1.
Harlem
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Harlem is a large neighborhood in the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Since the 1920s, Harlem has been known as a major African-American residential, cultural, originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlems history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, African-American residents began to arrive by a lot in 1905, with numbers fed by the Great Migration. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the focus of the Harlem Renaissance, however, with job losses in the time of the Great Depression and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly. Harlems African-American population peaked in the 1950s, in the second half of the 20th century, Harlem became a major hub of African-American businesses. In 2008, the United States Census found that for the first time since the 1930s, less than half of residents were black, since New York Citys revival in the late 20th century, long-time residents of Harlem have been experiencing the effects of gentrification and new wealth. Harlem is located in Upper Manhattan, often referred to as Uptown by locals. Central Harlem is bounded by Fifth Avenue on the east, Central Park on the south, Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Avenue and Edgecombe Avenue on the west, and the Harlem River on the north. A chain of three large linear parks—Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Park and Jackie Robinson Park—are situated on steeply rising banks, on the east, Fifth Avenue and Marcus Garvey Park, also known as Mount Morris Park, separate this area from East Harlem. The bulk of the falls under Manhattan Community Board No.10. In the late 2000s, South Harlem, emerged from area redevelopment, the West Harlem neighborhoods of Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights comprise part of Manhattan Community Board No.9. The two neighborhoods area is bounded by Cathedral Parkway on the South, 155th Street on the North, nicholas/Bradhurst/Edgecome Avenues on the East, and Riverside Park/the Hudson River on the west. Morningside Heights is located in the southern most section of West Harlem, Manhattanville begins at roughly 123rd Street and extends northward to 135th Street. The northern most section of West Harlem is Hamilton Heights, the New York City Police Department patrols six precincts located within Harlem. The New York City Fire Department operates 9 firehouses in Harlem, as many as several hundred farmed the Harlem flatlands. Between 1637 and 1639, a few settlements were established, during the American Revolution, the British burned Harlem to the ground. It took a time to rebuild, as Harlem grew more slowly than the rest of Manhattan during the late 18th century. After the American Civil War, Harlem experienced an economic boom starting in 1868, the neighborhood continued to serve as a refuge for New Yorkers, but increasingly those coming north were poor and Jewish or Italian
2.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
3.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
4.
Okeh Records
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Okeh Records was a record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. Since 1926, it has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, today, Okeh is an imprint of Sony Masterworks, a specialty label of Columbia. Okeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann, a German-American manager for the U. S. branch of German-owned Odeon Records, Heinemann formed the name of the record label from his initials, on early disc labels, the name is spelled OkeH. The first discs were vertical cut, in 1919, Okeh switched to the lateral-cut method of sound recording, more commony used for disc records. In that year the parent company was renamed the General Phonograph Corporation. The common 10-inch discs retailed for 75 cents each, the 12-inch discs for $1.25, the companys musical director was Fred Hager, who was also credited under the pseudonym Milo Rega. Okeh produced lines of recordings in German, Czech, Polish, Swedish, some were pressed from masters leased from European labels, others were recorded by Okeh in New York. In 1920, Ralph Peers recordings of the African-American blues singer Mamie Smith were a smash hit for Okeh. The company perceived the significant, little-tapped market for blues and jazz by African-American artists, in 1922, Okeh hired Clarence Williams as director of race recordings for Okehs New York studios, in addition to making recordings under his own name. Okeh then opened a studio in Chicago, the center of jazz in the 1920s. Many classic jazz performances by prominent artists as King Oliver, Lucille Bogan, Sidney Bechet, Hattie McDaniel, Louis Armstrong. As part of the Carl Lindstrom Company, Okeh recordings were distributed by other Lindstrom labels, King Oliver and Bennie Moten recorded for Okeh before moving on to other labels. The 8000 race series is highly prized by collectors, partly because Okeh recorded many blues, in 1926, Okeh was sold to Columbia Records. Columbia and its subsequent parent companies have controlled Okeh since then, the original Mamie Smith recording was in 1920, of Crazy Blues. General Phonograph Corp, Okehs manufacturer, used Smith’s success as the press to cultivate the new found market. Okeh had further prominence in the demographic, as African-American artists such as Sara Martin, Eva Taylor, Shelton Brooks, Esther Bigeou, Okeh started a special 8000 series devoted exclusively to race artists. The success of this series led Okeh to start recording where the music was being performed, the 8000 series, which began in 1921, lasted until late 1934, the final number being 8966. Okeh Records pioneered the practice of recording in 1922
5.
