Alma Graciela Haro Cabello (18 February 1927 – 25 August
1992), known professionally as Esmeralda, was a Mexican singer and actress. She
was nicknamed La Versátil ("The Versatile") because she sang and recorded
songs of various music genres, including cuplé, bolero, and tango.
She was born María Graciela Herrejón Cabello in Morelia,
Michoacán, to Ignacio Herrejón Ortiz and Amanda Cabello Morante. She later
changed her name from Herrejón to Haro, her stepfather's surname. In 1942,
María Graciela participated in a contest organized by radio station XEW to
choose a new vocalist for the songs of Agustín Lara, but she lost to Lupita
Alday. In 1944, she recorded her first single for Peerless Records with the
songs "Qué buscan en la mujer" and "Puerto nuevo", and two
years later she made her debut at radio station XEW.
Esmeralda with Agustin
In 1948, Esmeralda introduced Agustín Lara's famous
schottische "Madrid" on Mexican radio, and in that same year she
recorded it for the Peerless label. Lara later commissioned the singer Ana
María González to introduce the schottische in Spain. In the late 1940s,
Esmeralda appeared in Mexican cinema. She sang in the film Coqueta (1949) and
played the role of an attractive singer named Risaralda who sings the bolero
"Flor de azalea" in Dos pesos dejada (1949), starring Joaquín Pardavé
and Sara García. She also participated in the film Curvas peligrosas (1950). She
married Juan Sánchez Azcona and had four children.
Here's "Core Ingrato" (Catari)
In the 1950s, Esmeralda signed a recording contract with
Musart Records. For this label she made several recordings, including
soundtrack albums of the Sara Montiel films El último cuplé (1957) and La
violetera (1958); the album Música de papá y mamá (1958), with songs from
revues; and the album Canciones de siempre (1959), with medleys of boleros by
Mexican songwriters. She made several tours of Mexico, the United States, Cuba
and Central America.and was considered one of the best interpreters of Agustín
Lara.
In the 1960s, she signed a contract to record albums with
the Mexican label Rex, where she rerecorded songs she had recorded on the
Peerless and Musart labels. Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Turismo appointed her
ambassador of Mexican music and sent her abroad to represent the culture of
Mexico in European countries such as Spain, France, Italy, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Russia. She also visited many Latin American countries in
her tours. She divorced her husband in the early 80’s.
She died in a Mexico City hospital on 25 August 1992 from
complications of diabetes at the age of 65 years old.
Dame Katherine Patricia Routledge (17 February 1929 – 3
October 2025) was an English actress and singer. She was best known for her
role as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC One comedy series Keeping Up Appearances
(1990–1995), for which she was twice nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best
Light Entertainment Performance. Her exceptional acting and singing talents,
formidable intellect, and brilliant wit, took her from humble beginnings in
Tranmere to TVs in living rooms across the land, via the West End and Broadway.
Routledge, born in Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, Merseyside,
was the second child of Isaac Edgar Routledge, a gentleman’s outfitter and
haberdasher, and his wife, Catherine (nee Perry). She was educated at
Birkenhead high school and Liverpool University. She took a degree in English
in 1951, intending to become a teacher. But music was also a passion. The full,
rich contralto voice she developed had started at Saturday morning lessons with
a Miss Sleigh at the upright Steinway piano she possessed for the rest of her
life.
Coronation Street
She played Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the
Liverpool Playhouse in 1952, signed up at the Bristol Old Vic theatre school in
1953 and went into rep in Guildford, Worthing and Windsor. Her London debut, at
the Westminster theatre in 1954, was in a musical comedy rewrite of Sheridan’s
The Duenna. That same year she made her first television appearance and she even popped up in five
episodes of Coronation Street in 1961, as the cafe owner Sylvia Snape.
