DEATH DID NOT WAIT

Un homme de 63 ans décède dans un accident
sur la RD 1005  ledauphine.com  12/12/11

Un homme---Jay Wormus

We received the news through his daughter. Seems he was killed instantly by another driver who ran into him. Three other people were injured but Jay Wormus was killed.  Darkness was falling at this hour---it happened around 5 pm on Sunday December 11th in the Haute-Savoie, not too far from his home.
Like that, dead. One of those accidents that leaves families gravely injured--four generations of family in Jay's case-- and friends stunned, in pain, disbelieving.
I'm writing this because I must.  The loss of Jay hits the community of music friends very hard.
My previous blog described the World Music Project at the UN Staff Christmas event. 
http://lexieintrator.blogspot.com/2011/12/winter-ball-1955-winter-party-2011.html
There he was, less than forty-eight hours earlier, warming up with Get Your Kicks on Route 66, and then during the concert singing Mack the Knife, one of his favorites, with grit, with feeling......

"........When that shark bites, with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves though wears Macheath, dear
So there's never a trace of red.

Sunday morning on the sidewalk,
Lies a body oozing life
And someone's creeping around the corner,
Could that someone be Mack the Knife?......."

So help us all, Jay was a good man, loved by so many.    


Obituary plus opportunity to write tributes:    
http://www.hommages.ch/Defunt/65377/Wormus_Jay#avis_129594

Winter Ball 1955/ Winter Party 2011

Palais des Nations 1955


She wears a formal dress, pale yellow silk with thin, dark velvet strips tracing bust and waist, he wears a formal black suit and bow-tie, and both are beautiful. I attend the preparations, cross-legged on their bed, in awe of my parents' tailored splendor and the mixed aroma of Mitsouko and Old Spice.


At the entrance to the ball official photographers are armed with film and phosphorus. Flashbulbs fire and die. Flesh is pressed (hand to hand):  Dr. Marcolino Gomes Candau, Secretary-General of the World Health Organization at the Palais des Nations, greets the guests. Flash!....him. Flash!....her. Flash!....them. Flash! Flash! The women do not remove their white gloves.  Wives are decorative and complete the portrait of the successful professional man in the international sphere. The greeting ceremony is followed by dinner, speeches and a formal ball. It runs according to courteous protocol, smiling and perhaps a bit boozy.


In the 1950s International civil servants were all well-to-do by local standards, living in attractive apartments and houses in Geneva and countryside in a quiet post-war economy: 4.27 Swiss francs to the US dollar. There were permanent contracts. Another reason to smile.


Palais des Nations 2011


People wear black coats, red coats, casual anoraks with fur and without, raincoats, sweaters.  The weather is warm for December, so no one shivers in the slow line snaking around poles with guard tape to keep people in a queue. Between Blackberry messages people debate whether the mild temperature is a result of global warming.
They are not waiting for the coat check. They are waiting to have coats and possessions scanned in an official UN scanner. The entrance is no longer the Main Gate at the Place des Nations. This was shifted years ago to the 'Red Cross Gate' after some demonstrators glided through and over 'security' and occupied one or two conference halls--an embarrassment, to put it mildly.
After the bombing of UN personnel in Iraq, the UN spent a lot of money catching up with reality. Concrete and metal barriers are in evidence, compromising the view of the nineteen-twenties design Assembly Hall building from beyond the gates.


Inside the 'New Building' the party is in full swing. The World Music Project, comprising UN organization employees and associates, is tuning up. Saxophones, trumpets, guitars, bass, drums, violin (John), flutes and a line-up of vocals, plus two (!) huge state of the art mixing tables, huge speakers and huge lights. 


The Serpent space looks like a giant singles bar. Most are under thirty-five. I picture SMSs and tweets: "must party @ UN"  "c u @ bar @ 8". The human noise is overwhelming. The crowd is hungry and thirsty, six people deep at the bars, four deep at the food tables. Better to stay put with one samosa and a friend. There's a generous gastronomic spread with guacamole, smoked salmon, delicate pâté canapés and spreads, and steaming hot tables on the other side of the room. However the party began at 7 pm and the food is all gone by 8:15, except for numerous whole pineapples no one can cut. No more white wine. Young people are still streaming in.
The Director-General of UN Office at Geneva, Mr. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, gives a brief friendly speech and leaves. The whole space is mobbed and few can navigate from one end to the other.  


The musicians have completed their sound-check*, the music is beginning, and the crowd, though not subdued, will be entertained if they aren't too obssessed with those in front of them on the drinks line. Perhaps they should have brought hip flasks, like in the bad old days of the twentieth century.....
The World Music Project kicks off, delivering rhythmic sambas, gypsy songs, Caribbean, jazz classics and world music....a smorgasbord of styles.
Followed by Kassav' with musique antillaise.


Gloves off.  The dancing begins.
(Anyone know how to waltz?)


*Through no fault of their own, the World Music sound-check began fifteen minutes after they were to begin performing, as the guest band Kassav' had priority. Then not all the sound monitors were functioning.  Considering that half the band couldn't hear the other half the music was remarkably good!