R.I.P. Bobby Hebb

"Sunny" was written and proformed by Bobby Hebb. It is one of the most covered popular songs, with hundreds of versions released. BMI rates "Sunny" number 25 in its "Top 100 songs of the century".

"Sunny" has been covered by, among others, Boney M, Cher, Georgie Fame, Johnny Rivers, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra with Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, the Electric Flag, The Four Seasons, the Four Tops, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Les McCann, Dusty Springfield, and The Alex Trio featuring David Wise.

Hebb wrote the song after suffering a double tragedy - a national loss followed by a personal one: On 22 November 1963, the day after US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Hebb's older brother Harold was killed in a knife fight outside a Nashville nightclub. Hebb was devastated by both events and many critics say that those events inspired the tune. Others claims Bobby wrote the song for God.

"Sunny" was recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City and released as a single in 1966. It met an immediate success, which resulted in Hebb touring in 1966 with The Beatles.

Bobby Hebb died on August 3rd, 2010 at the age of 72.

1962 "gorilla glass" Could Be Corning's Next Bonanza Seller

This is fascinating stuff. I wonder why it sat around for forty eight years?

CORNING, N.Y. (AP) -- An ultra-strong glass that has been looking for a purpose since its invention in 1962 is poised to become a multibillion-dollar bonanza for Corning Inc.

Manu Katché - Pieces Of Emotion

Beautiful song by drummer Manu Katché "Pieces Of Emotion" from his 2007 "Playground" album on ECM Records. I have all of Manu's albums and each one makes a strong musical statement.

Larry Young - Unity

On "Unity" jazz organist Larry Young began to display some of the angular drive that made him a natural for the jazz-rock explosion to come barely four years later. While about as far from the groove jazz of Jimmy Smith as you could get, Young hadn't made the complete leap into freeform jazz-rock either. Here he finds himself in very distinguished company: drummer Elvin Jones, trumpeter Woody Shaw, and saxman Joe Henderson. Young was clearly taken by the explorations of saxophonists Coleman and Coltrane, as well as the tonal expressionism put in place by Sonny Rollins and the hard-edged modal music of Miles Davis and his young quintet. But the sound here is all Young: the rhythmic thrusting pulses shoved up against Henderson and Shaw as the framework for a melody that never actually emerges ("Zoltan" -- one of three Shaw tunes here), the skipping chords he uses to supplant the harmony in "Monk's Dream," and also the reiterating of front-line phrases a half step behind the beat to create an echo effect and leave a tonal trace on the soloists as they emerge into the tunes (Henderson's "If" and Shaw's "The Moontrane"). All of these are Young trademarks, displayed when he was still very young, yet enough of a wiseacre to try to drive a group of musicians as seasoned as this -- and he succeeded each and every time. As a soloist, Young is at his best on Shaw's "Beyond All Limits" and the classic nugget "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise." In his breaks, Young uses the middle register as a place of departure, staggering arpeggios against chords against harmonic inversions that swing plenty and still comes out at all angles. Unity proved that Young's debut, Into Somethin', was no fluke, and that he could play with the lions. And as an album, it holds up even better than some of the work by his sidemen here.  ~AllMusic

1965 release

Joe Henderson Sax (Tenor)
Nat Hentoff Liner Notes
Elvin Jones Drums
Alfred Lion Producer
Ron McMaster Digital Transfers
Reid Miles Design, Cover Design
Woody Shaw Trumpet, Drums
Rudy Van Gelder Engineer
Larry Young Organ, Organ (Hammond)

Wolfgang Haffner - Shapes

"Having played on ACT albums by everyone from Nils Landgren (featured here) and Viktoria Tolstoy to the late Albert Mangelsdorff, drummer Wolfgang Haffner is adept at tailoring his percussive contributions to individual requirements.

His own tastes, however, judged by the twelve compositions he's included on this, his debut album as a leader, lead him to that mix of ambient sounds, minimalism and drum-programme music frequently described as nu jazz.

His strong backbeats, slurping and slithering electronic percussion, washes of synthesised sound and chattering/insect swarm effects form the backdrop for a series of simple melodic hooks and haunting fragments of tunes, sometimes stated by Lars Danielsson's acoustic bass, at other times by Landgren's crooning trombone, Sebastian Studnitzky's trumpet or acoustic piano, or Frank Kuruc's acoustic guitar.

The result is a fascinating, at times downright mesmeric selection of textures and timbres underpinned by Haffner's drums and effects, the music's jazz elements (the odd solo on ethereal muted trumpet or luminously delicate acoustic piano) leavening a sound mix that occasionally veers too close to being an end in itself, but which usually works well as a gelling agent. Mood music, certainly, but tellingly informed by a jazz sensibility".

Wolfgang Haffner – drums, keyboards, programming
Nils Landgren – trombone
Sebastian Studnitzky – trumpet, piano, keyboards
Frank Kuruc – acoustic & electric guitar
Lars Danielsson – acoustic & electric bass, cello

Recorded by Lars Nilsson at Nilento, Gothenburg,
October 17-19, 2005
Mastered by Peter Heider at Ü-Raum, Nürnberg, Germany
Produced by Nils Landgren & Wolfgang Haffner