Our Daily Dead

NY Times
rtie Shaw, the jazz clarinetist and big-band leader who successfully challenged Benny Goodman’s reign as the King of Swing with his recordings of “Begin the Beguine,” “Lady Be Good” and “Star Dust” in the late 1930’s, died yesterday at his home in Newbury Park, Calif. He was 94.

He apparently died of natural causes, his lawyer, Eddie Ezor, told The Associated Press.

Artie Shaw’s virtuosity on his instrument, his groups’ highly original arrangements and his explosively romantic showmanship made him one of the most danced-to bandleaders of swing and one of the most listened-to artists of jazz. He quit performing in 1954 , but the many re-releases of his discs, a ghost band, and his informed but often sardonic comments on music and many other subjects kept him in the public ear.

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NY Times
ulius Axelrod, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who helped to discover how chemicals released by nerve cells in the brain regulate mood and behavior, died on Wednesday at his home in Rockville, Md., the National Institute of Mental Health, where he worked for most of his career, said. He was 92.

Dr. Axelrod shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two other scientists, Dr. Bernard Katz of Britain and Prof. Ulf von Euler of Sweden. Their work was essential to the development of psychiatric drugs and others and led directly to the development of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the class of antidepressants that includes Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil.
The Pineal Gland and Its Endocrine Role (Nato Advanced Science Institutes Series. Series a, Life Sciences, V. 65)
Stress: Neuroendocrine and Molecular Approaches
Perspectives in neuropharmacology;: A tribute to Julius Axelrod
The History of Neuroscience Videos
Commencement address
Neurotransmitters (Scientific American offprints)

NY Times
Jerry Orbach, who won fame on the New York stage as one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television as a New York detective on NBC’s “Law & Order,” died on Tuesday night. He was 69.

Mr. Orbach died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The cause was prostate cancer, his manager, Robert Malcolm, said.

In performances that spanned a half century, the Bronx-born Mr. Orbach came to embody two beloved New York archetypes: the musical matinee idol, to which he gave a refreshingly modern spin with his rugged and idiosyncratic persona, and the shrewd, irascible cop, a role he honed to a razor’s edge as Detective Lennie Briscoe on “Law & Order.”
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NY Times
Hank Garland, a country, rock and jazz guitarist who performed with Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, Charlie Parker and many others, died here on Monday. He was 74.

The cause was a staph infection, his brother, Billy Garland, said.

In the 1950’s and 60’s, Walter Garland, called Hank, was the talk of Nashville, a studio artist known for musical riffs that could take a recording from humdrum to dazzling, as he did on Presley hits like “Little Sister” and “Big Hunk of Love.”
Memorabilia at eBay…
Subtle Swing

NY Times
John D. Deardourff, who helped pioneer the fledgling postwar profession of political consulting and who served a string of prominent Republican clients, died Friday at his home in McLean, Va. He was 71.

The cause was cancer, said Douglas L. Bailey, his former business partner.

Their firm, Bailey, Deardourff & Associates, founded in 1967, dispensed political advice, produced commercials and engineered campaigns over a quarter century that defined the golden age of moderate Republicanism. Their clients included Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York, Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York, Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois and John C. Danforth, the former Missouri senator who recently resigned as delegate to the United Nations.