Hank Jones, American jazz pianist. has died he was , 91

Henry "Hank" Jones^[1] has died he was , 91. Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable.^[2] In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award.^[3] He was also honored in 2003 with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award.^[4] In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On April 13, 2009, the University of Hartford

presented Jones with a Doctorate Degree for his musical accomplishments.

Jones recorded over sixty albums under his own name, and countless others as a sideman.^[5]

(July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010)

Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Henry "Hank" Jones moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where his father, a Baptist deacon and lumber inspector, bought a three-story brick home. One of seven children, Jones was raised in a musical family. His mother sang; his two older sisters studied piano; and his two younger brothers—Thad, a trumpeter, and Elvin, a drummer—also became prominent jazz musicians.^[6] He studied piano at an early age and came under the influence of Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, and Art Tatum. By the age of 13 Jones was performing locally in Michigan and Ohio. While playing with territory bands in Grand Rapids and Lansing in 1944 he met Lucky Thompson, who invited Jones to work in New York City at the Onyx Club with Hot Lips Page.^[7]

In New York, Jones regularly listened to leading bop musicians, and was inspired to master the new style. While practicing and studying the music he worked with John Kirby, Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Andy Kirk, and Billy Eckstine. In autumn 1947, he began touring in Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic package, and from 1948 to 1953 he was accompanist for Ella Fitzgerald, and accompanying her in England in the Fall of 1948,^[8] developed a harmonic facility of extraordinary taste and sophistication. During this period he also made several historically important recordings with Charlie Parker, which included "The Song Is You", from the Now's the Time album, recorded in December 1952, with Teddy Kotick on bass and Max Roach on drums.

Engagements with Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman followed, and recordings with artists such as Lester Young, Cannonball Adderley, and Wes Montgomery, in addition to being for a time, 'house pianist' on the Savoy label. From 1959 through 1975 Jones was staff pianist for CBS studios.^[9] This included backing guests like Frank Sinatra on The Ed Sullivan Show.^[10] He played the piano accompaniment to Marilyn Monroe as she sang "Happy Birthday Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy on May 19, 1962.^[1] By the late 1970s, his involvement as pianist and conductor with the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin' (based on the music of Fats Waller) had informed a wider audience of his unique qualities as a musician.

During the late 1970s and the 1980s, Jones continued to record prolifically, as an unaccompanied soloist, in duos with other pianists (including John Lewis and Tommy Flanagan), and with various small ensembles, most notably the Great Jazz Trio. The group took this name in 1976, by which time Jones had already begun working at the Village Vanguard with its original members, Ron Carter and Tony Williams (it was Buster Williams rather than Carter, however, who took part in the trio's first recording session in 1976); by 1980 Jones' sidemen were Eddie Gomez and Al Foster, and in 1982 Jimmy Cobb replaced Foster. The trio also recorded with other all-star personnel, such as Art Farmer, Benny Golson, and Nancy Wilson. In the early 1980s Jones held a residency as a solo pianist at the Cafe Ziegfeld and made a tour of Japan, where he performed and recorded with George Duvivier and Sonny Stitt. Jones' versatility was more in evidence with the passage of time. He collaborated on recordings of Afro-pop with an ensemble from Mali and on an album of spirituals, hymns and folksongs with Charlie Haden called Steal Away (1995).

Some of his later recordings are For My Father (2005) with bassist George Mraz and drummer Dennis Mackrel, a solo piano recording issued in Japan under the title Round Midnight (2006), and as a side man on Joe Lovano's Joyous Encounter (2005). Jones made his debut on Lineage Records, recording with Frank Wess and with the guitarist Eddie Diehl, but also appeared on West of 5th (2006) with Jimmy Cobb and Christian McBride on Chesky Records. He also accompanied Diana Krall for "Dream a Little Dream of Me" on the album compilation, We all Love Ella (Verve 2007). He is one of the musicians who test and talk about the piano in the documentary Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, released in November 2007.

In early 2000, the Hank Jones Quartet accompanied jazz singer Salena Jones at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Idaho, and in 2006 at the Monterey Jazz Festival with both jazz singer Roberta Gambarini and the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Hank Jones lived in upstate New York and in Manhattan. He died at a hospice in Manhattan, New York, on May 16, 2010. He is survived by his wife Theodosia.

