QUEEN JANE, POPULAR KENYAN SINGER
30 June 2010
Nairobi — Popular musician Queen Jane has died while undergoing treatment at a Nairobi hospital.
She passed on Tuesday evening at the St Mary’s Hospital, Nairobi.
Queen Jane hit stardom following the release of the hit song Mwendwa KK in the 1990s.
She was born Jane Nyambura 45 years ago in Gatanga, Central Kenya.
Her two siblings Ejidiah Wanja, who also goes by the stage name Lady Wanja, and Agnes Wangui aka Princess Aggie are also involved in the music industry.
Robbed Kenya
Reacting to Queen Jane’s demise, Central Province music icon, Simon Kihara alias Musaimo, said that death has robbed Kenya a super star.”I’m like a three-legged stool whose one leg has been broken. The feeling is worse than what I felt when she left my band, Mbiri Stars, to form Queenja Les Les in 1991,” he said.
One-man-guitar musician, John Gathogo Kariuki (Karia-Mburi), an up-coming entertainer who belts out tunes at entertainment spots in Nairobi’s central business district, owes his success to Queen Jane.
“She hired me as a salesman in her music shop from where I learnt how to play the guitar and began to accompany her to music extravaganzas. I’m now earning a living thanks to her kindness,” he said, amid sobs.
Some of the songs that saw her carve a niche in the then male-dominated field are: Mwendwa KK, Ndutige Kwiyamba, Guka Nindarega, Maheni ti Thiiri, Mwana wa Ndigwa Muici wa Itura, Muthuri Teenager, Arume Ni Nyamu, Arume ni Njegeni and Nduraga Ngwetereire.
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Here are some videos that showcase the talent of Queen Jane’s music.
Rest in peace, Queen Jane.
Rest in peace.
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| Queen Jane in her element: This picture, taken by ‘The Standard’ last month, captured a hale singer whose death on Tuesday has devastated her fans. [PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO/STANDARD] |
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MOHAMMED OUDEH, WHO PLANNED ’72 OLYMPIC ATTACK
By DINA KRAFT
Published: July 3, 2010
TEL AVIV — Mohammed Oudeh, a former math teacher who became the mastermind of the deadly attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, died Friday in Damascus.
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Bassem Tellawi/Associated Press
Mohammed Oudeh in 2006.
He died of kidney failure, his daughter, Hana Oudeh, told The Associated Press. He was 73.
In later years, as a graying member of the Palestinian old guard, Mr. Oudeh, most commonly known by his guerrilla name, Abu Daoud, showed no remorse for the botched hostage taking and killings of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team that shook the world. He saw the attack as instrumental in putting the Palestinian cause on the map.
“Would you believe me if I tell you that if I had to do it all over, I would?” he said in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press. “But maybe, just maybe, we should have shown some flexibility. Back in our days, it was the whole of Palestine or nothing, but we should have accepted a Palestinian state next to Israel.”
Mr. Oudeh oversaw the plans of the raid, in which eight Palestinian militants belonging to the Black September group broke into a dormitory at the Olympic village where Israeli athletes were sleeping and took them hostage in the early morning of Sept. 5, 1972. Two of the athletes, a weightlifter and a wrestling coach, tried to overpower the militants, and were shot and killed.
The militants ended up with nine hostages, whom they said they would release in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
Israel refused to negotiate and a standoff ensued for 20 hours, while static television images of an empty balcony on a gray, modern dormitory transfixed the world. The Israeli hostages and their Palestinian captors were eventually transported by helicopters to a military airfield, where they had been promised to be flown to Cairo. Instead, West German sharpshooters tried to rescue the Israelis, setting off a gun battle in which five Palestinians, a German police officer and the nine hostages were killed.
“I am proud of my father,” Mr. Oudeh’s daughter, Wafa Oudeh, said in a phone interview from Damascus, shortly after his burial in the section of a cemetery reserved for martyrs to the Palestinian cause. “As a father he was a special person. He was emotional and generous. He was devoted to his family and to Palestine. His death is like a mountain collapsing.”
In addition to Ms. Oudeh, he is survived by his wife, four other daughters, and a son.
