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Wednesday 21 November 2012

List of Prominent Qadiani Perosnalities in Pakistan

 1    Mubasir Ullah DIG lahore
 2   Ahmed Raza Tahir CCPO Lahore
 3   Salman Bashir Secretery Foreign Affairs
 4    Noman Bahir Cheif of the Navel Staff
 5    Ch. Eitizaz Ahsan EX president supereem court Bar
 6   Aasima Jahangir Ex president supereem court Bar
 7    Mubasir Luqman TV Anchor
 8    Rana Mubashir TV Anchor
 9    Najam Sethi Journalist
10   Aslam Khattak National Awami Party
 11  Aftab Ahmed Sherpao (Nephew of Aslam Khattak) PPP
 12   Naheed Khan PPP personal secratary of BeZazeer Bhutto
 13   Sheri Rehman PPP
 14    Mian Manzoor Ahmed Watto Ex Foreign Minister
 15    GM Syed Gea Sindh (Presented resuolation in Sindh Assembly
 16    Mubashir Zafar GM (HR) OGDC
 17    Raiz Mohmmad Khan Ex Secretry foreign affairs and spokes man
 18   Khurshid Mahmood Qasuri Ex foreign Minister
 19   Ahmed Raza Qasuri Lodge FIR against Bhutto
 20   Ahmed Kamal Former Pakistan

Ajmal Kasab hanged in secrecy, buried at Pune's Yerwada Jail

Mumbai: Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, 25, the only terrorist caught alive during the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, was hanged at Pune's Yerwada Jail at 7:30 this morning. It was a swift and secret execution, just two weeks after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition. Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who said it was all in a day's work, told NDTV that not one of his Cabinet colleagues knew that Kasab would be hanged today and would have learnt of it from TV.

A few hours after he was hanged, Kasab's body was buried at the Pune jail. Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik  told NDTV that no request had been made by Kasab's family for repatriation  of his body. "As and when such a request is made, we will approach India accordingly," he said. A Pakistani human rights activist, Ansar Burney, has now offered to claim the terrorist's body, "on humanitarian grounds."

Soon after Kasab was hanged, Mr Shinde said India had informed the Pakistan government yesterday about Kasab's hanging, but, he said, Islamabad had refused to acknowledge the letter that was both couriered and faxed through its high commission in Delhi. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said it was faxed after India tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to give it to Pakistan by hand.

Pakistan has refuted this saying it has "received and acknowledged" India's note. India's foreign ministry  sources say Islamabad did, however, accept its request for enhanced security for Indian diplomats in Pakistan.

Sources said the government also sent word about Kasab's execution by a special letter to an address in Pakistan that the terrorist had given as that of his family. Kasab, who was informed on November 12 that he would be hanged, had reportedly requested that his mother be informed about it. He had no other last wish and left no will.

The President rejected Ajmal Kasab's mercy petition on November 5, Mr Shinde said. Paperwork between Delhi and Mumbai done, Kasab was moved from his bullet-proof, secure cell in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail to Pune on Monday. The Yerwada jail is one of two in Maharashtra equipped to handle execution by hanging.

The process thereafter was kept top secret, with even the most senior officials informed only on a need to know basis. "These are sensitive matters...we managed to keep it secret," Mr Khurshid said.

Mr Shinde was more specific. He said his department kept the execution plan under wraps since it did not want to encounter pressure from international NGOs or "someone moving Supreme Court. "It is my nature that I maintain secrecy on such things. I am trained to be a policeman," Mr Shinde, adding that none of his cabinet colleagues or UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi knew about the execution happening today. "They would have got to know from television when channels started reporting this morning," he said.

An hour after Kasab was hanged today, Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil made an official announcement saying, "I sincerely believe this is a tribute to all innocent people and the officers who lost their lives in the Mumbai attacks.

The execution comes one day before the Winter Session of Parliament begins and five days before the fourth anniversary of a day that will haunt Mumbai for many days. Mr Shinde says not too much should be read into those details. Mr Khurshid said India's message to the world was that "India stands by the rule of law."

166 people were killed over three days of terror, when 10 men from Pakistan sailed into Mumbai in November 2008. They split into pairs and spent 72 hours targeting the city's landmarks. A hospital was attacked; so was a Jewish centre. Kasab was the only terrorist who was caught alive.

While it has been established that Kasab belonged to Pakistan, Islamabad has continued to deny that there was any state involvement in the massive terror attack planned and executed by the deadly terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The abiding image of Kasab - captured by a photographer at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station - is of him in T-shirt and cargo pants, strapped with ammunition and holding a deadly Kalashnikov rifle. On 26/11, his partner Ismail and he attacked the station first, killing 52 people and wounding more than 100.

They then escaped, hijacked a police vehicle after fatally shooting three senior policemen - Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar - and drove for a distance before being brought to halt at Girgaum Chowpatty by a flat tyre. Ismail, who was driving was killed in gunfire. Kasab, who was wounded, got out of the car and pretended to be dead. An unarmed Assistant police inspector Tukaram Ombale approached him and when Kasab suddenly pulled his gun on him, grappled with the terrorist, holding on to his rifle, and ensured that he was captured alive by other cops, before succumbing to his injuries.