Here's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" from above album
Over the next 10 years she established her London profile in
various revues and musicals, notably in the title role of an off-Broadway
operetta spoof, Little Mary Sunshine, at the Comedy theatre in 1962, and in a
1963 musical version of John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse, Virtue in Danger, at the
Mermaid (and the Strand). Lord Foppington in that musical was played by John
Moffatt, and she paired with him again in the Mermaid’s delightful Noël Coward
mélange Cowardy Custard (1972), co-devised and directed by Alan Strachan.
She enjoyed another brilliant partnership with Alastair Sim
in two Arthur Wing Pinero classics, The Magistrate (Chichester and the
Cambridge theatre, 1969) and Dandy Dick (Chichester and the Garrick, 1973).
Here again, opposite the visibly crushed and simpering Sim, she was a strong
woman, to put it mildly. Before her TV ascendancy, she was a notable Dickensian
in the mid-1970s as Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield, with David Yelland,
Martin Jarvis and Arthur Lowe, and as the buxom dress designer Madame Mantalini
in Nicholas Nickleby led by Nigel Havers.
Patricia as "Kitty"
In the 80s she was a monologist not only for Bennett but
also Victoria Wood in the series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985-86),
opening an address as a self-righteous spinster from Cheadle with, “Hello, I’m
Kitty. I’ve given gallons of blood and I can’t stomach whelks.” And in the
theatre she was an unforgettable member of the director Michael Blakemore’s
crack ensemble in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off (1982), as Dotty Otley, the TV
star and principal investor in the disastrous play-within-a-play.
She then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for just one
Stratford-upon-Avon and London season (1984-85) as an embittered “hag in a
Lancastrian flag”, Queen Margaret, in Antony Sher’s Richard III, a role in
which, “a living ghost of battles long ago and lost … she stretched her
remarkable range,” said Michael Ratcliffe in the Observer. Routledge won an
Olivier award to sit alongside the Tony as the Old Lady (with one buttock) in
Jonathan Miller’s revival of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide for the Old Vic and
Scottish Opera in 1988. In this muted, stylish production, she showed her class
in her solo turn and tango, I Am Easily Assimilated.
Patricia as Nettie Fowler
As Nettie Fowler, she graced Nicholas Hytner’s landmark
National Theatre revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel in 1992, leading
the exuberant charge in June is Bustin’ Out All Over, stealing comically
recuperative breathers, and giving glorious voice to You’ll Never Walk Alone
while stripping the anthem of its well-worn banality.
Just before Carousel, she teamed with Bennett in a staging
of three Talking Heads at the Comedy, and reanimated two of his early
television plays in Office Suite at Chichester in 2007. She performed several
other solo shows in her later years and made her last major stage appearance in
2014, aged 85, as a slightly subdued Lady Markby in Wilde’s An Ideal Husband –
where else but in Chichester.
She was appointed OBE in 1993, advanced to CBE in 2004, and
was made a dame in 2017. Routledge settled in Chichester in 2000 and was a
regular churchgoer at Chichester Cathedral. In 2020, she helped raise £10,000
towards the restoration of the cathedral's roof. She returned to her hometown
on 17 January 2025 to receive Wirral’s highest honour – the Honorary Freedom of
the Borough. Routledge died peacefully in her sleep on 3 October 2025, at the
age of 96 at her home in Chichester. Her funeral was held at Chichester Cathedral
on 5 November 2025, followed by cremation at Chichester Crematorium.
(Edited from Michael Coveney obit @ The Guardian &
Wikipedia)
Jack Rose (February 16, 1971 – December 5, 2009) was an
American guitarist originally from Virginia and later based in Philadelphia.
Rose is best known for his solo acoustic guitar work. He was also a member of
the noise/drone band Pelt.
Rose was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Although there
was no musical tradition in his family, he began playing while in high school.
Exposed to classic blues and the art of finger-picking in his early teens, he
formed a band called the Mice before moving to Richmond to study English at
Virginia Commonwealth University.