Amin Maqboul, secretary general of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, the Palestine Liberation Organization faction to which Mr. Oudeh belonged, praised him as “a fighter of the highest order.”
Hamas, Fatah’s rival, released a statement mourning Mr. Oudeh.
Mr. Oudeh was born in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan in 1937. In his younger years he taught Palestinian schoolchildren math and physics, and later became a lawyer.
He lived in East Jerusalem until the 1967 Mideast War, when Israel captured it from Jordan. He then moved to Jordan, where he joined the P.L.O.
In the 1970s, he was a leader of the Black September group, an offshoot of Fatah. After the Munich attack, he lived in Lebanon, Jordan and several Eastern European countries, where he had close ties to Communist bloc intelligence agencies.
For years he was cagey about his involvement in Munich. “Perhaps I was very close to the people involved and they told me some details afterwards,” he said in a 1997 interview. Although he defended the hostage-taking, he said there was no plan to kill the athletes.
But his role was well-known to American and Israeli intelligence officials. In 1981, he was shot several times in a hotel cafe in Warsaw in what was presumed to have been an assassination attempt by the Mossad. He survived, but for decades he lived in exile and on the run.
In 1996, his exile appeared to be over when he and several other former guerrillas were allowed back by to Israel in order to attend an assembly amending the Palestinian national charter. He joined those voting to remove the charter’s call for an armed struggle to destroy the Jewish state.
He settled in the West Bank town of Ramallah, but in 1999, after a trip to Jordan, he was barred by Israel from returning. Earlier that year he had published a memoir, “Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich,” in which he acknowledged his role in the Munich attack.
Khaled Abu Aker contributed reporting from Ramallah, West Bank.SOURCE
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BENNY POWELL, COUNT BASIE TROMBONIST
By PETER KEEPNEWS
Published: July 3, 2010
Benny Powell, a trombonist who performed or recorded with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins but who was best known for his long tenure with Count Basie’s big band, died on June 26 in New York. He was 80.
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Steve Berman/The New York Times
Benny Powell in 2004.
Mr. Powell spent most of his career as a sideman, but he made the most of his moments in the spotlight. His brief but lively solo on Basie’s 1955 recording of “April in Paris” helped make it one of the most popular numbers in the band’s repertory.
Mr. Powell was admired by critics and fellow musicians. Writing in The New York Times in 1984, John S. Wilson praised him for his “innate elegance” and his “mellow, full-bodied sound.”
Mr. Powell was with Basie from 1951 to 1963 and later returned to the band on special occasions and performed with Basie alumni ensembles. In a 1997 interview with the Online Trombone Journal (trombone.org), he said he remained so closely identified with Basie that “people still ask me, ‘Is the band in town?’ ”
He went on to lead his own small groups and became a familiar presence in the recording studios of New York and, later, Los Angeles. From 1966 to 1970 he was a member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, a Monday-night fixture at the Village Vanguard in New York.
He also performed in Broadway pit bands and in the house band on “The Merv Griffin Show.” When the show moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1970, Mr. Powell moved, too.
After returning to New York in the 1980s, Mr. Powell became active in jazz education. He had taught since 1994 at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.
Benjamin Gordon Powell Jr. was born in New Orleans on March 1, 1930, and began playing trombone when he was 12. He became a professional musician in 1944 and joined Lionel Hampton’s big band four years later.
He is survived by a daughter, Demitra Powell Clay; a sister, Elizabeth Powell McCrowey; and two grandchildren.
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BILL AUCOIN, MANAGER OF ROCK BAND ‘KISS’
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: July 1, 2010
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Web page (http://www.aucoin.biz). The cause was complications of prostate cancer, Kiss’s Web page (kissonline.com) said.
Kiss burst on the music scene in the early 1970s with flames, smoke, sirens and explosions. Band members in black leather, high heels and Kabuki-influenced makeup spit fake blood and belched fire to entertain wailing pubescent audiences.
Much credit goes to Bill Aucoin, who, as Kiss’s manager, helped four scruffy New York City kids with big, weird dreams formulate their flamboyant act; got them their first record contract; and ferociously marketed their merchandise, including a Kiss comic book, a Kiss pinball machine and, of course, Kiss makeup.
