By Mike Cidoni Lennox, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Tommy LiPuma, a jazz and pop producer who won Grammys for collaborations with Natalie Cole and George Benson, has died. He was 80.
LiPuma died Monday in New York after a brief illness, according to the Decca/Verve Label Group, where he had served as chairman.
In a career spanning six decades, LiPuma's productions won five Grammys and were nominated for 28 more, and saw sales of 75 million.
His collaborating partners also included Paul McCartney, and singer-keyboardist Diana Krall.
Krall told The Associated Press that she and LiPuma put the finishing touches on her newest album, "Turn Up the Quiet," which marks her return to jazz and American standards, just a few weeks ago.
"He understood the importance and challenges of where one could be as an artist," Krall said in a phone interview as she flipped through old photos of herself and LiPuma. "He had tremendous respect for (who I was) as a 28-year-old, starting right out – to the 52-year-old woman I am right now."
Krall added that LiPuma took her to artistic heights "I never dreamed."
The two won a Grammy for Krall's 2002 album "Live in Paris."
He also won Grammys for Benson's 1976 single "This Masquerade," Cole's 1991 album "Unforgettable… With Love" and McCartney's 2012 concert DVD "Live Kisses."
His last album with Krall will be released May 5.
In NBC’s “Brilliant Minds,” Zachary Quinto Plays Doctor–In A Role Inspired By Physician/Author Oliver Sacks
There's a great moment in the first episode of the new NBC medical drama "Brilliant Minds" when it becomes very clear that we're not dealing with a typical TV doctor.
Zachary Quinto is behind the wheel of a car barreling down a New York City parkway, packed with hospital interns, abruptly weaving in and out of lanes, when one of them asks, "Does anyone want to share a Klonopin?" — a drug sometimes used to treat panic disorders.
"Oh, glory to God, yes, please," says Quinto, reaching an arm into the back seat. The intern then breaks the pill in half and gives a sliver to the driver, who swallows it, as the other interns share stunned looks.
Quinto, playing the character Dr. Oliver Wolf, is clearly not portraying any dour, by-the-rules doctor here — he's playing a character inspired by Dr. Oliver Sacks, the path-breaking researcher and author who rose to fame in the 1970s and was once called the "poet laureate of medicine."
"He was someone who was tirelessly committed to the dignity of the human experience. And so I feel really grateful to be able to tell his story and to continue his legacy in a way that I hope our show is able to do," says Quinto.
He's a fern-loving doctor
"Brilliant Minds" takes Sack's personality — a motorcycle-riding, fern-loving advocate for mental health who died in 2015 at 82 — and puts him in the present day, where the creators theorize he would have no idea who Taylor Swift is or own a cell phone. The series debuts Monday on NBC, right after "The Voice."
"It's almost as if we're imagining what it would have been like if Oliver Sacks had been born at a different time," says Quinto. "We use the real life person as our North Star through everything we're doing and all the... Read More