During the mid-1990s, Rose joined Pelt. In reaction to the
period's produced "alternative" music, this Richmond group
specialised in post-rock drones, on records such as Brown Cyclopedia (1995) and
Pearls From the River (2003). They also "had a sideline in playing
acoustic music for themselves," remembers Bill Kellum, who released Pelt
and Rose on his label VHF Records: "Being from Virginia, it's pretty much
ingrained in the culture."
The turning point for Rose came when he heard John Fahey and
Robbie Basho in the late 1990s, he said: "With the drone background that I
already had, all of that came together and made sense. And I was listening to the
composer Terry Riley, and I just made all these connections between different
types of music." Realising that his technique did not match up to his
ambitions, Rose did "some really intensive wood-shedding", says
Kellum: "He got dramatically better in the course of a year. This would
have been around 2001 or so." The following year, he released his first
proper solo record, Red Horse, White Mule, followed in 2003 by Opium Musick.
Rose's compositions were mostly for 6-string guitar,
12-string guitar, and Weissenborn-style lap steel guitar. He often employed
open tunings when playing. He was compared to guitarists on the Takoma label
from the 1960s, including American primitive guitarist John Fahey, Robbie Basho
and former Vanguard recording artist and eventual touring partner Peter Walker.
Rose cited Charley Patton, Blind Blake, John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Zia Mohiuddin
Dagar and, in later years, Link Wray as influences.
It was on Kensington Blues that the Fahey influence came to
the fore: "I noticed that on a song like the Great Santa Barbara Oil
Slick, Fahey was accentuating the downbeat," Rose observed. "I
realised that's where the jug is in jug-band music, that's where the rhythm is.
So then I started playing on the downbeat – John Fahey, ragtime, the blues –
all came into place."
On recent records such as Dr Ragtime and his Pals, Rose
began to mine that lost musical arcadia first mapped by Fahey, that period, in
the 1900s, just before mass recording, when the oral tradition and localised,
live performance still held sway. This was the moment when the great currents
of 20th-century American culture began to flow together: Rose gave them new
life and renewed vigour almost exactly a century later. The records were
enhanced by the impact of Rose's many live performances. "Jack was hugely
inspirational," recalls Rick Tomlinson (aka Voice of the Seven Woods), one
of the new breed of British guitar-players to follow his example. "I've
never been so transfixed by a solo guitar show as I was when Jack was
playing."
Rose left one final album, Luck in the Valley. He was
interviewed by Arthur magazine during the recording: "I always think the
last record I make is going to be the last one, but there is always something
that comes along that piques my interest. Like the one I'm working on right
now, I got back from the second session, and I was like, 'Wow, shit I've got a
lot of work to do.'"
Rose died of an apparent heart attack in Philadelphia, at
the age of 38. He was buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Luck In The Valley, Rose's final LP, was released posthumously on February 23,
2010, by Thrill Jockey Records. The record was the third installment of what
Jack self-deprecatingly referred to as his "Ditch Trilogy." The album
received an 8.2 on Pitchfork and featured Glenn Jones, Harmonica Dan, and
pianist Hans Chew on most of the session.
Rose's final recording, an electrified 4 song collaboration
with D. Charles Speer & The Helix called Ragged and Right was released on
June 15, 2010, as part of Thrill Jockey's singles club. The EP was recorded at
Black Dirt Studios with Jason Meagher.
(Edited from Jon Savage obit @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)
Nathan Davis (February 15, 1937 – April 8, 2018) was an
American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played the tenor saxophone, soprano
saxophone, bass clarinet, and flute. He is known for his work with Eric Dolphy,
Kenny Clarke, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton and Art Blakey.
Born Nathan Tate Davis in Kansas City, he began to play trombone
at the age of 17, but soon switched to reeds and became an accomplished player
on flute, bass clarinet, tenor and soprano saxophones. His first noteworthy job
was with the Jay McShann band, and a little later he became one of the few
males who has ever played with the usually all-female International Sweethearts
Of Rhythm. While studying at Kansas University, Davis lead a group with Carmell
Jones; then army service in 1960 took him to Berlin. On leaving the army in
1963 he remained in Europe and was invited to Paris by Kenny "Klook"
Clarke, with whom he played for most of the next six years.
