Succes 2011: Stan Tracey, jazz living legend

Stanley William Tracey is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.

The Second World War meant that Tracey had a disrupted formal education, and he became a professional musician at the age of sixteen as a member of an ENSA touring group playing the accordion, his first instrument. He joined Ralph Reader’s Gang Shows at the age of nineteen, while in the RAF and formed a brief acquaintance with the comedian Tony Hancock. Later, in the early 1950s he worked in groups on the transatlantic cruise liners Queen Mary and Cardonia and toured the UK in 1951 with Cab Calloway. By the mid-‘fifties, he had also taken up the vibraphone, but later ceased playing it. At this time he worked widely with leading British modernists including drummer Tony Crombie, clarinettist Vic Ash, the saxophonist-arranger Kenny Graham and trumpeter Dizzy Reece.


The early 1970s were a bleak time for Tracey. Around 1970, he almost chose to retrain as a postman under pressure from the Unemployment Benefits’ office – “I would have quite a good pension by now” he quips – but his wife Jackie, formerly involved in public relations, took a more direct role in the development of Tracey's career.

He began to work with musicians of a later generation, who worked in a free or avant-garde style, including Mike Osborne, Keith Tippett and John Surman. Tracey continued to work in this idiom with Evan Parker at the UK’s Appleby Jazz Festival for several years, but this has always been more of a sideline for Tracey, who said that he "took more out of free music into the mainstream than I did from mainstream into free".

In the mid-seventies he formed his own record label, Steam and through it reissued Under Milk Wood (the major label which held the rights to it had allowed it to fall out of print). Over the next decade he also used the outlet to issue recordings of a number of commissioned suites. These included The Salisbury Suite (1978), The Crompton Suite (1981) and The Poets Suite (1984).

He led his own octet from 1976-85 and formed a sextet in 1979 (later called Hexad), touring widely in the middle east and India. In this context he had a longstanding performance partnership from 1978 with saxophonist (and physician) Art Themen, and his own son, the percussionist Clark Tracey, the latter continuing until this day. He was able to share the billing with arranger Gil Evans in a 1978 concert at the Royal Festival Hall, such was Tracey’s pre-eminence in the UK. In private, he played for Evans, Ellington recordings that he had not previously heard. He continued to record with American musicians on occasion as well, with dates taking place with Sal Nistico in 1985 and Monk associate, Charlie Rouse in 1987.

The Steam label ceased trading in the early ‘nineties, reportedly because of difficulties caused by the retail trade's need for its inventory to carry the barcode. However, in 1992 he benefited from Blue Note’s brief interest in UK musicians, leading to the Portraits Plus album and the commercial issue of the BBCs recording of the concert commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Tracey’s first professional gig, as well as Under Milk Wood’s debut on CD.

In 1995 his new quartet featuring Gerard Presencer recorded the For Heaven’s Sake album and also performed gigs together. In 2003 Tracey was the subject of a BBC Television documentary Godfather of British Jazz, a rare accolade nowadays for any jazz musician, let alone one from Britain. Tracey's catalogue from the LP era is being reissued on ReSteamed Records.

Already an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Succes 2011: Ágnes Szávay, professional tennis player from Hungary

Ágnes Szávay is a professional tennis player from Hungary. She is the country's highest ranked tennis player. She was the WTA Newcomer of the Year in 2007. She achieved her career high ranking of World No. 13 on April 14, 2008.
Szávay was born in Kiskunhalas, Hungary and grew up in Soltvadkert, Hungary. She started to play tennis at the age of six, with her parents acting as her first coaches and managers. Her previous coaches were Zoltán Újhidy, Levente Barátosi, Miklós Hornok, József Bocskay and Zoltán Kuharszky. Currently, her coach is Karl-Heinz Wetter. She has a younger sister, Blanka, who is five years younger than her and currently plays on the junior circuit.


