Thank you, Don Normark for so carefully documenting Chavez Ravine.
Obit here.
obit
Maya Angelou, 86
“When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I’m trying for that. But I’m also trying for the language. I’m trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence.”
— Maya Angelou
NYT obit here …
Gabriel García Márquez, 87
“I see dreams as part of life in general, but reality is much richer.”
RIP Gabriel García Márquez
via The Paris Review interview here.
Wanda Coleman Memorial
Four Little Girls
Fifty Years Ago Today: Remembering Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair
Twelve Years
— in memoriam
Cal Worthington, 92
HAD A long ride. And from the web chatter this morning, we all thought it would last forever.
Cal Worthington, the colorful cowboy-hat-donning car salesman, who paraded about a menagerie of animals (referring to them all as “Spot”) and threatened to stand on his head until his ears turned red all only to bring customers the best deal has closed his last sale. Worthington died yesterday watching a football game at his ranch near Orland, California.
Anyone growing up in Southern California from the 1960s on got a glimpse of Worthington and his antics and that banjo riff behind the “Go See Cal, Go, See Cal” commercial jingles wormed it’s way through your brain for hours after. The 60-second spots got more and more outrageous as years went on — tigers, elephants, etc. He was a staple during mid-day television when I’d be home from with my sore throat and soup.
I’ve been sort of amazed by all of the varied memories that have come from all corners — one friend tossing out a memory of Worthington’s country music TV show, Cal’s Corral, which aired on KTLA until the early 70s. The tag-line is what I remember: “Get up off of that couch!”
What a different, plain-spoken era.
More video here.
RIP, Cal
image via Wikipedia
“There Will Never Be Another You”
IT’S BEEN a really bad week for jazz.
Two players and a writer who contemplated the form. Just last week, I’d posted the great Art Kane photograph gathering jazz’s bright lights. Just below it I posted the Gordon Parks image, taken in the same spot in 1996. One of the few musicians still standing in the latter photo was pianist Marian McPartland (at left, With Mary Lou Williamson and Thelonious Monk), who died yesterday at 95. 
This of course after Monday’s news about pianist and composer Cedar Walton (xx) as well as the writer Albert Murray, 97, who was one of the engines behind the founding of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Too many thoughts to try to set in order right now but I didn’t want to let too much more time pass without taking note.
Thank you all for the art.
George Duke, 67
via NPR: George Duke, the legendary jazz keyboardist, died on Monday, his publicist tells NPR.
Duke’s career spanned five decades and he always straddled the line between disparate genres, collaborating with artists such as Miles Davis, Barry Manilow, Frank Zappa, George Clinton and some of Brazil’s top musicians.
— more from NPR here …
Already, I’m watching remembrances bloom across social media — a diverse collection of musican friends who have played with Duke in a cross-section of settings. My favorite comment thus far:
“his music served as the soundtrack for a coming of age movie starring me. thank you george. you will live forever in your music.”
“Play on…”
Michael Hastings, 33
via NPR
Michael Hastings, the journalist whose candid interviews of Gen. Stanley McChrystal led to the officer’s eventual removal from his post, has died in a car crash. The news was announced Tuesday by BuzzFeed, which employed Hastings, 33. He was reportedly killed in an accident this morning in Los Angeles
Rolling Stone obit here.
native to the place 