Today in Music History ~ 10/9

1813 ~ Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer
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1835 ~ Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer, organist and conductor Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals is featured in Disney's Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. He wrote symphonies, piano and violin concertos, suites, opera and tone poem, among others.
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• 1931 ~ Russ Columbo’s Prisoner of Love was recorded on Victor Records.

1940 ~ John Lennon, British rock singer, songwriter and guitarist
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• 1935 ~ Cavalcade of America was first broadcast on radio this very day. The CBS show featured some of Hollywood and Broadway’s most famous stars in leading roles in the half hour radio dramas. Thomas Chalmers narrated the stories about obscure incidents and people in American history. The orchestra (yes, radio shows had live orchestras back then) was led by Donald Voorhees. The show aired from 1935 to 1953, changing from CBS to NBC in 1939; with one sponsor for its entire duration. The DuPont Company introduced its slogan on Cavalcade of America ..."Better things for better living through chemistry..."

• 1941 ~ Helen Morgan passed away

1944 ~ John Entwistle, Bass, French horn with The Who
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• 1947 ~ "High Button Shoes", opened on Broadway in New York City with an entertainer named Phil Silvers in the lead. The popular show ran for 727 performances.

• 1948 ~ Jackson Browne, Songwriter, singer

• 1967 ~ "And now...heeeeeeeeerrrree’s the Doctor!" Coming out of the NBC Tonight Show Orchestra to become musical director of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Doc Severinsen replaced Skitch Henderson on this night. Doc became famous for an eccentric wardrobe, quick wit, great trumpet solos and fabulous charts. Tommy Newsome became Doc’s backup arranger for many of the tunes the band played. Later, Doc and the band would move to solo albums, group CDs and incredibly successful concert tours. Doc went on to play with various symphony orchestras and even became the owner of a custom trumpet company in the San Francisco Bay Area.

• 1973 ~ Priscilla Presley, was divorced from Elvis in Santa Monica, CA. Ms. Presley got $1.5 million in cash, $4,200 per month in alimony, half interest in a $750,000 home plus about 5% interest in two of Elvis’ publishing companies.

• 1973 ~ Paul Simon got a gold record this day for his hit, Loves Me like a Rock.

• 1975 ~ John Lennon turned 35. To celebrate, Yoko Ono Ono presented John with a newborn son, Sean Ono Lennon.

• 1976 ~ Ludwig van Beethoven's "Symphony number 5 in c minor" landed for a twenty-two-week stop in the first spot on the Top 5. Beethoven is dead and this isn't a ghost story. It's simply a case of Beethoven being updated with a disco rock beat and a catchy new title: A Fifth of Beethoven.

• 1985 ~ A 2½ acre garden memorial was dedicated to John Lennon by his widow, Yoko Ono, this day. The memorial in New York City’s Central Park is named Strawberry Fields.

• 1988 ~ Elmer J. ‘Mousey’ Alexander passed away

• 2000 ~ Yoko Ono Opened John Lennon Museum in Japan

• 2001 ~ Herbert Ross died at the age of 76. He was a director and choreographer whose credits include the hit movies "The Goodbye Girl," "The Sunshine Boys" and "The Turning Point."

• 2003 ~ Don Lanphere, a saxophone player who came on strong at the dawn of bebop, nearly succumbed to drugs and drinking, then recovered to become the city's jazz "grandpop," died of hepatitis C. He was 75. As lead tenor in the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and in smaller groups, Lanphere's versatility and virtuosity ranged from blazing riffs on the tenor to a solo jazz rendition of the Lord's Prayer on the soprano sax.

Many who were born long after Lanphere's boyhood gigs with such legends as Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro and Max Roach hailed him as a jazz patriarch or, as his Web site proclaimed, "Seattle jazz grandpop." Born in the apple country of central Washington about 95 miles east of Seattle, Lanphere played as a teenager with touring bands in Seattle, then studied music briefly at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. By the time he got to New York, captivated by the post-World War II bebop revolution, he was hooked on heroin. By his early 20s he had recorded with Navarro and Roach and played gigs with Parker, Woody Herman and top big bands, including one led by Artie Shaw. He could write a chart, the chord arrangement on which jazz improvisation is based, from the sound of water dripping in a tub. Battling alcohol and narcotics addictions that resulted in at least one arrest, he was back at his father's store in Wenatchee - "from the Big Apple to the little apple," he once said - by 1960. Only after he and his wife Midge became born-again Christians in 1969 did he dust off his horn. In an interview in 1998, he said that without the conversion, "I would be dead by now."