Szávay trained intensely during the off-season, and started to play better than she had been in 2010. At the Brisbane International, she reached the second round beating Peng Shuai before losing to Daniela Hantuchová 6–3 6–1 . At the Sydney International, where she qualified to reach the main draw. She won her first round match again, beating Jelena Janković 5–7, 6–1, 7–5 for her first top ten win since defeating Venus Williams at the 2009 French Open before losing in a close two-set match to Aravane Rezaï in the second round. She finished the month at the 2010 Australian Open reaching the second round again, beating Stéphanie Dubois before falling to sixteenth seed Li Na 3–6, 7–5, 6–2 (Szávay led 4–2 and held two match points in the second set).

Szávay then played the 2010 Open GDF Suez and reached her first quarterfinal of the year. Szávay beat Olga Govortsova (who retired with illness) and Petra Martić before losing to Melanie Oudin 2–6, 6–4, 6–2. Next was the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL in Acapulco, Mexico. Ágnes was the second seed and played well to reach the quarterfinals, beating Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová 2–6, 6–1, 6–3 and Renata Voráčová 7–5, 6–1 however she was forced to retire while trying eighth-seeded Polona Hercog in the quarterfinals 6–4, 0–1 due to a left adductor strain. She also competed in the doubles tournament with Gisela Dulko, however they lost in the first round to Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci 6–3, 6–3.


Ágnes continued by playing the Monterrey Open as the fifth seed, she defeated Germans Julia Görges 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 andAnna-Lena Grönefeld 6–1, 6–7 (4), 6–1. However, she fell in the quarterfinals against fourth-seeded Dominika Cibulková 3–6, 6–3, 6–3. She then played at the 2010 BNP Paribas Open and 2010 Sony Ericsson Open reaching the third round of both events losing to Carla Suárez Navarro and Svetlana Kuznetsova. At the European Clay season she fell to Dinara Safina 7–6(5) 3–6 6–0 n the second round of the 2010 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix and suffered a back to back loss at the 2010 Estoril Open and 2010 Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open, which caused her to drop out of the top 40. At the 2010 French Open, she lost to Nadia Petrova 6–1 6–2 in the second round.


At the Grass season Szávay played at the 2010 AEGON International losing to Marion Bartoli in he second round. And at the 2010 Wimbledon she was lost to Ekaterina Makarova in the very first round 6–4 7–6(2). However she followed it up with back-to-back titles in 2010 GDF SUEZ Grand Prix upsetting Alexandra Dulgheru in the semifinals 6–1, 5–7, 7–5 and a repeat of last year's final defeating Patty Schnyder 6–2, 6–4 and in 2010 ECM Prague Open defeating Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová 6–2, 1–6, 6–2.

Agnes missed 2011 Australian Open and Australian season because of illness. Her next scheadule tournament was 2011 Open GDF Suez but she withdrew because of back injury. Agnes came back at 2011 BNP Paribas Open. There she won her first match in nearly five months by beating American veteran Jill Craybas. She will play against Alisa Kleybanova in the second round.

Succes 2011: Howard Webb, primul arbitru care a condus în acelaşi an finalele UEFA Champions League şi FIFA World Cup

Howard Melton Webb, MBE, (born 14 July 1971) is an English football referee who officiates in the Premier League and has been a FIFA-listed referee since 2005.

Webb is counted amongst the top referees of all time by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), and has refereed the final of both the UEFA Champions League and FIFA World Cup, being the first person to referee both matches in the same year.

Webb has drawn praise for his authoritative and respected approach to refereeing, from football bodies, pundits, colleagues, players, and managers including José Mourinho who said, "he is a man who seems to get the big decisions right".
Webb first took up refereeing in local Rotherham leagues in 1989. In 1993, he progressed to the Northern Counties East League as an assistant referee, becoming a referee for that league two years later.

In 1996, he was appointed as a Football League assistant referee, and, in 1998, fulfilled the same function in the Premier League, as well as being promoted to the Football Conference as a referee. He is a police officer with South Yorkshire Police but took a five-year sabbatical leave to concentrate on his refereeing.

In 2000, he was included on the National List of Football League referees, stepping up to the Select Group for the Premier League three years later. His first game in the top tier of English football was on 18 October 2003, when he took charge of the 0–0 draw between Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers. He was appointed as a FIFA official in 2005.