Since his arrest in 2008, Kasab was kept in a high-security bulletproof cell in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail. He had moved the Supreme Court on February 14 this year against the High Court verdict of October 10 last year, which upheld a lower court order sentencing the terrorist to death. The lower court had pronounced its judgement on May 6, 2010, 18 months after he was captured.

Kasab's mercy petition was filed first with the Maharashtra Home Ministry, which rejected it in September, and forwarded it to the Union Home Ministry. Then, in October, the Home Ministry recommended that President Pranab Mukherjee reject his plea.

In his plea before the Supreme Court Kasab had said that he had not been given a fair trial. But the Supreme Court had rejected that contention and Justice CK Prasad had observed, "I am more than certain that the planning and conspiracy to commit the crime were hatched in Pakistan, the perpetrators of crime were Pakistani trained at different centres in that country, and the devastation which took place at various places in the city of Mumbai, were executed by the appellant in furtherance thereof.

There had been an overwhelming demand among people in India since 2008 that Kasab be executed for his role in the Mumbai attacks. Also, as Kasab's trial continued, the cost of keeping him alive had been a huge burden on the state exchequer.

While the Government has spent over Rs. 5 crore on his high security cell at Mumbai's Arthur Road jail, his security, entrusted to the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), has cost the state several crores.

Monday 12 November 2012

Dr. Lonnie Smith: But Beautiful

Dr. Lonnie Smith-organist, composer, bandleader and now principal of Pilgrimage Records-is the Cheshire cat of jazz. He's been part of the scene for so long that, even though he's there, he sometimes disappears from view; when you do get a glimpse, the last thing you see and the first thing you remember is his warm and wise Buddha smile. Dr. Lonnie Smith smiles like he knows that he knows something that most people don't even know that they don't know.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Dr. Smith's house and family life were full of music, including and especially singing. He sang and played some trumpet in school, and as his maturation continued, he began hanging out at a local music store. In the late 1950s, the store's owner, Art Kubera, gave him the opportunity to learn how to play a Hammond organ. "Even though I didn't know how, I was able to play right from the beginning," Dr. Smith reflects. "I learned how to work the stops and that was it. It's a passion for me, so everything else came naturally." Dr. Smith still refers to Art Kubera as "my angel."

Dr. Smith began honing his playing in Buffalo clubs, where he was soon spotted by guitarist George Benson, who recruited him into his group, and by booking agent Jimmy Boyd, who found work for Benson and Smith in New York City and Harlem. John Hammond saw some of these shows and then signed them both to Columbia Records, which released Finger-Lickin' Good, Dr. Smith's debut, in 1966.

He was soon recruited by alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, and his contributions to the million-selling Alligator Boogaloo (Blue Note, 1967) and Everything I Play is Funky (Blue Note, 1970) put Dr. Smith on the musical map to stay. Blue Note subsequently signed Dr. Smith, for whom he released his own titles Think! (1968), and Turning Point (1969), which opens with a joyous romp through the R&B workhorse "See Saw," by Don Covay and guitarist Steve Cropper, plus other soulful jazz (if not soul-jazz) classics along the way.

In subsequent decades, Dr. Smith has recorded a wide variety of projects for several different labels, including Foxy Lady: A Tribute to Hendrix (Musicmasters, 1994), in a trio with guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith, and Boogaloo to Beck: A Tribute (Scufflin' Records, 2003), his homage to the folk/hip-hop pastiche master featuring saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman. A long-term stay on Palmetto Records produced his funk workouts Too Damn Hot (2004), Jungle Soul (2006) and Rise Up! (2009).

In 2010, Dr. Smith formed a new trio with guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Jamire Williams to record Spiral (Palmetto, 2010). Dr. Smith sounds revitalized by their influx, most notably in a high-energy take on Jimmy Smith's "Mellow Mood" and a swarming, stinging buzz through Harold Mabern's "Beehive." Both tunes were reprised on 2012's The Healer, joined by Dr. Smith's own luscious "Backtrack" and soul-searching "Pilgrimage" (on which he plays and sings), plus a languid stroll across Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge."

Comprised of live sets recorded at the Jazz Standard in New York City and at a town plaza in Hungary at the end of the trio's 2011 tour of Europe, The Healer also heralds the debut of Dr. Smith's own label, Pilgrimage Records. "If you told me back in 1966 when I recorded my first LP that I would be starting my own record label in the year 2012, I would've said, 'That's what you think!'" Dr. Smith wrote in The Healer's notes.

Dr. Smith is a member of the Buffalo Music and Jazz Organ Fellowship Halls of Fame and will bring his trio back to New York's Jazz Standard in January 2013.

All About Jazz: You have an incredible back catalog but let's start with your new record first; in fact, let's start with the band on The Healer: How did this trio come together?

Dr. Lonnie Smith: Jonathan Kreisberg first worked with me years ago. I needed a guitarist. I heard this young man and he was quite a guitarist. He worked so fine, so well, with me. When his name came up again, the fellow handling me mentioned that Jonathan used to work with me and I quickly remembered him. We called him and it lined up perfect.

