Our Daily Dead

LA Times
Joe Ranft, one of the key creators of Pixar’s hit animated features and the voice of Heimlich the Bavarian caterpillar in “A Bug’s Life” (1998), was killed in an automobile accident Tuesday afternoon. He was 45.

A spokeswoman for the Mendocino County sheriff-coroner’s office confirmed that Ranft was killed when the car in which he was a passenger veered off the road while traveling north on Highway 1, plunging 130 feet over the side of the road and into the ocean.

Also killed was the driver, Elegba Earl, 32, of Los Angeles. Another passenger, Eric Frierson, 39, also of Los Angeles, was hospitalized with moderate injuries at Mendocino Coast District Hospital in Fort Bragg, according to the sheriff-coroner’s office.

Ranft was widely respected as one of the top story artists in the animation industry. He was one of seven writers nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay for 1995’s “Toy Story.”

But Ranft spent most of his time drawing storyboards for animated films.

“I don’t know if people really understand what I do,” he said in a 1998 interview with The Times. “When I say that I do story for animation, they say, ‘Oh, you’re a writer!’ If I tell them I’m kind of a writer, but I draw, they get this puzzled look. But when I say, `I’m the voice of Heimlich,’ the lightbulb goes on and they say, ‘Oh, great!’ ”

Telling stories in one form or another was Ranft’s lifelong passion. Born in Pasadena, he grew up in Whittier, where his early interests included movies, drawing, performing in school plays and doing sleight-of-hand magic.

“I liked evoking a response from an audience through the illusion of magic,” he said. “Animation is the ultimate illusion, the illusion of life: These characters don’t really exist; we create the illusion of a character.”

Ranft entered the character animation program at California Institute of the Arts in the fall of 1978. As a student, he was inspired by Bill Peet’s storyboards from the 1946 Disney feature “Song of the South.”

“His pastel drawings were so alive, they just knocked me over. Even though they were just still drawings, they screamed to be animated,” Ranft recalled. “I knew that’s what I wanted to try to accomplish.”

At Disney, Ranft worked on “Oliver & Company” (1988), “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988), “Beauty and the Beast” (1991), “The Lion King” (1994) and “Fantasia/2000.” He oversaw the story on “The Rescuers Down Under” (1990) and was co-writer and supervising animator on “The Brave Little Toaster” (1987).

More recently, he served as executive producer on “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride,” due this fall.

NY Times
Joyce Wein, a former vice president of the company that produced the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals and numerous other events, died on Monday at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper East Side. She was 76 and lived on the Upper East Side.

The cause was cancer, said a spokeswoman for the company, Festival Productions, which was founded by her husband, George Wein

Mrs. Wein was a biochemist but became professionally involved in music through her marriage in 1959 to Mr. Wein, the founder of the Newport festivals and the chief executive of Festival Productions. Mrs. Wein was a vice president of the company from shortly after it was established in the early 1960’s to the late 1990’s, and remained involved in its operations until her death.

Besides the Newport events, Festival Productions presents the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival in New York and many other events worldwide. Mrs. Wein had a hand in all of them but had especially close ties with the folk festival, which her husband founded in 1959. For several years beginning in 1963, the festival was run by the nonprofit Newport Folk Foundation, which Mr. and Mrs. Wein established with the folk singer Pete Seeger and his wife, Toshi.

Joyce Alexander was born in Boston on Oct. 21, 1928, and majored in chemistry at Simmons College there. She was the jazz columnist for the Simmons student newspaper and Mr. Wein was an aspiring jazz pianist when they met at a jazz concert in Boston in 1947.

Mrs. Wein was a founder of the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women, a charitable organization, and established the Joyce and George Wein Professorship Fund in African-American Studies at Boston University and the Alexander Family Endowed Scholarship Fund at Simmons.

Arts thanks to Joyce Wein and many, many years of the Newport Jazz Festival and Crafts thanks to Joe Ranft who met the Cosmic Flyswatter off the coast of Mendocino.

And if you’ve never been DO make a point to tour the Mendocino coast. Magnificent.

