1.
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
2.
Swing music
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Swing music, or simply swing, is a form of American music that dominated in the 1930s and 1940s. The name swing came from the swing feel where the emphasis is on the off–beat or weaker pulse in the music, Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, the verb to swing is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Notable musicians of the era include Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Woody Herman. Swing has roots in the late 1920s as larger ensembles began using written arrangements, a typical song played in swing style would feature a strong, anchoring rhythm section in support of more loosely tied wind and brass. The most common style consisted of having a soloist take center stage, Swing music began to decline in popularity during World War II because of several factors. By the late 1940s, swing had morphed into traditional pop music, or evolved into new styles such as jump blues, Swing music saw a revival in the late 1950s and 1960s with pop vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald. Swing blended with other genres to create new styles, in country music, artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican and Bob Wills introduced many elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called western swing. Gypsy swing is an outgrowth of Venuti and Langs jazz violin swing, in the 1970s, and 1980s, fans of big band music attended swing music performances at supper clubs. In the late-1980s a trendier, more urban-styled swing-beat emerged called new jack swing, in the late 1990s and into the 2000s there was a swing revival, led by Squirrel Nut Zippers, Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Lavay Smith. In Canada, some of the early 2000s records by The JW-Jones Blues Band included swing revival elements, the 1920s saw parallel trends in jazz and popular music that would later converge into the swing style. New Orleans style jazz was based on a meter and contrapuntal improvisation led by a trumpet or cornet, typically followed by a clarinet. The rhythm section consisted of a tuba and drums, and sometimes a banjo, by the early 1920s guitars and pianos sometimes substituted for the banjo and a string bass sometimes substituted for the tuba. Further innovations in small ensemble playing led to development of the Chicago style identified with Louis Armstrong, a stint with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra familiarized him with arranged ensemble playing that differed from the New Orleans style, in which saxophones became the dominant sound among the reeds. Armstrong brought those back to his smaller ensembles, the soloist played over an ensemble relegated to a supporting role in the background. The string bass also lent itself to playing in a 4/4 rhythm rather than the 2/4 rhythm dictated by the tuba. The new format gave the soloist the opportunity to play with more rhythmic freedom, but playing with swing remained the province of the soloist, not the ensemble. The late 1920s saw increasingly sophisticated arrangements used by bigger ensembles, some arrangements used call-response between horn sections to build the melody
3.
Big band
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A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big Bands evolved with the times and continue to this day, a big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra and this does not, however, mean that each one of these names is technically correct for naming a big band specifically. The music is traditionally called charts, improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger. There are two periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then consisting of 10–25 pieces. At that time they played a form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins. A few bands also had violas and cellos, usually one or two along with them, the dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung, many of these artists changed styles or retired after the introduction of swing music. Although unashamedly commercial, these bands often featured front-rank jazz musicians - for example Paul Whiteman employed Bix Beiderbecke, there were also all-girl bands such as Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators. Towards the end of the 1920s, a new form of Big Band emerged which was more authentically jazz and this form of music never gained the popularity of the sweet dance form of jazz. The few recordings made in form of jazz were labelled race records and were intended for a limited urban audience. Few white musicians were familiar with music, Johnny Mercer. The three major centres in this development were New York City, Chicago and Kansas City, some big ensembles, like the Joe King Oliver outfit played a kind of half arranged, half improvised jazz, often relying on head arrangements. Other great bands, like the one of Luis Russell became a vehicle for star instrumentalists, there the whole arrangement had to promote all the possibilities of the star, although they often contained very good musicians, like Henry Red Allen, J. C. Earl Hines became the star of Chicago with his Grand Terrace Cafe band, meanwhile, in Kansas City and across the Southwest, an earthier, bluesier style was developed by such bandleaders as Benny Moten and, later, by Jay McShann and Jesse Stone. Radio was a factor in gaining notice and fame for Benny Goodman. Soon, others challenged him, and the battles of the bands became a staple at theater performances featuring many groups on one bill
4.
Clarinet
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The clarinet is a musical-instrument family belonging to the group known as the woodwind instruments. It has a mouthpiece, a straight cylindrical tube with an almost cylindrical bore. A person who plays a clarinet is called a clarinetist, the word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette, or from Provençal clarin, oboe. It would seem however that its roots are to be found amongst some of the various names for trumpets used around the renaissance. Clarion, clarin and the Italian clarino are all derived from the medieval term claro which referred to a form of trumpet. This is probably the origin of the Italian clarinetto, itself a diminutive of clarino, according to Johann Gottfried Walther, writing in 1732, the reason for the name is that it sounded from far off not unlike a trumpet. The English form clarinet is found as early as 1733, while the similarity in sound between the earliest clarinets and the trumpet may hold a clue to its name, other factors may have been involved. The trumpet parts that required this speciality were known by the term clarino, Johann Christoph Denner is generally believed to have invented the clarinet in Germany around the year 1700 by adding a register key to the earlier chalumeau. Over time, additional keywork and airtight pads were added to improve the tone and these days the most popular clarinet is the B♭ clarinet. However, the clarinet in A, just a lower, is commonly used in orchestral music. Since the middle of the 19th century the clarinet has become an essential addition to the orchestra. The clarinet family ranges from the BBB♭ octo-contrabass to the A♭ piccolo clarinet, the clarinet has proved to be an exceptionally flexible instrument, equally at home in the classical repertoire as in concert bands, military bands, marching bands, klezmer, and jazz. The cylindrical bore is primarily responsible for the clarinets distinctive timbre, the tone quality can vary greatly with the musician, the music, the instrument, the mouthpiece, and the reed. The most prominent were the German/Viennese traditions and the French school, the latter was centered on the clarinetists of the Conservatoire de Paris. The proliferation of recorded music has made examples of different styles of clarinet playing available, the modern clarinetist has a diverse palette of acceptable tone qualities to choose from. The A clarinet and B♭ clarinet have nearly the same bore, orchestral players using the A and B♭ instruments in the same concert could use the same mouthpiece for both. The A and the B♭ instruments have nearly identical tonal quality, the tone of the E♭ clarinet is brighter than that of the lower clarinets and can be heard even through loud orchestral or concert band textures. The bass clarinet has a deep, mellow sound, while the alto clarinet is similar in tone to the bass
5.
The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert
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The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert by Benny Goodman, Columbia Records catalogue item SL-160, is a two-disc LP of Swing music first issued in 1950. The program it captured has been described as the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history, jazzs coming out party to the world of respectable music. The first ever album, it was one of the first records of Benny Goodman music issued on the new long-playing format. A landmark recording, it was the performance given by a jazz orchestra in the famed Carnegie Hall in New York City. This album was sold in a set of nine 45 rpm records in the same year by Columbia. The reception to the original 1950 long-playing double-album was exceptional, as had been the appearance at Carnegie Hall. Over time as technology improved the material was re-released, with digital versions produced both in the 1980s and 1990s. Bruce Eder, writing for AllMusic, generally praises the 1999 double-CD release, the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings includes the 1999 release in its Core Collection, in addition to giving it a four-star rating. Tracks 20-28 are edited tracks from a 1278 rpm record, recorded in 1950, ISBN 0-19-505278-1 Jon Hancock, Benny Goodman - The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert
6.
Classical music
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Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
7.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
8.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world and it was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central Europe. Today Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, an international tourist destination. Warsaws economy, by a variety of industries, is characterised by FMCG manufacturing, metal processing, steel and electronic manufacturing. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is one of the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. It has been said that Warsaw, together with Frankfurt, London, Paris, the city is positioning itself as Eastern Europe’s chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and serious restaurants. The first historical reference to Warsaw dates back to the year 1313, after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Warsaw was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, the city became the capital of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. In accordance with the decisions of the Congress of Vienna, the Russian Empire annexed Warsaw in 1815, only in 1918 did it regain independence from the foreign rule and emerge as a new capital of the independent Republic of Poland. Warsaw gained the title of the Phoenix City because it has survived wars, conflicts. Most notably, the city required painstaking rebuilding after the damage it suffered in World War II. On 9 November 1940, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, the historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period, folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, and his wife, Sawa. According to legend, Sawa was a living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love
9.
