His itinerary for this year was already quite impressive. Hank Jones died on Sunday at the age of 91. Best known for his long stint at Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic and his accompanying years with Ella Fitzgerald, Hank Jones recorded his first album under his own name in 1950. By then, he had already performed with Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins and Billy Eckstine.

Hank Jones has always been in great demand as a session musician and his piano can be heard on thousands of records. In total, he recorded 60 albums under his own name, played and conducted on Broadway, accompanied Lester Young, Frank Sinatra, Nat Adderley, Diana Krall and thousands more, had various highly successful trios, and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammies in 2009.

Even though he's known for his sensitive and elegant style, he was inspired by New York's leading bop musicians which led to the work with impresario Granz. It is also said that he was the pianist behind Marilyn Monroe when she sang Happy Birthday Mr President to John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Jones' last recording was Hank & Frank, Vol. 2 with Frank Wess.

Even though there were moments when you thought she still has the power and strength of former years, her show at the very well-attended O2 World seemed like a nostalgia event with the main act a woman who's only 46 years old.

She was struggling to sing and kudos to her that she had the nerve and guts to try it. But she failed most of the time. There was not a single song she sang all the way through. With four keyboard sets, two heavy monster drum sets and four backing vocalists, you couldn't always tell if she was singing at all, her old tried and tested hits were just snippets, she was coughing all the time, stopped quite often for a pause before continuing, and talked a lot on stage. Her tributes to Michael Jackson and the great Lena Horne who died just recently, were not very inspiring and felt luke-warm.

What she really needs I think is a break. A loooooong break. She deserves better. Oh and whoever is responsible for her costumes should be fired immediately.

Ms. Houston is performing nine more shows in Germany until the end of May with stops in Hamburg,
Munich, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt.

JazzRadio staff member Adrian Schödl had the pleasure of seeing them perform live on Tuesday night. Here's his report:

Presenting their newest album, De-Phazz gave a concert in the Berlin Postbahnhof yesterday. The Band around Pit Baumgartner, the bands mastermind, performed almost 2 hours mostly songs from the Album “La La 2.0”. But also classic songs like “The Mambo Craze” or new songs, which are not on the album, motivated the crowd to dance.

Rotating Pat Appleton and Karl Frierson performed their songs and surprised the audience with changing costumes. Another nice thing for the eyes was the huge video screen in the back of the band, which showed a unique clip to each song.

The icing on the cake was the live instrumentation besides the samples and the singing. The drummer had a very powerful drive and made every song danceable and some guests could not resist the rhythm and started dancing.

The next tour dates in Germany are Leipzig tonight, Krefeld on the 13th and Cologne on the 14th before they move on to Russia and Ukraine at the end of May.

She finally decided not to perform in places where black people were not allowed. Up until that time, she was one of the very few black performers with a Hollywood contract, she was the first one to sing with a white band and she was the first to sing at the famed Copacabana nightclub.

Lena Horne died last Sunday at the age of 92. Among her most well-known works is "Stormy Weather", the all-black movie musical from 1943 the title song of which became a major hit and catapulted her into super-stardom. She had many more broadway successes and in 1981, she won a Tony Award for her one-woman Broadway show "The Lady and Her Music". Horne also got involved in the Civil Rights Movement and she also spoke out on social and political matters.

Her career seemed to get yet another fresh start in the early 90s when Blue Note Records recorded an album with standards called "We'll Be Together Again" which showed her in fine voice. Her final recordings were made for a 1998 album also on Blue Note.

Last year saw the release of a great biography by author James Gavin. Called "Stormy Weather", this fascinating look into the life of a truly unique and strong woman makes you wonder why Lena Horne, who truly and deservedly is a national treasure in the US, has never achieved any star status overseas.

It was really time to have the music industry celebrate a genre that, even though total percentage of sales is still declining, nowadays is harder to describe than ever before.

Today, artists like Norah Jones, Melody Gardot, or Jamie Cullum are defined as jazz artists by the record companies. That's probably because sales of the "real" jazz artists are so minimal that you might think they're only there for the prestige. But still, the Echo Jazz, which was staged last night in Bochum before a sold-out audience, is highly important and was off to a very good start.

It also showed that Jazz made in Germany is a strong force which should deserve more acclaim nationally, and worldwide. Winners include Vijay Iyer, Curtis Stigers, Michael Wollny, the Tingvall Trio, Roy Hargrove, Céline Rudolph, Branford Marsalis, Theo Bleckmann, and German legend Paul Kuhn who received his lifetime achievement award from James Last as a surprise feat.

Among the performers last night were Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nils Landgren, and Götz Alsmann.