He even got their outlandishly painted faces copyrighted.
Mr. Aucoin (pronounced oh-COIN) died Monday in Aventura, Fla., at 66, according to his
Finally, in October 1973, Mr. Aucoin checked out Kiss at a run-down Manhattan hotel with holes in the floor and prostitutes in the lobby. He decided to switch careers and manage the band, his first. The job had been vacant since the departure of the group’s former manager, Lew Linet, who started with Kiss when it was known as Wicked Lester.
“I decided this is kind of interesting because they were trying to put on a show,” Mr. Aucoin said in an interview with classicbands.com.
Mr. Aucoin unleashed his directorial skills. Kiss was already dabbling in makeup, but he had them put on gobs more. He choreographed their onstage movements. And fire-breathing? He claimed to have come up with it.
“It was Bill who said, ‘Let’s take them to the nth degree,’ ” Mr. Simmons said in Kiss’s authorized biography, “Kiss: Behind the Mask” (2003), by David Leaf and Ken Sharp.
“Let’s breathe fire. Let’s have explosions, and all sorts of things.”
Mr. Aucoin’s goal was to develop defined identities for each band member in the manner of the Beatles, and his approach had a comic touch. Mr. Simmons would be the Demon; Paul Stanley (rhythm guitar), Starchild; Ace Frehley (lead guitar), Spaceman; and Peter Criss (drums), Catman.
“Everything we did had to kind of build up those images, which were specific images,” he told classicbands. He confiscated film from photographers who shot a band member without makeup.
Mr. Aucoin’s biggest early contribution was a record deal. After hearing Kiss play, he promised to get them one within 30 days if they signed with him. If he failed, they were free to leave.
By September — within the deadline — Kiss had a contract with Casablanca Records. Their debut album, “Kiss,” came out in February 1974.
Mr. Aucoin and Neil Bogart, the owner of Casablanca, poured most of their savings into Kiss, which was also the record company’s first act. Mr. Aucoin put their first tour on his American Express card. He told Kiss’s biographers that he invested as much as $300,000 of his own money in Kiss.
“That was my whole roll, every cent I had,” he said.
Mr. Aucoin did what he could to make his investment pay off by taking 25 percent of Kiss’s revenues, compared with the traditional 15 percent, The New York Times reported in 1997.
When Kiss dismissed Mr. Aucoin in 1982, his reimbursement was part of the reason, Mr. Simmons told The Times.
“Let’s just say he was earning too much for the work he was doing,” he said. “We were new; we didn’t know.”
But when it came to band members’ own earnings, Mr. Aucoin persuaded them to split their profits equally — even individual songwriting royalties. The manager wanted to avoid the financial jealousies that can rip groups apart.
Kiss’s rise was rocketlike after the band scored a No. 1 hit with “Rock and Roll All Nite” in 1975. Four years later, Kiss was racking up nearly $120 million in annual revenues.
Mr. Aucoin treasured a visit to Cadillac, Mich., in 1976 as his Barnum-like pinnacle. The band arrived by helicopter because Mr. Aucoin thought that would be “kind of a Beatles thing.” He got the entire high school student body, the mayor, and the police and fire chiefs to wear Kiss makeup. A street became Kiss Street.
William Martin Aucoin was born on Dec. 29, 1943, and grew up in Ayer, Mass. He studied business at Northeastern University and worked at WGBH, Boston’s PBS affiliate, and NBC.
He is survived by his companion, Roman Fernandez; and his sisters, Betty Britton and Janet Bankowski.
Mr. Aucoin went on to manage and advise other music acts, including Billy Squier and Billy Idol. He charged rock groups $5,000 for consulting. One group he managed was Flipp, a Minneapolis-based band, which tried to expand on Kiss-style extravagance.
Kii Arens, a member of Flipp also known as Chia Karaoke, told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2002 why his band needed Mr. Aucoin: “Bill is there to say, ‘Well, you know, you need to check what the wind is like if you’re gonna drop cereal from the helicopter, because those Froot Loops could fly up into the propellers.’ ”
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RAMMELLZEE, HIP-HOP AND GRAFITTI PIONEER
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: July 1, 2010
“But he didn’t separate his fantastic work from his life,” Mr. Ahearn said. “So when he spoke to you, he often spoke in character, and that could sometimes be upsetting.”
