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.

Succes 2011: Sara Moulton

Sara Moulton is an American chef, cookbook author and television personality.
Moulton is a food editor for Good Morning America, a morning news and talk show broadcast on the ABC television network. For twenty years, she was the chef of the executive dining room at Gourmet until the magazine's publisher, Condé Nast Publications, announced on October 5, 2009, that the magazine was ceasing publication.
She is the host of Sara’s Weeknight Meals on PBS, a public-television network.
Between 1996 and 2005, Moulton hosted Cooking Live, Cooking Live Primetime and Sara's Secrets on the Food Network, becoming one of the original stars of that cable- and satellite-television channel during its first decade.
She is the author of several cookbooks and videos including Sara Moulton Cooks at Home (2002), Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals (2005) and Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners (2010).
Moulton was one of the founders, in 1982, of the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance.

Moulton began working in restaurants immediately, first in Boston, Massachusetts, and then in New York City, taking off time only for a postgraduate apprenticeship with Master Chef Maurice Cazalis of the Henri IV Restaurant in Chartres, France, in 1979. She also served as a chef tournant at La Tulipe, a restaurant in New York City in the early 1980s.
In 1982, Moulton co-founded the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance, a still-functioning "old girl’s network" designed to help women working in the culinary field.
In the interest of starting a family, Moulton left restaurant work and began devoting herself instead to recipe testing and development. She worked for two years as an instructor at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School (now known as the Institute of Culinary Education), where she discovered her love of teaching.
In 1984, Moulton took a job in the test kitchen at Gourmet. Four years later she became chef of the magazine’s executive dining room.
Moulton’s television career began in 1979, when she was hired to work behind the scenes on Julia Child & More Company, a program on PBS. Her friendship with Child led eventually to Moulton’s job at Good Morning America, where what started as another behind-the-scenes position ripened in 1997 into on-camera work.
By then Moulton had begun hosting the Food Network’s Cooking Live. Six years and over 1,200 hour-long shows later, Cooking Live ended on March 31, 2002. Sara’s Secrets began the next day."Other TV chefs may own famous restaurants and perform with theatrical flair," said TV Guide'’s Herma Rosenthal, “But Moulton’s the one you can actually picture popping over to help you fix the lumpy gravy or the fallen soufflé."
Sara Moulton Cooks at Home was published by Broadway Books in October 2002, meant to counter America’s disastrous love affair with fast food by encouraging everyone to cook delicious and healthy food at home and to dine with family and friends.“While rooted in classic French technique, the book also accommodates the American hunger for convenience, novelty and freshness,” wrote Mike Dunne for The Sacramento Bee.
Moulton’s second cookbook, Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals, was published by Broadway Books in October 2005. It was reviewed by Michelle Green in People magazine, who wrote: "Sara has a gift for creating quick, accessible fine cuisine. Why suffer to make a gorgeous meal?"
In 2008, Sara’s Weeknight Meals, based on Moulton’s second book, débuted on public television.
Moulton's third cookbook, "Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners," was published by Simon & Schuster in April 2010.

Emin Boztepe & EB Martial Arts System

Emin Boztepe is a Turkish martial artist, currently based in the United States of America. At the age of four, his family moved to Germany. He first came to prominence for his fight in 1986 with noted Wing Chun practitioner William Cheung, and he continued to gain attention in the 1990s with a public challenge of the Gracie family. He was a notable member of Leung Ting's Wing Tsun organisation until 2002, when he formed his own organisation.
In 1976, at the age of 14, Boztepe began studying martial arts, including judo, Shotokan karate, wrestling, Muay Thai, and traditional boxing. During this period, he also fought as an amateur boxer in 16 matches.

In 1980, Boztepe was attracted to Wing Chun when he saw a demonstration by Keith Kernspecht who was teaching in Kiel, Germany. He said, "Wing Tsun was really love at first sight, and it fit me. For whatever reason I was a natural." Boztepe also began training in Latosa Escrima, which Kernspecht's German Wing Tsun Organization had decided to make part of the family in 1982.

His fight with Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu master William Cheung in 1986, at a seminar in Germany, caused controversy in the wider Wing Chun community.

After some financial problems occurred with his master, Kernspecht, Boztepe headed to his master's master, Leung Ting, and took special lessons from him until a financial dispute, which caused him to leave the Wing Tsun organisation. Boztepe formed his own organisation, called Emin Boztepe Martial Arts System (EBMAS), afterwards.

