The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 24

2002:08:05:20:42:09 Obituaries B11 By JON THURBER TIMES STAFF WRITER Roy Kral, the pianist, singer and arranger who was half of one of the most enduring duos in and died. He was 80. Kral died of congestive heart failure Friday at his home in Montclair, N.J., saidhis wife and musical partner, Jackie Cain. In a career spanning more than half a century, Jackie and Roy brought an effervescence to the jazz repertoire, mixing it with bebop and scat-like singing called vocalese to create their own distinct style. They recorded more than 30 albums, covering everything from jazz standards to the work of the Beatles.

Among their most popular recordings were their versions of and Can Really Hang You Up the And they did it in a manner that critics embraced. focused on songs that were not necessarily well known but were classic popular jazz critic Nat Hentoff said Monday. today, you could hear the lyrics and they were worth hearing. There was a spirit in what they did that was just Born in Cicero, Kral took classical piano lessons as a boy. Inspired by the pianist Earl Hines, he switched to jazz in the mid-1930s.

After playing in Army bands during World War II, he found work as a staff arranger at a Detroit radio station. He soon moved to Chicago and joined a quartet led by George Davis as pianist and arranger. Despite some initial opposition from Kral, Jackie Cain, a young singer from Milwaukee, joined the group a short time later. Kral and Cain left to join saxophonist Charlie for the combo in 1948. With Ventura, Kral served as the pianist and some- time arranger.

He is credited with giving the band excellent arrangements of such tunes as From and The stay with Ventura was brief, lasting about a year and a half. They were married in 1949 and went out on their own to form a bebop sextet. In the 1950s, they moved to Chicago, where they had their own television show. They worked with Ventura again for a brief time in 1953, but continued to focus on their career as a duo, playing the supper-club circuit in New York, for several years in Las Vegas and, later, Los Angeles before returning to New York in the early 1960s. Kral formed a company that produced jingles for television commercials.

Their voices were heard in TV spots for Halo shampoo, Cheerios and Plymouth. And though the pay and hours were good, the music in commercials was less than what they wanted to pursue. They quit the commercial business and went back into jazz. Their later performances reflected their early tasteful work. formula is as simple as ever: mainly octave unison vocals, with moments of two-part harmony, and occasional wordless passages that are too elegant to be stigmatized as scat jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote in a review of a performance in 1988.

work had a delicacy, a subtlety and joy to Hentoff said. was all done with best possible taste and first-class musicianship. They were having fun, and it was Kral, whose sister, singer Irene Kral, died in 1978, is survived by his wife and daughters Tiffany Bolling-Casares of Los Angeles, Dana Kral of Montclair, N.J., and Carol May of Elgin, Ill. Roy Kral, 80; Jazz Duo Star ROY KRAL The singer-pianist and his wife, Jackie Cain, shown in 1986, performed as Jackie and Roy. Associated Press Franco Lucentini, 81; Anti-Fascist Writer of Avant-Garde Fiction Franco Lucentini, 81, a celebrated novelist known for avant- garde fiction and gripping mysteries, died Mondayin Turin, Italy.

Lucentini, who was terminally ill with cancer, died after falling down a flight of stairs in his apartment building. Born in 1920, he was involved in anti-Fascist activities during World War II, and spent time in prison for his activism. In the postwar years, Lucentini worked as a translator and was influenced by growing neo-realist movement. The author was probably best known for his collaborative works with a close friend and fellow writer, Carlo Fruttero. Among their novels was the acclaimed Donna della (The Sunday Woman), published in 1972.

Bernard Haldane, 91; Pioneering Career Counselor, Author Bernard Haldane, 91, a pioneering expert on career counseling and author of 14 books, including Satisfaction and Success: How to Know and Manage Your died July 21. He died of unstated causes in Seattle, where he had lived since 1977. Born and educated in London, Haldane moved to New York City in the late 1920s and became a labor relations consultant. He was also a member of the Society for the Advancement of Management, which later asked him to help returning World War II officers find work, which he did without pay. In 1947, Haldane founded Bernard Haldane Associates, the career consulting firm that now has nearly 100 offices in the U.S., Canada and Britain.

He sold the company in the early 1970s. In addition to counseling indi- viduals about managing their careers, Haldane worked with institutions including the Atomic Energy Commission, Exxon, the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, the Peace Corps and the United Presbyterian Church. Archer Martin, 92; Chemist Won Share of Nobel Prize in 1952 Archer Martin, 92, a chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1952 for his work in separating complex mixtures, died July 28. No place or specific cause of death was listed, although Martin had suffered from disease. The technique for which Martin and his colleague Richard Syngewon the chemistry Nobel is known as partition chromatography.

The term refers to the technique of separating and isolating the fundamental chemicals in complex solutions. Developed while they were working for the wool industry in the 1940s, their technique enabled scientists to analyze the structures of proteins and other complex organic substances. The London-born son of a doctor and nurse, Martin earned and doctoral degrees in biochemistry at Cambridge University, and performed research successively for the Wool Industries Research the Boots pharmacy chain and for Medical Research Council. During his retirement years, he taught at the University of Sussex and was a visiting professor at the University of Houston in Texas and the Ecole Poly- technique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Kohei Matsuda, 80; Head of Mazda Corp.

Owned Baseball Team KoheiMatsuda, 80, a former president of Mazda Motor Corp. and the owner of the Japanese professional baseball club Hiroshima ToyoCarp, died July 10 of stomach cancer at KeioGijuku University Hospital in Tokyo. The grandson of founder, JujiroMatsuda, he joined the family known as 1961 as a vice president. He helped the Hiroshima- based company introduce the Cosmo sports coupe in 1967, the first car in Japan powered by a rotary engine. Matsuda became president of Mazda in 1970, succeeding his father, Tsuneji, and steered the automaker through a period of declining earnings.

He retired from the presidency in 1977 and served as chairman for the following three years, overseeing 1979 capital association with Ford Motor Co. Ford now owns about one-third of the Japanese firm. In 1970, Matsuda became owner of the Hiroshima Carp and invigorated the baseball franchise by instructing scouts to go after young unknown players. The team won the first of six Central League pennants in 1975, and captured the first of its three Japanese championship titles in 1979. From Times Staff and Wire Reports PASSINGS FRANCO LUCENTINI Novelist, shown in 1986, was jailed for anti-Fascist activism.

Agence France-Presse.