Awards and recognitions

Grammy history

• Career Wins: 2009: Lifetime Achievement Grammy
• Career Nominations: 5^[11]

Hank Jones Grammy Awards History
Year	Category	Title	Genre	Label	Result
1977	Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Soloist	"Bop Redux"	Jazz	Muse	Nominee
1980	Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Soloist	"I Remember You"	Jazz	Black & Blue	Nominee
1980	Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Group	"I Remember You"	Jazz	Black & Blue	Nominee
1995	Best Jazz Instrumental Solo	"Go Down Moses"	Jazz	Verve	Nominee
1995	Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Individual or Group	"Steal Away"	Jazz	Verve	Nominee

To see more of who died in 2010 click here

Pamela Green, British actress and model, died of leukemia she was , 81

Pamela Green has died of leukemia she was , 81. Green was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. She modeled for Zoltán Glass, Horace Roye, and John Everard.

(March 28, 1929, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England – May 7, 2010[2][1])

Born as Phyllis Pamela Green, she started figure modelling to pay for her art school studies and moved on to photographic modelling because it paid more. Early in her career Pamela Green was photographed by Bill Brandt (while still at art college), Zoltán Glass and Angus McBean.

In 1954 Pamela started to supply the bookshops and newsagents of London's Soho with her own postcard sets of glamour photographs, to supplement her work as a photographer's model. The success of this business with her then partner George Harrison Marks, promoted them to set up Kamera Publications Ltd.

With her as Managing Director, they produced several magazines, with Kamera being the most successful. It was the first glamour magazine of any note in the UK, and heralded the top-shelf magazine industry in the country. As their success grew they ventured into 8mm cine film production.

Following her divorce from Guy Hillier, she moved in with Harrison Marks and took his name, but there is doubt over whether they actually married. In 1961 she split with Harrison Marks and eventually the business was wound up; Kamera ceased publication in 1968. He always acknowledged his debt to Pamela Green and said in his biography The Naked Truth, "Pam set me up. She started it all."

She starred in Michael Powell's psychological thriller Peeping Tom (1960). In 1964 she appeared in an episode of This Week.

Green continued to model for the photographer Douglas Webb, her last husband, a former war hero of the Dambusters raid. She became Webb's camera stills assistant and worked for the major movie companies in London. In 1986 and Webb moved to the Isle of Wight.

Pamela Green died from leukaemia, aged 81, on the Isle of Wight on May 7, 2010.

Filmography

• Peeping Tom (1960)
• Naked as Nature Intended (1961)
• The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
• The Chimney Sweeps (1963)
• The Naked World of Harrison Marks (1966)
• Legend of the Werewolf (1975) (uncredited)

To see more of who died in 2010 click here

Doris Eaton Travis, American performer, last surviving Ziegfeld girl, has died of aneurysm.she was , 106

Doris Eaton Travis ^[2] American performer, last surviving Ziegfeld girl, has died of aneurysm. Travis was a Broadway and film performer, dance instructor, and author. She was also the last surviving Ziegfeld girl.

Travis began performing onstage as a young child, and made her Broadway debut at the age of 13. A year later, in 1918, she joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies as the youngest Ziegfeld Girl ever cast in the show. She continued to perform in stage productions and silent films throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. As of 2010, she was, along with Miriam Seegar and Barbara Kent, one of the last surviving non-child actors who appeared in silent films.

When her career in stage and screen declined, she started a second career as an Arthur Murray dance instructor and local television personality in Detroit. Her association with Arthur Murray lasted for three decades, during which time she rose through the ranks to own and manage a chain of nearly 20 schools. After retiring from her career with Arthur Murray, she went on to manage a horse ranch with her husband and returned to school, eventually earning several degrees.

In her later years, Travis had returned to the public eye. As the last surviving Ziegfeld Girl, she was been featured in several books and documentaries about the Ziegfeld Follies and her other stage endeavors. Eaton Travis had also returned to the stage as a featured performer in benefit performances for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. She died on May 11, 2010 at age 106.

(March 14, 1904 – May 11, 2010)

On March 14, 1904, Doris Eaton was born in Norfolk, Virginia to Mary and Charles Eaton. She was one of seven children in the family.^[3] Eaton began attending dance lessons in Washington, D.C., along with her sisters Mary and Pearl Eaton, aged four. In 1911, all three sisters were hired for a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's fantasy play The Blue Bird at the Shubert Belasco Theatre in Washington. While Eaton had a minor role in the show, as a sleeping child in the Palace of Night scene, it marked the beginning of her career in professional theatre.^[4]

After The Blue Bird, in 1912, the three Eaton sisters and their younger brother Joe began appearing in various plays and melodramas for the Poli Stock Company. They quickly gained reputations as professional, reliable, and versatile actors, and were rarely out of work.^[4]