Then we heard about Jamire Williams. I listened to him and it was another perfect fit. When we got together and played, it even sounded better than what I heard in my head. It was just what I needed. It worked for me.

We enjoy each other. We enjoy playing with each other, and they're quite great musicians. They do a really wonderful job, and they add beautiful music to what I'm playing, so it's great.

AAJ: Is there a specific reason why the trio has been such a successful/popular format for organ players?

DLS: It's a great marriage. What I love about the guitar/organ trio is that, when you have a horn, it sounds fat. It sounds large-big-with a saxophone. And when they're playing, you're accompanying the horn player, but when you're playing, they're just basically standing there.

But the guitarist is there to support you just like the drummer supports you and does not stop just because I start playing. It creates great rhythms, and I love rhythm. I love great rhythm. Guitar adds a really nice tone to the organ; they kind of blend beautifully together.

In the earlier days, I used a lot of horns. I love horns also. But an organ trio leaves you more expression room: If you're soloing and you have a lot of horn players, you give the trumpet player, you give the saxophonist, you give the guitarist all something to play, and then when it's time for you to play, you don't even want to play because it's gone on for so long, you know? It gets too long. Of course, some people are just longwinded. You sometimes say, "Hey, wait a minute-I would like to get to another song tonight."

Mats Gustafsson: Share The Moment


Reedman Mats Gustafsson resides at the center of a hurricane of activity: relentlessly touring, curating festivals and begetting record labels. He boasts one of most distinctive sounds in free jazz, combining the extremes of scalp prickling howls with adventurous exploration of minimalist tone and timbre. Although he's come a long way since his early days in a punk rock band in Sweden's Lapland, that anarchic energy is never far away, revealed in collaborations with luminaries from both the Old and New Worlds, such as reedmen Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee, and guitarists Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke and Yoshihide Otomo.

One of the most enduring vehicles for his artistry is The Thing, a trio with Norwegians Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), first established in 2000 during a series of concerts and a recording in Stockholm. The trio melds the German, British and American traditions of free music into a searing inferno which can miraculously birth songs from the annals of punk, rock or jazz. Originally, its repertoire comprised the music of legendary trumpeter Don Cherry, who spent many of his years living in the Swedish capital, and after which one of his compositions the threesome is named. In 2012, the trio released two very different albums which, between them, encapsulate the band's breadth of expression and provide an illuminating entree to the reedman's world.

Chapter Index

    The Cherry Thing
    Metal!
    Turning Points
    A Personalized Sound
    Influences
    On The Road


The Cherry Thing

All About Jazz: The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Superjazz, 2012) is a collaboration with vocalist Neneh Cherry, which garnered some rave reviews. It's a neat connection for a band named after a Don Cherry composition to join with Cherry's stepdaughter; how did that come about?

Mats Gustafsson: It was basically because me and Neneh had a mutual friend in Stockholm, where Neneh has had her base for many years. This guy, called Conny Lindstrom, who I ran the Crazy Wisdom label with, he has also been running a couple of clubs in Stockholm presenting creative music from whatever field. Amazing concept. He's never been interested in genre. So he's been presenting extreme Japanese noise as well as Norwegian singer/songwriting, and free improvised music in all forms. He's been a very old friend of Neneh's and is also a record collector. So I hooked up with him very early when I moved down from Lapland to Stockholm and he was working in the record shop. We connected immediately as he was commenting that I was buying Peter Brötzmann records.

It's always been a dream to get me and Neneh together in a project. It's been on the agenda a couple of times with different projects, but it never happened. Neneh got sick one time, [when] we had a recording scheduled. So we had the opportunity to meet in London, and that was after Neneh's husband and producer Cameron heard us live and was somehow impressed by something, I guess. So he set up, with Conny, this opportunity to meet in the studio in London. And we recorded three pieces without any arrangements or anything. We just did it, and it was the same feeling we had when we first played as The Thing in the studio back in 2000. We came together and everything just worked. So we said, "OK, fuck it, we need to do this again." We needed to make a record and then when it was done, we said we needed to make a serious tour with this. It's just one of those things; it needed some time for me and Neneh to find the right situation to work within. The Thing was my main group and so it was very natural.

AAJ: How did you choose the songs on the album?

MG: It's a very democratic group and we always take all the decisions together. We had some discussions, emails back and forth, sending out some stupid suggestions, some serious ones. And then, in the studio, we tried a bunch, and basically the ones we tried are the ones on the record. There are eight songs on the record, and another five that didn't fit that the label will put out as singles-or maybe as a separate LP. It's a really interesting process, bringing in favorite music, whether it comes from the free jazz tradition like the Don Cherry or Ornette [Coleman] piece, or whether it comes from garage rock or The Stooges or the Bristol scene Neneh has been associated with; it doesn't matter. It's what we do with the material. Also, six of the songs on this record are other people's pieces, but it was not intended to look like a cover record. They were just the songs we wanted to try. The next step for this Cherry Thing is to bring in more original compositions for the next album.