He legally changed his name to Rammellzee — which he described as not a name but a mathematical equation — when he was younger, Mr. Ahearn said. As to the name he was born with, Mr. Ahearn said that he knew it but would keep it to himself, as his friend would have wanted. Ms. Zagari Rammellzee likewise declined to reveal it: “It is not to be told. That is forbidden.”
Besides his wife, Rammellzee is survived by his mother, a brother and a stepsister, though he disliked divulging even such basic biographical information about himself. “He just ventured out on this planet in his own dimensions,” Ms. Zagari Rammellzee said.
In 1984 he had a small part in the Jim Jarmusch movie “Stranger Than Paradise” as a kind of deus ex machina, bearing a cash-stuffed envelope toward the end of the film. In an interview in The Washington Post the year the movie came out, Mr. Jarmusch said he considered Rammellzee a mad, overlooked genius.
“He’s the kind of guy you could talk to for 20 minutes and your whole life could change,” he said. “If you could understand him.”
The music blog Donewaiting.com described Rammellzee’s work on Wednesday by saying, “Think Sugar Hill Gang meets Philip K. Dick.”
For more than 20 years Rammellzee lived in a studio loft in TriBeCa that he called the Battle Station, where the walls and ceiling were virtually encrusted with his sculpture and other artwork, including toylike wheeled versions of letters that appeared to be armored and able to fly into combat.
The critic Greg Tate once wrote that Rammellzee’s “formulations on the juncture between black and Western sign systems make the extrapolations” of academics like Houston A. Baker Jr. and Henry Louis Gates Jr. “seem elementary by comparison.” In an interview with Mr. Tate, Rammellzee said he counted among his cultural forerunners Sun Ra and George Clinton, along with AC/DC, the Hells Angels and Gene Simmons of Kiss.
His nasal, half-comic vocal style, which became known as gangsta duck, was widely imitated during the early years of rap. In 2003 he performed at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan with Death Comet Crew, a group with which he collaborated frequently in the early years, and in 2004 he released “Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee,” his first full-length record.
Ms. Zagari Rammellzee said his illness had slowed him down over the last few years and prevented him from pursuing a prodigious list of ideas. But she added that he never viewed death as an end, only a change in forms.
“His energy has just gone out to the Van Allen Belt, I’m sure,” she said, “and pretty soon it’s going to come back to us again.”
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
Anna Howard Shaw, Suffragist, Dies at 72
(July 2, 1919)
Ernest Hemingway, Author, Dies at 61
(July 2, 1961)
Andrey Gromyko, Face of Postwar Soviet Diplomacy, Dies at 79
(July 2, 1989)
James Stewart, the Hesitant Hero, Dies at 89
(July 2, 1997)
Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter, Dies at 71
(July 6, 1971)
Earl Warren, Who Led High Court, Dies at 83
(July 9, 1974)
Arthur Fiedler, Conductor of Boston Pops, Dies at 84
(July 10, 1979)
Adlai Ewing Stevenson, Politician and Diplomat, Dies at 65
(July 14, 1965)
James McNeill Whistler, Celebrated American Artist, Dies at 69
(July 17, 1903)
Billie Holiday, Jazz Singer, Dies at 44
(July 17, 1959)
Alan B. Shepard, First American in Space, Dies at 74
(July 21, 1998)
Ulysses S. Grant, Soldier and President, Dies at 63
(July 23, 1885)
Hassan II, Monarch of Morocco, Dies at 70
(July 23, 1999)
Eva Peron, First Lady of Argentina, Dies at 33
(July 26, 1952)
Gertrude Stein, Writer, Dies at 72
(July 27, 1946)
Robert Moses, Master Builder, Dies at 92
(July 29, 1981)
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Charlie Ahearn
Rammellzee, and influential graffiti artist and hip hop performer in his “Battle Station” studio in 2005.
Ann
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 