Dizzy Gillespie
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John Birks Dizzy Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer. AllMusics Scott Yanow wrote, Dizzy Gillespies contributions to jazz were huge, Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks. In the 1940s Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a figure in the development of bebop. He taught and influenced other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione. Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children of James, James was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to the children. Gillespie started to play the piano at the age of four, Gillespies father died when he was only ten years old. Gillespie taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve, from the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, play on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. He received a scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina which he attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to Philadelphia. Teddy Hills band was where Gillespie made his first recording, King Porter Stomp, Willis was not immediately friendly but Gillespie was attracted anyway. The two finally married on May 9,1940 and they remained married until his death in 1993. Gillespie stayed with Teddy Hills band for a year, then left, in 1939, Gillespie joined Cab Calloways orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental Pickin the Cabbage, in 1940. After a notorious altercation between the two men, Calloway fired Gillespie in late 1941, the incident is recounted by Gillespie, along with fellow Calloway band members Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones, in Jean Bachs 1997 film, The Spitball Story. Calloway did not approve of Gillespies mischievous humor, nor of his approach to soloing, according to Jones. Finally, their grudge for each other erupted over a thrown spitball, Calloway never thought highly of Gillespie, because he didnt view Gillespie as a good musician. Once during a rehearsal, a member of the band threw a spitball, already in a foul mood, Calloway decided to blame this on Gillespie. In order to clear his name, Gillespie didn’t take the blame, Calloway had minor cuts on the thigh and wrist. After the two men were separated, Calloway fired Gillespie, a few days later, Gillespie tried to apologize to Calloway, but he was dismissed
6.
Max Roach
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Maxwell Lemuel Max Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer. A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in other styles of music. He was inducted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in 1980, Roach was born in the Township of Newland, Pasquotank County, North Carolina, which borders the southern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, to Alphonse and Cressie Roach. Many confuse this with Newland Town in Avery County, although Roachs birth certificate lists his date of birth as January 10,1924, Roach has been quoted by Phil Schaap as having stated that his family believed he was born on January 8,1925. Roachs family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York when he was 4 years old and he grew up in a musical home, his mother being a gospel singer. He started to play bugle in parade orchestras at a young age, at the age of 10, he was already playing drums in some gospel bands. In 1942, as an 18-year-old fresh out of Boys High School, in 1942, Roach started to go out in the jazz clubs of the 52nd Street and at 78th Street & Broadway for Georgie Jays Taproom. His first professional recording took place in December 1943, supporting Coleman Hawkins. He was one of the first drummers to play in the style, and performed in bands led by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell. Roach played on many of Parkers most important records, including the Savoy November 1945 session, the drummers early brush work with Powells trio, especially at fast tempos, has been highly praised. Roach studied classical percussion at the Manhattan School of Music from 1950 to 1953, in 1952, Roach co-founded Debut Records with bassist Charles Mingus. This label released a record of a May 15,1953 concert, billed as the greatest concert ever, also released on this label was the groundbreaking bass-and-drum free improvisation, Percussion Discussion. The group was a example of the hard bop style also played by Art Blakey. This group was to be short-lived, Brown and Powell were killed in a car accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in June 1956, the first album Roach recorded after their deaths was Max Roach +4. After Brown and Powells deaths, Roach continued leading a similarly configured group, with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, George Coleman on tenor, Roach expanded the standard form of hard-bop using 3/4 waltz rhythms and modality in 1957 with his album Jazz in 3/4 time. During this period, Roach recorded a series of albums for the EmArcy label featuring the brothers Stanley. In 1955, he was the drummer for vocalist Dinah Washington at several live appearances, in 1960 he composed and recorded the album We Insist. In 1962, he recorded the album Money Jungle, a collaboration with Mingus and this is generally regarded as one of the very finest trio albums ever made
7.
Miles Davis
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Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz, with his ever-changing directions in music, Davis was at the forefront of a number of major stylistic developments in jazz over his five-decade career. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records, after a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the 1957 album Round About Midnight. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers and his million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genres commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26,1926 into an affluent middle class African-American family in Alton, Illinois,15 miles north of St. Louis. The second of three children, he had a sister, Dorothy Mae, and a younger brother. His father, Miles Dewey Davis II of Arkansas, was a dental surgeon who earned three college degrees, and his mother Cleota Mae Davis, also of Arkansas, was a music teacher. They owned a 200-acre estate near Pine Bluff, Arkansas where Davis and his siblings would ride horses, fish, and hunt. In 1927, the moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. From 1932 to 1934, Davis attended John Robinson Elementary School, an institution, followed by Crispus Attucks School where he performed well in mathematics, music. It was in East St. Louis and Pine Bluff that the young Davis developed his earliest appreciation for music, Davis later suggested that his fathers instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpets sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato, Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a voice with not too much tremolo. If I cant get that sound I cant play anything, in 1939, the family moved to 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis. For his 13th birthday held that year, Davis father bought his son a new trumpet, around this time, Davis took additional trumpet lessons from Joseph Gustat, first chair of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. In 1941, the 15-year-old Davis began at East St. Louis Lincoln High School where he joined the marching band directed by Buchanan. Davis claimed the contests he did not win was largely down to prejudice over his race and it was at Lincoln High where Davis met his first girlfriend, Irene Cawthorn. Davis had formed his own group by this time, performing in local venues such as Huffs Beer Garden with hits such as In the Mood by Glenn Miller
8.
