[onoway]

The first and one of the few who made jazz not only palatable but highly engaging for many including me.

[mikeh]

I still have my copy of Time Out, the first jazz album I ever bought. I almost never play it anymore because after some 45 years it has a few too many surface noises. I now have it in digital of course, but it isn't quite the same. What a talent and, from all accounts, a really good person.

Time Out is one of 2 jazz albums that I think will always be on my personal top 10 of all time recordings, the other being Miles Davis Kind of Blue, which just came out in remastered high-quality vinyl...which sounds incredible compared to CD. Now if only I could find Time Out the same way.

[PassedOut]

Ravi Shankar

[ggwhiz]

 PassedOut, on 2012-December-11, 23:16, said:

Ravi Shankar

I just watched Living in the Material World on the weekend, the George Harrison documentary. Really good (by Scorcese) and an excellent section on Ravi.

[Aberlour10]

Andrzej Wilkosz, the legend of polish bridge is gone in age of 77. The multiple World and European Champ and BBo regular. Hard to belive we will never meet "Wilkand" again at the late evening in NOCNY BLUES tournament. It was always something special for people like me to play at his table.

[lamford]

Robert (Bob) Brinig passed away peacefully last night, Feb 5, after a short illness, at the age of 71. He was a strong tournament player, having won the Lederer, Crockfords and Young Chelsea Marathon (all strong British events) and was a hugely successful rubber bridge player at the Eccentric Club and later TGR. He was also a fine backgammon player and wrote a book with Terence Reese which is still a classic. He was a colourful character who was married three times and leaves two daughters. I will give details of the funeral when known.

[Phil]

Marshall Miles.

Here's his HOF entry:

Quote

Marshall Miles was born in Loma Linda CA in 1926. He received a B.A. in economics from Claremont Men’s College (now Claremont McKenna College) in 1948 and a law degree from UCLA in 1954. He practiced law from 1955 until 1992. He was married to Betty Barnett from 1972 until her death in 2000.

Ever since a friend of his mother’s taught Marshall the game when he was 15, bridge has been Marshall’s major hobby. At first he had no one to play with, so he read newspaper columns and books. Today, his favorite part of the game is bidding, and he thinks the biggest challenge is to visualize everyone’s hands and plan the best way to describe his own.

Marshall has won five North American events, most of them in partnership with Eddie Kantar: the Spingold in 1961 and 1962, the Reisinger in 1962 and 1965 and the Life Master Pairs in 1961. He also won the World Senior Teams in 2004 playing with Leo Bell.

Marshall has been an important, if sometimes idiosyncratic, theorist of the game. He was one of the first experts to espouse overcalls on four-card suits — "Our most likely game is in spades," he often would comment in the Master Solvers’ Club — choosing to bid 2*S* over an opponent’s 2*H* opening on, say, A-Q-10-x. At one time, he was famous for bidding 3NT holding tenuous stoppers in an opponent’s suit.

His approach to the play also was occasionally outside the mainstream. Years ago, an up-and-coming young expert was playing with his wife in her first real North American event. Before they sat down against Marshall, he told her: "That’s Marshall Miles. He likes to underlead aces." Sure enough, on the first board, dummy bid spades, but the young wife ended up in 4. The opening lead from Marshall was the *S*2, dummy held *S*K-J-9-x, and third hand held *S*Q-10-8 — perfect! Only the young wife played the *S*K, drew trumps, and pitched her second spade on another suit. Marshall looked puzzled, and the up-and-coming expert said, "Sorry, Marshall. Your reputation has begun to precede you."

But Marshall will always be remembered as a bridge writer. One of his earliest books, All Fifty-two Cards, is still required reading to move up from the intermediate level. He is the author of 10 other books, many written while he was still practicing law. The most recent, More Accurate Bidding, was published in 2011.

[ArtK78]

Ira Rubin

Here is his HOF entry:

Quote

Ira Rubin is one of the great theorists of bridge. Rubin invented two-way two-bids, gladiator responses to notrump, and gladiator and extended Landy. His main interest was bidding. He says, “Defense comes with a brain. It’s instinctive.”

Rubin learned to play bridge (in German) from a group of refugees when his mother took him to Lake Placid in the 1930s. His mother was not a card player and his father played everything but bridge. When he was 9, he and some friends “from around the block” played using their own made-up variations.

Rubin played his first tournament bridge at the age of 16. “I played a lot in college to the detriment of my marks,” he says. His parents disapproved of his playing during high school and his early undergraduate years, but by his later college years, “the tumult had died down” – largely because Rubin was making some money playing cards.

Rubin began achieving tournament prominence in 1954 and accumulating a number of national titles, including a victory on a Spingold team that went to Turin for the 1960 World Team Olympiad.

From 1961-1962, Rubin played with Phil Feldesman and their results were remarkable. They won the Men’s Pairs (now the Wernher Open Pairs) twice, the von Zedtwitz Life Master’s Pairs, and the Open Pairs for the Cavendish trophy. Yet it was not long after these successes that the word was out: the Rubin-Feldesman partnership was through – a victim of its own explosive tensions.

This may have contributed to Rubin earning the nickname “The Beast.” In The Bridge Bum, Alan Sontag wrote,“ . . . The Beast, a title he knew, appreciated, and lived up to. He was a terror to play against: when his partner made a mistake, he rattled the windows with his screams, yet he was most generous when a hand was played well.” Rubin says, “I forget who first called me The Beast. I would get mad at people when they started blaming me for errors and I hardly ever made an error. That’s the truth, too, not false bravado . . . despite my beastly outward nature, inside I was different.” Rubin takes great pride in the fact that one of his favorite partners, Oswald Jacoby, “once called me the ‘best player in the world’.”

