Today in History

[2jakes]

Feb. 9th, 1861
Jefferson Davis, elected as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years incarceration.

On this day in 2012, Whitney Houston was found drowned in her bath. She was 48.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1976, actor Sal Mineo, was stabbed to death near his appartment in Hollywood. He was 37.

On this day in 1924, this was played for the first time. The sold out concert was held at the Aeolian hall, NYC.

 

[2jakes]

On this date:

"In 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Hardin (now LaRue) County, Kentucky"

A one room log cabin similar to the one Lincoln was born.

 

[scotrace]

Feb. 12, 1809 - also the birth date of Charles Darwin, later author of On The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.
He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1924, Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra performed at Aeolian Hall in New York before an audience including many august figures in the musical world, with "An Experiment in Modern Music," a concert designed to bridge the gap between jazz-influenced popular music and the classical realm. The highlight of the program was the premiere of a new piece by composer George Gershwin, "Rhapsody In Blue," with Gershwin himself at the piano. Among the other numbers enthralling the musical elite was a variation on "Yes, We Have No Bananas."

No recording was made of the actual concert, but Whiteman did record the Rhapsody for Victor several times using the same arrangement as was used for the concert performance. Here is the 1927 recording, again featuring Gershwin at the piano.

 

[Peacoat]

This was a busy day in history. Also on this date the NAACP was formed. Still have a ways to go, but we have come a long way.

 

[vitanola]

On this date in 1924, Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra performed at Aeolian Hall in New York before an audience including many august figures in the musical world, with "An Experiment in Modern Music," a concert designed to bridge the gap between jazz-influenced popular music and the classical realm. The highlight of the program was the premiere of a new piece by composer George Gershwin, "Rhapsody In Blue," with Gershwin himself at the piano. Among the other numbers enthralling the musical elite was a variation on "Yes, We Have No Bananas."

No recording was made of the actual concert, but Whiteman did record the Rhapsody for Victor several times using the same arrangement as was used for the concert performance. Here is the 1927 recording, again featuring Gershwin at the piano.

I've always preferred the June, 1924 recording. It is a better performance, I think. It is not as commonly heard today because it was recorded using the old acoustic technique, and rather requires a trained ear to listen past the limitations of the medium. That said, both Gershwin and Ross Gorman, the man for which the famous until clarinet glissando was written (because he COULD play such a thing) are in better form.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Rhapsody" trivia -- the guy who mimes that clarinet intro in "The King of Jazz" is none other than Jacques Cartier, the same fellow who does the spectacular "African Drum Dance" later in the picture. Gershwin doesn't appear in the film -- Roy Bargy does the piano part -- but it's still a vigorous presentation with breathtaking visuals.

This version is a melange of the old VHS version with a sequence of the new restored print spliced in -- you can really see what a difference the restoration makes. The whole film is worth seeing for anyone who cares about 1920s music.

 

[vitanola]

If you have a Diamond Disc machine the 1928 Edison recording featuring Frank Banya (Jr.) accompanied by "The Edisonians" (B. A. Rolfe's Concert Orchestra augmented by members of the Philharmonic-Symphony) is also very good. Banya acquits himself splendidly in both the lyric and flashy solo parts.

I love the King Of Jazz version of the Rhapsody, as I do all of that film, and only wish that a complete, unedited run through of that performance of the Rhapsody survived on a disc or in a film box somewhere.

 

[GHT]

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. The Roman romantics were drunk and naked, says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says, obviously they had no shops selling chocolates and flowers, they believed this would make them fertile.

The fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then, er, couple up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right. The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love." Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike. So there you have it, even the Romans liked a bit of stripping & whipping.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1894, Benjamin Kubelsky was born in Waukegan, Illinois. He grew up to become a world-famous violinist and died in 1974 at the age of 39.

 

[scotrace]

Feb 14 is the anniversary of the launch of YouTube (2005), where we learn how to replace the taillight bulb in the car, watch last night's Stephen Colbert, and find 1920s jazz recordings we would likely never hear otherwise.