AAJ: Did Neneh write the lyrics to Don Cherry's "Golden Heart" and your piece, "Sudden Moment"?

MG: I wrote the lyrics as well. I did some attempts before, but in a way that was an interesting process. I write a lot, I write about music, but to write lyrics to songs like that is a different kind of process [laughs], but I found it very interesting as a challenge, and so I will try again and see if I can make any more sense. Neneh wrote the lyrics to "Golden Heart," and the rest are all songs that actually have lyrics.

AAJ: Ornette Coleman's "What Reason Could I Give" is one of the strongest pieces, and a great set closer. It comes from Science Fiction (CBS, 1972) , a very underrated album.

MG: I think it is a master album, one of his best. I think it is fantastic, but it's somehow overlooked, I think. If you talk about Ornette, there are usually other albums that people talk about first. But it's one of my favorite albums and it's also the album that Neneh puts first. I think she grew up with it, more or less.

John Patitucci: The Gentle Soul

Every jazz musician inhabits a private inner world of amazing energy and light, where they live, dream and fall deeply in love with their unique craft while creating this extraordinary and improvised music. Through the years, some become masters of their instruments, and a selfless interaction with the world takes place, where they share what they learned and even help others find their own voice. This way, paying it forward becomes an act of brotherhood, a present for the future of jazz to behold.

Bass virtuoso John Patitucci believes in the goodness of heart that relies on the musical gifts of those willing and able to create powerful, deeply heart- rooted music. He spends a good amount of his time mentoring and teaching the skills he learned long ago, cherishing every experience as an opportunity to acquire an even deeper understanding of his own dexterity on the bass. This teacher is always a humble and valuable student himself, a constant work in progress. His reward is a worldwide-stage audience looking at him in awe.

Giants such as Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea have bonded with his unique musical sensibility. A deeply spiritual man, Patitucci has found a gentle equilibrium between his faith and his appreciation of music; everything is part of a whole, and that whole is full of beautiful possibilities. His playing is both energetic and tender, with a technique that is as personal as his relationship with God, almost impossible to emulate.

This is a musician with a heart wide open.

All About Jazz: Tell us a little bit about your involvement with ArtistsWorks.

John Patitucci:
They approached me a while back, early last year or something like that, about this new project that they are doing, this new concept. And I thought that it was very interesting to have a situation where people could study with you from anywhere in the world, in a way that was more complete and just so well thought out: the idea about creating a community with the knowledge of bass and creating not only a little academy where they can study bass with someone that they wanted to study with, who also had a particular view point, but also the students would get to know each other, too, and share the experiences and what they learned from it, and benefit from each other's questions. I have been teaching all my life, but not like this. This is a different concept because of the way that it is set up, being able to send a question about their instrument-filmed questions-to me, and I am able to film the response as well; all the answers are posted on the site, together with the questions, and anybody who belongs to the site can look at them any time.

AAJ: As far as teaching goes, like you said, you have been teaching for a long time; you were the artistic director of Bass Collective, you are also involved with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program, and you were professor of Jazz Studies in City College in New York.

John Patitucci Remembrance JP: Yes, I left City College in order to do a job for Berklee College of Music; I am now an Artist in Resident, with Danilo Perez and the Global Jazz Institute and also the Bass department. I have switched after 10 years teaching at City College, and I am now teaching at Berklee School.

AAJ: Teaching has to mean a lot to you.

JP: Yes, it does, and it is kind of strange to me because I started teaching when I was a teenager. I was teaching electric bass to people older than me when I was a kid. That was very odd to me, and I didn't quite understand it, but people wanted to study, so I started learning what that was, and I don't think I have learned so much over the years. Who knows, sometimes I wonder who's learning more, you or the students [laughs]? You learn a lot about communicating, when you have to teach something you have been working on so hard all your life. Some things come easier to you, some things come hard; each student has a different way of understanding the material and actually processing the material that you give them, so you have to be creative in how you teach each one individually.

AAJ: Why do you think it's so important to teach, to you?

JP: I guess you have to feel called to do it. It's a calling; you have to have a desire to reach out and help younger musicians. I think part of the reason is because I had a lot of older musicians that mentored me that really helped me out. When I moved out to California from New York-I lived in California for a number of years before I moved back as an adult in 1996-I had a lot of people help me along the way, and there was a man named Chris Poehler-he was a big mentor to me when I was about 13. He turned me on to jazz, a lot of jazz that I didn't know about, and he also made me learn how to read music, because before I played by ear only, and then he also got me interested in studying classical music as well.

King Crimson: Larks' Tongues in Aspic (40th Anniversary Series Box)

King Crimson
Larks' Tongues in Aspic 40th Anniversary Edition Box Set
DGM Live
2012 (1973)

The idea of a 15-disc box set to commemorate the release of what was, in 1973, a single vinyl LP clocking in at a mere 46 minutes might seem a tad excessive, but when you're talking King Crimson and the seminal Larks' Tongues in Aspic, it's a whole other story. Beyond being an important addition to the legendary progressive rock group's 40th Anniversary Series of new stereo and surround sound mixes from Crimson cofounder/guitarist Robert Fripp and guitarist/keyboardist/singer Steven Wilson-a bandleader in his own right, first with Porcupine Tree and, more recently, with solo projects including the recently released Get All You Deserve (Kscope, 2012)- Larks' Tongues in Aspic represents a particular paradigm shift from a group whose In the Court of the Crimson King (DGM Live, 1969) was one of those rare debuts that literally shook the rock world.

