At 5:45pm the Louis Armstrong Centennial Band, a jazz group from Birdland, warmed the hall with uplifting instrumental tunes such as “I Can't Give Anything But Love," and “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" performed by Randy Sandke-trumpet, Joe Muranyi-clarinet, Howard Alden-banjo, Anat Cohen-tenor sax, Deon Tucker-trombone, David Ostwald-tuba and Marion Felder-drums.
“Welcome friends," Adam Moss stilled the audience, “Clay Felker left us just short of New York Magazines 40th Anniversary,"... “he broke the wall between men and women's progress."
“Death doesn't count. It's the same as every word," MC Sir David Frost recounting one of Mr. Felker's pronouncements.
“Checker cabs just appeared... the front door was unlocked... his clothes closet was filled with a waterfall of colorful neckties... Jazz was always playing," stepdaughter Maura Sheehy remembered from her childhood.
Milton Glaser (Pushpin Studio), confidant and New York Mags Art Director (a large but gentle man) explained how they worked together to initiate this magazine and used the I Ching. He described the meaning of the Chinese hexagram “The Well" as significant in determining their future. Trumpeter Randy Sandke filled the hall with the cadenza opening of “St. Louis Blues." Former Louis Armstrong All-Star Joe Muranyi gloriously embellished the traditional clarinet solo before the band took it out.
“Clay was filled with awe, fascinated about the way people lived," writer Tom Wolfe described. “There was no more striking personality in America, at that moment, than Gloria Steinem, there was nothing more symbolic than the totally new movement than Magazine Ms. [ Read “A City Built of Clay" 7/14/08 www.nymag.com/news/media/48341 ]
“I can feel us all on the edge of remembrance," Gloria Steinem attuned the audience. She recalled his “fascination with how things worked and didn't work." Mr. Felker helped her in raising the money to start Ms. Magazine in 1971 then inserting 30 pages inside New York Magazine.
The band burst into “Lady Be Good" as Lesley Stahl, whose husband Aaron Latham was Clay's friend, made her way to the podium. “Who's in the Street? What's in the Culture?" she remarked to describe the publisher's credo. The band interjected “Everybody Loves My Baby."
About his employment political writer Richard Reeves closed his remarks with “I owe him." “In My Solitude" followed as a fitting song for the occasion.
Sir David Frost recounted, “I haven't come here to talk," then recounted that he had attended the wedding in 1984 as an introduction of third wife Gail Sheehy, explaining how she had devoted herself to supporting her husband throughout the treatments and remissions.
Wearing a shimmering emerald green silk dress Mrs. Clay Felker stepped upon a riser and called upon Sean Morrison, a Mount Sinai Palliative Care MD, who explained that when Mr. Felker could no longer endure working it was his specialty to ease the discomfort to family and patient. They ought to devote themselves to their most worthwhile dream. Ms. Sheehy continued, “This caused a new lease and aided by New York's staff, who wished he would continue his passion of creating new magazines, but no Clay wanted to teach students." A former student Lauren Barack said, “to bore Clay was a disaster, but entertaining him, causing his eyes to crinkle was rewarding."
Ms. Sheehy then called to the podium Dierdre English from Berkeley, CA who described “How Clay inspired students to create wonderfully unusual magazines and how they became “That Secret Tribe." Byron Dobell, an early New York editor, recounted a Who's Who of alumni and where they made it.
The celebration's highlight was Judy Collins who arose to sing acapella, “Amazing Grace." Her recognizable voice reverberated throughout the hall as videographer's roamed about collecting memories for posterity. Then Louis Armstrong's disciples marched down the aisle to play on the stone steps while the audience exited.
My memorable connection to New York Magazine goes back to 1979 when I was the instigator then publicist for Folk City's 20th Anniversary Celebration. Gail Bendheim wrote and Mr. Felker published a full page preceding the event glorifying proprietor Mike Porko for creating “the nations first weekly talent night for musicians" in Greenwich Village for presenting youngsters like Cecil Taylor, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. Prior to that my mother Paula Kassell founded New Directions for Women, the first feminist news tabloid in 1972, with my father Gerson Friedman's money!
Many guests enjoyed chatting, wine and finger food four flights upstairs as a trio of musicians played jazz as background music until well after 9:30pm.
Daniel Kassell
Member, Jazz Journalist Association
For more information contact All About Jazz.