Of course, there was a famous massacre on this day in 1929, as gangsters evened a score for Big Al Capone at the Lincoln Park Garage, Chicago.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1984, " The undisputed First lady of the musical comedy stage" Ethel Merman, died of brain cancer, aged 76.

On this day in 1950, Disney's Cinderella opened in theatres in the U.S.

On this day in 1903, the first 'Teddy bear' went on sale. All together now " Arrrrrrrrrrr "
Inspired by the cartoon in the Washington Post* & having recieved permission from president Theodore Roosevelt to use his nick name 'Teddy'... toy shop owner & inventer, Morris Mitchom, put a stuffed toy bear cub in his shop window, advertiszing it as ' Teddy's Bear.' It wasn't long before other toy manufacturers copied him. *
*

 

[Peacoat]

On a positive note, on this date in 1965 the Canadian Maple Leaf flag was raised for the first time. Does anyone remember when we didn't have the maple leaf as a symbol of our big brothers to the north?

On a negative note, on this date in 1967 in RVN, 13 helicopters were shot down.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I drew a "Flags Of All Nations" thing in grade school and got knocked down a mark for using the Red Ensign instead of the maple leaf for Canada. It wasn't my fault, the classroom encyclopedia I used as a reference was published in 1937.

On this date in 1933 in Miami, an assassin took aim at President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at a political rally, and instead struck Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. Cermak died of his injuries on March 6th, and the gunman, a Miami bricklayer named Giuseppe Zangara, was executed in the electric chair at the Florida State Prison on March 23rd.

Theories abounded that Cermak -- derisively named "Pushcart Tony" by his political enemies -- was in fact the intended target of the assasination, and that Zangara was an agent of Chicago mobsters dispatched to eliminate the Mayor in retribution for a failed hit on mob chieftain Frank Nitti. Zanagra was, in fact, a proficient marksman in the Italian army during the first World War, and those who knew him thought it unlikely he would have missed his target.

 

[Fading Fast]

Re the 116 year old Teddy Bear, here's our fellow who is 22 years old (my girlfriend bought him for me the year we met and he's been with us through many apartments ever since). You'll note that as he's aged, his ears have positioned themselves so as to appear to be signaling that he's about to make a left turn.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1848, Frédéric Chopin, already weakened by ill health, played his last public concert, in Paris. He died 18 months later from Tuberculosis, aged 39.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1915, the star third baseman of the Philadelphia Athletics, Frank "Home Run" Baker, announced he'd be sitting out the upcoming season after a bitter salary dispute with A's manager/owner Connie Mack failed to result in acceptable terms. After Mack gave second baseman Eddie Collins a juicy raise to prevent him from jumping to the upstart Federal League, Baker demanded such a raise for himself -- and was flatly rebuffed by the "kindly Grand Old Man of the Game." Baker spent the season playing semipro ball for teams around suburban Philadelphia when he wasn't working on his farm in Maryland. After the Athletics finished last for 1915 with a hideous 43-109 record, Mack and Baker continued to sneer at each other until American League president Ban Johnson declared that enough was enough, and forced Mack to sell Baker to the Yankees for $37,500. The A's finished last again in 1916 with an even more hideous 37-116 record.

For his part, Baker got a $25,000 three year deal from the Yankees, and remained with the club into the early years of its first pennant dynasty. After his playing career he managed in the low minors for a while, where he discovered a slugging, enormously-muscled kid named Jimmie Foxx. Baker subsequently was run out of the league for selling Foxx at a bargain-basement price -- to Connie Mack. Ah for the days when it was Only A Game.

When Frank Baker sneers at you, you stay sneered at.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ And nothing changes as, while the numbers are much bigger (even after adjusting for inflation) and the players get a better percentage of the pie than back then, both owners and players still angling for every extra dollar (with a few exceptions popping up here and there). Just read an article saying there have been more unsigned free agent stars these past few seasons as the owners claim the big ten-year contracts they were giving out to similar players years past haven't worked out and the free agents want to get similar or larger contracts. Whatever is going on - when we are discussing "$150 - $300 million for ten years" contracts - we are no longer talking about exploitation, just millionaires and billionaires fighting over how much of the fans' money each gets.