Partitioned Poland
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In 1795 the third and the last of the three 18th-century partitions of Poland ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Nevertheless, events both within and outside the Polish lands kept hopes for restoration of Polish independence alive throughout the 19th century, most immediately, Napoleon Bonaparte had established a new empire in France in 1804 following that countrys revolution. An alliance of convenience was the result of this situation. Volunteer Polish legions attached themselves to Bonapartes armies, hoping that in return the emperor would allow an independent Poland to reappear out of his conquests. Basically a French puppet, the duchy did enjoy some degree of self-government, in 1809, under Jozef Poniatowski, nephew of Stanislaw II August, the duchy reclaimed some of the territories taken by Austria in the third partition. The Russian army occupied the duchy as it chased Napoleon out of Russia in 1813, however, and Polish expectations ended with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. In the subsequent peace settlement of the Congress of Vienna, the victorious Austrians and Prussians swept away the Duchy of Warsaw, although brief, the Napoleonic period occupies an important place in Polish history. This conviction was simply expressed in a slogan of the time, for your freedom. Instead, many came to believe that favourable circumstances would free Poland from foreign domination. The intellectual and artistic climate of the early 19th century further stimulated the growth of Polish demands for self-government, during these decades, modern nationalism took shape and rapidly developed a massive following throughout the continent, becoming the most dynamic and appealing political doctrine of its time. Under this influence, Polish literature flourished anew in the works of a school of 19th-century Romantic poets, Mickiewicz concentrated on patriotic themes and the glorious national past. Frédéric Chopin, a composer of the century, also used the tragic history of his nation as a major inspiration. Nurtured by these influences, nationalism awoke first among the intelligentsia and certain segments of the nobility, at the end of the process, a broader definition of nationhood had replaced the old class-based noble patriotism of Poland. For several decades, the Polish national movement gave priority to the restoration of independence. The insurgencies arose mainly in the Russian zone of partition to the east, after the Congress of Vienna, Russia had organized its Polish lands as the Congress Poland, granting it a quite liberal constitution, its own army, and limited autonomy within the tsarist empire. In the 1820s, however, Russian rule grew more arbitrary, in November 1830, Polish troops in Warsaw rose in revolt. When the government of Congress Poland proclaimed solidarity with the rebel forces shortly thereafter, the rebels requests for aid from France were ignored, and their reluctance to abolish serfdom cost them the support of the peasantry. At the same time, Congress Poland lost its constitution and its army, after the failure of the November Revolt, clandestine conspiratorial activity continued on Polish territory
10.
Kaunas
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Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the centre of a county in Trakai Municipality of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413, in the Russian Empire it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915. It became the temporary capital city in Europe during the interwar period. Now it is the capital of Kaunas County, the seat of the Kaunas city municipality and it is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kaunas. Kaunas is located at the confluence of the two largest Lithuanian rivers, the Nemunas and the Neris, and near the Kaunas Reservoir, the citys name is of Lithuanian origins and most likely derives from a personal name. Before Lithuania regained independence, the city was known in English as Kovno, the traditional Slavicized form of its name, the Polish name is Kowno. An earlier Russian name was Ковно Kovno, although Каунас Kaunas has been used since 1940, the Yiddish name is Kovne, while its names in German include Kaunas and Kauen. The city and its elderates also have names in other languages, an old legend claims that Kaunas was established by the Romans in ancient times. These Romans were supposedly led by a patrician named Palemon, who had three sons, Barcus, Kunas and Sperus, Palemon fled from Rome because he feared the mad Emperor Nero. Palemon, his sons and other relatives travelled all the way to Lithuania, after Palemons death, his sons divided his land. Kunas got the land where Kaunas now stands and he built a fortress near the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris rivers, and the city that grew up there was named after him. There is also a region in the vicinity named Palemonas. On 30 June 1993, the coat of arms of Kaunas city was established by a special presidential decree. The coat of arms features a white aurochs with a cross between his horns, set against a deep red background. The aurochs is the heraldic symbol of the city since 1400. The heraldic seal of Kaunas, introduced in the early 15th century during the reign of Grand Duke Vytautas, is the oldest city heraldic seal known in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The current emblem was the result of study and discussion on the part of the Lithuanian Heraldry Commission. An aurochs has replaced a wisent, depicted in the Soviet era emblem, blazon, Gules, an aurochs passant guardant argent ensigned with a cross Or between his horns
11.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
12.
Baltimore
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Baltimore is the largest city in the U. S. state of Maryland, and the 29th-most populous city in the country. It was established by the Constitution of Maryland and is not part of any county, thus, it is the largest independent city in the United States, with a population of 621,849 as of 2015. As of 2010, the population of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area was 2.7 million, founded in 1729, Baltimore is the second largest seaport in the Mid-Atlantic. Baltimores Inner Harbor was once the leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States. With hundreds of identified districts, Baltimore has been dubbed a city of neighborhoods, in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, later the American national anthem, in Baltimore. More than 65,000 properties, or roughly one in three buildings in the city, are listed on the National Register, more than any city in the nation. The city has 289 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the historical records of the government of Baltimore are located at the Baltimore City Archives. The city is named after Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, of the Irish House of Lords, Baltimore Manor was the name of the estate in County Longford on which the Calvert family lived in Ireland. Baltimore is an anglicization of the Irish name Baile an Tí Mhóir, in 1608, Captain John Smith traveled 210 miles from Jamestown to the uppermost Chesapeake Bay, leading the first European expedition to the Patapsco River. The name Patapsco is derived from pota-psk-ut, which translates to backwater or tide covered with froth in Algonquian dialect, a quarter century after John Smiths voyage, English colonists began to settle in Maryland. The area constituting the modern City of Baltimore and its area was first settled by David Jones in 1661. He claimed the area today as Harbor East on the east bank of the Jones Falls stream. In the early 1600s, the immediate Baltimore vicinity was populated, if at all. The Baltimore area had been inhabited by Native Americans since at least the 10th millennium BC, one Paleo-Indian site and several Archaic period and Woodland period archaeological sites have been identified in Baltimore, including four from the Late Woodland period. During the Late Woodland period, the culture that is called the Potomac Creek complex resided in the area from Baltimore to the Rappahannock River in Virginia. It was located on the Bush River on land that in 1773 became part of Harford County, in 1674, the General Assembly passed An Act for erecting a Court-house and Prison in each County within this Province. The site of the house and jail for Baltimore County was evidently Old Baltimore near the Bush River. In 1683, the General Assembly passed An Act for Advancement of Trade to establish towns, ports, one of the towns established by the act in Baltimore County was on Bush River, on Town Land, near the Court-House
13.
Maxwell Street
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Maxwell Street is an east-west street in Chicago, Illinois that intersects with Halsted Street just south of Roosevelt Road. It runs at 1330 South in the system running from 500 West to 1126 West. The Maxwell Street neighborhood is considered part of the Near West Side and is one of the citys oldest residential districts and it is notable as the location of the celebrated Maxwell Street Market and the birthplace of Chicago blues and the Maxwell Street Polish, a sausage sandwich. A large portion of the area is now part of the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Maxwell Street first appears on a Chicago map in 1847. It was named for Dr. Philip Maxwell and it was originally a wooden plank road that ran from the south branch of the Chicago River west to Blue Island Avenue. The earliest housing was built by and for Irish immigrants who were brought to Chicago to construct the first railroads and it continued to be a gateway neighborhood for immigrants, including Greeks, Bohemians, Russians, Germans, Italians, African Americans and Mexicans. Hull House, the largest and most famous of the 19th-century settlement houses, was established by Jane Addams here to help transition to their lives in Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 started only a few blocks away, but it burned north and east, sparing Maxwell Street, a few blocks north of the Maxwell Street are the citys historic Greek and Italian communities. Taylor Street is Chicagos Little Italy, and one can still find Italian cuisine, including pastries and lemon ice. Pilsen, the neighborhood to the south, was originally Bohemian, the historic church is St. Francis of Assisi, which has evolved through the years with the surrounding community. It originally was German Catholic, then became Italian, and now is Mexican, beginning in the 1880s, Eastern European Jews became the dominant ethnic group in the neighborhood, which remained predominantly Jewish until the 1920s. This was the heyday of the open-air pushcart market the neighborhood is famous for, after 1920, most of the residents were African Americans who came North in the Great Migration, although most businesses continued to be Jewish-owned. In the 1980s and 1990s, the neighborhood and market became predominantly Mexican-American, most of the older Jewish merchant families had by then moved to the suburbs. Ira Berkow, in his Maxwell Street, heads each chapter with a newspaper showing a prevailing belief that the city was about to abolish the Maxwell market. The street itself began to shrink in 1926, when the Chicago River was straightened, in 1957 the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway cut Maxwell Street in two and pushed the market west of Union Street. In the 1990s the University of Illinois at Chicago began to expand south of Roosevelt Road, a subsidized housing development called the Barbara Jean Wright Courts Apartments chopped off Maxwells western end at Morgan Street. In October 2008, Maxwell Street Market moved to the intersection of Roosevelt Rd. and S. Des Plaines Avenue, the Original Maxwell Street Market was an impromptu ghetto market established in the late 19th century by newly arrived Jewish residents from Eastern Europe. A Sunday-only affair, it was a precursor to the market scene in Chicago
14.
