Frank Beacham's Journal

Peter Falk, 1984

Photo by Vera Anderson

One of the most influential figures in the history of American popular music was born on this day in 1923 — 99 years ago — in perhaps the unlikeliest of places: Istanbul, Turkey

One of the most influential figures in the history of American popular music was born on this day in 1923 — 99 years ago — in perhaps the unlikeliest of places: Istanbul, Turkey.

The son of a high-ranking diplomat, Ahmet Ertegun enjoyed a cosmopolitan upbringing that included stops in Switzerland, Paris and London before his father's appointment as Turkish ambassador to the United States brought him to America.

Intelligent, well-educated and well-connected, Ertegun had attractive career opportunities to consider when he graduated from Maryland's St. John's College in 1944, but his Americanization had already gone too far.

"I had to decide whether I would go into a scholastic life or go back to Turkey in the diplomatic service," he recalled many years later. "[But] what I really loved was music...and hanging out."

To hold those priorities as a recent college graduate is one thing, but to turn them into a hugely successful career of great historical and cultural significance is quite another.

Along with his older brother, Nesuhi, Ahmet was a jazz and blues aficionado. Together, the two Erteguns had amassed an enormous record collection of mostly black artists — artists who had little hope of mainstream success in the segregated America of the 1940s.

While Nesuhi went west to take over a Los Angeles record store in 1944, Ahmet remained on the East Coast, moving to New York City in 1947 to establish an independent record label with partner, Herb Abramson. That label, Atlantic Records, would play a pivotal role in breaking down the racial barriers that characterized the postwar music industry.

At Atlantic Records in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ertegun worked with artists like Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, The Drifters and Ray Charles to lay down the foundations of a musical style that future Atlantic producer, Jerry Wexler, had only recently christened "rhythm and blues."

The future styles called "soul" and "rock and roll" would also evolve out of the sounds that Ertegun helped to popularize, and the early Atlantic catalog would be instrumental in inspiring the blues-based rock that British bands like the Rolling Stones brought to America in the mid-1960s.

When Herb Abramson departed Atlantic in 1958, Jerry Wexler and Nesuhi Ertegun joined on as partners, and after another incredibly successful decade as a true independent, they sold the label to the forerunner of Time Warner in 1967.

Atlantic retained a distinct identity within its parent company, however, even as it moved from the music of Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin in the 1960s and 1070s to gangsta rap in the 1990s.

Born on this day in 1923, Ahmet Ertegun died in 2006 following a fall backstage at a Rolling Stones concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City.

Thanks History.com

Louis Armstrong got his first professional gig 107 years ago...

Louis Armstrong is in front row center during a 1931 visit to a New Orleans boys' home formerly known as the Colored Waifs Home. He was first sent to the home in 1910 when he was arrested at age nine.

“You play the cornet, don’t you?”

With that invitation 107 years ago at Henry Ponce’s honky-tonk in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong got his first professional gig.

He was 14 and had just emerged from a home for juvenile delinquents, where he learned the cornet — the trumpet’s shorter cousin. That gig lead to Armstrong becoming a musical legend.

“He could have gone the other way, if not for a teacher at the Colored Waifs’ Home who worked with him on trumpet,” music journalist John Swenson told The Times-Picayune.

His early life in New Orleans was rough-and-tumble, and he refused to play there for 10 years because of its segregationist laws. But as he said in 1966, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans.”

Gary Lewis is 76 years old today

Gary Lewis, and his father, Jerry

Gary Lewis is 76 years old today.

The son of the late comedian Jerry Lewis, Lewis is the leader of Gary Lewis & the Playboys. His mother, Patti Lewis, a singer at the time with the Ted Fio Rito Orchestra, reportedly intended to name him after her favorite actor, Cary Grant, but clerical error led to his naming as "Gary.”

He received a set of drums as a gift for his fourteenth birthday in 1960. When he was eighteen, Lewis formed what would become Gary Lewis & the Playboys (then known as "Gary And The Playboys") with four other friends.

Joking at the late hours the bandmates practiced, Lewis referred to them as "playboys.” The name stuck. Lewis was the drummer, but at that time singing duties were performed by the guitarist, Dave Walker.