In 1964 Davis joined Eric Dolphy for a brief residency at
the Chat Qui Pechˆ club and also played on the revolutionary reedsman's last
recordings, made for the French radio station ORTF. The next year Davis toured
Europe with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and was asked to join the band on a
permanent basis; however, he declined, feeling that the touring life was too
precarious.
Here’s “While Children Sleep” from above album
After making a series of excellent (but long-deleted) albums
for small European labels - featuring players such as Jones, Clarke, Woody
Shaw, Larry Young, Mal Waldron and Hampton Hawes - Davis returned to the USA in
1969 to teach jazz at Pittsburgh University, where he has since remained. Davis
holds a B.M.E. from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. from Wesleyan
University, Connecticut. He was a full Professor of Music at the University of
Pittsburgh where he founded the undergraduate Jazz Studies Program and helped
establish a Ph.D. program in Ethnomusicology.
He continued to record sporadically in the ‘60’s making two
albums for the small Pittsburgh company Segue followed by three more for his
own Tomorrow International label, on which he tried his hand at fusion: but, as
with his European releases, these were never widely distributed. Davis has had
bad luck with recordings: not only are most of his own albums unavailable, but
his work with Blakey, Clarke and Dolphy remains largely unreleased. The
situation began to change in the 80s: the London-based Hot House label reissued
his 1967 John Coltrane homage, “Rules Of Freedom,” and later released the new
“London By Night.”
In 1985, Davis formed the neo-bebop Paris Reunion Band,
comprising various USA musicians who had lived in Paris in the 60s, recording
and touring with them in the late 80s: personnel, at different times, has
included Johnny Griffin, Joe Henderson, Shaw, Nat Adderley, Dizzy Reece, Slide
Hampton, Kenny Drew, Jimmy Woode and Idris Muhammad. He also toured and
recorded with the post-bop ensemble Roots. Both of these ensembles he went on
to direct and tour with in the early ‘90’s as well.
Nevertheless, it is early albums such as “Hip Walk” (1966)
and “The 6th Sense In The 11th House” (1972) that represent Davis' finest work.
In particular, his superb tenor on the former's "While Children
Sleep" and his glorious bass clarinet on the latter's "The Shadow Of
Your Smile" suggest he is one of the great balladeers of modern jazz. His
recordings are all considered highly collectable by aficionados and are
available in reissues.
Davis composed various pieces, including a 2004 opera entitled
Just Above My Head. After 44 years, Davis retired from the University of
Pittsburgh in June 2013. On October 5, 2013, Davis was awarded the Mid-Atlantic
Arts Foundation's BNY Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at the Kennedy Center for
the Performing Arts.
From 2013, he spent a large part of his retirement in
Florida, where he died in 2018 of congestive heart failure at a hospital in
Palm Beach on April 8, 2018 at the age of 81.
(Edited from All About Jazz, Wikipedia & AllMusic)
Dwike Mitchell (February 14, 1930 – April 7, 2013) was an
American piano player and teacher. He began his career as pianist for the
Lionel Hampton Orchestra before joining Willie Ruff to form The Mitchell-Ruff
Duo jazz group.
Born Ivory Mitchell Jr. in Dunedin, Florida, he adopted the
professional name "Dwike" from a blend of family names suggested by
his mother, after beginning to play piano publicly at age five in his local
church choir. Family dynamics in the 1940s shaped his access to education;
following his parents' divorce around age eight in 1938, his mother relocated
to Jacksonville, Florida, while Mitchell remained in Dunedin with his father,
continuing his church and school-based training uninterrupted.