Jane Addams
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She co-founded, with Ellen Gates Starr, the first settlement house in the United States, Chicagos Hull House that would later become known as one of the most famous settlement houses in America. In an era when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists and she helped America address and focus on issues that were of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, local public health, and world peace. Thus, these were matters of which women would have more knowledge than men and she said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed to be able to vote to do so effectively. Addams became a model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy, in 1889 she co-founded Hull House, and in 1920 she was a co-founder for the ACLU. In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, three of her siblings died in infancy, and another died at age 16, leaving only four by the time Addams was age eight. Her mother, Sarah Addams, died when Jane was two years old, Addams spent her childhood playing outdoors, reading indoors, and attending Sunday school. When she was four she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, known as Pottss disease and this made it complicated as a child to function with the other children, considering she had a limp and could not run as well. As a child, she thought she was ugly and later remembered wanting not to embarrass her father, Addams adored her father when she was a child, as she made clear in the stories of her memoir, Twenty Years at Hull House. John Huy Addams was a businessman with large timber, cattle, and agricultural holdings, flour and timber mills. He was the president of The Second National Bank of Freeport and he remarried in 1868, when Jane was eight years old. His second wife was Anna Hostetter Haldeman, the widow of a miller in Freeport, John Addams was a founding member of the Illinois Republican Party, served as an Illinois State Senator, and supported his friend Abraham Lincoln in his candidacies, for senator and the presidency. John Addams kept a letter from Lincoln in his desk, in her teens, Addams had big dreams—to do something useful in the world. Long interested in the poor from her reading of Dickens and inspired by her mothers kindness to the Cedarville poor, she decided to become a doctor so that she could live and it was a vague idea, nurtured by literary fiction. Addamss father encouraged her to higher education but close to home. She was eager to attend the new college for women, Smith College in Massachusetts, after graduating from Rockford in 1881, with a collegiate certificate and membership in Phi Beta Kappa, she still hoped to attend Smith to earn a proper B. A. That summer, her father died unexpectedly from a case of appendicitis. That fall, Addams, her sister Alice, Alices husband Harry, Harry was already trained in medicine and did further studies at the University of Pennsylvania
15.
Hull House
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Hull House was a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, Hull House opened its doors to recently arrived European immigrants, by 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull House complex was completed with the addition of a summer camp, with its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement that had grown, by 1920, to almost 500 settlement houses nationally. Most of the Hull House buildings were demolished for the construction of the University of Illinois-Circle Campus in the mid 1960s, the Hull mansion and several subsequent acquisitions were continuously renovated to accommodate the changing demands of the association. The original building and one additional building survive today, on June 12,1974, the Hull House building was designated a Chicago Landmark. On June 23,1965, it was designated as a U. S. National Historic Landmark, on October 15,1966, which is the day that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was enacted, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hull House was one of the four members to be listed on both the Chicago Registered Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places list. Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18,1889, in the 19th century a womens movement began to promote education, autonomy, and break into traditionally male dominated occupations for women. Organizations led by women, bonded by sisterhood, were formed for social reform, including settlement houses in working class and poor neighborhoods, like Hull House. To develop new roles for women, the first generation of New Women wove the traditional ways of their mothers into the heart of their new world. The social activists, often single, were led by educated, the residents held classes in literature, history, art, domestic activities, and many other subjects. Hull House also held concerts that were free to everyone, offered free lectures on current issues, in 1892, Addams published her thoughts on what has been described as the three Rs of the settlement house movement, residence, research, and reform. Hull House conducted careful studies of the Near West Side, Chicago community, which became known as The Hull House Neighborhood. According to Christie and Gauvreau, while the Christian settlement houses sought to Christianize, Jane Addams, “had come to epitomize the force of secular humanism. ”Her image was, however, according to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Some social settlements were linked to religious institutions. One of the first newspaper articles written about Hull House quotes the following invitation sent to the residents of the Hull House neighborhood. It begins with, Mio Carissimo Amico…and is signed, Le Signorine, Jane Addams,10,000 Italians lived between the river and Halsted Street. By all accounts, the greater Hull House neighborhood was a mix of ethnic groups that had immigrated to Chicago. There was no discrimination of race, language, creed, or tradition for those who entered the doors of the Hull House, every person was treated with respect
16.
New Orleans
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New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U. S. Census, the New Orleans metropolitan area had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States. The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,452,502. The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and it is well known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music, and its celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is referred to as the most unique in the United States. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River, the city and Orleans Parish are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south, and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, before Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish was the most populous parish in Louisiana. As of 2015, it ranks third in population, trailing neighboring Jefferson Parish, La Nouvelle-Orléans was founded May 7,1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time and his title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris, during the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans remained under Spanish control until 1803, when it reverted briefly to French oversight, nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré dates from the Spanish period, the most notable exception being the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles, and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans, and Italians, Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city. The Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 and established the republic in the Western Hemisphere. It had occurred several years in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue
17.
Jimmie Noone
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Jimmie Noone was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader. After beginning his career in New Orleans he led Jimmie Noones Apex Club Orchestra, Maurice Ravel acknowledged basing his Boléro on a Jimmie Noone improvisation. At the time of his death Noone had his own quartet in Los Angeles and was part of a band that was an important force in reviving interest in traditional New Orleans jazz in the 1940s. Jimmie Noone was born April 23,1895, on a farm in Cut Off, Louisiana, to Lucinda and he grew up in Hammond, Louisiana, where he started playing guitar. In 1910, Noones family moved to New Orleans, Noone switched to the clarinet and studied with Lorenzo Tio and the young Sidney Bechet. In 1913 Noone was playing professionally with Freddie Keppard in Storyville, in 1916, when Keppard went on tour, Noone and Buddie Petit formed the Young Olympia Band, and Noone also led a small ensemble unusual for its time. In 1917, Noone played with Kid Ory and Oscar Celestin until the Storyville district was permanently closed and he rejoined Keppard and the Original Creole Orchestra on the vaudeville circuit until the group broke up the following year. In 1918, Noone moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he studied with symphony clarinetist Franz Schoepp and he played for two years at Chicagos Royal Garden Cafe with Paul Barbarin, King Oliver, Bill Johnson, Lottie Taylor and Eddie Vinson. In 1920 Noone joined Keppard in Doc Cooks dance orchestra, in which he played saxophone, Noone was a brother-in-law of both Barbarin and Keppard. In 1926, Noone started leading the band at the Apex Club at 330 E. 35th Street, Jimmie Noones Apex Club Orchestra was notable for its unusual instrumentation—a front line consisting of clarinet and alto saxophone, with piano, drums and guitar. Noone signed with Brunswick Records in May 1928 and was assigned to their Vocalion label, the first session yielded Four or Five Times backed with Every Evening, which was a best seller. Joe Poston and Noone took turns playing a loose, melodic lead, … Noone seemed to keep one foot in traditional New Orleans bandsmanship and the other in the new movement toward virtuoso swing solo playing. Noones artistry is credited with inspiring Maurice Ravels famed 1928 composition, Benny Goodman, still wearing short pants, was among the teenage musicians often seen at the Apex Club. He absorbed in his own playing the beautiful tone and sparkling flow of Jimmie Noone, wrote New York Times music critic John S. Wilson. Not yet ten years old, Nat King Cole listened to Noones band on the radio, some ten years later, when a customer badgered Cole to sing along with his instrumental trio, the first song he sang was Sweet Lorraine, Noones theme song. Noone remained in Chicago, working at the Apex Club until it was raided and shut down in 1929 and he recorded with Doc Cooks band as well as his own. In 1931 Noone left Chicago for a month at the Savoy Ballroom, and in 1935 he briefly moved to New York City to start a band and he made long tours around the country, including performances in New Orleans. Noone remained with Brunswick through 1935 and then signed with Decca in early 1936 and he did one session for Bluebird also in 1940
18.
Bix Beiderbecke
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Leon Bismark Bix Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer. With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s and his turns on Singin the Blues and Im Coming, Virginia, in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz style and hinted at what, in the 1950s. In a Mist, one of a handful of his piano compositions, a native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering some critics have connected to his original sound. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer joined Goldkette in 1926, the band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in October 1926. He made his greatest recordings in 1927, in 1928, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known dance orchestra in the country, the New-York-based Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Beiderbeckes most influential recordings date from his time with Goldkette and Whiteman, a few stints in rehabilitation centers, as well as the support of Whiteman and the Beiderbecke family in Davenport, did not check Beiderbeckes decline in health. He left the Whiteman band in 1930 and the following summer died in his Queens apartment at the age of 28 and his death, in turn, gave rise to one of the original legends of jazz. In magazine articles, musicians memoirs, novels, and Hollywood films, Beiderbecke has been reincarnated as a Romantic hero, the Young Man with a Horn. His life has been portrayed as a battle against such common obstacles to art as family and commerce, the musician-critic Benny Green sarcastically called Beiderbecke jazzs Number One Saint, while Ralph Berton compared him to Jesus. Beiderbecke remains the subject of controversy regarding his true name, the cause of his death. Beiderbecke was born on March 10,1903, in Davenport, Iowa, there is disagreement over whether Beiderbecke was christened Leon Bismark or Leon Bix. His father was nicknamed Bix, as, for a time, was his older brother, Burnie Beiderbecke claimed that the boy was named Leon Bix and subsequent biographers have reproduced birth certificates to that effect. However, more recent research—which takes into account church and school records in addition to the will of a relative—has suggested that he was originally named Leon Bismark, regardless, his parents called him Bix, which seems to have been his preference. In a letter to his mother when he was nine years old, Beiderbecke signed off, Beiderbeckes father, the son of German immigrants, was a well-to-do coal and lumber merchant, named after the Iron Chancellor of his native Germany. Beiderbeckes mother was the daughter of a Mississippi riverboat captain and she played the organ at Davenports First Presbyterian Church, and encouraged young Bixs interest in the piano. Beiderbecke was the youngest of three children and his brother, Burnie, was born in 1895, and his sister, Mary Louise, in 1898. He began playing piano at age two or three and his sister recalls that he stood on the floor and played it with his hands over his head
19.