As the band started, Gary's mother was quietly funding the purchases of equipment, as they believed Gary's father would not have supported the band. This could explain why, even though he lived down the street from the Lewis family, producer Snuff Garrett wasn't aware of Gary's band until a mutual friend, conductor Les Brown, informed him that the band was playing at Disneyland and that Garrett should give them a listen.

Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the Lewis name, Garrett put Lewis' band into the studio to develop, still with the finances of Lewis' mother. Garrett pushed Lewis to improve his drumming skill, even getting Buddy Rich to tutor him. More importantly, he made Lewis the singer for the group.

"This Diamond Ring,” written by Al Kooper and actually recorded by Lewis and the Wrecking Crew in Los Angeles, hit #1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart on February 20, 1965.

It made Lewis an instant star. Besides the Lovin' Spoonful, the group was the only artist during the 1960s to have its first seven Hot 100 releases each reach that chart's Top 10.

His others hits include "Count Me In,” "Save Your Heart for Me,” "Everybody Loves A Clown,” "She's Just My Style,” "Sure Gonna Miss Her" and "Green Grass.”

Following a tour in Vietnam, Lewis retired from music, operating a music shop in San Fernando Valley in 1971. He also gave drum lessons. It was not until the 1980s when Lewis starting touring again, with various incarnations of The Playboys, generally featuring no original members. Lewis and his family reside in Honeoye Falls, New York.

Here, Gary Lewis and the Playboys perform “Count Me In” in 2011 at B.B. Kings in New York City

Kenny Burrell is 91 years old today

Kenny Burrell is 91 years old today.

Burrell is a jazz guitarist known for his collaborations with Jimmy Smith, including the 1965 hit album, Organ Grinder Swing. He has cited jazz guitarists Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt as influences, along with blues musicians, T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.

Burrell also serves as a professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Born in Detroit to a musical family (both of his parents played instruments), Burrell began playing guitar at the age of 12. He went on to study composition and theory with Louis Cabara and classical guitar with Joe Fava. While a student at Wayne State University, he made his recording debut as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's sextet in 1951.

He followed that with the "Rose of Tangier/Ground Round," a single recorded under his own name at Fortune Records in Detroit. While at university, Burrell founded the New World Music Society collective with fellow Detroit musicians, Pepper Adams, Donald Byrd, Elvin Jones and Yusef Lateef.

Burrell toured with Oscar Peterson after graduating in 1955 and then moved to New York City in 1956 with the pianist, Tommy Flanagan. Within months, Burrell had recorded his first album as leader for Blue Note and both he and Flanagan were sought-after as sidemen and studio musicians, performing with singers Tony Bennett and Lena Horne and recording with Billie Holiday, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons and Kenny Dorham.

From 1957 to 1959, Burrell occupied the former chair of Charlie Christian in Benny Goodman's band. Since his New York debut, Burrell has had a prolific recording career. Critics have cited The Cats with John Coltrane in 1957, Midnight Blue with Stanley Turrentine in 1963 and Guitar Forms with arranger Gil Evans in 1965 as highlights.

In 1978, he began teaching a course at UCLA called "Ellingtonia," examining the life and accomplishments of Duke Ellington. Although the two never collaborated directly, Ellington called Burrell his "favorite guitarist" and Burrell has recorded a number of tributes to and interpretations of Ellington's works.

In 2019, concerns arose about Burell's well being and living circumstances as he became increasingly socially and physically isolated in his home and major frictions developed between his wife, Katherine Goodrich, 37 years his junior, and others living their Westwood, California, apartment building.

A GoFundMe account was set up to pay medical bills and other putative expenses, which became controversial because he was covered by medical insurance through employment at UCLA and through Medicare. Subsequently a letter from Burrell was published, providing a detailed explanation of the situation and justification for the GoFundMe campaign.

Here, Burrell performs Miles Davis’s “All Blues.” He is joined by Bob Magnusson on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums

Aaron Weinstein, jazz violinist, mandolinist, arranger and comedian, is 37 years old today

Photo by Frank Beacham

Aaron Weinstein, jazz violinist, mandolinist, arranger and comedian, is 37 years old today.