Chapter Index

    Some Context
    Forming a New Band From the Ground Up
    A 15-Disc Box Set? Really?
    Beyond the Live Music...


Some Context

By 1972, Crimson had released four records-in addition to In the Court, there was 1970's transitional In the Wake of Poseidon and nightmarish, utterly unique and too-often-overlooked Lizard, as well as 1971's Islands (all already reissued in 40th Anniversary Series editions by DGM Live and Panegyric)-and had already seen more players come through the group than most see in a lifetime. The original lineup disbanded following a successful American tour on the heels of In the Court, leaving just Fripp and lyricist, lighting engineer and occasional sonic manipulator Peter Sinfield to carry the torch forward. Neither Poseidon nor Lizard) had lineups stable enough to hit the road, but Fripp and Sinfield finally hit the jackpot with the Islands band, a live juggernaut (initially, at least) that included saxophonist/flautist Mel Collins (who'd joined Crimson for Poseidon), bassist/vocalist Boz Burrell (taught to play by Fripp) and drummer Ian Wallace.

But despite significant touring on both sides of the Atlantic, all was not well with Crimson, something made crystal clear by the post-breakup live album, Earthbound (1972)-a soundboard cassette recording of such poor sound quality that its North American label, Atlantic, declined to release it, leaving only Crimson's UK label, Island, to put it out...and on its budget-line imprint, to boot. By the time Earthbound was released, Crimson had well and truly fractured, with Burrell, Wallace and Collins more interested in blues-based, occasionally funkified rock jams, a significant difference to Fripp's more sophisticated predilections. Since the formation of the King Crimson Collectors Club in the 1990s, which began releasing live recordings from Crimson's various lineups, it's become clear that this was not how the group began, though with the exception of Collins (and, long after he left Crimson, Wallace), this was not a band whose improvisational prowess matched the players that Fripp had recruited from the jazz and classical worlds to augment studio recordings from Poseidon to Islands -artists like pianist Keith Tippett, bassist Harry Miller, cornetist Mark Charig and trombonist Nick Evans.

And so, Collins, Burrell and Wallace left to hook up with British bluesman Alexis Korner in the group Snape. Irreconcilable artistic differences also created a permanent rift between Fripp and Sinfield and so, by the summer of 1972, there was only Fripp left to carry the name forward. But if Crimson's first four recordings represented something of a quadrilogy, what Fripp had in mind for a new King Crimson was something completely different.

While Fripp's guitar work was fundamental to those first four recordings, it was rarely the primary voice; on In the Court, only his silkily sustaining solo on the hard-edged, jazzified opener, "21st Century Schizoid Man," gave any overt indication of just how talented and distinctive a player he was. Elsewhere, while his guitar work was just as fine, and just as harmonically sophisticated, Fripp was far more of an ensemble player. Even when he emerged as Crimson's de facto leader (a role he has publicly eschewed in the ensuing decades), his playing rarely dominated, though he began taking a greater role on Islands, including a career-defining solo on "A Sailor's Tale," and his acoustic work on the first side of Lizard was equally compelling, even if it was often buried in a dense mix that has only since been opened up by Steven Wilson's revealing remix.


Forming a New Band From the Ground Up


Still, Crimson was an improvising band from its inception. It may have been labeled a rock group, but with drummer Michael Giles on In the Court and Poseidon, Collins' broader scope on subsequent recordings and Fripp's ever-present jazz-centric vernacular, there's little doubt that it was a rock band with a jazz heart. And so, as Fripp pieced together a completely new lineup for King Crimson, he was looking for players capable of both challenging compositional constructs and open-ended improvisational forays.

Cutting his teeth with Yes-another progressive group that was on the ascendancy during the same period as early Crimson, and whose relatively stable lineup and impressive musicianship had, in fact, resulted in the group leapfrogging Crimson in terms of sales and popularity with the triple-punch of 1971's The Yes Album and 1972's Fragile (with its radio hit, "Roundabout") and Close to the Edge (all on Atlantic)-drummerBill Bruford shared Fripp's taste for jazz and improvised music. But by 1972, he'd reached a crossroads with Yes: continue on to even greater commercial success, or look for other opportunities that might not be as lucrative, but would be more artistically fulfilling. Fripp knew Bruford, the Islands band having toured in support of Yes earlier that year. "Bill's a lovely drummer," Fripp describes thinking, in Sid Smith's liner notes, "but he's perhaps too straight for some things...Then I thought of this nut Jamie Muir, whom I'd just met, and I thought, well, Jamie's a great drummer but he's really not straight enough for some of the things I'd like him to do...I suddenly had this vivid idea to use the two of them...and it seems so right."