Illinois Institute of Technology
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It traces its history to several 19th century engineering and professional education institutions. In 1890, when advanced education was reserved for societys elite. When Armour Institute opened in 1893, it offered courses in engineering, chemistry, architecture. Illinois Tech was created in 1940 by the merger of Armour Institute, located on the west side of Chicago, Lewis Institute, established in 1895 by the estate of hardware merchant and investor Allen C. Lewis, offered liberal arts as well as science and engineering courses for men and women. At separate meetings held by their respective boards on Oct.26,1939, a Cook County circuit court decision on April 23,1940 solidified the merger. The Institute of Design, founded in Chicago by László Moholy-Nagy in 1937, Chicago-Kent College of Law, founded in 1887, became part of the university in 1969, making Illinois Institute of Technology one of the few technology-based universities with a law school. The program became the Stuart School of Business in 1999, as of April 2014, the University Tech Park at Illinois Institute of Technology is home to many companies. Today, IIT is a private, Ph. D. -granting university with programs in engineering, science, human sciences, applied technology, architecture, business, design and law. One of the 16 institutions that comprise the Association of Independent Technological Universities, through a committed faculty and close personal attention, IIT provides a challenging academic program focused by the rigor of the real world. The university and its contract research affiliate, IIT Research Institute, have an annual volume of $130 million. IIT has more than 40,000 living alumni and is known as the mater of accomplishments as well as of people. IIT architects have shaped the skyline of Chicago and cities throughout the world, IIT Research Institute has several locations throughout the United States, and the university has five campuses in the Chicago area. In 1976, the American Institute of Architects recognized the campus as one of the 200 most significant works of architecture in the U. S. S. R. Crown Hall, home of IIT College of Architecture, was named a National Historic Landmark in 2001, Institute of Design, an international leader in teaching systemic, human-centered design, is located at 350 N. LaSalle Street in Chicagos River North neighborhood. The 19-acre Daniel F. and Ada L. IIT continued to expand after the merger. As one of the first American universities to host a Navy V-12 program during World War II the school saw an increase in students. Two years before the merger, German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe joined the then Armour Institute of Technology to head both Armours and the Art Institute of Chicagos architecture program, the Art Institute would later separate and form its own program
20.
Ben Pollack
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Ben Pollack was an American drummer and bandleader from the mid-1920s through the swing era. His eye for talent led him to musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland. This ability earned him the nickname the Father of Swing, Ben Pollack was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1903. He played drums in school and formed groups on the side and he joined the Harry Bastin Band and then the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in the 1920s. In 1924 he played for bands, including some on the west coast, which ultimately led to his forming a band. In 1926, he had a band named the Ten Californians, Pollack formed his own band in 1926. Over time the band included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, one of the earliest members of his band was Gil Rodin, a saxophonist whose business acumen served him well later as an executive for the Music Corporation of America. Combining Pollacks regular recordings with these groups made Pollacks one of the more prolific bands of the 1920s and 1930s. Pollacks band played in Chicago and moved to New York City around the fall of 1928, having obtained McPartland and this outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows and winning an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel. Pollacks band was involved in extensive recording activity at that time, the orchestra also made a Vitaphone short subject sound film. Pollack, in the meantime, had fancied himself as more of a bandleader-singer type instead of a drummer, to this end, he signed Ray Bauduc to handle the drumming chores. Benny Goodman and Jimmy McPartland left the band in the summer of 1929 and they were replaced by Matty Matlock on clarinet and Jack Teagardens brother, Charlie, on trumpet. Eddie Miller was also signed as a tenor saxophonist in 1930, the band broke up in 1934. Many of its members formed a group led by Bob Crosby. Pollack reformed his band with Harry James and Irving Fazola, with James he wrote the hit Peckin. In the early 1940s, he orgainzed a band led by comedian Chico Marx and he started Jewel Records, opened restaurants in Hollywood and Palm Springs, appeared as himself in the movie The Benny Goodman Story, and made a cameo in The Glenn Miller Story. Pollack and Doris Robbins, who had no children, were divorced in 1957, in later years, after suffering a series of financial losses, Pollack grew despondent and committed suicide by hanging in his home in Palm Springs in 1971. He was buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in 1992, Pollack was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
21.
Vocalion Records
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The name was derived from one of their corporate divisions, the Vocalion Organ Co. The fledgling label first issued single-sided, vertical-cut disc records but soon switched to double-sided and then, in 1920, aeolian pressed Vocalion discs in a good-quality reddish brown shellac, which set the product apart from the usual black shellac used by other record companies. Advertisements stated that Vocalion Red Records are best or Red Records last longer, however, Vocalions shellac was no more durable than good-quality black shellac. In 1925 the label was acquired by Brunswick Records, during the 1920s Vocalion also began the celebrated 1000 race series. The 15000 series continued, but after the Brunswick takeover, it seems that Vocalion took a seat to the Brunswick label. By 1928–1929, many of the records issued on the Vocalion 15000 series were hot jazz exclusive to Vocalion and are extremely rare, in retrospect, it seems that Brunswick never really had a plan for the Vocalion 15000 series. From 1925 to 1930, Brunswick appeared to use this series as a specialty label for other than general sale. This seems to also be an explanation as to why the early 1930s Vocalions are rarer than Brunswick records. In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records and, for a time, in December 1931 Warner Bros. licensed the entire Brunswick and Vocalion operation to the American Record Corporation. ARC used Brunswick as their flagship 75-cent label and Vocalion as one of their 35-cent labels, the Vocalion race/blues series continued and continued to be popular. Starting in 1933, a number of Brunswick artists were assigned to Vocalions then-new 2500 series, new signings contributed to the growing popularity of the label. Coupled with other short-term signings, including Fletcher Henderson, Phil Harris, Earl Hines, and Isham Jones, also, starting in 1935, Vocalion started reissuing titles that were still selling from the recently discontinued OKeh label. In 1936 and 1937 Vocalion produced the recordings of the influential blues artist Robert Johnson. From 1935 through 1940, Vocalion was one of the most popular labels for small-group swing, blues, after the short-lived Variety label was discontinued, many titles were reissued on Vocalion, and the label continued to release new recordings made by Master/Variety artists through 1940. This added Cab Calloway and the Duke Ellington small groups-within-his-band to the label, ARC was purchased by CBS and Vocalion became a subsidiary of Columbia Records in 1938. The popular Vocalion label was discontinued in 1940, and the current Vocalions were reissued on the recently revived OKeh label with the catalog numbers. The name Vocalion was resurrected in the late 1950s by Decca as a label for back-catalog reissues. In 1975, MCA issued five albums on the Vocalion label
22.
Victor Talking Machine Company
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The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American flagship record company headquartered in Camden, New Jersey. The company was founded by Eldridge R. Johnson, who had previously made gramophones to play Emile Berliners disc records, Victor Talking Machine Co. was incorporated officially in 1901 shortly before agreeing to allow Columbia Records use of its disc record patent. Victor had acquired the Pan-American rights to use the trademark of the fox terrier Nipper listening to a gramophone when Berliner. Barraud noticed that whenever he played a recorded by his brother. Barrauds original depicts Nipper staring intently into the horn of an Edison-Bell while both sit on a wooden surface. The London branch was managed by an American, William Barry Owen, Barraud paid a visit with a photograph of the painting and asked to borrow a horn. Owen gave Barraud an entire gramophone and asked him to paint it into the picture, the original painting still shows the contours of the Edison-Bell phonograph beneath the paint of the gramophone when viewed in the correct light. Only 13 originally commissioned His Masters Voice paintings were commissioned by the company, in 1915, the His Masters Voice logo was rendered in immense circular leaded-glass windows in the tower of the Victrola factory building. The tower remains today with replica windows installed during Radio Corporation of Americas ownership of the plant in its later years, today, one of the original windows is located at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D. C. There are different accounts as to how the Victor name came about, a second account is that Johnson emerged as the Victor from the lengthy and costly patent litigations involving Berliner and Frank Seamans Zonophone. A third story is that Johnsons partner, Leon Douglass, derived the word from his wifes name Victoria, finally, a fourth story is that Johnson took the name from the popular Victor bicycle, which he had admired for its superior engineering. Of these four accounts the first two are the most generally accepted, perhaps coincidentally, the first use of the Victor title on a letterhead, on March 28,1901, was only nine weeks after the death of British Queen Victoria. Before 1925, recording was done by the purely mechanical. No microphone was involved and there was no means of amplification, the recording machine was essentially an exposed-horn acoustical record player functioning in reverse. The sound-vibrated center of the diaphragm was linked to a stylus that was guided across the surface of a very thick wax disc. The wax was too soft to be played back even once without seriously damaging it, although test recordings were sometimes made, although sound quality was gradually improved by a series of small refinements, the process was inherently insensitive. From the start, Victor innovated manufacturing processes and soon rose to preeminence by recording famous performers, in 1903, it instituted a three-step mother-stamper process to produce more stampers and records than previously possible. These new celebrity recordings bore red labels, and were marketed as Red Seal records, for many years these records were single-sided, only in 1923 did Victor begin offering Red Seals in double-sided form
23.