While still attending New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, Weinstein founded the Stephane Grappelli Tribute Trio, which was named best high school instrumental jazz group by Down Beat magazine in 2002. He then attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts on a four-year scholarship.

Weinstein's debut album, A Handful of Stars, was released when he was 19 years old and had not yet graduated from Berklee.

Weinstein enjoys performing music from the American songbook, while interspersing his performances with a unique understated humor. He has been called “the Groucho of the violin.”

Now living in New York City, he has recorded with J. Geils, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, Christine Ebersole and Frank Vignola.

Here, Weinstein explains jazz improvisation in 90 seconds

On this day in 1964 — 58 years ago — Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up images of the moon

On this day in 1964 — 58 years ago — Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up images of the moon.

The probe took 4,308 images before it impacted with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything previously seen through earth-bound telescopes.

NASA had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year — Ranger 6 — but the probe's cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface.

Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, 1964, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact and began beaming the images back to NASA's receiving station in California.

The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon.

In July, 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.

Thanks History.com

The first image of the moon sent by Ranger 7, July 31, 1964

Stanley Jordan is 63 years old today

Stanley Jordan, New York City, 2011

Photo by Frank Beacham

Stanley Jordan is 63 years old today.

Jordan is jazz fusion guitarist and pianist. Born in Chicago, he began his music career at age six, studying piano, then shifted his focus to guitar at age eleven. He later began playing in rock and soul bands.

In 1976, Jordan won an award at the Reno Jazz Festival. He earned a BA in music from Princeton University in 1981, where he studied theory and composition with composer, Milton Babbitt, and computer music with composer, Paul Lansky. While at Princeton in 1979, he played with Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie.

Jordan was the first artist to be signed by Bruce Lundvall when the latter became president of Blue Note Records in 1985 and, consequently, Magic Touch was the first release (not reissue) of the rejuvenated label. Magic Touch was #1 on Billboard's jazz chart for 51 weeks — setting a new record.

Jordan also made the startup sound for the old Macintosh computers — the Power Macintosh 6100, Power Macintosh 7100 and Power Macintosh 8100.

He has performed in over 60 countries on six continents, and has played at many jazz festivals, including: Kool Jazz Festival (1984), Concord Jazz Festival (1985) and the Montreux International Jazz Festival (1985).

During the 1980s, Jordan played with Quincy Jones, Michal Urbaniak and Richie Cole. Jordan’s 2011 album, "Friends," was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Normally, a guitarist uses two hands to play each note. One hand presses down a guitar string behind a chosen fret to prepare the note, and the other hand either plucks or strums the string to play that note. Jordan's touch technique is an advanced form of two-handed tapping. The guitarist produces a note using only one finger by quickly tapping (or hammering) his finger down behind the appropriate fret.

The force of impact causes the string to vibrate enough to immediately sound the note, and Jordan executes tapping with both hands, and with more legato than is normally associated with guitar tapping.

The note's volume can be controlled by varying the force of impact: tapping with greater force produces a louder note. A helpful analogy to visualize this technique is the distinction between a harpsichord and a piano. A harpsichord produces sound by plucking its strings, and a piano produces sound by striking its strings with tiny hammers.

However, while notes produced on a harpsichord or piano sustain after the pick has plucked or hammer has struck, fingers must remain on a tapped note for the sound to continue. This similarity is what led Jordan to attempt such a technique in the first place. He was a classically trained pianist before playing guitar and wanted greater freedom in voicing chords on his guitar.

Jordan's touch technique allows the guitarist to play melody and chords simultaneously. It is also possible, as Jordan has demonstrated, to play simultaneously on two different guitars, as well as guitar and piano.

He plays guitar in all-fourths tuning, from bass to treble EADGCF (all in perfect fourths as on the bass guitar) rather than the standard EADGBE. He has stated that all-fourths tuning "simplifies the fingerboard, making it logical.”

Jordan's main guitar was built by Vigier Guitars in 1988. It is an Arpege model on which Vigier made a flat fingerboard, allowing it to have a very low action (0.5/0.7mm). The low action facilitates the tapping technique.