Muir's background was in free improvisation, rubbing shoulders with players like guitarist Derek Bailey and saxophonist Evan Parker-even appearing on a very early (and as-yet-unreleased-on-CD) title, The Music Improvisation Company (1970) for Manfred Eicher's then-nascent ECM Records. What Muir brought to this new Crimson was a degree of unpredictability it had never before experienced, with a percussion rig that took up more floor space than any of the other band members, and included everything from laugh boxes to metal sheets and from chains to mbira (African thumb piano), all played by a roving madman as likely to use a zipper as he was a cymbal or a snare drum. It was Muir that turned this band-and its one and only recording as a five-piece-into another sound that shook the rock world, albeit, perhaps, on not quite the same commercial level as In the Court of the Crimson King (though still selling very, very well).

Fripp's new lineup also included violinist David Cross-a relative unknown who came to the guitarist's attention through his then-management company, E.G. and one of its titular owners, David Enthoven. John Wetton was already a known entity for his work with Family, a quirky and eclectic group, to be sure, but one that simply didn't allow the bassist/vocalist the opportunity to grow as a singer/songwriter. Wetton also connected Fripp with Richard Palmer-James, a lyricist with whom the bassist had worked in a number of Bournemouth groups and who, as Richard Palmer, was a founding member of Supertramp, though he left before the group gained traction.

Saturday 10 November 2012

Historical figures and their wealth

Historical figures often attested to be of great riches, presented in alphabetical order.
 
Alan Rufus:

A companion of William the Conqueror during the Norman invasion of Britain, Alan Rufus, who is also known as Alain le Roux or Alan the Red, received some 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) in land grants as a reward for his allegiance. His property stretched throughout Yorkshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and London, totaling some £11,000 by the time of his death in 1093. This would make Alan Rufus the wealthiest Briton in all the history of the British Isles. His fortune was estimated to be equivalent to £81.33 billion, or roughly US$165.74 billion, in 2007
 
Osman Ali Khan:
Of the seven Nizams who governed Hyderabad State, India from 1911 to 1948, the richest was the last, Mir Osman Ali Khan, who was regarded as the wealthiest man on Earth – his portrait graced the cover of Time magazine in 1937.[2] He had his own mint, printing his own currency, the Hyderabadi rupee, and a vast private treasury. Its coffers were said to contain £100m in gold and silver bullion, and a further £400m of jewels. Among them was the fabulously rare Jacob Diamond, valued at some £100m [3](in 2008), and used by the Nizam as a paperweight. There were also other treasures; gems, pearls – enough to pave Piccadilly Circus–, hundreds of race horses, thousands of uniforms, tonnes of royal regalia and Rolls-Royces by the dozen.
De' Medici

The de' Medici family of Florence is one of the most illustrious noble families in European history, and were the hereditary holders of the titles of Grand Duke of Tuscany, Duke of Florence and Duke of Urbino, and married into still more. Other family members held singularly prominent positions, namely Pope Clement VII, Pope Leo X, Ippolito Cardinale de' Medici, Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, wife of Henri II - who had an equally famous mistress in Diane de Poitiers (who was distantly related to Catherine) - and Marie de' Medici, Queen of France and of Navarre.

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici founded the family's bank and supported the return of the papacy to Rome, which occurred in 1410. He was rewarded for his efforts with the position of personal banker to the papacy, several tax contracts and alum mines, all of which firmly established both the family's fortune and political influence. His son Cosimo would expand the bank, allowing the family fortune to grow to 122,669 Florin ($22,411,600 2012 USD) by 1457. Cosimo's influence had become so great that he acted as de facto ruler of Florence despite holding no elected office. However by 1481, city tax records show that the family fortune had plummeted to 57,930 Florin under the direction of Lorenzo, who made for a better politician and diplomat than banker.
Heshen

Heshen or Hešen (Chinese: 和珅; pinyin: Héshēn; Wade–Giles: Ho-shen, 1746 - February 22, 1799) was a Manchu official of the Qing Dynasty, a favourite of the Qianlong Emperor, and one of the most corrupt officials in Chinese history. Upon his death in 1799, his total property was estimated at around 1.100 billion taels of silver, roughly US$42 billion based on 2011 silver prices. Heshen's wealth, which was the equivalent to the imperial revenue of the Qing government for 15 years, included the following:

3,000 rooms in his estates and mansions, 8,000 acres (32 km²) of land, 42 bank branches, 75 pawnbroker branches, 60,000 taels of copper alloyed gold, 100 large ingots of pure gold, (1,000 taels each), 56,600 medium silver ingots, (100 taels each), 9,000,000 small silver ingots, (10 taels each), 58,000 livres/pounds of foreign currency, 1,500,000 copper coins, 600 lb of top-quality Jilin ginseng, 1,200 jade charms, 230 pearl bracelets (each pearl comparable in size to large cherries or longans), 10 large pearls (each the size of apricots), 10 large ruby crystals, 40 large sapphire crystals, 40 tablefuls of solid-silver eating utensils, (serves 10 per table), 40 tablefuls of solid-gold eating utensils, (serves 10 per table), 11 coral rocks (each over a metre in height), 14,300 bolts of fine silk, 20,000 sheets of fine sheep-fur wool, 550 fox hides, 850 raccoon dog hides, 56,000 sheep and cattle hides of varying thickness, 7,000 sets of fine clothing (for all four seasons), 361,000 bronze and tin vases and vessels, 100,000 porcelain vessels made by famous masters, 24 highly decorative solid-gold beds (each with eight different types of inlaid gemstones), 460 top-quality European clocks, 606 servants, 600 women in his harem.
Jacob Fugger