In 1915, all three sisters appeared in a new production of The Blue Bird for Poli. Doris and Mary were given the starring roles of Mytyl and Tyltyl. The siblings were subsequently invited to reprise their roles for a New York and road tour of the play, produced by the Shubert Brothers. When the show closed, Doris and her brother Charlie, who had followed his four siblings into show business, resumed their work with Poli and appeared together in their first Broadway show, Mother Carey's Chickens at the Cort Theatre. The entire Eaton family relocated to New York City, where the children pursued their careers in various stage projects.^[4][5]

By 1918, Pearl Eaton had become a dancer and assistant to the director with the Ziegfeld Follies. The Follies were a series of elaborate musical revues on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. Inspired by the Folies Bergères of Paris, the Follies were conceived and mounted by Florenz Ziegfeld.^[6] When Doris accompanied Pearl to a rehearsal, dance supervisor Ned Wayburn spotted her and hired her for a role in the summer touring company of the 1918 Follies.^[7][8]

The day she finished the eighth grade, Doris began rehearsals to become a Ziegfeld girl in the Follies.^[9] To circumvent child labor laws and the attention of the Gerry Society, she performed under the stage names "Doris Levant" (actually her young niece's name) and "Lucille Levant". As soon as she turned sixteen, she began using her real name again. Wayburn was one of only a few people who were aware of her true age, and arranged for her mother to accompany her on the Follies tour as a paid member of the company.^[4][8]

Eaton Travis would associate with Ziegfeld for several years, appearing in the 1918, 1919, and 1920 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies and the 1919 Midnight Frolics.^[5] She was the understudy to star Marilyn Miller. Doris was not the only member of the Eaton family to prosper in the show: by 1922, Mary, Pearl, Doris, Joe, and ten-year old Charlie had all performed in one edition of the Follies or another. Doris' last appearance with the Follies was in the 1920 edition.^[4][7]

Eaton Travis made her motion picture debut at the age of 17 in the 1921 romantic drama At the Stage Door, opposite silent film star Billie Dove. Her career flourished in the 1920s and early 1930s. She appeared in a number of additional silent films, including Tell Your Children with director Donald Crisp in England and Egypt; performed in five different Broadway shows and danced in the Hollywood Music Box Revue and the Gorham Follies in Los Angeles and the Hollywood Club in New York.^[10][4][7]

While in the Hollywood Music Box Revue, Eaton Travis premiered two important songs, both composed by Nacio Herb Brown: "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Doll Dance." Doris was the lyricist for the latter song, but did not receive due credit.

Aged 18, Doris Eaton married Joe Gorham, the producer of the Gorham Follies. The marriage was opposed by the Eaton clan, and quickly regretted by the young Doris when Gorham, who was twice her age, revealed a cruel and abusive nature. The union lasted for six months, ending when Gorham died of a heart attack.^[4][7]

She performed in her final Broadway show, the play Merrily We Roll Along at the Music Box Theatre, in 1935.^[5] Her career, along with those of her siblings, declined in the 1930s. She returned to work in stock theatrical productions on Long Island and had a brief, albeit unsuccessful, foray into vaudeville with her brother Charlie.^[4]

In 1936, she was hired by the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in New York as a tap dance instructor. She remained with the Arthur Murray company for thirty-two years, advancing from teaching to owning her own school. Eventually Eaton Travis established and owned a total of eighteen Arthur Murray studios across Michigan. She authored a column of dance advice and commentary for the Detroit News entitled "On Your Toes" and hosted a local television program for seven years.^[4][11][8]

One of her pupils, inventor and engineer Paul Travis, became her husband after an 11-year courtship. Their marriage would endure for over fifty years, until Paul's death in 2000; they had no children.^[11][4] After retiring from the dance studio business in 1968, Eaton Travis and her husband moved to Norman, Oklahoma, and established a ranch. The initial 220-acre (89 ha) plot grew to 880 acres (356 ha), and many of the quarter-horses bred and raised on the ranch had success in racing. The ranch was still in operation, largely as a boarding facility, and managed by Eaton Travis, as of 2008.^[11][7]

In 1992, aged 88, Eaton Travis graduated cum laude from the University of Oklahoma.^[4] She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oakland University in 2004 at the age of 100.

In 1997, she and four former Ziegfeld Girls reunited for the reopening of the New Amsterdam Theatre. She later recalled that she was the only one still able to dance.^[3]

In 1998, Eaton Travis returned to Broadway and the New Amsterdam Theatre, the same venue where she had first appeared in 1918, 80 years earlier, to participate in the Easter Bonnet Competition, a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. She became the show's "lucky charm" and an audience favorite, and continued to appear in the production almost every year, often presenting renditions of her old dances to standing ovations from the audience.^[4][12][8] In 1999 she made her first film appearance in over sixty-five years with a small role in Man on the Moon with Jim Carrey.^[10]

She appeared in several documentaries and interviews about the Ziegfeld Follies and her siblings and colleagues; she also published an autobiography and family history, entitled The Days We Danced, in 2003.^[3] In 2006, Eaton Travis was the subject of a photo-collage biography by Pulitzer Prize nominee Lauren Redniss entitled Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies.