Rubin did go on to win the Bermuda Bowl in 1976 playing with Paul Soloway who, according to Rubin, “had a temper, too!” This was the first American team to defeat the famous Italian Blue Team in 20 years. And as one might imagine, Rubin says, “It was the highlight of my career.”

Rubin represented the United States in three Bermuda Bowls and three Olympiads earning three silver medals and one gold, and a total of 19 NABC titles. Over a span of four decades, Rubin enjoyed successful partnerships with Chuck Burger, Phil Feldesman, Bill Grieve, Freddie Hamilton, Ossie Jacoby, Vic Mitchell, Curtis Smith, Paul Soloway, and Ron Von der Porten.

Rubin has three children – Loribeth, Eric and Jeff.

[thebiker]

 lamford, on 2013-February-05, 20:51, said:

Robert (Bob) Brinig passed away peacefully last night, Feb 5, after a short illness, at the age of 71. He was a strong tournament player, having won the Lederer, Crockfords and Young Chelsea Marathon (all strong British events) and was a hugely successful rubber bridge player at the Eccentric Club and later TGR. He was also a fine backgammon player and wrote a book with Terence Reese which is still a classic. He was a colourful character who was married three times and leaves two daughters. I will give details of the funeral when known.

[thebiker]

I remember Bob Brinig well, having lived in the same flat as him and Bob Rowlands in the early 70's. Indeed a a colorful character and a great guy. For a period his daughter Rebecca lived in the flat with the three of us. Unfortunately I never picked up any of his bridge skills or backgammon knowledge but he taught me a lot about cooking. On his Tuesday day off from the Eccentric Bob would get up about 2pm, have a drink go into the kitchen, maybe fry a few onions than return to the lounge and watch TV, then back to the kitchen many times over the course of the day, adding different ingredients to the meal, followed by a glass of his favourite sauce. By 10pm a great meal would emerge, sometimes completely different from what was "planned" at the beginning of the session

The bridge world will miss him - he helped make it an interesting place to experience.

Brian Keable
Alias "the biker"

A friend of mine Ron Davis sends this tribute to Bob:

Sad news to hear Bob Brinig has passed away. I was privileged to partner Bob in the Bournemouth teams a few years ago. Easily the best player I have ever sat opposite, I watched him €˜put away€™ a selection of some of the more talented Grand Masters as if they didn’t exist. I don€™t expect I shall be called upon again to sign off four times on the same hand prior to my partner bidding (and making) the Grand Slam anyway.

[lamford]

---

Not sure if there are meant to be bridge hands in this section, but this is one Bob Brinig showed me a few months before he died. He could always tell a good story. It was rubber bridge, and both sides are playing strong and five, and simple systems of course.

West started with the three top clubs, East following upwards. Bobby ruffed with the ten in dummy, crossed to the ace of diamonds and ran the queen of hearts. East won and exited with a trump, and Bobby drew the last trump, cashed the two top diamonds and ruffed the fourth (West pitching clubs on the last two). Now he ran the jack of spades, claiming when West did not cover and the jack held. "Did you have the ten of spades?", asked his partner. "Not that I noticed," replied Bob.

[mike777]

http://www.npr.org/b...-guitarist-dies


alvin lee......guitar god



http://current.com/e...e-1944-2013.htm

[onoway]

Stompin' Tom Connors country/folk singer/songwriter possibly not well known outside Canada but an icon here.
http://en.wikipedia....%27_Tom_Connors

[PassedOut]

Dorothy Helen Cochrane Courtney Love

[y66]

Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, believed to be the last surviving member of an elaborate plot to kill Adolf Hitler during World War II, died on Friday, 3/8, at his home in Munich. He was 90.

This part of his life story blows me away:

Quote

In January 1944, he was 22 and recuperating in Berlin from wounds he suffered in combat when he was approached by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg to join an assassination plot.

At the time, Lieutenant von Kleist led a unit that was scheduled to meet with Hitler to show him new Army uniforms. Colonel von Stauffenberg asked Lieutenant von Kleist to take along hidden explosives, which he would then detonate at the meeting.

“I found it a very difficult decision, I must say,” Mr. von Kleist recalled in an interview for a 1992 documentary, “The Restless Conscience.”

He asked for a day to decide, and he traveled home from Berlin to talk with his father, Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin. His father had been arrested many times for resistance activity.

“The next morning, my father said, ‘Why are you here again?’ “ Mr. von Kleist recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I have difficult decisions I have to make.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ And I told him. And he said at once, ‘Yes, of course you have to do it,’ and I said, ‘Yes, but I have to blow up with the colonel.’

“He got up from his chair, went to the window, looked out of the window for a moment, and then he turned and said: ‘Yes, you have to do that. A man who doesn’t take such a chance will never be happy again in his life.’ ”

[mike777]

Roger Ebert, renowned film critic, dies at age 70


http://www.cnn.com/2...uary/index.html

[Cyberyeti]

Margaret Thatcher, still dividing opinion in death as violently in death as she did in life. I have friends crying tears of joy and others crying tears of sadness, but few who were around at the time will be indifferent.

[mr1303]

Those who are celebrating an 87 year old woman dying of a stroke need to have a good hard look at themselves.

[barmar]

 mr1303, on 2013-April-08, 16:26, said:

Those who are celebrating an 87 year old woman dying of a stroke need to have a good hard look at themselves.

And Westboro Baptist Church planned to picket Roger Ebert's funeral, because of his pro-gay stance (in their press release they called him a "fag enabler"). I can't find any news that says whether they actually showed up yesterday.

[kenberg]

There are people in this world whose actions are beyond comprehension. It is of course grotesque. Nothing can be done.