We know that our ODDfans are a thinking bunch so we dug up this interesting bit on music, lyrics and the first amendment: Just what the Bleep is going on here anyway? (And no we didn’t point you there just because McMurty is part of the article. Honest.)

From the WTFO files and just when you thought it could not be weirder…meet Joe Joachim, who says he wants to be the Walt Disney of the funeral business and his, er, wonderful (?) new product the Vidstone. Do you think our newly departed Joe Ranft would mind a continuous loop Bug’s Life on his Vidstone? So much for the peace and quiet of the graveyard. Endless loop of Steamboat Willie anyone?

And before you take us to task we know, we know, we know. The ODDcalendar failed to clang and we missed a big celebration yesterday - so solly. It doth seem that Hello Kitty turned 30. Back to the attic with you and find those collectibles.

And our final tip of the day…when in doubt just go with the Steak Special.

NY Times
Vassar Clements, a fiddle virtuoso and A-list studio musician who played with Paul McCartney and an array of others, died on Tuesday at his home in Goodlettsville, Tenn. He was 77.

The cause was lung cancer, which had spread to his liver and brain, his daughter Midge Cranor said.

Mr. Clements’s last performance was on Feb. 4 in Jamestown, N.Y., Ms. Cranor said.

His work bridged a variety of styles, including country, jazz, bluegrass, rock ‘n’roll and classical.

“When the rhythm is good, I can play it,” he told The Associated Press in a 1988 interview.

Over his career, he was recorded on more than 2,000 albums, joining artists as varied as McCartney, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, Hank Williams Jr., the Byrds, Woody Herman and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. He also made more than two dozen albums of his own and appeared in Robert Altman’s 1975 film “Nashville.”

The 2005 Grammy Award for best country instrumental performance went to “Earl’s Breakdown,” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band featuring Mr. Clements, Earl Scruggs, Randy Scruggs and Jerry Douglas. He was also on the band’s landmark album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

Mr. Clements was born in Kinards, S.C., and grew up in Kissimmee, Fla. He taught himself to play at age 7 and had no formal training.

“It was God’s gift, something born in me,” he said about his talent. “I was too dumb to learn it any other way. I listened to the (Grand Ole) Opry some. I’d pick it up one note at a time. I was young, with plenty of time and I didn’t give up. You’d come home from school, do your lessons and that’s it. No other distractions.

“I don’t read music. I play what I hear.”

NY Times
Ted Croner, whose rigorously blurry photographs of New York at night in the 1940’s epitomized the film noir energy of a city that never sleeps, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 82. He died of natural causes, said Margit Erb of the Howard Greenberg Gallery, which represents him.

Mr. Croner belonged to what the curator Jane Livingston called the New York School of photography, which included Lisette Model, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and William Klein. For the cover of her 1992 book “The New York School Photographs 1936-1963,” Ms. Livingston chose a picture by Mr. Croner. The picture, “New York at Night, 1948″ shows a Manhattan skyline reduced to abstract slashes of white light among black tall buildings against a gun-metal gray sky. Such images, Ms. Livingston wrote, “most quintessentially define the New York School.”

Mr. Croner’s best-known work is “Taxi, New York Night, 1947-48,” taken while he was a student at Alexei Brodovitch’s legendary “design laboratory.” In producing this dazzling, bold blur of an image, Mr. Croner took a leaf from his teacher’s book and went a few steps further. In 1945 Brodovitch had created a book of photographs, “Ballet,” which in its styleless style - all blur and unorthodox angles - captured the evanescent, elegant nature of dance.

According to Mr. Croner, Brodovitch asked him to take 12 to 15 photos of the city at night for a Strawbridge & Clothier department store display. Mr. Croner accepted the assignment, even though the $100 budget would barely cover the cost of film and processing.

“As things turned out,” Mr. Croner said, “it was one of my greater moments, not only as a photographer but also as perhaps the most important positive step in my career as a commercial photographer.”
Central Park South - 1947, Fine Art Print by Ted Croner, 24×26
Taxi, New York Night - 1947, Fine Art Print by Ted Croner, 24×26
“Taxi, New York Night- 1947″ by Ted Croner - Framed Artwork
“Times Square Montage- 1947″ by Ted Croner - Framed Artwork
“Top Hats…” by Ted Croner - Framed Artwork

Ok, test time.