Ray Charles
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Ray Charles Robinson, known professionally as Ray Charles, was an American singer-songwriter, musician, and composer. Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called Brother Ray and he was often referred to as The Genius. Charles was blind from the age of seven and he pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He also contributed to the integration of music, rhythm and blues and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a record company. Charles cited Nat King Cole as an influence, but his music was also influenced by country, jazz, blues. In the late forties, he became friends with Quincy Jones and their friendship would last till the end of Charless life. Frank Sinatra called him the true genius in show business. In 2002, Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Billy Joel observed, This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. Robinson was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, at the time, she was a teenage orphan making a living as a sharecropper. They lived in Greenville, Florida, with Robinsons mother and his wife, the Robinson family had informally adopted Aretha, and she became known as Aretha Robinson. When she, scandalously, became pregnant by Bailey, she briefly left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be family members in Albany, Georgia. After that, mother and child returned to Greenville, and Aretha and he was deeply devoted to his mother and later recalled her perseverance, self-sufficiency, and pride as guiding lights in his life. His father abandoned the family, left Greenville, and took another wife elsewhere, in his early years, Charles showed a fondness about mechanical objects and would often watch his neighbors working on their cars and farm machinery. Charles and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe, pitman would also care for Rays brother George, to take the burden off Aretha. George drowned in Arethas laundry tub when he was four years old, Charles started to lose his sight at the age of four or five, and was completely blind by the age of seven, apparently as a result of glaucoma. Destitute, uneducated and still mourning the loss of George, Aretha used her connections in the community to find a school that would accept a blind African-American student. Despite his initial protest, Charles attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf, Charles further developed his musical talent at school, and was taught to play the classical piano music of J. S
9.
Ella Fitzgerald
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Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, Fitzgeralds rendition of the nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. Taking over the band after Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start a career that would last effectively the rest of her life. With Verve she recorded some of her more noted works. These partnerships produced recognizable songs like Dream a Little Dream of Me, Cheek to Cheek, Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall, in 1993, Fitzgerald capped off her sixty-year career with her last public performance. Three years later, she died at the age of 79, Fitzgerald was born on April 25,1917, in Newport News, Virginia, the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance Tempie Fitzgerald. Her parents were unmarried but lived together for at least two and a years after she was born. Initially living in a room, her mother and Da Silva soon found jobs. Her half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923, by 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to nearby School Street, then a predominantly poor Italian area. She began her education at the age of six and proved to be an outstanding student. Fitzgerald had been passionate about dancing from third grade, being a fan of Earl Snakehips Tucker in particular, Fitzgerald and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday school. The church provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in music making. During this period Fitzgerald listened to recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby. Fitzgerald idolized the Boswell Sisters lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, My mother brought home one of her records, in 1932, her mother died from serious injuries she received in a car accident when Fitzgerald was 15 years of age. This left her at first in the care of her stepfather but before the end of April 1933, following these traumas, Fitzgerald began skipping school and letting her grades suffer. During this period she worked at times as a lookout at a bordello, Ella Fitzgerald never talked publicly about this time in her life. When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, in the Bronx. However, when the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, eventually she escaped and for a time she was homeless
10.