Since 1997, Emin Boztepe has often been seen and photographed with great actress Jacqueline Bisset.

Succes 2011: Toots "Buba" Thielemans, jazz living legend. Muzician cu o influenţă decisivă asupra lui John Lennon şi Beatles

Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans, known as Toots Thielemans, is a Belgian jazz musician well known for his guitar and harmonica playing as well as his whistling. Thielemans is credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century. In 2009 he became NEA Jazz Master, the highest honour for a jazz musician in the United States.

Thielemans started his career as a guitar player. In 1949 he joined a jam session in Paris with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and others. In 1949 and 1950 he participated in European tours with Benny Goodman, making his first record in Paris with fellow band member, tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims. In 1951 he went on tour with Bobbejaan Schoepen.
He moved to the US in 1952 where he was a member of Charlie Parker's All-Stars and worked with Miles Davis and Dinah Washington. He played and recorded with names like Ella Fitzgerald, Jaco Pastorius, Peggy Lee, The George Shearing Quintet, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, The Happenings, Astrud Gilberto, Shirley Horn, Elis Regina and others.
A jazz standard by Toots Thielemans is "Bluesette" where he used whistling and guitar in unison. First recorded by Toots in 1962, with lyrics added by Norman Gimbel the song became a major worldwide hit. His harmonica playing can also be heard in movie scores such as Midnight Cowboy, Jean de Florette, Sugarland Express, The Yakuza, Turkish Delight, The Getaway, French Kiss, Dunderklumpen, and in various TV programs, including Sesame Street, the Belgian TV series Witse, and the Dutch TV series Baantjer. He composed the music for the 1974 Swedish film Dunderklumpen! in which he also voiced the animated character Pellegnillot.
His whistling and harmonica playing can be heard on Old Spice radio and TV commercials that have been made over the years. During the 1980s he performed with bassist and composer/bandleader Jaco Pastorius in ensembles ranging from duet to the Word of Mouth Big Band. In 1983 he contributed to Billy Joel's album An Innocent Man, and his trademark harmonica can be heard on "Leave a Tender Moment Alone." A year later, he appeared on the Julian Lennon song "Too Late For Goodbyes" from the album Valotte. In 1984, he recorded the final album of Billy Eckstine (I Am A Singer), featuring very beautiful ballads and standards arranged and conducted by Angelo DiPippo. In the 1990s Thielemans embarked on theme projects that included world music. In 1998 he released a French flavoured album titled "Chez Toots" that included the Les Moulins De Mon Coeur (The Windmills of Your Mind) featuring guest singer Johnny Mathis. Apart from his popularity as an accomplished musician, he is well liked for his modesty and kind demeanor. In his native Belgium, he is also popular for describing himself as a Brussels "ket", which means "street kid" in old Brussels slang. He received a joint honorary doctorate from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and in 2001 Thielemans was ennobled a baron by King Albert II of Belgium.

Thielemans may have had a significant impact on The Beatles, (John Lennon in particular), during the group's pre-fame formative years. While performing in a 1959 Hamburg Germany with the pre-fame Beatles, John Lennon (sometimes with fellow Beatle George Harrison in tow) would often go over to the club where Toots was performing (at a noontime venue) as a member of The George Shearing Quintet. Lennon evidently was taken with Toots' harmonica playing and for Thielemans' guitar selection: an electric American made Rickenbacker with a short scale neck.Based on the sound Lennon heard, he decided to purchase a natural alder wood "alderglo" colored three pickup Rickenbacker 1958 model 325 Capri guitar with a short scale as former Beatle and friend, George Harrison would recall to various interviewers many years later. This iconic famous guitar often fondly referred to as the "Holy Grail" of all guitars, which was customized and tinkered with many times over the years by Lennon including being re-painted to jetglo black in September 1962, is the very same guitar that he played on The Beatles first and third appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show during February 1964. A photo even exists of Thielemans at a Rickenbacker trade show, with the guitar that would become Lennon's in the background.In 1983 he contributed to Billy Joel's album An Innocent Man, and his trademark harmonica can be heard on "Leave a Tender Moment Alone." A year later, he appeared on the Julian Lennon song "Too Late For Goodbyes" from the album Valotte.