January 2018 Remembrances

I got to see the Moody Blues live at least three times, all with Ray Thomas still performing, though the last one was just before his retirement.
 
Much like Karen Carpenter, she possessed a distinctive and beautiful voice. According to what I have read about her, she suffered from bipolar disorder. I really hope it's not a suicide.

And she sang "Close To You" on the IF I WERE A CARPENTER album.
 
Jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela dies

Love his music and his commitment to his home country. Love the albums he did with Herb Alpert, but his own music, which I discovered first in the early 1980s with the Techno-Bush album, were deeply impacting on me. Uptownship is probably my favorite album of his, but his recent Playing @ Work and Tomorrow from the 1980s (the first CD of his I owned) remain favourites. Still trying to learn the correct pronunciation of the different So African languages used in one song on Tomorrow. Of course, that album brought forth the anthem Bring Him Back Home. Live from the Market Theatre demonstrates him in concert well, though if you do a web search for a performance he gave in Spain at the Estival Jazz Lugano in 2009 that's a good capture, too.

A musical hero of mine.

Just a real bummer piece of news.
 
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Mark E. Smith of the British punk band The Fall has passed away at age 60. The quirky band is a favorite of mine, sort of what the Sex Pistols could have been had they lasted.
 
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