Columnist Joe Delaney: Choices for best of century prove debatable

Joe Delaney

Thursday, Feb. 28, 2002 | 8:23 a.m.

At the end of December I devoted a Thursday column to a personal list of favorite films, albums, singles, bands, groups and musicians for the previous century completed ... Having been on Earth for 78 of those 100 years, my choices encompassed a much longer period than many of the readers who responded ... This is by way of response and occasional explanation.

My five all-time favorite films were "Citizen Kane," "The Producers," "Casablanca," "The Informer" and the original "Stagecoach" ... Comedian, trumpeter and good friend for 40 years, Peter Anthony agreed with "Citizen Kane" and "Casablanca" but preferred "The Godfather I and II," "La Dolce Vita," and "My Dinner With Andre" to complete his top five films.

Stardust marketing and PR maven Jim Seagrave agreed with "Citizen Kane," but otherwise went with "Shane," "Wizard of Oz," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," and "Gone With the Wind" ... East coast editor Dick Sawyer insisted that "Around the World in Eighty Days" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" belong in everyone's top-five films, but suggested no deletions to my list.

Personally, our most difficult problem came in having to omit "Singing in the Rain," rated as one of the top-five films of all time by the American Film Institute ... Others we considered: The entire Charlie Chaplin catalog, "Mr. Hulot's Holiday" and Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankinstein" ... Did you have other choices?

In the favorite album category, there were a number of votes for Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool" and his "Sketches of Spain" and "Porgy and Bess." Arturo Sandoval's "I Remember Clifford" was another heavy write-in vote ... "Ella Fitzgerald's Songbooks," honoring various songwriters, and Tony Bennett's tribute albums were also popular choices.

Former Santa Fe Station entertainment director Ron Andrews was more contemporary in his favorite albums list, which included "West Side Story" by Manny Albam, Johnny Richards' "Wide Range" and "Focus, Stan Getz with Strings." Getz was another popular write-in especially for his bossa nova albums ... Bob Florence was a heavy vote-getter with musicians.

Boss bassist Bob Badgley was one of the many who gigged us for omitting Joe Williams from my list of five male singers ... Williams was Badgley's No. 1 choice in this category ... I stick with my all-time list: Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin and Nat "King" Cole ... If there could be a sixth, it would be Williams.

Activist and great lady Alice Key "attacked" us at a recent banquet honoring Bob Bailey, demanding to know how I could dare omit the Mills Brothers from the top-five vocal groups ... Mea culpa ... The revised list features the Mills Brothers, Four Freshmen, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Manhattan Transfer and the Hi-Los, dropping Babs, the three Bips and a Bop.

Big bands and small groups ran fairly true to form with some Stan Kenton fans bent out of shape ... On the other hand, how could so many readers ignore the Duke Ellington Orchestra? ... Band leader and reed specialist Marv Koral made sure that Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, Getz and John Coltrane were not omitted from the all-time lists.

I refuse to budge from my all-time trumpet list with Armstrong, the original source, Roy Eldridge, major influence for Dizzy Gillespie and Davis, and the classic approach of Bunny Berigan ... Eldridge was the bridge from Armstrong to Gillespie and Davis ... In contemporary terms, Sandoval stands out, as once did Rafael Mendez.

Almost every musician who responded included Carl Fontana and J.J. Johnson on their list of all-time great trombonists ... The late Bill Harris was also a popular write-in ... On the other hand, the late Jack Teagarden was larger than life ... His duets with Armstrong should have been performed on Mount Olympus ... Kai Winding made most of the lists as well.

As for the clarinets, the late Barney Bigard remains my first choice ... In the usual debate, Benny Goodman vs. Artie Shaw, Goodman was the leader here ... We single out KUNV 89.5-FM's Don Gordon for a most intelligent and challenging list ... He is a strong voice for jazz in this community ... We'll pick up any loose ends in some future column.

Star-policy rundown

It's Gladys Knight (Flamingo Las Vegas); Tony Orlando, 8 p.m., Amazing Johnathan, 10 p.m. (Golden Nugget); Ani DiFranco, Friday only (Hard Rock); Mac King afternoons, Clint Holmes evenings (Harrah's); The Righteous Brothers and Sheena Easton, in separate rooms (LV Hilton); Blue Man Group (Luxor); Paul Anka, plus Rick Springfield starring in "EFX Alive" (MGM Grand).

There's more: Siegfried & Roy and Danny Gans in separate theaters (Mirage); Lance Burton (Monte Carlo); Rita Rudner (New York-New York); Ronn Lucas, afternoons (Rio); Marlene Ricci (Riviera); Wayne Newton (Stardust); Rich Little (Suncoast); Rick Thomas (Tropicana); and Melinda, First Lady of Magic, 7 p.m. and "Bravo" starring Charo, 9 p.m. (Venetian).

Spain's hottest radio host, Morris Boland, is broadcasting his syndicated show live from the Caesars Palace Shadow Bar, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. through Friday ... See you there and here on Friday.