Glenn Miller
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Alton Glenn Miller was an American big band musician, arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was the recording artist from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known big bands. While he was traveling to entertain U. S. troops in France during World War II, Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa, the son of Mattie Lou and Lewis Elmer Miller. He attended grade school in North Platte in western Nebraska, in 1915, Millers family moved to Grant City, Missouri. Around this time, Miller had finally made enough money from milking cows to buy his first trombone, originally, Miller played cornet and mandolin, but he switched to trombone by 1916. In 1918, the Miller family moved again, this time to Fort Morgan, Colorado, in the fall of 1919, he joined the high school football team, Maroons, which won the Northern Colorado Football Conference in 1920. He was named the Best Left End in Colorado, during his senior year, Miller became very interested in a new style of music called dance band music. He was so taken with it that he formed his own band with some classmates, by the time Miller graduated from high school in 1921, he had decided to become a professional musician. He dropped out of school after failing three out of five classes one semester, and decided to concentrate on making a career as a professional musician and he later studied the Schillinger technique with Joseph Schillinger, under whose tutelage he composed what became his signature theme, Moonlight Serenade. In 1926, Miller toured with groups, eventually landing a good spot in Ben Pollacks group in Los Angeles. He also played for Victor Young, allowing him to be mentored by other professional musicians, in the beginning, he was the main trombone soloist of the band. But when Jack Teagarden joined Pollacks band in 1928, Miller found that his solos were cut drastically, from then, he realized that, rather than being a trombonist, his future lay in arranging or writing music. He also had a songbook published in Chicago in 1928 entitled Glenn Millers 125 Jazz Breaks for Trombone by the Melrose Brothers copyrighted in 1927, during his stint with Pollack, Miller wrote several musical arrangements of his own. He also co-wrote his first composition, Room 1411, written with Benny Goodman and released as a Brunswick 78,4013, in 1928, when the band arrived in New York City, he sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. He was a member of Red Nicholss orchestra in 1930, and because of Nichols, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Miller managed to earn a living working as a freelance trombonist in several bands. On a March 21,1928, Victor session, Miller played alongside Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Joe Venuti in the All-Star Orchestra, directed by Nat Shilkret. On November 14,1929, an original vocalist named Red McKenzie hired Miller to play on two records that are now considered to be classics, Hello, Lola and If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight. Beside Miller were clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa, Miller composed the songs Annies Cousin Fanny, Dese Dem Dose, Harlem Chapel Chimes, and Tomorrows Another Day for the Dorsey Brothers Band in 1934 and 1935
24.
Tommy Dorsey
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Thomas Francis Tommy Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as the Sentimental Gentleman of Swing, because of his smooth-toned trombone playing and his technical skill on the trombone gave him renown among other musicians. He was the brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely popular and he is best remembered for standards such as Opus One, Song of India, Marie, On Treasure Island, and his biggest hit single Ill Never Smile Again. Thomas Francis Dorsey, Jr. was born in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, the second of four born to Thomas Francis Dorsey, Sr. a bandleader himself. He and Jimmy, his brother by slightly less than two years, would become famous as the Dorsey Brothers. The two younger siblings were Mary and Edward, Tommy Dorsey initially studied the trumpet with his father, only to later switch to the trombone. At age 15, Jimmy recommended Tommy as the replacement for Russ Morgan in the 1920s territory band The Scranton Sirens, Tommy and Jimmy worked in several bands, including those of Tal Henry, Rudy Vallee, Vincent Lopez, Nathaniel Shilkret. In 1923, Dorsey followed his brother Jimmy to Detroit to play in Jean Goldkettes band, in 1927 he joined Paul Whiteman. In 1929, the Dorsey Brothers had their first hit with Coquette for OKeh records, in 1934, the Dorsey Brothers band signed with Decca records, having a hit with I Believe In Miracles. Ongoing acrimony between the brothers, however, led to Tommy Dorseys walking out to form his own band in 1935, Dorseys orchestra was known primarily for its renderings of ballads at dance tempos, frequently with singers such as Jack Leonard and Frank Sinatra. Tommy Dorseys first band was formed out of the remains of the Joe Haymes band, if he admired a vocalist, musician or arranger, he would think nothing of taking over their contracts and careers. Dorsey had a reputation for being a perfectionist and he was volatile and also known to hire and fire musicians based on his mood. The new band was popular from almost the moment it signed with RCA Victor with On Treasure Island, after his 1935 recording however, Dorseys manager cut the hot jazz that Dorsey had mixed with his own lyrical style and instead had Dorsey play pop and vocal tunes. Dorsey would keep his Clambake Seven as a Dixieland group that played during performances, the Dorsey band had a national radio presence in 1936, first from Dallas and then from Los Angeles. Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra took over comedian Jack Pearls radio show in 1937, by 1939, Dorsey was aware of criticism that his band lacked a jazz feeling. He hired arranger Sy Oliver away from the Jimmie Lunceford band, Sy Olivers arrangements include On The Sunny Side of the Street and T. D. s Boogie Woogie, Oliver also composed two of the new bands signature instrumentals, Well, Git It and Opus One. In 1940, Dorsey hired singer Frank Sinatra from bandleader Harry James, Frank Sinatra made eighty recordings from 1940 to 1942 with the Dorsey band
25.
Joe Venuti
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Giuseppe Joe Venuti was an Italian-American jazz musician and pioneer jazz violinist. Considered the father of jazz violin, he pioneered the use of string instruments in jazz along with the guitarist Eddie Lang, through the 1920s and early 1930s, Venuti and Lang made many recordings, as leader and as featured soloists. In 1926, Venuti and Lang started recording for the OKeh label as a duet, followed by Blue Four combinations, Venuti also recorded commercial dance records for OKeh under the name New Yorkers. He was also an early influence on western swing players like Cecil Brower. After a period of obscurity in the 1940s and 1950s, Venuti played violin. Statham headed several groups that played at the Desert Inn from late 1961 until 1965. Venuti was with him during that time, and was active with the Las Vegas Symphony Orchestra during the 1960s and he was rediscovered in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, he established a relationship with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims that resulted in three recordings. In 1976, he recorded an album of duets with pianist Earl Hines entitled Hot Sonatas and he also recorded an entire album with country-jazz musicians including mandolinist Jethro Burns, pedal steel guitarist Curly Chalker and former Bob Wills sideman and guitarist Eldon Shamblin. Venuti was well known for giving out conflicting information regarding his life, including his birthplace and birth date as well as his education. Gary Giddins summarized the situation by saying that depending on which reference book you consult, was eighty-four, eighty-two, eighty, seventy-five, seventy-four, Venuti, who surely had one of the strangest senses of humor in music history, encouraged the confusion. Venuti claimed to have been aboard a ship as his parents emigrated from Italy around 1904. It has also claimed that he was born on April 4,1898 in Lecco, Italy. Later in life, he said he was born in Lecco, Italy in 1896, Joe was classically trained in the violin from a young age, and studied solfeggio with his grandfather. He later said that while he studied music from him, he did not learn any one instrument and he began studying the violin in Philadelphia, and later claimed to have studied at a conservatory, though there is no documented evidence to support this theory. Despite this, his style of playing was characteristic of someone who had a basis in violin technique. Venuti began playing violin professionally 1924, in a 54-year career that lasted nearly until his death in 1978. During this time, he helped redefine jazz violin and he spent time in the early 1900s playing in the James Campbell School Orchestra in the violin section
26.
Nathaniel Shilkret
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Nathaniel Shilkret was an American composer, conductor, clarinetist, pianist, business executive, and music director. Shilkret was born in New York City to a family of Austrian immigrants. His father played a number of instruments, and made certain that Nat, older brother Lew Shilkret was a fine pianist, but also worked in the insurance industry. Younger brother Jack Shilkret had a career that paralleled Nathaniels career, he played clarinet and piano, recorded extensively, Shilkret was a child prodigy, touring the country with the New York Boys Orchestra from the ages of seven to thirteen as their clarinet soloist. He was also a rehearsal pianist for Walter Damrosch, playing for stars that included dancer Isadora Duncan and he joined the Foreign Department of the Victor Talking Machine Company around 1915, and soon was made manager of the department. In 1926 he became director of music for Victor. He made thousands of recordings, possibly more than anyone in recording history and his son Arthur estimated the sales of these records was of the order of 50 million copies. He was the conductor of choice for many of Victors innovative recordings, the premiere recording of George Gershwins symphonic poem An American in Paris, in 1929, was one of five conducted by Shilkret that eventually earned Grammy Awards. Between his conducting for records and for radio, virtually every musical star of the day performed under the baton of Nathaniel Shilkret and his orchestra members included Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Mike Mosiello and Del Staigers. George Gershwin, Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Elman and Andrés Segovia all played under his direction, the lists of popular singers and foreign artists that played under his direction are just as impressive. He composed and arranged thousands of pieces and he composed the theme song Lady Divine for the Academy Award winning film The Divine Lady in 1929. He also composed the theme song Some Sweet Day for the film Children of the Ritz in the same year and his Concerto for Trombone was premiered in 1945 by Tommy Dorsey, playing with the New York Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. The piece was unavailable to the public from the mid-1950s until Scottish trombonist Bryan Free rescued it from anonymity in the beginning of the 21st century and it was re-premiered at Carnegie Hall by the New York Pops, under the direction of Skitch Henderson, with Jim Pugh as soloist. Since its revival, the Concerto for Trombone has been performed about sixty times in the United States, Canada, Shilkret left RCA Victor in mid-1935, but continued to record occasionally for the company. His last recording released on the Victor label was the American Banjo Album recorded in October 1946 and this album was reissued shortly after the Victor issue as one side of an LP under the Aztec label. Shilkret moved to Los Angeles in late 1935 and there contributed music scores and musical direction for a string of Hollywood films for RKO, Walter Lantz Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His films included Mary of Scotland, Swing Time, The Plough and the Stars and he also received an Oscar nomination for his work scoring the film version of Maxwell Andersons stage drama Winterset. Due to an abdominal operation for cancer removal, he did not conduct for most of 1941
27.