In January 2008 Eaton Travis served as the Grand Marshal of the opening parade for the Art Deco Weekend festival in Miami Beach.^[11] Her last public appearance was the opening of the 2010 Easter Bonnet show on April 27, 2010.^[2] After a long life and career, Eaton Travis died of an aneurysm on May 11, 2010.[1] On May 12, the lights of Broadway were dimmed in her honor.^[3] She is interred in the Guardian Angel Cemetery in Rochester, Michigan.^[13]

To see more of who died in 2010 click here

Adele Mara, American actress (Sands of Iwo Jima), died of natural causes she was 87,

Adele Mara born as Adelaide Delgado has died she was 87. Mara was an American actress, who appeared in films during the 1940s and 1950s.^[1]

(April 28, 1923 – May 7, 2010),

One of her early roles was as a receptionist in the Three Stooges film I Can Hardly Wait. Other films include The Vampire's Ghost, Wake of the Red Witch, Angel in Exile, Sands of Iwo Jima, California Passage, and Don Siegel's Count the Hours.

Born in Highland Park, Michigan, of Spanish descent, she was married to television writer/producer Roy Huggins and appeared as a dancer in two episodes of his 1957 television series Maverick. Mara died of natural causes on May 7, 2010.

To see more of who died in 2010 click here

Florrie Baldwin, has died, she was a British supercentenarian who was 114

Florence Emily Baldwin ^[1] was, at the time of her death, the oldest living person in the United Kingdom and Europe.

(née Davies; 31 March 1896 – 8 May 2010)

Born Florence Emily Davies in the Hunslet district of Leeds, she was the daughter of Methuselah Davies (1861 - 1946) from Dowlais, Wales and Florence Susannah Bird (1863 - 1926) from Aylsham, Norfolk.^[2] She remembered the Boer War and, at the age of four, seeing Queen Victoria when she visited Leeds.^[3][4] In 1920, she married painter and decorator Clifford Baldwin and moved to Woodhouse.^[4][5] After his death in 1973, Baldwin lived alone until she was 105, still being able to put up curtains and clean windows.^[6] She then moved to Radcliffe Gardens, a nursing home in Leeds.^[7]

She credited her longevity to eating a fried egg sandwich every day.^[8][9] However doctors reputedly thought it could be due to her job as a clerk at an engineering firm for fifty years, which she retired from at the age of 75. The company was based on top a steep hill in Woodhouse, Leeds. "She would walk up that hill, come home at lunchtime and then back up it" commented a grandson.^[4] Baldwin's daughter believes her mother's longevity was due to no drinking, no smoking and hard work.^[6] Baldwin spent time in hospital in her 70s due to cataracts.^[10]

Following the death of Italian woman Lucia Lauria on 28 June 2009, Baldwin became the oldest living person in Europe. Baldwin became one of the 100 verified oldest women ever on 14 October 2009 and one of the 70 verified oldest people ever on 22 April 2010. Baldwin was in good health until the age of 111, when she began developing short-term memory loss which progressed into dementia and had very few memories of the past in the last months of her life. ^[11]

To see more of who died in 2010 click here

Francisco Aguabella, Cuban-born American jazz percussionist, died of cancer, he was 84

Francisco Aguabella was an Afro-Cuban jazz percussionist whose career began in the 1950s.

(October 10, 1925 – May 7, 2010)

Aguabella was born in Matanzas, Cuba. In the 1950s, he left Cuba to perform with Katherine Dunham in the Shelley Winters film Mambo filmed in Italy. After touring with Katherine Dunham he came to the United States and performed and toured with Peggy Lee for the next seven years. He performed in Europe, Australia, South America, and all over the United States (including the White House). Francisco enjoyed an extensive music performing and recording career and delighted many audiences with his masterful and powerful rhythms.

Francisco performed with many great Jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Palmieri, Cachao, Lalo Schifrin, Cal Tjader, Nancy Wilson, Poncho Sanchez, Bebo Valdes and numerous others. Francisco was honored to receive numerous awards including the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Durfee Foundation's Master Musicians' Fellowship, and recognition by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. He is featured in the documentary, "Sworn to the Drum" by filmmaker Les Blank, and is featured in a documentary, "Aguabella," currently in production, directed by actor/filmmaker Orestes Matacena (The Mask, Bitter Sugar). He has also appeared with his ensemble on television programs including the Orlando Jones Show on FX.