By his high school years, local mentor Dr. Jack Mease recognized
his potential and offered to fund studies at Juilliard, though his father
declined, prompting Mitchell to enlist in the U.S. Army at seventeen in 1947
where he served at Lockbourne Air Force Base near Columbus, Ohio and gained
crucial experience in both classical and jazz ensembles as a pianist in the
base's renowned band. It was at the Air Force base that he first met Willie
Ruff who played French Horn and double bass.
After their military service, they pursued classical music
studies under the G.I. Bill which included Mitchell at a Philadelphia
conservatory and Ruff at Yale,before reuniting in 1954 as members of Lionel
Hampton's orchestra. Leaving Hampton after a year, they established the duo as
an independent act, the Mitchell-Ruff Duo who opened for jazz luminaries such
as Duke Ellington and Count Basie. The duo's innovative sound blended classical
precision with jazz improvisation, highlighted by the rare use of French horn
in jazz, paired with Mitchell's virtuoso piano style rooted in gospel and swing
influences.
Key performances included a landmark 1961 appearance at
Carnegie Hall alongside Dizzy Gillespie, as well as openings for artists like
Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughan. The duo's international tours broke cultural
barriers, notably in 1959 when they joined the Yale Russian Chorus in the
Soviet Union and delivered an impromptu jazz set in Moscow, defying official
prohibitions on "bourgeois" music during the Cold War.
In addition to his central work with the Mitchell-Ruff Duo,
Dwike Mitchell expanded his ensemble collaborations by incorporating percussion
to enrich the group's rhythmic palette. The trio typically featured Mitchell on
piano, Willie Ruff on bass or French horn, and rotating drummers such as
Charlie Smith or Elcio Milito. By 1965, the trio with Milito performed at New
York venues like the Hickory House, where they drew acclaim for their
sophisticated arrangements of Brazilian-inflected jazz, reflecting Mitchell's
interest in global rhythms during a period of brief but innovative activity
through the 1970s.
By the Great Wall of China
In 1981, they performed in China—the first jazz concerts
there since the Cultural Revolution—culminating in a lecture-concert at the
Shanghai Conservatory, where Ruff, having studied Mandarin, engaged deeply with
local musicians. Additional tours spanned Europe and Asia, often in regions
where jazz was restricted or unknown, fostering cross-cultural exchange through
their accessible, narrative-driven shows.
Mitchell & Ruff with Phyllis Curtin
Among their notable achievements, composer Billy Strayhorn
created the "Suite for Horn and Piano" specifically for the duo in
1967, one of his few works outside the Duke Ellington orbit; they premiered
revisions to the piece via a transatlantic phone call with Ellington himself.
The partnership received critical acclaim, including a profile in William
Zinsser's 1984 book Willie and Dwike: An American Profile. They were nominated
for a Grammy in 1983 for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group, for their
1982 live album from the 1961 Carnegie Hall performance with Dizzy Gillespie.
Their efforts in cultural diplomacy, particularly in
politically sensitive locales, underscored jazz's role as a universal language,
influencing global perceptions of American music. The partnership of Mitchell
and Ruff endured for 56 years, from 1955 until Mitchell's death in 2013.. In
his final years, Dwike Mitchell's health declined due to pancreatic disease,
prompting him to return to his native South after becoming ill in 2012. He
spent his last months in Jacksonville, Florida, where he passed away on April
7, 2013 of a pancreatic illness at the age of 83. That same year Willie Ruff was
awarded the Sanford Medal. The Sanford Medal is the highest honor from Yale
University's School of Music Willie died in Killen, Alabama on December 24,
2023, at the age of 92.
Wardell Gray (February 13, 1921 – May 25, 1955) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Gray was born in Oklahoma and he lived in the “Deep Deuce” African-American neighborhood of Oklahoma City. His family moved to Detroit when he was nine years old. Gray was raised and came of age in the Motor City. In early 1935, Gray began attending Northeastern High School, he was then transferred to Cass Technical High School. He left in 1936, before graduating. Advised by his brother-in-law Junior Warren, Gray as a teenager started learning the clarinet. However, after hearing Lester Young on record with Count Basie, he was inspired to switch to the tenor saxophone.
