R.I.P. Billy Taylor, Bobby Farrell, and Agathe von Trapp, Musicians Who Died in the Last Days of 2010
Nothing gets you in the mood to start fresh in a new calendar year like a few last crappy things happening in the last one. Also, bad things come in threes. (Feel free to suggest any relevant truisms I've missed in the comments section.) Anyway, three more musical notables joined the ranks of Guru, Captain Beefheart, and Ronnie James Dio last week.
The biggest newsmaker is jazz pianist and prolific award-winner Billy Taylor, who died Dec. 28 at 89. Here he is explaining jazz improvisation on the television show The Subject Is Jazz, then giving a lovely example:
A little more sinister: Bobby Farrell, Aruba-born frontman of Jamaico-German disco outfit Boney M., who died Dec. 30 at age 61 in a Russian hotel room. Here he is doing kind of inappropriate things with a microphone stand:
And, to make the child in you feel old and depressed, Agathe von Trapp, the inspiration for the character of Liesl, the eldest daughter in The Sound of Music, died at 97 on Dec. 28 outside of Baltimore. Here is her bright-eyed theatrical stand-in singing opposite Julie Andrews about the tender young age when a young woman's thoughts turn to romance:
May they all rest in peace, and may 2011 pick off some worthier candidates.
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