In Memoriam|

Gerald (Jerry) Endsley passed away on Friday, February 27. Jerry is a graduate of the Denver Public Schools and holds Trumpet Performance degrees from the New England Conservatory and the University of Colorado. Jerry performed with various regional ensembles including the Colorado Symphony, the Colorado Opera and Ballet Orchestras, and served as the Music Contractor for the Denver Center Theatre Company. He was a specialist in the history of soprano brass instruments and has presented lecture recitals at meetings of the National Trumpet Symposium and International Trumpet Guild.  An avid collector of historic instruments, he also made replica historical instruments and mouthpieces and published early brass literature.  Jerry was the Director of the Denver Municipal Band which at 116 years of age is the oldest professional band in the nation.  He has conducted the Metropolitan State University of Denver Concert/Community Band for nearly 15 years. Mr. Endsley was the 2002 recipient of Mayor Webb’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He was also a member of the Executive Board of Directors of Summit Brass.

Jerry has been a member of the Denver Musicians Association since 1967 and has served on its board of directors. He was the genius behind many DMA efforts during his tenure, including the founding of Our Musical Heritage which has become a 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor of aspiring musical and educational endeavors. The DMA extends our heartfelt sympathy to Jerry’s wife Pam, daughter Marguerite and son Shane, all members of the Denver Musicians Association.

More information will be forthcoming.

Denver Musician E-Bulletin – 3/3/2015

http://www.dmamusic.org

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LEONARD NIMOY – OUR FAVORITE VULCAN – DIES

Leonard Simon Nimoy (March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, film director, poet, singer and photographer. He was known for his role as Mr. Spock of the Star Trek franchise.

Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in Kid Monk Baroni. Foreshadowing his fame as a semi-alien, he played Narab, one of three Martian invaders in the 1952 movie serial Zombies of the Stratosphere.

In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected Star Trek pilot “The Cage”, and went on to play the character of Spock until 1969, followed by eight feature films and guest slots in the various spin-off series. The character has had a significant cultural impact and garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. After the original Star Trek series, Nimoy starred in Mission: Impossible for two seasons, hosted the documentary series In Search of…, narrated Civilization IV, and made several well-received stage appearances. He also had a recurring role in the science fiction series Fringe.

Nimoy’s fame as Spock was such that both of his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1975) and I Am Spock (1995), were written from the viewpoint of sharing his existence with the character. Nimoy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Early life
Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931 in the West End of Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). His parents left Iziaslav separately—his father first walking over the border into Poland — and reunited in the United States. His mother, Dora (née Spinner), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of the city.

Nimoy began acting at the age of 8 in a children’s and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion—with which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing!, which dealt with the struggles of a matriarchal Jewish family during the Great Depression. Nimoy said the role “lit a passion” that led him to pursue an acting career. “I never wanted to do anything else.”
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Music
During and following Star Trek, Nimoy also released five albums of musical vocal recordings on Dot Records.[64] On his first album, Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space, and half of his second album Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy, science fiction-themed songs are featured where Nimoy sings as Spock. On his final three albums, he sings popular folk songs of the era and cover versions of popular songs, such as “Proud Mary” and Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”. There are also several songs on the later albums that were written or co-written by Nimoy. He described how his recording career got started:

Charles Grean of Dot Records had arranged with the studio to do an album of space music based on music from Star Trek, and he has a teenage daughter who’s a fan of the show and a fan of Mr. Spock. She said, ‘Well, if you’re going to do an album of music from Star Trek, then Mr. Spock should be on the album.’ So Dot contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in either speaking or singing on the record. I said I was very interested in doing both. … That was the first album we did, which was called Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space. It was very well received and successful enough that Dot then approached me and asked me to sign a long-term contract.

Nimoy’s voice appeared in sampled form on a song by the pop band Information Society in the late Eighties. The song, “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy)” (released in 1988), reached No. 3 on the US Pop charts, and No. 1 on the Dance charts.

Nimoy played the part of the chauffeur in the 1985 music video of The Bangles’ cover version of “Going Down to Liverpool”. He also appeared in the alternate music video for the song “The Lazy Song” by pop artist Bruno Mars.

Personal life
Nimoy had long been active in the Jewish community. He could speak and read Yiddish, his first language. In 1997, he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews.

Nimoy was married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober (1927–2011), whom he divorced in 1987. On New Year’s Day of 1989, he married actress Susan Bay, cousin of director Michael Bay.

In a 2001 DVD, Nimoy revealed that he became an alcoholic while working on Star Trek and ended up in drug rehabilitation. William Shatner, in his 2008 book Up Till Now: The Autobiography, spoke about how later in their lives, Nimoy tried to help Shatner’s alcoholic wife, Nerine Kidd.

Nimoy has said that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his personality in private life. Each weekend during the original run of the series, he would be in character throughout Saturday and into Sunday, behaving more like Spock than himself – more logical, more rational, more thoughtful, less emotional and finding a calm in every situation. It was only on Sunday in the early afternoon that Spock’s influence on his behavior would fade off and he would feel more himself again – only to start the cycle over again on Monday morning. Years after the show he wrote that “To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior.”
. . . . . . . . . .
In 2014, Walter Koenig revealed in a Las Vegas Sun interview that Leonard Nimoy personally and successfully advocated equal pay for both his and Nichelle Nichols’ work on Star Trek to the show’s producers. This incident was confirmed by Nimoy in a Trekmovie interview and happened during “the Desilu years.”

Illness and death
In February 2014, Nimoy revealed that he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition he attributed to a smoking habit he had given up approximately 30 years prior. On February 19, 2015, Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pain and had been in and out of hospitals for the “past several months.”

Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 at the age of 83 in his Bel Air home from complications of COPD. He is survived by his wife, two children, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild. A few days before his death, Nimoy shared some of his poetry on social media website Twitter: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP”.

On Twitter, William Shatner wrote of Nimoy, “I loved him like a brother. … We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love.” George Takei stated, “The word extraordinary is often overused, but I think it’s really appropriate for Leonard. He was an extraordinarily talented man, but he was also a very decent human being.” Walter Koenig said he knew the Spock character better than he did Nimoy at first. “When I finally did get to know the man better I discovered his compassion, his intelligence and his humanity. All of which laid the foundation for his keen sense of philanthropy.” Nichelle Nichols wrote, “Leonard’s integrity and passion as an actor and devotion to his craft helped transport Star Trek into television history.” Zachary Quinto, who portrayed Spock as a young man in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, wrote, “My heart is broken. I love you profoundly my dear friend. And I will miss you every day.”

U.S. President Barack Obama paid tribute to Nimoy, whom he called “a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time.” Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin called Nimoy “a fellow space traveler because he helped make the journey into the final frontier accessible to us all.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy

[Editor’s Note: There is lots more to this biography. Mr. Nimoy was a very talented man who used his talents to help many other people.]

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CHARMAYNE MAXWELL DEAD: GRAMMY-NOMINATED SINGER DIES AT 46

Charmayne “Maxee” Maxwell, a member of the ’90s girl group Brownstone, died this past Saturday, Feb. 28, her brother Brandon Maxwell confirmed via Twitter. She was 46.

The exact cause of her death remains unknown, but Brandon provided some insight on her tragic and sudden passing. “R.I.P my beautiful sister Charmayne ‘Maxee’ Maxwell,” he tweeted. “I can’t even believe I’m typing this right now.”

“Bad things happened to the most innocent people,” he continued on Twitter. “My sister died in the most terrible way, and I’m in so much pain right now.”

The artist’s younger brother also took to Instagram to mourn his sibling. “R.I.P to my beautiful sister Charmayne ‘Maxee’ Maxwell,” he wrote, alongside a stunning photo of the late songstress. “I’m so devasted because you deserved to stay on this earth much longer. You had such an amazing talent and you went really far with your singing career. I felt so inspired from you and it gave me motivation to become the best performer I could be. I love you so much sis, I’m so grateful I was able to have you in my life.”

Brandon then slammed a link that implied that Charmayne’s death was from an alleged suicide. “People are so dumb,” he tweeted. “This is actually BS.”

Charmayne rose to fame in the ’90s as part of the original trio of R&B girl group Brownstone, who were signed under Michael Jackson’s MJJ Music label. Brownstone’s first album, From the Bottom Up, went platinum and spent 37 weeks on the Billboard chart due, in part, to their lead 1994 single, “If You Love Me.”

While Charmayne eventually split from the group to pursue her own path, her association to Brownstone was the pinnacle of her singing career. After the news was revealed this past weekend, her fellow Brownstone member Teisha Brown reacted to her shocking death.

I just need to be by you 1 more time on stage MAX! #BROWNSTONE #FOREVER R.I.H. I miss you already!! My heart is so heavy. I LOVE YOU SISTER!!

Charmayne is survived by her producer husband Carsten Soulshock and their son. The news of her death was first confirmed to Danish paper Ekstra Bladet by Charmayne’s mother-in-law, who is Danish.

https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/charmayne-maxwell-dead-grammy-nominated-brownstone-singer-dies-033000495-us-weekly.html
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Charmayne Maxwell, a member of the Grammy-nominated group Brownstone, died on Friday after a tragic accident in Los Angeles.

A source told TMZ that the 46-year-old was home alone with her son when she accidentally cut her neck on broken glass.

Maxwell’s husband, music producer Carsten Soulshock, came home around 9 PM and found her unconscious and bleeding.

He called 911, and paramedics rushed her to Cedars Sinai Hospital where she later died.

The LAPD does not suspect foul play, detectives believe she accidentally cut herself on a broken wine glass.

Charmayne’s brother Brandon Maxwell confirmed the sad news on social media. He tweeted, “R.I.P my beautiful sister Charmayne ‘Maxee’ Maxwell. I can’t even believe I’m typing this right now.”

He then shared a photo with the caption, “R.I.P to my beautiful sister Charmayne “Maxee” Maxwell. I’m so devasted because you deserved to stay on this earth much longer. You had such an amazing talent and you went really far with your singing career. I felt so inspired from you and it gave me motivation to become the best performer I could be. I love you so much sis, I’m so grateful I was able to have you in my life.”

Brownstone won a Billboard Music Award and earned a Grammy nod for the 1995 hit “If You Love Me.”

http://extratv.com/2015/03/02/singer-charmayne-maxwell-46-dies-in-tragic-accident/

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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…

March 2015

1: Orrin Keepnews, 91, American jazz record producer, executive and writer.

February 2015

28: Ezra Laderman, 90, American composer; Charmayne Maxwell, 46, American R&B singer (Brownstone), complications from a fall.

27: Tod Dockstader, 82, American sound artist and electronic music composer; Leonard Nimoy, 83, American actor and director (Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Fringe), COPD.

25: Ariel Camacho, 22, Mexican singer, traffic collision; Chris Rainbow, 68, Scottish rock musician (The Alan Parsons Project); Gerardo Reyes, 79, Mexican singer, liver cancer; Giacomo Rondinella, 91, Italian singer and actor.

24: Robert Belfour, 74, American blues musician; Tyzen Hsiao, 77, Taiwanese composer.

From http://www.wikipedia.com

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