Red Nichols
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Ernest Loring Red Nichols was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader. Nichols was born on May 8,1905 in Ogden, Utah and his father was a college music professor, and Nichols was a child prodigy, because by twelve he was already playing difficult set pieces for his fathers brass band. Young Nichols heard the recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and later those of Bix Beiderbecke. His style became polished, clean and incisive, in the early 1920s, Nichols moved to the Midwest and joined a band called The Syncopating Seven. When that band broke up he joined the Johnny Johnson Orchestra, New York would remain his base for years thereafter. In New York he met and teamed up with trombonist Miff Mole, prior to signing with Brunswick, Nichols and Mole recorded a series of records for Pathé-Perfect under the name The Red Heads. Nichols had good technique, could read music, and easily gained session, in 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording with a variety of bands, most of them known as Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. Very few of these groups were actually quintets, the name was simply a pun on Nickel and that was only a number we tied in with my name, Nichols once explained. Wed generally have eight or nine, depending on who was around for the session, Nichols recorded over 100 sides for the Brunswick label under that band name. During some weeks in this period, Nichols and his bands were recording 10 to 12 records and his recordings of the late 1920s are regarded as the most progressive jazz of the period in both concept and execution, with wide-ranging harmonies and a balanced ensemble. However, they were small-band Dixieland groups, emphasizing collective improvisation and they were different from Louis Armstrongs Hot Fives of that period. Nichols band started out with Mole on trombone and Jimmy Dorsey on alto sax and clarinet. Other musicians who played for a time in his bands in the decade were Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang. The Five Pennies version of Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider was a hit record. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. Other labels Nichols recorded for included Edison 1926, Victor 1927,1928,1930,1931, Bluebird 1934,1939, back to Brunswick for a session in 1934, Variety 1937, in the next decade, swing eclipsed the Dixieland Nichols loved to play. He tried to follow the changes, and formed a band of his own. Michael Brooks writes, What went wrong, part of it was too much, too soon
28.
Ted Lewis (musician)
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Theodore Leopold Friedman, known as Ted Lewis, was an American entertainer, bandleader, singer, and musician. He fronted a band and touring show that presented a combination of jazz, comedy. He was known by the moniker Mr. Entertainment or Ted Is Everybody Happy, Lewis died of lung failure in August 1971. Born in Circleville, Ohio, Lewis was one of the first Northern musicians to start imitating the New Orleans jazz musicians who came up to New York in the teens. He first recorded in 1917 with Earl Fullers Jazz Band, who were making an energetic if somewhat clumsy attempt to copy the sound of the citys newest sensation, at the time, Lewis did not seem to be able to do much on the clarinet other than trill. He improved a bit later, forming his style from the influences of the first New Orleans clarinetists to reside in New York, Larry Shields, Alcide Nunez, and Achille Baquet. By 1919, Lewis was leading his own band, and had a contract with Columbia Records. For a time Columbia gave him a record label featuring his picture. At the start of the 1920s, he was considered by people without previous knowledge of jazz to be one of the leading lights of hot jazz. Lewis actually could play normally well, for years, his band also included jazz greats Muggsy Spanier on trumpet and George Brunies on trombone. Lewis recorded for Columbia from 1919–1933 and he was on Decca 1934 into the 1940s. In 1932, Lewis recorded In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town and it was released on a 78 and reached number one on the charts where it stayed for 10 weeks. Through it all he retained his famous catchphrase Is everybody happy, Lewis adopted a battered top hat for sentimental, hard-luck tunes. Frequently he would stray from song lyrics, improvising chatter around them and this gave the effect of Lewis speaking the song spontaneously, When ma baby. When ma baby smiles at me, gee, what a wonderful, wonderful light that comes to her eyes. Lewis and his band appeared in a few early-talkie movie musicals in 1929, the first of several films titled with Lewis catchphrase, Is Everybody Happy. Also premiered in 1929, while 1935 saw Lewis and his band performing several numbers in the film Here Comes the Band, musical numbers cut from the feature were released by Universal separately on September 3,1941, in a short subject entitled Is Everybody Happy. There is a caricature of Lewis in the Warner Brothers short Speaking of the Weather, playing Plenty of Money
29.
Isham Jones
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Isham Edgar Jones was an American bandleader, saxophonist, bassist and songwriter. Jones was born in Coalton, Ohio, to a musical and mining family, and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1911 one of Joness earliest compositions On the Alamo was published by Tell Taylor Inc. In 1915 Jones moved to Chicago, Illinois and he performed at the Green Mill Gardens, then began playing at Fred Manns Rainbo Gardens. Chicago remained his home until 1932, when he settled in New York City and he also toured England with his orchestra in 1925. In 1917, he composed the tune Were In The Army Now when United States entered the World War I, the same tune has been popular well again during the World War II and its played even by US Army Band. The Isham Jones band made a series of gramophone records for Brunswick throughout the 1920s. His first 26 sides, made at Rainbo Gardens, were credited to Isham Jones Rainbo Orchestra, by the end of 1920, the name was simply Isham Jones Orchestra. He led one of the most popular bands in the 1920s and 1930s. His first successful recording, Wabash Blues written by Dave Ringle and Fred Meinken, was recorded in 1921 by Isham Jones and this million-seller stayed for twelve weeks in the U. S. charts, six at No.1. It was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA, noted musicians who played in Joness band included Louis Panico, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Walt Yoder, and Roy Bargy. Reed virtuoso Al Gallodoro appeared briefly with Jones in 1933, taking part in a record date October 3, Jones was reportedly a strict taskmaster and was known for being rather cold and distant. From the start, his Brunswick records were popular, there was a gap from October 1927 to June 1929 where Jones did not record due to disbanding and reorganization. From 1929 to 1932, his Brunswick recordings became more sophisticated with offbeat arrangements by Gordon Jenkins and others, Jones was his own arranger early on. During this period, Jones started featuring violinist Eddie Stone as one of his regular vocalists, Stone had an unusual, almost humorous tone to his voice. His other vocalists included Frank Sylvano, Billy Scott, and Arthur Jarrett, in 1932, he added Joe Martin, another of the bands violinists, as a frequent vocalist. In April that year, young Bing Crosby recorded two sessions with Joness group which included Sweet Georgia Brown, Crosby at this point in his career was still singing in a jazz idiom, transitioning to his better known crooner style. In August 1932, Jones signed with Victor, and these records are considered among the best arranged and performed commercial dance records of the Depression era. Victors recording technique was suited to Jones band, in October 1932, he teamed up with the Three X Sisters in New York who had just departed from CBS radio
30.
Brunswick Records
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Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916. The company first began producing phonographs in 1916, then began marketing their own line of records as an after-thought and these first Brunswick records used the vertical cut system like Edison Disc Records, and were not sold in large numbers. They were recorded in the US but sold only in Canada, in January 1920, a new line of Brunswick Records was introduced in the US and Canada that employed the lateral cut system which was becoming the default cut for 78 discs. Brunswick started its standard popular series at 2000 and ended up in 1940 at 8517, however, when the series reached 4999, they skipped over the previous allocated 5000s and continued at 6000. Also, when they reached 6999, they continued at 7301, the parent company marketed them extensively, and within a few years Brunswick became one of the USAs Big Three record companies, along with Victor and Columbia Records. The Brunswick line of home phonographs were commercially successful, Brunswick had a hit with their Ultona phonograph capable of playing Edison Disc Records, Pathé disc records, and standard lateral 78s. In late 1924, Brunswick acquired the Vocalion Records label, audio fidelity of early-1920s, acoustically-recorded Brunswick discs is above average for the era. They were pressed into good quality shellac, although not as durable as that used by Victor, in the spring of 1925 Brunswick introduced its own version of electrical recording using photoelectric cells, which Brunswick called the light-ray process. Then based in Chicago, many of the citys best orchestras, the labels jazz roster included Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Andy Kirk, and Red Nichols. Brunswick initiated a 7000 race series as well as the Vocalion 1000 race series and these race records series recorded hot jazz, urban and rural blues, and gospel. Brunswick also had a successful business supplying radio with sponsored transcriptions of popular music, comedy. Few orchestra records were approved for issue and those that did appear on the often combined excellent performances with execrable sound. Brunswick found it expedient and ultimately cheaper to contract with European companies to fill their electrical classical catalogue, some of these recordings have been reissued on CD. Brunswick itself switched to a conventional microphone recording process in 1927. Prior to this, however, they had introduced the Brunswick Panatrope and this phonograph met with critical acclaim, and composer Ottorino Respighi selected the Brunswick Panatrope to play a recording of bird songs in his composition The Pines of Rome. Jack Kapp became the company executive of Brunswick in 1930. In April 1930, Brunswick-Balke-Collender sold Brunswick Records to Warner Bros. Warner Bros. hoped to make their own soundtrack recordings for their sound-on-disc Vitaphone system. A number of interesting recordings were made by actors during this period, actors who made recordings included Noah Beery, Charles King, and J. Harold Murray
31.
