Original Sikhs Elan Jhas
Band and the leader achieved additional fame when he wrote Ali Zander's
Raga Time Band.

Hand in hand with the evolution of jazz in New Delhi was a secondary
movement emanating from a member of the British Raj in the northern
state of Nepal. He assembled around himself a large orchestra of British
and Indian musicians which became known as the Nepal White Man Band.

Also contributing to the mainstream of jazz development was religious
music and a number of gopal (gospel) singers were emerging, using jazz
rhythms in conjunction with traditional hymns like 'We Pilau The Fields
And Scatter'. And from the workers in the cotton fields came the blues
form, later taken up with some success by a titled woman in the Punjab
known only as Maharanee (later corrupted by Western writers to Ma Rainey).

But perhaps the blues movement, says Vencatachellum, came from the
fakirs (including some elderly female ones known as mother fakirs) who
roamed Bombay moaning laments as they walked through hot coals.

Their wailing became so distracting that the authorities banished them
to the municipal toilets where a special section was put aside for them.
The lavatory seats each had a dozen spikes sticking up and the wailing
that echoed through the place naturally became universally known as the
music of the 12-barb loos perhaps the most fundamental form of Indian
jazz.

Vencatachellum traces the development of various forms of jazz that of
the West Coast stream evolved by a group of diminutive members of the
aristocracy known as Shorty Rajahs, the bebop movement introduced by a
number of seers who transformed the standard Whispering into Guruvin
High and the rock n roll style pioneered by Chuck Ber-Beri, who found
fame with RagaBeating Boogie and Sweet Little Sikhs Teen.

The Author is particularly interesting when he gives the stories behind
such jazz standards as Low Down Dhoti Shame Blues, Poppadam Allow No
Music Played In Here and You Korma Long Way From New Delhi. He also
refers at length to the introduction of the electric sitar by Charlie
Hindu and the contributions made by such Indian jazz greats as Vindaloo
Donaldson, Rajah kellaway, Rupee Braff, and singers like Delhi Rice and
Chappatti page. He also recalls the pioneering work of the dark-hued
trombonist from the south known as Tanned Ory.

Vencatachellum is convincing when he explains how Indian jazz evolved
into rhythm and blues through the efforts of the Tabla Motown label. And
he is most persuasive when he talks about the bosa nova influence from
the former Portugese region, led by the talented Domengo Chutney.
Domengo, he explains, is nicknamed Mango by his followers, and since he
comes from the former Portugese region, is often referred to as Goa
Mango an appellation familier to jazz lovers throughout the world.

However the author is on rather more treacherous ground when he sets out
to prove that most of the American jazz standards are, in fact, based on
original Indian tunes.

He quotes the case, for example, of an Indian potentate who commissioned
a song from a local composer. The composer completed the work and, to
make an impression, rode to the palace sitting on the ear of an elephant
and singing, Caliph, On Ear I Come. He has other far-fetched
explanations for titles like Ghee Baby Ain't I Good To You, Whose Sari
Now, DIG Urdu Urdu and I Call My Sugar Ghandi.

Vencatachellum has written a recourceful and fascinating book, but I am
bound to say that if you are a serious student of jazz, in the Brian
Oxide class, you may find that Jazz Is Where You Sikh It, instead of
helping you, tends to India.

This article is reprinted from Melody Maker and is attributed by that
magazine to the almost totally unknown authority on Indian culture, Jean
Elliot, who has made a bit of chutney in her time and once visited Southall?
(from a email from Eric)- if this article is tongue in cheek, is it a hot spicy tongue?

Margaret Whiting dies aged 86

TRENTON, N.J. - As a songwriter's daughter and a singer who sold millions of records herself in the 1940s and '50s, Margaret Whiting knew what separated a good singer from a great one.

"Being a great actress, being very dramatic," she said in 2001. "To read a lyric, to make the words come alive, that's the secret."

Whiting, a sweet-voiced performer known for sentimental ballads such as "Moonlight in Vermont" and "It Might as Well Be Spring," died Monday at the Lillian Booth Actors' Home in Englewood, N.J., home administrator Jordan Strohl said. She was 86.

As the daughter of Richard Whiting, a prolific composer of such hits as "My Ideal," "Sleepy Time Gal" and "Beyond the Blue Horizon," Whiting grew up with the music business. She began singing at a young age, her career almost predetermined.

Born in Detroit on July 22, 1924, Whiting moved with her family to Los Angeles after her father headed west to write for movie musicals. He turned out songs for Maurice Chevalier and Bing Crosby while at Paramount and composed "Hooray for Hollywood" and "Too Marvelous for Words" for Warner Bros.

And on at least one occasion, his daughter provided him with unexpected inspiration.

In 2000, Whiting recalled how she came home from school one day with an all-day lollipop while her father was trying to write a song for a Shirley Temple movie. At first he was annoyed by the sticky kisses, but then inspiration struck.

He called lyricist Sidney Clare and said, "How about 'The Good Ship Lollipop' for Shirley?"

The Whiting family's home in the posh Bel-Air section of Los Angeles was often a gathering place for such songwriters as George and Ira Gershwin, Frank Loesser, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. And as Whiting grew, her father's friends took note of her talents as a singer and encouraged her to perfect her craft.

It was Mercer who had coached the teenage Whiting through her first recording, of her father's "My Ideal," and although Chevalier and Frank Sinatra had already recorded the tune, her version sold well.

