Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today June 12
1965
The Queen honors the Beatles and several war heroes return their medals
On June 12, 1965, it was announced that the Beatles would receive the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Several past recipients returned their medals, outraged at sharing the distinction with pop musicians. The monarchy understood before most that the Beatles were a national asset; Lennon would return his in 1969 as a political protest.
The Beatles
1941
Chick Corea is born, the pianist who electrified jazz alongside Miles
On June 12, 1941, Chick Corea was born in Massachusetts — an essential pianist of Miles Davis's electric revolution and founder of Return to Forever, a mainstay of the jazz fusion that conversed as an equal with seventies progressive rock. Winner of more than twenty Grammys, he spent half a century crossing borders between the academic, the Latin and the electric without asking permission.
Chick Corea
One ephemeris a day, one editorial a week. Zero spam, pure archive.