Vale / in Memorium

[Mountains Magpie]

Top stuff P4S.

Number 8 for mine.

Leon's passing did not make it on the ABC news app. I'm still waiting for their reply to my email as to why that was the case. No doubt an age thing....

MM

PS: There is/was a colour video on Youtube from the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour of Cry Me A River. I have the colour version of the Letter somewhere too. Damn it the whole show is worth a watch/listen folks
Only the Last Waltz, Derek & Dominoes and Chicago at Tanglewood compare in this general style IMHO

[Pies4shaw]

^^^ One of my most cherished possessions is a Hip-O-Select 6CD set of the 4 complete Fillmore East concerts from which the Mad Dogs and Englishman album was made. Unfortunately, the famous recording of Cry Me A River from that album doesn't seem to have been filmed (or, if it was, the film hasn't surfaced) and, remarkably, that song wasn't in the film (although, as you say, other versions are floating around YouTube).

As a kid, taken by my older brother to the local cinema to see a summer-holiday screening of Mad Dogs, Leon had a huge impact on me. He was one of those very few genuinely impeccable musicians who had style, timing and taste: he opened my eyes to the possibilities of playing something that wasn't Beethoven, Chopin or Liszt on the piano. And, even now, I am still amazed by the precision of his attack - you can play all the notes Leon played in precisely the right order but you just can't play Leon.

As for the Mad Dogs, they must really have been the greatest collection of musicians ever collected in one place. As C Michael Bailey said in his wonderful 2006 review of the 35th anniversary releases for All About Jazz, "They made history as if they did it every day."

And Leon was the absolute centre of it all.

[Member 7167]

Very sad. He has been on my playlist since the 70's.

[Pies4shaw]

^^^^ Leon's been on everyone's playlist since the 60s - they just didn't always know it.

[sherrife]

It's a sad day, Trevor Grant died this morning of asbestosis (thanks again James Hardie).

He was a lifelong pies fan, a great writer about the intersection between sports and politics and spent his last years campaigning for justice for Tamil refugees fleeing the genocide in Sri Lanka.

Please read this wonderful article he wrote on being diagnosed with cancer last year:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-05/g ... er/7299940

He will be remembered.

[stui magpie]

[watt price tully]

Sad. Condolences to his family

[MagpieBat]

[stui magpie]

^

Well done. All i saw was a blank post.

[Piesnchess]

very sad, I recall his sports articles well.

[London Dave]

sad news, i read a lot of his stuff over the years... terrible thing cancer..

[sherrife]

Wasn't just cancer, it was asbestosis, ie. murder by James Hardie executives. They should all be in jail.

[ronrat]

A frirnd of mine worked as a compositor for years in those buildings and died in his early 60s. Because he had no kids or wife James Hardie gets a freebie

RIP Trev and Brian

[3rd degree]

Poor Bloke , Condolences to a fellow Magpie.

[sherrife]

A frirnd of mine worked as a compositor for years in those buildings and died in his early 60s. Because he had no kids or wife James Hardie gets a freebie

RIP Trev and Brian

I'm sorry to hear that mate. Did you read Trevor's article I posted in the thread? It's beautiful, written with people like your mate in mind.