Sarah Vaughan
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Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by music critic Scott Yanow as having one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century. Nicknamed Sassy and The Divine One, Sarah Vaughan was a four-time Grammy Award winner, the National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989. Sarah Vaughans father, Asbury Jake Vaughan, was a carpenter by trade and played guitar and her mother, Ada Vaughan, was a laundress and sang in the church choir. Jake and Ada Vaughan had migrated to Newark, New Jersey from Virginia during the First World War, Sarah was their only biological child, although in the 1960s they adopted Donna, the child of a woman who traveled on the road with Sarah Vaughan. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Sarahs entire childhood, Jake Vaughan was deeply religious and the family was very active in the New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Sarah began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the choir and occasionally played piano for rehearsals. Vaughan developed a love for popular music on records and the radio. In the 1930s, Newark had an active live music scene and Vaughan frequently saw local. However, her adventures as a performer began to overwhelm her academic pursuits. Around this time, Vaughan and her friends began venturing across the Hudson River into New York City to hear big bands at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, biographies of Vaughan frequently stated that she was immediately thrust into stardom after a winning amateur night performance at Harlems Zeus Theater. In fact, the story that biographer Renee relates seems to be a bit more complex, Vaughan was frequently accompanied by a friend, Doris Robinson, on her trips into New York City. Some time in the fall of 1942, Vaughan suggested that Robinson enter the Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest, Vaughan played piano accompaniment for Robinson, who won second prize. Vaughan later decided to go back and compete herself as a singer, Vaughan sang Body and Soul and won, although the exact date of her victorious Apollo performance is uncertain. The prize, as Vaughan recalled later to Marian McPartland, was $10, after a considerable delay, Vaughan was contacted by the Apollo in the spring of 1943 to open for Ella Fitzgerald. Some time during her week of performances at the Apollo, Vaughan was introduced to bandleader and pianist Earl Fatha Hines, Billy Eckstine, Hines singer at the time, has been credited by Vaughan and others with hearing her at the Apollo and recommending her to Hines. Hines claimed later to have discovered her himself and offered her a job on the spot, regardless, after a brief tryout at the Apollo, Hines officially replaced his current male singer with Vaughan on April 4,1943. Vaughan spent the remainder of 1943 and part of 1944 touring the country with the Earl Hines big band that featured baritone Billy Eckstine. The Earl Hines band in this period is remembered as an incubator of bebop, as it included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Charlie Parker and trombonist Bennie Green
11.
Cooper Union
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Inspired in 1830 when Peter Cooper learned about the government-supported École Polytechnique in France, Cooper Union was established in 1859. The Cooper Union originally granted each admitted student a full-tuition scholarship, following its own financial crisis, the school decided to abandon this policy starting in the Fall of 2014, but each incoming student receives at least a half-tuition merit scholarship. The college is divided into three schools, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, the School of Art, and it offers undergraduate and masters degree programs exclusively in the fields of architecture, fine arts, and engineering. It is a member of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, until 2014 Cooper Union was one of the very few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship – valued at approximately $150,000 as of 2012 – to every admitted student. Cooper Union has historically been one of the most selective colleges in the United States, both the art and architecture schools have acceptance rates below 5%. Cooper Union received 2,536 applications for the 2014–2015 academic year, as a result of its record low acceptance ratio for the fall 2010 incoming class, Cooper Union was named by Newsweek as the #1 Most Desirable Small School and #7 Most Desirable School overall. The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, who was an inventor, successful entrepreneur. Cooper was a son who had less than a year of formal schooling, yet went on to become an industrialist. Cooper designed and built Americas first steam engine, and made a fortune with a glue factory. After achieving wealth, he turned his skills to successful ventures in real estate, insurance. Coopers dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked and he also wished to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would have gone undiscovered. According to The New York Times in 1863, Those only are supposed to pay anything who are abundantly able, discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited. Since the opening of this institute all who desire, and particularly those who work for their own support, can avail themselves, free of charge, of all the advantages the institution affords. The early institution also had a reading room open day and night, and a new four-year nighttime engineering college for men. A daytime engineering college was added in 1902 thanks to funds contributed by Andrew Carnegie Initial board members included Daniel F. Tiemann, Peter Coopers dream of providing an education equal to the best has since become reality. Since 1859, the Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects, after 1864 there were a few attempts to merge Cooper Union and Columbia University, but these were never realized. The Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum, was founded in 1897 as part of Cooper Union by Sarah, Eleanor, Cooper Unions Foundation Building is an Italianate brownstone building designed by architect Fred A. Petersen, one of the founders of the American Institute of Architects. It was the first structure in New York City to feature rolled-iron I-beams for structural support, Petersen patented a fire-resistant hollow brick tile he used in the buildings construction
12.
Louis Armstrong
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Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo or Satch, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s and he was also skilled at scat singing. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to cross over and he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were restricted for black men of his era. Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4,1900, although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date, August 4,1901, was discovered by the researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He spent his youth in poverty, in a neighborhood known as the Battlefield. His father, William Armstrong, abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and his mother, Mary Mayann Albert, then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins, in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times his uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother, her relatives and he attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille, after dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble, Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong to play by ear at Dago Tonys Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. It has given me something to live for and he also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk-hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family, knowing he lived without a father and he later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La. the Year of 1907. Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them, how to live—real life, professor Peter Davis instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader, the home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new stepmother, Gertrude, Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponces, where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night, later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as going to the University, in 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Orys band, Armstrong replaced him
