THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY JANUARY 26

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

JANUARY 26

1908 - Legendary French jazz violinist STEPHANE GRAPPELLI was born (d. 1997). Grappelli is best known as the cofounder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt. It was one of the first (and arguably the most famous) of all-string jazz bands. Born Stephane Grappelly (he didn't change his name to "Grappelli" until the 1960s), his collaboration with Reinhardt produced a musical pairing that was sort of the jazz equivalent of Lennon-McCartney or Jagger-Richards. A foil worthy of literature, Grappelli was openly Gay, fastidiously a tidy pianist and violinist.

Grappelli was born in Paris, France to Italian parents: his father, Marquess Ernesto Grappelli was born in Alatri (Lazio). His mother died when he was four and his father left to fight in World War I. As a result he was sent to an orphanage. Grappelli started his musical career busking on the streets of Paris and Montmartre with a violin. He began playing the violin at age 12, and attended the Conservatoire de Paris studying music theory, between 1924 and 1928. He continued to busk on the side until he gained fame in Paris as a violin virtuoso. He also worked as a silent film pianist while at the conservatory and played the saxophone and accordion. He called his piano "My Other Love" and released an album of solo piano of the same name. His early fame came playing with the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt, which disbanded in 1939 due to World War II. In 1940, a little known jazz pianist by the name of George Shearing made his debut as a sideman in Grappelli's band.

After the war he appeared on hundreds of recordings including sessions with Duke Ellington, jazz pianists Oscar Peterson, Michel Petrucciani and Claude Bolling, jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, jazz violinist Stuff Smith, Indian classical violinist L. Subramaniam, vibraphonist Gary Burton, pop singer Paul Simon, mandolin player David Grisman, classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, orchestral conductor André Previn, guitar player Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar player Joe Pass, cello player Yo Yo Ma, harmonica and jazz guitar player Toots Thielmans, jazz guitarist Henri Crolla and fiddler Mark O'Connor. He also collaborated extensively with the British guitarist and graphic designer Diz Disley, recording 13 record albums with him and his trio, and with now renowned British guitarist Martin Taylor. In the 1980s he gave several concerts with the young British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber.

Grappelli made a cameo appearance in the 1978 film King of the Gypsies, along with noted mandolinist David Grisman. Three years later they performed together in concert, which was recorded live and released to critical acclaim.  Grappelli's music is played very quietly, almost inaudibly, on Pink Floyd's album Wish You Were Here. In 1997, Grappelli received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is an inductee of the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. Grappelli is interred in Paris' Père Lachaise Cemetery.

1946 - Today is the birthday of the British dramatist CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON. Best known for his play Dangerous Liaisons which was later made into a movie by that name.

1944 - Angela Davis was born on this date in Birmingham, Alabama. The American socialist organizer and professor was associated with the Black Panther Party and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Davis was also a notable activist during the Civil Rights Movement, and a prominent member and political candidate of the Communist Party USA. In recent years, she no longer identifies as a Communist, but rather a democratic socialist, and is currently a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

She first achieved nationwide notoriety when a weapon registered in her name was linked to the murder of Judge Harold Haley during an effort to free a black convict who was being tried for the attempted retaliatory murder of a white prison guard who killed three unarmed black inmates. Davis fled underground and was the subject of an intense manhunt. Davis was eventually captured, arrested, tried, and then acquitted in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history.

Davis is currently a graduate studies Professor of History of Consciousness at the University of California and Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She works for racial and gender equality and for Gay rights and prison abolition. She is a popular public speaker, nationally and internationally, as well as a founder of the grassroots prison-industrial complex-abolition organization Critical Resistance.

1958 - Today is ELLEN DEGENERES' birthday. The eleven-time Emmy Award-winning American stand-up comedienne, television hostess and actress was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ellen started her career as an emcee at a local comedy club in New Orleans. She played the (leading) part of Ellen in the series 'Ellen'. When she came out in 1997 as a Lesbian both in the series as well in real life the popularity of the series diminished. Chrysler withdrew its commercials! The 'Puppy episode' in which Ellen had her coming-out received an Emmy-award.

She hosts the award winning syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show and has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. This season she is serving as one of the judges on the TV reality competition American Idol.  She starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002.  In 1997, during the fourth season of Ellen, she came out publicly as a Lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues as well as the coming out process.

DeGeneres received wide exposure on November 4, 2001, when she hosted the Emmy Awards-TV show. Presented after two cancellations due to network concerns that a posh ceremony following the September 11, 2001 attacks would appear insensitive, the show required a more somber tone that would also allow viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening which included the line:

"We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a homosexual woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?"

DeGeneres was in a relationship with the actress Anne Heche and then the actress/director/photographer Alexandra Hedison before meeting her wife the actress PORTIA DE ROSSI in 2004. After the overturn of the same-sex marriage ban in California, DeGeneres announced on a May 2008 show that she and de Rossi were engaged, and gave de Rossi a three-carat pink diamond ring. They were married on August 16, 2008 at their home, with nineteen guests including their respective mothers. The passage of Proposition 8 cast doubt on the legal status of their marriage but a subsequent Supreme Court judgment validated it because it occurred before 4 November 2008. They live in Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara.

2009 - Nearly 2,200 government employees involved in foreign policy issues signed a letter delivered to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday calling on the government to give EQUAL BENEFITS TO SAME-SEX PARTNERS. The Bush administration had eased some rules, opening up some training to same-sex partners, but had resisted efforts to treat homosexual partners the same as married couples. But Clinton, during her confirmation hearings, indicated a greater willingness to explore the issue.

"I think that we should take a hard look at the existing policy," Clinton said in response to a question from Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). "My understanding is other nations have moved to extend that partnership benefit." The issue achieved prominence in 2007 when a respected ambassador, Michael Guest, resigned after 26 years in the Foreign Service to protest the rules and regulations that he argued gave same-sex partners fewer benefits than family pets. Guest said he was forced to choose "between obligations to my partner, who is my family, and service to my country," which he called "a shame for this institution and our country.

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