Jacob Fugger (German: Jakob Fugger) (6 March 1459 – 30 December 1525) (Augsburg), sometimes known as Jacob Fugger the Rich, was a German banker, merchant and a member of the Fugger banking family of Germany. He achieved a monopoly position in the silk and copper trade in Europe and was main financier and creditor of the Emperor Charles V. His nephew was the wealthy banker, Anton Fugger to whom he bequeathed his wealth upon his death. This heritage amounted to roughly 2,1 million guilders which are ~7,000 kilograms (~15,432 lbs, or $438M USD) of gold and his remaining property.
Marcus Licinius Crassus
Marcus Licinius Crassus is held to be the wealthiest man in Roman history as he had a personal net worth equal to the treasury of Rome. When Crassus was killed in Syria, he was beheaded and molten gold was poured into his mouth to quench his insatiable greed.

One of the leading politicians of Rome in his day, Marcus Licinius Crassus, along with Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, comprised the First Triumvirate. Crassus, born into a wealthy political family, inherited a fortune of 7 million sesterces after the death of his father in 87 BC. Political rivalries eventually led to the state seizing Crassus's wealth. After several years of exile, Lucius Cornelius Sulla regained a position of power in Rome, and Crassus as a loyal and valued supporter found himself in charge of Sulla's proscriptions. In such a position, Crassus was able to rebuild his family fortune by seizing the property of executed criminals for himself, and there is evidence that shows Crassus sometimes executed innocent individuals simply to obtain their vast estates and wealth.
Crassus also expanded his wealth by trading in slaves and by purchasing whole neighborhoods of Rome as they burned, for drastically less than market value. At the time, Rome had no formal way of battling fires and they usually were left to burn themselves out, which meant several estates and fortunes were lost in the process. Crassus employed a firefighting brigade of some five hundred men and, after he negotiated the purchase of the burning building and the surrounding estates in danger, the brigade would collapse the home that was ablaze to extinguish the fire before it could spread.

Crassus was known in Rome as Dives, meaning "The Rich." Plutarch describes how Crassus's relationship with a Vestal Virgin came into question at one point, for which the punishment was death. Crassus was acquitted after claiming that he merely courted the woman in an attempt to acquire her villa at below market cost and that carnal lusts never came to mind. Wishing to gain both political and military fame during the slave uprisings led by Spartacus, Crassus offered to equip, train, and lead two new legions of soldiers into battle at his own expense in an impressive show of personal wealth. In 53 BC, while again attempting military fame, Crassus was killed during a parley with a Parthian general; Lucius Cassius Dio tells that he thereupon had molten gold poured into his mouth to satiate his unyielding thirst for wealth.

It is believed that Crassus expanded his personal fortune to a remarkable 170 million sesterces, while Pliny the Elder surmised his fortune to be valued even higher, at 200 million sesterces. This would place Crassus's net worth equal to the total annual budget of the Roman treasury. He has been considered the wealthiest man in history[citation needed], though this claim has been disputed.[7] Most modern experts believe his wealth to be far less than historians centuries before had presumed thanks to the increasing knowledge of Ancient Roman monetary values.
Musa I
A depiction of Mansa Musa holding a gold nugget, from the Catalan Atlas.

Musa I, Mansa of Mali, more commonly referred to simply as Mansa Musa, ascended to the throne of the wealthy Mali Empire in 1312. The emperors were fairly obscure figures outside of Western Africa, but Musa's religious Hajj in 1324 would bring great attention to the wealth and extravagance of his lands. The retinue that Musa traveled with included 60,000 men, in addition to 12,000 slaves, 500 of which marched before the mansa dressed in silken robes and carrying golden staves. There were 80 camels in the train that are said to have carried anywhere from 50 to 300 pounds each of gold dust. Musa spent so much gold, particularly in Egypt, that the price of the rare metal was devalued and caused the economy of that nation to be devastated for years. Mansa Musa was reportedly quite pious and very generous to the common people upon his Hajj, such that the citizens of Cairo, Mecca and Baghdad told tales of his visit for generations.
Don Simón Iturri Patiño

Don Simón Iturri Patiño born in 1862 (d. 1947), was a Bolivian industrialist. He took over tin mines in Bolivia and smelters in England and Germany, and by the 1940s he controlled the international tin market. During World War II, Patiño was believed to be one of the five wealthiest men in the world.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, born in 1868 as Nikolai Alexandrovich into the House of Romanov, was the emperor of the Russian Empire from 1894 until the February Revolution of 1917. Around age 48 (in 1916) his wealth was valued at up to US$881 million, which equals US$290 billion in today's money. He is seen as the wealthiest monarch and head of state in history and further as the wealthiest saint as the Russian Orthodox Church declared him, his wife and his children martyrs after being murdered in 1918 by the Bolsheviks.
Rothschilds