During the 1970s he was a member of the Jorge Santana Latin rock band Malo. ^[1] Francisco was a widely recognized master conguero and bata artist, a caring and knowledgeable instructor. In 1992 he won a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lived in Los Angeles, California where he taught Afro-Cuban drumming to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Aguabella died in Los Angeles on May 7, 2010 of a cancer-related illness.^[2]

Discography

As leader

• 1977: Hitting Hard (Epsilon)
• 1993: Oriza: Santeria Religion Afrocubana (Cubop/Ubiquity Records)
• 1999: Agua de Cuba (Cubop)
• 1999: H2O (Cubop)
• 2002: Cubacan (Cubop)
• 2002: Cantos a los Orishas (Pimienta Records)
• 2004: Ochimini (Cubop)

To see more of who died in 2010 click here

Rane Arroyo, American poet, has died of a cerebral hemorrhage, he was 55

Rane Ramón Arroyo has died of a cerebral hemorrhage, he was 55. Arroyo was an American poet, playwright, and scholar of Puerto Rican descent who wrote numerous books and received many literary awards.^[1] He was a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Toledo in Ohio.^[2] His work deals extensively with issues of immigration, Latino culture, and homosexuality.^[3] Arroyo was openly gay and frequently wrote self-reflexive, autobiographical texts.^[4] He was the long-term partner of the American poet Glenn Sheldon. (November 15, 1954 – May 7, 2010)

Rane Ramón Arroyo was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Puerto Rican immigrant parents. He began his career as a performance artist in the Chicago art galleries of the 1980s and eventually expanded into poetry, for which he has become best known.

Arroyo earned his Ph.D. in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh where he wrote his dissertation on issues surrounding the Chicago Renaissance that parallel the building of a contemporary Latino literary canon.^[5] He served as the co-Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) and as the co-Chair for the 2009 Chicago Conference.

Arroyo died in the early morning of May 7, 2010 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.^[6][7]

Arroyo was included in the Heath Anthology of American Literature published in 2006; this book is commonly taught in English college classes in the U.S.^[4] He won the 2004-05 John Ciardi Poetry Prize for The Portable Famine; the 1997 Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize for his book The Singing Shark; and a 1997 Pushcart Prize for the poem "Breathing Lessons" as published in Ploughshares. Other awards include: Stonewall Books Chapbook Prize; The Sonora Review Chapbook Prize, the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Prize, and a 2007 Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award in Poetry.

Betsy A. Sandlin published an article on him ("Poetry Always Demands All My Ghosts: The Haunted and Haunting Poetry of Rane Arroyo") in a landmark issue of CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Puerto Rican queer studies.^[8] Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes has also written about his work.^[4][9]

Works

Books of Poetry

• Columbus's Orphan. Arcadia, Fl.: JVC books, 1993. ISBN 1878116177
• The Singing Shark. Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 1996. ISBN 0927534614
• Pale Ramón. Cambridge, Mass.: Zoland Books, 1998. ISBN 0944072941
• Home Movies of Narcissus. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. ISBN 0816521956
• The Portable Famine. Kansas City, Mo.: BkMk Press, 2005. ISBN 1886157537
• Don Quixote goes to the Moon. Tokyo/Toronto: Ahadada Books, 2006.
• The Roswell Poems. La Porte, Ind.: WordFarm, 2008. ISBN 9781602260016
• Same-Sex Séances. New Sins Press, 2008. ISBN 0979695619
• The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. ISBN 9780816527168
• The Sky's Weight. Turning Point Press, 2009. ISBN 1934999733

Book of Short Stories

• How To Name A Hurricane. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005. ISBN 0816524602

Performed Plays

• The Amateur Virgin, Buddha and the Señorita, Tiara Tango, Emily Dickinson in Bandages, A Family In Figleaves, Prayers For A Go-Go Boy, Honeymoon Rehearsals, House With Black Windows (with the poet Glenn Sheldon), Red House On Fire, and Horatio: An Inquisition.

Published Plays

• Dancing At Funerals: Selected Plays. Tokio and Toronto: ahadada books, 2010. ISBN 9780981274447
• Buddha and the Señorita, Sex With The Man-in-The-Moon, Spanish Moon, Bed But No Breakfast, Fade To White (with the poets Glenn Sheldon and Diane Williams), Honeymoon Rehearsals, and A Lesson In Writing Love Letters.

To see more of who died in 2010 click here