Webb bore a one-week demotion from officiating in the Premier League down to the Football League Championship in April 2009, a punishment sporadically imposed on referees who make high-profile contentious errors. Webb had been earlier been appointed to referee the year's FA Cup Final, arguably the highest domestic honour for an official, when he awarded Manchester United a debatable penalty kick while they trailed 2-0 to Tottenham Hotspur. The penalty was converted and United went on to win the match 5-2. Webb later admitted he had made "a mistake" but had made the decision "honestly".

Since then, Webb has been appointed to referee some of the world's highest-profile football matches, including an FA Cup Final, a UEFA Champions League Final and a FIFA World Cup Final. Following in this section are some key matches Webb has refereed in his career since being promoted to the Premier League and FIFA list of referees.

RIP Gary Moore

Gary Moore died on 6 February 2011 while on holiday in Estepona, Spain.


Robert William Gary Moore (4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011), known as simply Gary Moore, was a musician best recognized as a blues rock guitarist and singer from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore played with artists including Phil Lynott and Brian Downey as early as his secondary school days, leading him to membership with the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy on three separate occasions. Moore shared the stage with such blues and rock luminaries as B.B. King, Albert King, Colosseum II, Greg Lake and Skid Row (not to be confused with the glam metal band of the same name), as well as having a successful solo career. He guested on a number of albums recorded by high profile musicians, including a cameo appearance playing the lead guitar solo on "She's My Baby" from Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.
Moore also played live with George Harrison in the last performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", performing the solo lead that Eric Clapton traditionally played through the years.

Succes 2011: Dean Young & Blondie comic strip

Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930. The success of the strip, which features a well-endowed blonde and her sandwich-loving husband, led to the long-running Blondie film series (1938–1950) and the popular Blondie radio program (1939–1950).

Chic Young drew Blondie until his death in 1973, when creative control passed to his son Dean Young, who continues to write the strip. Young has collaborated with a number of artists on Blondie, including Jim Raymond, Mike Gersher, Stan Drake, Denis Lebrun and currently, John Marshall. Through these changes, Blondie has remained popular, appearing in more than 2000 newspapers in 47 countries and translated into 35 languages, as of 2010. Blondie has been available via email through King Features' DailyINK service since 2006

Ultimul tango al Mariei Schneider. Vedeta cu origini româneşti a rămas în istoria cinematografiei mondiale datorită filmului care i-a distrus viaţa

Maria Schneider (27 March 1952 – 3 February 2011) was a French actress. She is best known for playing Jeanne opposite Marlon Brando in the 1972 motion picture Last Tango in Paris. People reports that the cause of death was a result of cancer.

Schneider performed numerous full-frontal nude scenes in Last Tango in Paris, which were controversial at the time. On a television interview in 2007 with the Daily Mail, Schneider described Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci as "fat and sweaty and very manipulative, both of Marlon and myself, and he did certain things to get her reaction." As for her working relationship with Brando, she says that, while their relationship on the set was paternal, it was Brando who came up with the 'butter scene' and it was only known to her just before filming it.

"I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that. Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take."

She and Brando remained friends until his death, although they did not speak of the movie "for a while." She also says that her experience with the film — and her treatment as a sex symbol rather than as a serious actress — motivated her to never do films with nude scenes again. Schneider also appeared in films such as The Passenger, and Jane Eyre.

Schneider was born Marie Christine Gélin, the daughter of French actor Daniel Gélin and Romanian-born Marie-Christine Schneider, who ran a bookstore in Paris. In 1974, Schneider came out as bisexual. In early 1976, she abandoned the film set of Caligula and checked herself into a mental hospital in Rome for several days with a woman she described as her lover. This, coupled with her refusal to do nudity, led to Schneider's dismissal and she was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy.

The 1970s were turbulent years for Schneider, marked by drug addiction, overdoses, and a suicide attempt. By the 1980s, however, she had turned her life around.

Succes 2011: Nancy Wilson, jazz living legend

Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist. She has received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice".