She followed it with a remarkable procession of million sellers: "That Old Black Magic," "It Might as Well Be Spring," "Come Rain or Come Shine" and her biggest seller and signature song, "Moonlight in Vermont."
(from an email by Mark Matheson) and the Margaret Whiting songs in my Unforgettable Music folders; A Bushel And A Peck (with Jimmy Wakely) Slipping Around (Wakely) and Silver Bells (Wakely), Baby, It's Cold Outside (with Johnny Mercer), That Old Black Magic (with Freddie Slack & Orch) plus Wheel Of Hurt, Now Is The Hour, A Tree In The Meadow, Guilty, Far Away Places & A Wonderful Guy.

Gerry Rafferty dies

I was doing a shift on Coast over the summer break and checking Stuff.co.nz for stories when I saw that Gerry Rafferty had died.
I well remember his City To City album and the big new single of Baker Street from my days at Radio Scenicland in Greymouth and so pulled up "Baker Street" and his Stealers Wheel hit "Stuck In The Middle With You" and then added "Right Down The Line" from my laptop.
Also took a call from Chris Ross, a music buff, painting a house interior and he confirmed my thoughts about "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" being from his 'Humblebums' days.
I remember being introduced to that Humblebums song by colleague AnneMarie and quite liking its quirky message.
Later on TV3 News people were interviewed and basically didn't remember the name Gerry Rafferty or Stealers Wheel but knew the songs and especially that riff, that saxophone solo in Baker Street.
That night I went and dropped the needle on my LP of City To City to immerse myself again in Gerry Rafferty. Adding to the plays of Baker Street - "... the track that was recognised last October for having been played a staggering five million times worldwide."

Alex Farkash - our Music Maestro

I first met Alex Farkash late 1993 after I was tasked with managing the music on Primedia's newly acquired station Today FM. One of the programme directors for Primedia, John Taylor, had heard about Alex's great collection of music through Alex's sister-in-law Jeanne of Mai FM, and gave me the phone number to make contact and see what he had to offer. Well, what a treasure trove of material on CD covering then, mainly all the major hits from the mid fifties through to the mid sixties - just so right for Today FM aiming at the more mature market.

Alex was really enjoying being able to help a station build up its repertoire and so initially he would come over from the North Shore with a pile of his CDs to 107 Great North Road, Grey Lynn in the weekends and we would load these into the automated 'Dalet' system used at the time.

After most of the big hits were loaded into the system, we changed to my going via Alex's place mid week to sort out the Tonight At Seven artist features for the next week and plan Alex's inspired segment of lesser known numbers to be played from 7:30 to 8pm Friday nights.
Alex got special pleasure from hearing Jacqui Taite of the morning/afternoon show playing requested songs from the previous Friday Show. This meant Alex's picks were striking a chord with some of the listeners.

These were the days before the prevelance of the internet, so I would have a carry case for CDs and Alex would note what CDs I had borrowed. That list was very useful to remind me what I still had to return - especially where he had spent hundreds of dollars on the rarer imported collections (Including the Sony Japan collection of 9 Nat King Cole CDs). Alex's box sets of his favourite artists also had so much biographical material, with the Bear Family collections being especially full on (with more information than you ever thought you would need to know). The information was great for building the Tonight At Seven features on various artists - and adding to my knowledge of the music and artists.

With so much artist information swirling around we would each remember different segments of an artist and song. Thus sometimes I would remind Alex it was him that shared a snippet of trivia that he had since forgotten. Graeme Andersen was a name that came up from feed back on our Features on Today FM and it seemed logical to introduce Graeme to Alex as a fellow music collector affionado.

Thus developed our Saturday Music Lunches, probably after Today FM had closed down and the Unforgettable Music Society was formed to fill the void. Alex even came to a meeting at Eric Allen's place about our options in acquiring our own frequency but we were up against some major players in the changing and competitive radio market.



With Errol Baker of Auckland Jazz Radio and myself with Unforgettable Music we hired time on Soo Lee Lim's Radio Asia Pacific, on 1593AM.
One of the bereft listeners of Today FM, Brian Cumber, put me in touch with Ayden Wolf, as a young man, who had some very useful computer skills. Ayden quickly had us moving from CD players and Alex's CDs to things being computerised and music being converted to mp3 files on a computer hard drive. Through Ayden needing his father to meet the learner driver requirements we had his dad Jim Wolf come on the scene as well.
We managed 10 years on 1593AM until dwindling resources forced us to stop. During the heyday of our time on 1593AM we had Saturday evenings as well as Sunday afternoons.

With Unforgettable Music on 1593AM being mainly run by volunteers we were needing to introduce radio students and new people to radio and getting them to plan Feature Artist programmes was a good learning process. Alex remained ever helpful finding the songs requested by these 'young uns' that they learned about from their research, mainly on the internet.

Another feature of the Sunday Show was the Comparison segment, illustrated by playing the hit version and the orginal release. Alex developed this further as a new focus for him in working Dick Rosemont of the US and his website Originals Project. Alex also worked with some fellow music collectors in the US, (Wayne Swickley, Kaarlo Rintala and recordsmith.com) that he caught up with when visiting with sister Clari.
Even after the winding down of Unforgettable Music's Sunday programmes, and less need to search out songs, myself, Jim Wolf, occasionally Ayden and even ex neighbour Don Stuart continued meeting at Alex's place for our Saturday music lunches.

Which brings us to the day of Alex's funeral 21 September 2010 and unfinished projects of completing the Billboard Top 100 to the end of the 1970s.


We still have work to do and with the help of the Farkash family, we can press on - in honour of one big heart that might have stopped beating but the melody lingers on.