Gray's first musical job was in Isaac Goodwin's small band, a part-time band that played local dances. When auditioning for another job, he was heard by Dorothy Patton, a young pianist who was forming a band in the Fraternal Club in Flint, Michigan, she later hired him. After a year there, he moved to Jimmy Raschel's band, and then to the Benny Carew band in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Around this time, he met Jeanne Goings; they had a daughter, Anita, born in January 1941.
Earl Hines Orch., Gray far right
Near the Congo Club was the Three Sixes. A young dancer, Jeri Walker, knew Earl Hines, and when the Hines band came through Detroit in late 1943, she persuaded Hines to hire Gray on alto saxophone since there was no tenor saxophone job at the time. This was a break for the 21-year-old, as the Earl Hines Orchestra was not only nationally known but had nurtured the careers of emerging bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Although most of them had left when Gray joined, playing with the Hines band was a stimulating experience.
He left Hines late in 1946, settling in Los Angeles, California; soon after arriving, he recorded the first session under his name. This was a quartet session for Eddie Laguna's Sunset label, and on it Wardell was supported by Dodo Marmarosa on piano. The date produced "Easy Swing" and "The Man I Love".
Wardell and Dexter Gordon
In Los Angeles, Wardell worked with Benny Carter, blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter, and the small group that supported singer Billy Eckstine on a tour of the West Coast. But the real focus in Los Angeles was in clubs along Central Avenue where Wardell held tenor battles with Dexter Gordon.
Their fame began to spread, and Ross Russell managed to get them to simulate one of their battles on "The Chase", which became Wardell's first nationally known recording and has been called "one of the most exciting musical contests in the history of jazz". The success of "The Chase" was the break Wardell needed, and he became increasingly prominent in public sessions in and around Los Angeles.
Wardell with Benny Goodman
During1947 Benny Goodman hired Wardell for a small group that he was setting up as part of his flirtation with bebop. The group opened at Frank Palumbo's Click Club in Philadelphia in May 1948. It was not a financial success and Goodman eventually broke it up, but by now Wardell was established on the East Coast as an up-and-coming musician. For a while in late 1948/early 1949 he worked with the Count Basie Orchestra, while also managing to record with Tadd Dameron and in quartet and quintet sessions with Al Haig.
Wardell with Billie Holiday
When Basie broke up his big band he formed a septet which included Clark Terry and Buddy DeFranco. Wardell was part of the Basie septet during 1950–51. Due to the constant travelling, Wardell eventually decided to leave so that he could enjoy more home life. However, there are increasing signs of a lack of engagement around 1951/52, notably in a further live session with Dexter Gordon from February 1952, and it seems that he may have been becoming disillusioned with the music business.
L-R:- Billy Ecstine, Conte Candoli, Don Lamond, Wardell Gray & Dexter Gordon
Around this time, Gray became involved with drugs; friends reported that this was taking its toll. His playing was now less fluent, and a studio session in January 1955, which was to be his last, shows strong but (by his own standards) rather unsubtle playing. Benny Carter hired him to participate in a new band which would integrate the Las Vegas casino entertainment. However, on opening night in July 1955, Wardell Gray's body was found in the Nevada desert, his neck broken.
The official report claimed that he had died of a drug overdose, although no autopsy seems to have been performed. The Nevada officials didn't seem overly concerned about the cause of death of a visiting black musician. There were rumours at the time that Wardell had been the victim of a gang-style execution over gambling debts. Also according to sax player Teddy Edwards was that a few of Carter’s band members found his body in his hotel room. They wanted no police trouble, so they put his body in a car and brought it to the desert. Even so, the mysterious circumstances of his death, subject to various innuendos are yet to be solved.
(Edited from Wikipedia)
Here’s a clip of Count
Basie, piano; Wardell Gray, tenor sax; Buddy DeFranco, clarinet; and Clark
Terry, trumpet.
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