Saturday, September 23, 2006

Spotlight
Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane was born 80 years ago today. Coltrane worked with other jazz greats Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Thelonius Monk in the 1950s, forming his own group — a quartet — in 1960. Noted for his modal-jazz style of music and his avant-garde compositions, Coltrane was also considered a brilliant tenor and soprano saxophonist. His recordings of My Favorite Things (1961), A Love Supreme (1964), and Ascension (1965) still influence the styles of jazz musicians today.

Quote
"Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad." — John Coltrane

Word of the day
shibboleth -- slogan, catchword; a custom or usage regarded as a criterion for distinguishing membership (© )

Holiday
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year; began at sunset
the previous evening)

Today's News

• HIV: CDC recommends screening for all Americans aged 13-64 (story)
• Forbes 400: list is composed, for the first time, exclusively of billionaires (story)
• fear: on-off switch located in the brain (story)
• Lance Armstrong: finds training for the NYC marathon "harder physically than I expected" (story)
• Michael Jackson: to open a leprechaun theme park in Ireland (story)

Today's History

• "I have not yet begun to fight": proclaimed American John Paul Jones to British commander who asked if he was ready to surrender his ship (1779)
• Neptune: 8th planet was discovered by Johann Gottfried Galle (1846)
• Checkers speech: Richard M. Nixon denied having received improper contributions, except perhaps for his daughter's dog, Checkers (1952)

Today's Birthdays

• Ray Charles: raspy-voiced soul singer (1930-2004)
• Bruce Springsteen: singer/songwriter/guitarist (57)
• Jason Alexander: George Costanza on Seinfeld (47)