Passings

Notable passings recently:

-- Gerald Ford (today). I didn't grow up with a huge respect for the presidency. Part of that was growing up in a Democratic house while Nixon and then Ford dominated it. (I was too young to really perceive Johnson, who was president when I was born.) I certainly had little cause to respect Ford, who, along with his vice-president Nelson Rockefeller, were the first un-elected presidential duo in history. Nor did he quite distinguish himself in retirement; he had a golf tournament named after him, and his wife's clinic made more of a splash than he did. Still, he was president.

-- James Brown (yesterday). An example of how those who make great art are also those capable of despicable acts -- in particular, his domestic violence and his armed rampage. But he made music that captured joy and fire and pride and fun.

-- Shirley Walker (back on November 30, but her obituary appeared today): Not as well known as the first two, but certainly important. She was a pioneering female composer who toiled in the all-man's-land of action scores. She orchestrated Danny Elfman's comic-book scores (Batman, Dick Tracy), and then moved on to craft and supervise the fantastic scores for Batman: The Animated Series and the other series it spawned in the '90's. Her booming, minor-key and heroic scores for those series mirrored the noir/deco mood and look of the art.