Nancy’s debut single, "Guess Who I Saw Today", was so successful that between April 1960 and July 1962 Capitol Records released five Nancy Wilson albums. Her first album, Like in Love, displayed her talent in Rhythm and Blues, with the hit R&B song "Save your Love for Me." Adderley suggested that she should steer away from her original pop style and gear her music toward jazz and ballads. In 1962, they collaborated and produced an album Nancy Wilson/Cannonball which propelled her to national prominence. Between March, 1964 and June, 1965 four of Wilson's albums hit the Top 10 on Billboard's Top LPs chart. In 1963 "Tell Me The Truth" became her first truly major hit, leading up to her performance at the Coconut Grove in 1964 – the turning point of her career garnering critical acclaim from coast to coast. It was covered in Time magazine, She is, all at once, both cool and sweet, both singer and storyteller.[10] In 1964 Nancy released what became her most successful hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" which peaked at #11. From 1963 to 1971 Wilson logged eleven songs on the Hot 100, including two Christmas singles. However, "Face It Girl, It's Over" was the only remaining non-Christmas song to crack the Top 40 for Wilson (#29, in 1968).
After doing numerous television guest appearances, Wilson eventually got her own series on NBC, The Nancy Wilson Show (1967–1968), that won an Emmy in 1975. Over the years she has appeared on many popular television shows from I Spy (more or less playing herself as a Las Vegas singer in the 1966 episode "Lori"); Room 222, Hawaii Five-O, Police Story, The Jack Paar Program, The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show (1966), The Danny Kaye Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Kraft Music Hall, The Sinbad Show,[4] The Cosby Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Carol Burnett Show, Soul Food, New York Undercover, and recently Moesha, and The Parkers. She also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Merv Griffith Show, The Tonight Show, The Arsenio Hall Show and The Flip Wilson Show.She was in the 1993 Robert Townsend's The Meteor Man and in the film, The Big Score. She also appeared on The Lou Rawls Parade of Stars and the March of Dime Telethon. She was signed by Capitol records in the late 70s and in an attempt to broaden her appeal she cut the album Life, Love and Harmony an album of soulful, funky dance cuts that included the track "Sunshine" which was to become one of her most sought after recordings be it amongst supporters of the rare soul scene for whom she would not usually register.
In the 1980s, she recorded five albums for Japanese labels because she preferred recording live, and American labels frequently didn’t give her that option. She gained such wide popularity that she was selected as the winner of the annual Tokyo Song Festivals.
In 1982 she recorded with Hank Jones and the Great Jazz Trio. In that same year she recorded with Griffith Park Band whose members included Chick Corea and Joe Henderson. In 1987 she participated in a PBS show entitled Newport Jazz ‘87 as the singer of a jazz trio with John Williams and Roy McCurdy.
In 1982 she also signed with CBS, her albums here including The Two Of Us (1984), duets with Ramsey Lewis produced by Stanley Clarke; Forbidden Lover (1987), including the title track duet with Carl Anderson; and A Lady With A Song, which became her 52nd album release in 1989. In 1989 Nancy Wilson in Concert played as a television special.
In the early 1990s, Nancy recorded an album paying tribute to Johnny Mercer with co-producer Barry Manilow entitled With My Lover Beside Me. In this decade she also recorded two other albums, Love, Nancy and her sixtieth album If I had it My Way. In the late 1990s, Nancy teamed up with MCG Jazz, a youth education programs of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild nonprofit, minority-directed, arts and learning organization located in Pittsburgh, PA.
In 1995, Nancy Wilson performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the San Francisco Jazz Festival in 1997. In 1999, Wilson hosted a show in honor of Ella Fitzgerald entitled Forever Ella on the A & E network.
All the proceeds from 2001's A Nancy Wilson Christmas, went to support the work of MCG Jazz. Wilson was the host on NPR's Jazz Profiles,from 1996 to 2005. This series profiled the legends and legacy of jazz through music, interviews and commentary. Wilson and the program were the recipients of the George Foster Peabody Award in 2001.[18]
Wilson's second and third album with MCG Jazz, R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal) (2005), and Turned to Blue (2007), both won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.