Here Stanley Jordan demonstrates his guitar tapping technique on a Letterman show.

Seven Magic Points, Norway

The rusty red swirls of the circular, iron sculpture Seven Magic Points in Brattebergan, Norway mirror the rippling aurora above

Photo by Rune Engebø

Buddy Guy is 86 years old today

Photo by Nels Akerlund

Buddy Guy is 86 years old today.

A blues guitarist and singer, Guy is a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation, including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In the 1960s, Guy was a member of Muddy Waters' band and was a house guitarist at Chess Records. He can be heard on Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" and Koko Taylor's "Wang Dang Doodle" as well as on his own Chess sides and the series of records he made with the harmonica player, Junior Wells.

Guy is known for his showmanship on stage. He plays his guitar with drumsticks and strolls into the audience while playing solos. His autobiography, When I Left Home: My Story, was released on May 8, 2012.

Born and raised in Lettsworth, Louisiana, Guy began learning guitar on a two string diddley bow he made. Later, he was given a Harmony acoustic guitar. In the early '50s, he began performing with bands in Baton Rouge. Soon after moving to Chicago in 1957, Guy fell under the influence of Muddy Waters.

In 1958, a competition with West Side guitarists Magic Sam and Otis Rush gave Guy a record contract. Soon afterwards, he recorded for Cobra Records. He recorded sessions with Junior Wells for Delmark Records under the pseudonym, Friendly Chap, in 1965 and 1966.

Guy’s early career was held back by both conservative business choices made by his record company, Chess Records, and "the scorn, diminishments and petty subterfuge from a few jealous rivals.” Chess, Guy’s record label from 1959 to 1968, refused to record Guy’s novel style that was similar to his live shows. Leonard Chess, Chess’s founder, denounced Guy’s playing as "noise."

In the early 1960s, Chess tried recording Guy as a solo artist with R&B ballads, jazz instrumentals, soul and novelty dance tunes, but none was released as a single. Guy’s only Chess album, "Left My Blues in San Francisco," was finally issued in 1967.

Most of the songs belong stylistically to the era's soul boom, with orchestrations by Gene Barge and Charlie Stepney. Chess used Guy mainly as a session guitarist to back Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor and others.

Buddy Guy appeared onstage at the March, 1969 Supershow at Staines, England, that also included Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Jack Bruce, Stephen Stills, Buddy Miles, Glen Campbell, Roland Kirk, Jon Hiseman and The Misunderstood. By the late 1960s, Guy's star was in decline.

Guy's career finally took off during the blues revival period of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was sparked by Clapton's request that Guy be part of the “24 Nights” all-star blues guitar lineup at London's Royal Albert Hall and Guy's subsequent signing with Silvertone Records.

While Buddy Guy's music is often labeled Chicago blues, his style is unique and separate. His music can vary from the most traditional, deepest blues to a creative, unpredictable and radical gumbo of the blues, avant rock, soul and free jazz that morphs at each night’s performance.

For almost 50 years, Guy performed flamboyant live concerts of energetic blues and blues rock, predating the 1960s blues rockers. As a musician, he had a fundamental impact on the blues and on rock and roll, influencing a new generation of artists.

Guy has been called the bridge between the blues and rock and roll. He is one of the historic links between Chicago electric blues pioneers Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and popular musicians like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page as well as later revivalists like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Vaughan said, "Without Buddy Guy, there would be no Stevie Ray Vaughan."

In recognition of Guy's influence on Jimi Hendrix's career, the Hendrix family invited Buddy Guy to headline all-star casts at several Jimi Hendrix tribute concerts they organized in recent years, "calling on a legend to celebrate a legend." Hendrix, himself, once said that "Heaven is lying at Buddy Guy’s feet while listening to him play guitar."

On February 21, 2012, Guy performed in concert at the White House for President Obama. During the finale of the concert, Guy successfully encouraged the president to sing a few bars of Sweet Home Chicago. On December 2, 2012, Guy was awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors.

At his induction, Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein made the commendation, "Buddy Guy is a titan of the blues and has been a tremendous influence on virtually everyone who has picked up an electric guitar in the last half century."

Here is Buddy Guy in a 2019 concert in Chicago