Flying machines are to rock musicians as large animals are to ???

Now we realize that not everyone is as self-effacing as the ODDfellows so we thought you’d want to mosey over and get your name in an upcoming book by your pick of famous authors. Be the first one on your block.

In the Someone Has A Lot of Spare Time department we found this nifty Hillbilly Tribute. You’ll need some patience on the load and you’d best turn up the gain on your eyes. And no this is not Vassar related.

But speaking of Vassar you will note that in Vassar we lost another one to lung cancer.

We know that summer is almost over so here is one last travel tip: head on over (out? up? away to? whatever) Philly and take in the Mutter Museum. Take the kids as the Museum is said to be quite educational. We’re sure you’ll find no end of help for that “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” paper. No doubt you’ll be walking given the current price of gas.

And finally…the answer to today’s relation quiz is this: flying machines and rock musicians go together like large animals and actors/actresses. The latest bouncy-bouncy is of course Madonna. Since she reportedly broke a hand do you think she’ll give up writing finally? Maybe she can reinvent herself as Martha Stewart?

LA Times
Francy Boland, a Belgian-born jazz pianist and arranger who joined with American expatriate drummer Kenny Clarke to form one of Europe’s leading all-star swing bands of the 1960s and early 1970s, has died. He was 75. Boland died of cancer Aug. 12 in Geneva, according to the website Jazz In Belgium.

The conservatory-trained Boland developed an interest in jazz through radio broadcasts during World War II. Settling in Paris in the late 1940s, he fell in with a group of acclaimed European jazz musicians, including saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. While composing and arranging for the bands of Henri Renaud and Aime Barelli, he also perfected a percussive bop style of playing that was later evident in his hard-swinging work with Clarke.

Chet Baker, the American trumpeter and singer, went to Paris in 1955 and swept Boland into his mellow jazz quintet. Several well-received recordings followed, and Boland spent a few years in the United States working on arrangements for bandleaders Count Basie and Benny Goodman.

Back in Europe, he was the chief arranger for Kurt Edelhagen, a German swing leader, but achieved his greatest fame after teaming with Clarke, the American bebop pioneer, who settled in Paris.

They recorded in an octet and then, financed by Italian producer Gigi Campi, formed a large band of American expatriates and European jazz musicians that was credited with keeping progressive swing music alive through the rock era. The 11-year experiment lasted until 1973, when after more than 30 albums and constant touring, the musicians separated.

Boland settled in Switzerland, where he continued writing music for European bands and visiting singers, including Sarah Vaughan. Working on commission in 1984, he set to music the poems of Karol Wojtyla, the Polish priest who became Pope John Paul II.

The release, “The Mystery of Man,” featuring Vaughan with a large orchestra conducted by Lalo Schifrin, was received indifferently.

Francois Boland was born Nov. 6, 1929, in Namur, Belgium. He began playing piano at age 8 and studied at a music conservatory in Liege, Belgium.
Calypso Blues

News Flash! Money can buy happiness. Happiness sure, but money can’t buy me love right? We’d ask Michael, but that house in Bahrain seems to say Oh Yes It Can! You suppose there are any servant boys in that house?

Sheep on Drugs. No, we aren’t about to delve deeply into the choice entertainment at a Wyoming bachelor’s party, but rather to drag your attention kicking and screaming over to the newbies table and introduce a very nice band thank you very much. We arrived here because one of the SOD’s album titles ties in: One For The Money. Ya we know…Reaching R Us.

Speaking of sheep did you ever read John Brunner’s excellent The Sheep Look Up? Hustle up now and get a copy. While your shopping you might as well get his Stand On Zanzibar too.

Meanwhile back in the OnDeck circle we hear the faint tones of Auld Lange Syne from the Dick Clark camp. Please remember to fit your oxygen mask first before helping those around you.