The wealth of the Rothschild family at its height during the mid-19th century has been estimated in today's terms in the hundreds of billions, or even in the trillions, of dollars.
Aaron of Lincoln
Main article: Aaron of Lincoln

Aaron was a man who lived in the 12th century and was the wealthiest person of his time. It is said his wealth exceeded that of King Henry.
Ancient historical figures and their legendary wealth

As records are lost and fortunes often never fully tallied, sometimes only vague stories and grandiose legends are left as witnesses to the treasures held by individuals past. These tales are often believed to be fanciful or exaggerated, and some have even been discredited with new discoveries and evidence. Nevertheless, these fortunes were likely impressive, having remained in popular consciousness through the ages, even if only as legend.
Croesus

Croesus was a king of Lydia in the sixth century BC. His name in Greek and Persian cultures became a synonym for a wealthy man. In English, expressions such as "rich as Croesus" or "richer than Croesus" are used to indicate great wealth. Croesus himself is often credited with the invention of the first formalized currency systems and coinage.
Mausolus

The wealth that was for a long time attributed to Mausolus was more romantic legend than fact. The misconception of his wealth centred around the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, a great tomb constructed by the king for himself and his wife that was considered a “Wonder of the World” by Greek historians and writers. It survived into the fifteenth century until it was finally destroyed by earthquakes. Afterward, the carved stones and sculptures strewn across the landscape caused writers of the Renaissance to tell tales of the wealth of a king who could afford such beautiful artistry in such great numbers. Much of the remains of the tomb were either plundered for their sculpture or used as an artificial quarry from which castles and fortifications were built over the succeeding centuries.

Yet, discoveries during excavations of the region show that the tomb's construction either directly bankrupted the treasury, or indirectly led to the downfall of the kingdom, as high taxation and strain on resources led to political instability, which eventually emboldened neighboring states to invade the weakened kingdom. Many of the artisans and craftsman that were initially hired to construct the tomb continued to work without pay after the kingdom had been bankrupted, working solely for the glory and renown of their efforts.
North American figures and their wealth

American entrepreneurs have often amassed the largest nominal fortunes in history. However, due to the effect of inflation, many of these fortunes have actually accumulated smaller real value than some historical figures.
John D. Rockefeller
Rockefeller depicted as an emperor of oil and railroad in a contemporary satirical cartoon.

On 29 September 1916, John D. Rockefeller became the first man to ever reach a nominal personal fortune of US$1 billion. Rockefeller amassed his fortune from the Standard Oil company, of which he was a founder, chairman and major shareholder. By the time of his death in 1937, estimates place his net worth in the range of US$392 billion to US$663.4 billion in adjusted dollars for the late 2000s, and it is estimated that his personal fortune was equal to 1.53% of the total U.S. annual GDP in his day. When considering the real value of his wealth, Rockefeller is widely held to be the wealthiest American in history.
Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt gained his fortune from shipping and railroad. His net worth of US$105 million in 1877 was equal to 1.15% of the U.S. annual GDP in his day. With a real value estimated somewhere between US$143 billion and US$178.4 billion adjusted for the late 2000s, Vanderbilt is one of the wealthiest Americans in the history of the country.
Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American automotive engineer, entrepreneur, and founder of the Ford Motor Company. Through his designing of the Model T Ford and employing the assembly line means of rapid production, he was able to lower the base price of his product in order to reach a wider market. His highest earnings are recorded at age 57 and he died at the age of 83 in 1947 at a net worth of US$188.1 billion (Inflated value in 2008 dollars)
Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland before emigrating to the US. Founder of the Carnegie Steel Company, which was the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations in the United States, Carnegie merged his company into U.S. Steel and sold his share for US$492 million in 1901. Capitalized at US$1.4 billion at the time, U.S. Steel was the first billion dollar company in the world. In his final years, Carnegie's net worth was US$475 million, but by the time of his death in 1919 he had donated most of his wealth to charities and other philanthropic endeavors and had only US$30 million left to his personal fortune. Carnegie's hundreds of millions accounted for about 0.60% of the U.S. annual GDP and has a real value estimated at anywhere from US$75 billion to US$297.8 billion adjusted for the late 2000s.
John Jacob Astor

After immigrating to the United States, John Jacob Astor began trading in furs and later in real estate and opium. By 1800 his nominal wealth was some US$250,000, and by the time of his death in 1848 his fortune had grown to US$20 million. Equal to 0.93% of the national GDP, Astor has a real wealth estimated at some US$116 billion when adjusted for the late 2000s.
Bill Gates

Bill Gates has singularly amassed the largest nominal fortune in all of history through his computer technology corporation Microsoft, peaking at US$101 billion in 1999. By 2007, his net worth had dropped to US$82 billion, and by 2011 his worth was valued at US$56 billion. Gates donates the majority of his wealth to charity. In terms of real value, Gates is likely one of the ten wealthiest Americans in history. He has been placed in the top 10 wealthiest people of all time.