Room 1411
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Room 1411 is a 1928 instrumental composed by Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman and released as a Brunswick 78 by Bennie Goodmans Boys. Room 1411, also known as Goin To Town, Pieza 1411 in Spanish on the label, was composed with Benny Goodman in 1928 when Glenn Miller was part of Bennie Goodmans Boys. The instrumental was recorded on June 23,1928 in Chicago, Illinois and was released as a 78,4013, on Brunswick, the instrumental, Matrix # E27639=C, was described as a shimmy one-step on the original Brunswick 78 label as released in 1928. The band continued to record in 1928 and 1929, tommy Dorsey on trombone and Wingy Manone on trumpet were also members of the group on other sessions. Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman lived in the suite at the time in the apartments in The Whitby in New York whose number was 1411. The title of the composition derives from the apartment number and we all moved into that, practically the whole band. The number of that apartment was 1411, and that is how that title came up, Room 1411, by Benny Goodmans Boys. Benny Goodman played baritone saxophone on the more straight-ahead Chicago-style Room 1411, Room 1411 is Glenn Millers first known composition. Two versions or takes of the instrumental were released, the song was featured on a 1943 album consisting of four 10 shellac 78s which was reviewed in the September 18,1943 issue of Billboard magazine. The recording was reissued in 1950 as part of the Brunswick Collectors Series as Brunswick 80029A, the recording was released on the 1950 Brunswick LP, BL-58015, Chicago Jazz Classics by Benny Goodman & His Boys. The instrumental was released as part of a 745 RPM EP on Brunswick Records as EB-71016 on 1953. The jazz group Chicago Rhythm with Butch Thompson recorded the song in 1983 on their album One in a Million, Vol.2, on Stomp Off Records, SOS1059. The instrumental was performed by the Ballyhoo Foxtrot Orchestra at the 2011 Glenn Miller Festival in Des Moines, Iowa and in 2012 by the Original Swingtime Big Band in concert in Vienna, Austria. Paul McCartney owns the rights to the song through MPL Communications which administers the rights to the song. The publisher of the song is Edwin H. Morris and Company, Swing, Swing, Swing, The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. Hear Me Talkin to Ya, The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It, New York, Rinehart and Company,1955. The 1928 recording is available online on the Red Hot Jazz website,1928 Brunswick 78 recording on the Jazz Anthology website. Archive. org, Benny Goodmans Boys, Room 1411
32.
Charlie Chaplin
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Sir Charles Spencer Charlie Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame during the era of silent film. Chaplin became an icon through his screen persona the Tramp and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, Chaplins childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. As his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine, when he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor. At 19, he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, Chaplin was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a fan base. Chaplin directed his own films from a stage and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual. By 1918, he was one of the figures in the world. In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, which gave him control over his films. His first feature-length was The Kid, followed by A Woman of Paris, The Gold Rush and he refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights and Modern Times without dialogue. Chaplin became increasingly political, and his film, The Great Dictator. The 1940s were a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and he was accused of communist sympathies, while his involvement in a paternity suit and marriages to much younger women caused scandal. An FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the United States and he abandoned the Tramp in his later films, which include Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight, A King in New York, and A Countess from Hong Kong. Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in and he was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. His films are characterised by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramps struggles against adversity, many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. In 1972, as part of an appreciation for his work. He continues to be held in regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times
33.
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
34.
RCA Victor
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
35.
Jack Teagarden
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Weldon Leo Jack Teagarden, was a jazz trombonist and singer. Born in Vernon, Texas, his brothers Charlie and Clois Cub and his father was an amateur brass band trumpeter and started him on baritone horn, by age seven he had switched to trombone. His first public performances were in theaters, where he accompanied his mother. Teagardens trombone style was largely self-taught, and he developed many unusual alternative positions, chief among his contributions to the language of jazz trombonists was his ability to interject the blues or merely a blue feeling into virtually any piece of music. By 1920 Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, including with the band of pianist Peck Kelley, in the mid-1920s he started traveling widely around the United States in a quick succession of different bands. In 1927, he went to New York City where he worked with several bands, by 1928 he played for the Ben Pollack band. Within a year of the commencement of his career, he became a regular vocalist, first doing blues material. He is often mentioned as one of the best jazz vocalists of the era, his style is like his trombone playing. His singing is best remembered for duets with Louis Armstrong and Johnny Mercer, in the early 1930s Teagarden was based in Chicago, for some time playing with the band of Wingy Manone. He played at the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago, Teagarden sought financial security during the Great Depression and signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1933 through 1938. The contract with Whitemans band provided him financial security but prevented him from playing an active part in the musical advances of the mid-thirties swing era. Teagarden then started leading his own big band, in 1946 Teagarden joined Louis Armstrongs All Stars. In late 1951 Teagarden left to lead his own band, then co-led a band with Earl Hines. Teagarden appeared in the movies Birth of the Blues, The Strip, The Glass Wall, and Jazz on a Summers Day and he recorded for RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca, Capitol, and MGM Records. As a jazz artist he won the 1944 Esquire magazine Gold Award, was rated in the Metronome polls of 1937-42 and 1945. Teagarden was the performer at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1957. In 1969, Jack Teagarden was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame and he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985. Other honors have included induction in the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame in 2005 and inclusion in the Houston Institute for Cultures Texas Music Hall of Fame
36.
Joe Sullivan
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Michael Joseph Joe OSullivan was an American jazz pianist. Sullivan was the child of Irish immigrant parents. He studied classical piano for 12 years and at age 17 and he graduated from the Chicago Conservatory and was an important contributor to the Chicago jazz scene of the 1920s. Sullivans recording career began towards the end of 1927 when he joined McKenzie, other musicians in his circle included Jimmy McPartland, Frank Teschemacher, Bud Freeman, Jim Lanigan and Gene Krupa. In 1933, he joined Bing Crosby as his accompanist, recording and making radio broadcasts. After suffering for two years with tuberculosis, he briefly rejoined Bing Crosby in 1938 and the Bob Crosby Orchestra in 1939, by the 1950s, Sullivan was largely forgotten, playing solo in San Francisco. Marital difficulties and excessive drinking caused Sullivan to become unreliable and unable to keep a steady job. The British poet Roy Fisher celebrated Sullivans playing with a poem, The Thing About Joe Sullivan, Fisher also used that title for a book of his selected poems, because he felt Sullivan was a neglected master who deserved to have his name on the cover of a book
37.
Dick McDonough
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Richard Dick McDonough was an American jazz guitarist and banjoist. He was best known for his duets with guitarist Carl Kress, McDonough began playing banjo and mandolin in high school. An athlete, he played left-handed because, according to McDonough, at Georgetown University, he performed professionally at weekend dances and two years later started a band. He attended Columbia Law School after college and while there played with bands in New York City, McDonough played with Red Nichols in 1927 as a banjoist, and soon after played with Paul Whiteman. He began studying the guitar, and eventually was in demand for work, recording with the Dorsey Brothers, Red Nichols. In the 1930s, he performed in a duo with jazz guitarist Carl Kress and he played in the Jam Session at Victor with Fats Waller, Tommy Dorsey, Bunny Berigan, and George Wettling. McDonough was an alcoholic, and died as a result of this in 1938, Dick McDonough & His Orchestra, Vol.1 Dick McDonough & His Orchestra, Vol.2 Eddie Lang, Carl Kress, and Dick McDonough
38.
Arthur Schutt
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Arthur Schutt was an American jazz pianist and arranger. Schutt learned piano from his father, and accompanied silent films as a teenager in the 1910s. He was playing in a palace in 1918 when Paul Specht hired him to play in a band, he worked for Specht until 1924. He held positions with Roger Wolfe Kahn and Don Voorhees, and became a studio pianist, recording with Fred Rich, Nat Shilkret, Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke. From 1926-29 and again in 1931 he played with Red Nichols, he recorded with Jimmy and Tommy Dorseys orchestra. He recorded under his own name in 1929-30 as a bandleader, Schutt receded from jazz in the 1930s, though he did play with Bud Freeman in 1939. He spent much of the 1940s and 1950s working in the Hollywood recording studios, Schutt composed a jazz tune Delirium in 1927, which was widely recorded and enjoyed a fair amount of popularity. In 1934, Schutt co-wrote Georgia Jubilee with Benny Goodman which, Schutt also composed the ragtime piano novelty piece Bluin the Black Keys, considered one of the most difficult traditional, period rags ever written. List of ragtime composers Scott Yanow, Arthur Schutt at Allmusic
39.
