By Elmer Ploetz

There are times when the losses come in bursts, and for the Western New York arts & culture scene, this is one of those times. Here is a collection of notes on those memorials and memories:

SAUL ELKIN

The Celebration of Life for the founder of Shakespeare in Delaware Park will take place, appropriately enough, in a theater.

Elkin, who died July 14 at age 93, founded Shakespeare in Delaware Park in 1976 while teaching in the theater program at the University of Buffalo and ran it for some 40 years before evolving into an emeritis role in the past decade. In his roles with Shakespeare in Delaware Park and as a professor, he was a mentor to hundreds, if not more, in the theater world.

So it’s also necessary that the memorializing him will require Shea’s Theatre. The Celebration of Life will take place on Aug. 4, with doors opening at 5 and the ceremony starting at 6. As the event announcement says, “All are welcome, no reservations required.” Kind of like Shakespeare in Delaware Park.

RELATED MEDIA: You can check out Peter Palmisano’s “Off Road” podcast from 2022 for a conversation with Saul Elkin.

JOHN C. ALLEN

John Allen died at age 73 on July 19, and his memory will be celebrated today (Saturday, July 26) from 4 to 7 p.m. at Amigone Funeral Home, 1132 Delaware Ave., with a service to follow at 7 p.m. Allen played sax, guitar and flute in vands such of the Outer Circle Orchestra, Allen Street Jazz Band, the John Allen Trio and even – all too briefly – the Steam Donkeys before suffering from Parkinson’s in recent years.

Social media has been the forum for a lot of heartfelt tributes to Allen in the past week, so much so that Allen’s son, Rory, said the support has been overwhelming. While you can donate to the Parkinson’s Foundation in Allen’s honor, Rory offered an alternative: “*in lieu of flowers please support a local musician.”

RELATED MEDIA: You can listen to the entire Outer Circle Orchestra live album “Sunny Sunday” here. Allen is playing alto sax.

JOHN SPEARS

John Spears, the director of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System, died at age 51 on July 19 after a battle with cancer.

Spears may come to be remembered as the librarian who did away with overdue book fines (which he said researched showed was an inconvenience for well off library patrons, but an unnecessary impediment to poorer patrons) in the library system.

Libraries are a crucial part of any arts & culture community, and the BECPL system has been living up to the challenge as it has navigated very difficult political times. Spears, who came to Buffalo just over three years ago, will be remembered for handling the challenges very ably.

As the library system said in a statement, “John Spears will best be remembered for his leadership in advocating to protect intellectual freedoms. He was known for taking a prominent stance in encouraging funding for libraries to continue to provide free, equal, and equitable access to information for everyone.”

A memorial service has yet to be scheduled.

RELATED MEDIA: Here is a video from last year when Spears participated in the ribbon-cutting for the new teen room at the Central Library.

CHUCK MANGIONE

Chuck Mangione was a Rochester guy, but he had deep Buffalo ties (with people such as the Larry Swist/Mick Guzauski team, Larry Covelli). Some were on on his biggest records. The jazz legend died Tuesday (July 22) at age 84.

Mangione rarely got critical respect. That’s what happens when you have a monster soft jazz hit like “Feel So Good.” But there was more to Mangione than that hit. Richard Chon, a Buffalo native, musician and writer who now lives in the Bay Area of California, had this to say on social media (and we publish it with his permission):

The obits say “jazz legend,” but most real jazz fans I knew wouldn’t touch Chuck Mangione’s albums with a ten-foot pole. To them, he was some easy-listening sell-out.
YET, his “Hill Where the Lord Hides” was my gateway drug into improvisation and the whole idea of jazz. The opening number of the “Friends and Love” concert in Rochester was funky, cool, romantic, epic. Listening to Gerry Niewood’s solo was my introduction to the idea of playing over a song form, over chord changes, of developing a beguiling solo that combined both logic and startling bursts of imagination.. To my teenage ears, it was the quintessential jazz solo that mapped out the path that every jazz solo should be. The genius part of “Friends and Love” was its choral ending, like Beethoven’s Ninth, except that the chorus in this particular occasion was hidden amongst the audience in the Eastman Theater. When the moment came for them to sing out the word “Love,” they emedded in the very audience they were singing to. That must have been SOMETHING. And one afternoon fifty years ago,, my high school band teacher, Geoff Richter, told me he had been a member of that covert choir. I was agog with awe.
YET, the Mangione family dinner table was Dizzy Gillespie’s safe haven every time he visited Rochester. He was so impressed by Chuck that he gave him one of his famous up-turned trumpets. Chuck and his brother Gap had a hard-core hard bop band that walked the walk and talked the talk.
YET, I was sitting in a bar today with a friend and started singing the melody to “Feels So Good.” He took over the melody and sang the whole song. And it was a song. Like Felix Mendelssohn, Chuck Mangione wrote songs without words. And those songs STUCK in your head. Maybe that melody is Chuck’s lasting legacy, wrought forever in our gray matter.
I heard the story, perhpas apocryphal, that a very coked-up Chuck Mangione pushed a grand piano off the stage into the pit at a prestigious European jazz festival, after which his name turned from Mangione to Mudd. I can’t imagine the anguish that might have driven a person to do that. And I wonder what depths he fell to even as his career was reaching its heights. In death, we are relieved of our pain and burdens, and I hope Chuck is at peace tonight.
I will confess that I still occasionally listen to “Hill Where the Lord Hides,” and I still revel in its romance, its structure and its funkiness. And I thank Chuck Mangione for putting me on the path that I continue to walk today.

RELATED MEDIA:

---