Gene Krupa
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Eugene Bertram Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer, band leader, actor, and composer. Known for his energetic, flamboyant style and for his showmanship, Krupa is considered one of the most influential drummers of all time. He is also known for defining the standard drum kit used today in collaboration with brands Slingerland, Krupa is considered the founding father of modern drumset by Modern Drummer magazine. Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna, Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, also of Polish descent and his parents were very religious Roman Catholics and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his school days at various parochial schools. Upon graduation he attended Saint Josephs College for a year, Krupa studied with Sanford A. Moeller and began playing drums professionally in the mid-1920s with bands in Wisconsin. The Playboys were the band at The Golden Pumpkin nightclub in Chicago. Krupa made his first recordings in 1927, with a band under the leadership of Red McKenzie, along with other recordings by musicians from the Chicago jazz scene such as Bix Beiderbecke, these recordings are examples of Chicago style jazz. The numbers recorded at that session were China Boy, Sugar, Nobodys Sweetheart, the McKenzie-Condon recordings are notable for being early examples of the use of a bass drum and snare drum/cymbals on recordings, at least for the studio where these recordings were made. Some of Krupas big influences during this time were Father Ildefonse Rapp, later, there were cylinder recordings of African drumming that Gene intensely studied. Drummers such as Tubby Hall, Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds contributed to Genes developing his own sound, Gene absorbed every bit of what he heard and formulated his own style very early in his career, pulling from hundreds of different sources. There were many other drummers whose work influenced Genes approach to drumming and other instrumentalists, Krupa also appeared on six recordings made by the Thelma Terry band in 1928. In December 1934, he joined Benny Goodmans band, where his featured drum work made him a national celebrity and his tom-tom interludes on their hit Sing, Sing, Sing were the first extended drum solos to be recorded commercially. However, artistic and personal disputes with Goodman prompted Krupa to leave the group and form his own orchestra, shortly after the famous Carnegie Hall concert in January 1938. He appeared in the 1941 film Ball of Fire, in which he and his band perform a version of the hit Drum Boogie, sung by Barbara Stanwyck. As an encore to this piece, he plays a version of the same song using matchsticks as drumsticks and a matchbox as a drum, while Stanwyck. In 1943, his arrest for possession of marijuana forced the breakup of his own orchestra, as the 1940s ended, large orchestras fell by the wayside, Count Basie closed his large band and Woody Herman reduced his to an octet
40.
Teddy Wilson
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Theodore Shaw Teddy Wilson was an American jazz pianist. With Goodman, he was one of the first black musicians to appear prominently with white musicians, in addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the 1980s. Wilson was born in Austin, Texas, on November 24,1912 and he studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in Speed Webbs band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hiness Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, in 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio. The trio performed during the big bands intermissions, by joining the trio, Wilson became one of the first black musicians to perform prominently in a racially integrated group. He recorded fifty hit records with singers such as Lena Horne, Helen Ward and Billie Holiday. Wilson formed his own short-lived big band in 1939, then led a sextet at Café Society from 1940 to 1944, in the 1950s, Wilson taught at the Juilliard School. Wilson can be seen appearing as himself in the 1955 motion picture The Benny Goodman Story and he also worked as music director for the Dick Cavett Show. Wilson lived quietly in suburban Hillsdale, New Jersey and he was married three times, including to the songwriter Irene Kitchings. He performed as a soloist and with pick-up groups until the years of his life, including leading a trio with his sons Theodore Wilson on bass. Wilson died in New Britain, Connecticut, on July 31,1986 and he is buried at Fairview Cemetery in New Britain. In addition to Theodore and Steven, Wilson had three children, William, James and Dune and three grandchildren, James II, Olivia and Liam Wilson
41.
Coleman Hawkins
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Coleman Randolph Hawkins, nicknamed Hawk and sometimes Bean, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained, there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn. While Hawkins is strongly associated with the music and big band era. Fellow saxophonist Lester Young, known as Pres, commented in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review, As far as Im concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, as far as myself, I think Im the second one. Miles Davis once said, When I heard Hawk, I learned to play ballads, Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1904. He was named Coleman after his mother Cordelias maiden name and he attended high school in Chicago, then in Topeka, Kansas at Topeka High School. He later stated that he studied harmony and composition for two years at Washburn College in Topeka while still attending high school. In his youth he played piano and cello, and started playing saxophone at the age of nine, by the age of fourteen he was playing around eastern Kansas. Hawkinss first major gig was with Mamie Smiths Jazz Hounds in 1921, and he was with the band full-time from April 1922 to 1923, in the Jazz Hounds, he coincided with Garvin Bushell, Everett Robbins, Bubber Miley and Herb Flemming, among others. Hawkins joined Fletcher Hendersons Orchestra, where he remained until 1934, sometimes doubling on clarinet, Hawkinss playing changed significantly during Louis Armstrongs tenure with the Henderson Orchestra. In the late 1920s, Hawkins also participated in some of the earliest interracial recording sessions with the Mound City Blue Blowers, during his time with Henderson he became a star soloist with increasing prominence on records. He was also featured on a Benny Goodman session on February 2,1934 for Columbia, which also featured Mildred Bailey as guest vocalist. In a landmark recording of the era, captured as an afterthought at the session, Hawkins ignores almost all of the melody. In its exploration of harmonic structure it is considered by many to be the next step in jazz recording after Louis Armstrongs West End Blues in 1928. Hawkins time touring Europe between 1934 and 1939 allowed many other tenor saxophonists to establish themselves back in the U. S. including Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Chu Berry. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a big band, he led a combo at Kellys Stables on Manhattans 52nd Street with Thelonious Monk, Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis, later he toured with Howard McGhee and recorded with J. J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. He also toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic, after 1948 Hawkins divided his time between New York and Europe, making numerous freelance recordings. In 1948 Hawkins recorded Picasso, a piece for unaccompanied saxophone
42.
Mildred Bailey
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Mildred Rinker Bailey was a popular and influential American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as The Queen of Swing, The Rockin Chair Lady and Mrs. Swing. Some of her hits are Its So Peaceful in the Country, Trust in Me. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart, Small Fry, Please Be Kind, Darn That Dream, Rockin Chair, Blame It on My Last Affair, Bailey was born Mildred Rinker in Tekoa, Washington. Her mother, Josephine, was an member of the Coeur dAlene Tribe. Her father, Charles, played fiddle and called square dances and her mother played piano every evening after supper and taught Mildred to play and sing. Her brothers were the vocalist and composer Al Rinker and the lyricist Charles Rinker, at seventeen, Bailey moved to Seattle and worked as a sheet music demonstrator at Woolworths. She married and divorced Ted Bailey, keeping his last name because she thought it sounded more American than Rinker, with the help of her second husband, Benny Stafford, she became an established blues and jazz singer on the West Coast. According to Gary Giddins, in his book Bing Crosby, A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years 1903–1940, in 1925 she secured work for her brother, Al Rinker, and his partner, Bing Crosby. Giddins further states that Crosby first heard of Louis Armstrong and other Chicago black jazz records from Baileys collection, Crosby helped Bailey in turn by introducing her to Paul Whiteman. She sang with Whitemans band from 1929 to 1933 and her first two records were as uncredited vocalist for a session by the Eddie Lang Orchestra in 1929 and a 1930 recording of I Like to Do Things for You for Frankie Trumbauer. She was Whitemans popular female vocalist through 1932, when she left the band over salary disagreements and she then recorded a series of records for Brunswick in 1933 and an all-star session with Benny Goodmans studio band in 1934, featuring Coleman Hawkins. In the mid-1930s, she recorded with her husband, Red Norvo. A dynamic couple, they earned the nicknames Mr. and Mrs. Swing, from 1936 to 1939 Norvo recorded for Brunswick and Bailey made her own recordings for Vocalion, often with Norvos band. Some of her recordings instead featured members of Count Basies band, despite their divorce, the two continue to record together off and on until 1945. She also sang on a number of Benny Goodmans Columbia recordings in 1939 and 1940, a large woman, she suffered from diabetes and depression. She only made a few recordings following World War II, Bailey died of heart failure, due chiefly to diabetes, on December 12,1951, in Poughkeepsie, New York, aged 44. Norvo outlived Bailey by nearly half a century, dying in April 1999, in 1989, Bailey was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1938, Bailey had two number one hits with Red Norvo and his Orchestra, Please Be Kind reached number one on the Hit Parade chart on May 7
43.
Billie Holiday
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Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a influence on jazz music. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and she was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. There were other singers with equal talent, but Holiday had a voice that captured the attention of her audience. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond and she signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit What a Little Moonlight Can Do, Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia Records and Decca Records. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles, after a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction to her voice but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958, Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. A posthumous album, Last Recording, was released following her death, much of Holidays material has been rereleased since her death. She is considered a performer with an ongoing influence on American music. She is the recipient of four Grammy awards, all of them posthumous awards for Best Historical Album, Holiday herself was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film about her life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972, Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7,1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of Sarah Julia Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday, an unmarried teenaged couple. Her father did not live with her mother, not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, the child was of African-American ancestry and was also said to have had Irish ancestors through her mothers mixed heritage. Her mother often took what were known as transportation jobs. Holidays autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, some historians have disputed Holidays paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists the father as a man named Frank DeViese
44.
NBC
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The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is part of the Big Three television networks, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electrics remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBC Universal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke, during a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had an outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&Ts manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&Ts telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, the 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its network were incompatible with the companys primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&Ts phone lines for network transmission, the divisions ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15,1926, WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On April 5,1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network and this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network, also known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18,1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network, initially, the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. The Orange Network name was removed from use in 1936, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations, in 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building designed by architect Floyd Brown
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