1.
Greenville, North Carolina
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Greenville is the county seat of Pitt County, principal city of the Greenville metropolitan area, and the 10th largest city in the state of North Carolina. Greenville is the health, entertainment, and educational hub of North Carolinas Tidewater, the citys official population as of the 2013 United States census estimate is 89,130 residents while the Greenville Metropolitan Area includes 174,263 people. In January 2008 and January 2010, Greenville was named one of the nations 100 Best Communities for Young People by the Americas Promise Alliance, in June 2012, Greenville was ranked in the top ten of the nations Best Small Places For Business And Careers by Forbes Magazine. In 2010 Greenville was ranked twenty-fourth in mid-city business growth and development by Forbes Magazine, the city is also known as BMX Pro Town USA, as it is home for many top professional BMX riders. The city has the fifth-highest percentage of residents in North Carolina – almost 30 percent – who have obtained bachelors degrees, Greenville was founded in 1771 as Martinsborough, after the Royal Governor Josiah Martin. In 1774 the town was moved to its present location on the bank of the Tar River. In 1786, the name was changed to Greenesville in honor of General Nathanael Greene and it was later shortened to Greenville. During Greenvilles early years, the Tar River was a navigable waterway, cotton was the leading agricultural crop, and Greenville became a major cotton export center. Before the turn of the century, however, tobacco surpassed cotton, Greenville became one of the states leading tobacco marketing and warehouse centers. By the mid 1960s, East Carolina College had become the third-largest state-supported college, in 1967, it became East Carolina University. ECU Medical School admitted its first four-year class in 1977, at the turn of the century, enrollment at ECU topped the 18,000 mark, and now exceeds 27,500 students. Greenvilles current economic development began in 1968 when Burroughs Wellcome, a pharmaceutical research and manufacturing firm. The site is now owned by Patheon, which employs approximately 1,200 people, the city and Pitt County have also become home to many other major industries and businesses including Harper Brush, NACCO Materials Handling Group, Grady-White Boats, and ASMO. Greenville is also home to The HammockSource, the worlds largest hammock manufacturer, in September 1999, Hurricane Floyd made landfall in eastern North Carolina, dropping nearly 17 inches of rain during the hours of its passage. Many residents were not aware of the flooding until the water came into their homes, most localized flooding happened overnight, and the Tar River suffered the worst flooding, exceeding 500-year flood levels along its lower stretches. An additional 20+ inches of rain had fallen prior in the month from the two passes of Hurricane Dennis, damages in Pitt County alone were estimated at $1.6 billion. Some residents in Greenville had to six feet underwater to reach the front doors of their homes. Due to the flooding in downtown Greenville, the East Carolina Pirates were forced to relocate their football game against #9 Miami to N. C
2.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
3.
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
4.
Charlie Parker
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Charles Charlie Parker, Jr. also known as Yardbird and Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Parker was an influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso, and he introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords and his tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Parker acquired the nickname Yardbird early in his career, Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer. Charles Parker, Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the child of Charles Parker and Adelaide Addie. He attended Lincoln High School in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his schools band using a rented school instrument. His father, Charles, was absent but provided some musical influence, he was a pianist. He later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways, Parkers mother Addie worked nights at the local Western Union office. His biggest influence at that time was a trombone player who taught him the basics of improvisation. In the late 1930s Parker began to practice diligently, during this period he mastered improvisation and developed some of the ideas that led to bebop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, he said that he spent three to four years practicing up to 15 hours a day, bands led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten certainly influenced Parker. In 1937, Parker played at a jam session at the Reno Club in Kansas City and his attempt to improvise failed when he lost track of the chord changes. This prompted Jo Jones, the drummer for Count Basies Orchestra, in 1938 Parker joined pianist Jay McShanns territory band. The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago, Parker made his professional recording debut with McShanns band. As a teenager, Parker developed a morphine addiction while hospitalized after an automobile accident and he continued using heroin throughout his life, and it ultimately contributed to his death. In 1939 Parker moved to New York City, to pursue a career in music and he held several other jobs as well. He worked for nine dollars a week as a dishwasher at Jimmies Chicken Shack, in 1942 Parker left McShanns band and played for one year with Earl Hines, whose band included Dizzy Gillespie, who later played with Parker as a duo. This period is virtually undocumented, due to the strike of 1942–1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, Parker joined a group of young musicians, and played in after-hours clubs in Harlem, such as [[Clark Monroes Uptown House
5.
Dizzy Gillespie
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John Birks Dizzy Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer. AllMusics Scott Yanow wrote, Dizzy Gillespies contributions to jazz were huge, Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks. In the 1940s Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a figure in the development of bebop. He taught and influenced other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione. Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children of James, James was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to the children. Gillespie started to play the piano at the age of four, Gillespies father died when he was only ten years old. Gillespie taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve, from the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, play on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. He received a scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina which he attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to Philadelphia. Teddy Hills band was where Gillespie made his first recording, King Porter Stomp, Willis was not immediately friendly but Gillespie was attracted anyway. The two finally married on May 9,1940 and they remained married until his death in 1993. Gillespie stayed with Teddy Hills band for a year, then left, in 1939, Gillespie joined Cab Calloways orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental Pickin the Cabbage, in 1940. After a notorious altercation between the two men, Calloway fired Gillespie in late 1941, the incident is recounted by Gillespie, along with fellow Calloway band members Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones, in Jean Bachs 1997 film, The Spitball Story. Calloway did not approve of Gillespies mischievous humor, nor of his approach to soloing, according to Jones. Finally, their grudge for each other erupted over a thrown spitball, Calloway never thought highly of Gillespie, because he didnt view Gillespie as a good musician. Once during a rehearsal, a member of the band threw a spitball, already in a foul mood, Calloway decided to blame this on Gillespie. In order to clear his name, Gillespie didn’t take the blame, Calloway had minor cuts on the thigh and wrist. After the two men were separated, Calloway fired Gillespie, a few days later, Gillespie tried to apologize to Calloway, but he was dismissed
6.
Miles Davis
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Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz, with his ever-changing directions in music, Davis was at the forefront of a number of major stylistic developments in jazz over his five-decade career. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records, after a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the 1957 album Round About Midnight. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers and his million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genres commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26,1926 into an affluent middle class African-American family in Alton, Illinois,15 miles north of St. Louis. The second of three children, he had a sister, Dorothy Mae, and a younger brother. His father, Miles Dewey Davis II of Arkansas, was a dental surgeon who earned three college degrees, and his mother Cleota Mae Davis, also of Arkansas, was a music teacher. They owned a 200-acre estate near Pine Bluff, Arkansas where Davis and his siblings would ride horses, fish, and hunt. In 1927, the moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. From 1932 to 1934, Davis attended John Robinson Elementary School, an institution, followed by Crispus Attucks School where he performed well in mathematics, music. It was in East St. Louis and Pine Bluff that the young Davis developed his earliest appreciation for music, Davis later suggested that his fathers instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpets sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato, Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a voice with not too much tremolo. If I cant get that sound I cant play anything, in 1939, the family moved to 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis. For his 13th birthday held that year, Davis father bought his son a new trumpet, around this time, Davis took additional trumpet lessons from Joseph Gustat, first chair of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. In 1941, the 15-year-old Davis began at East St. Louis Lincoln High School where he joined the marching band directed by Buchanan. Davis claimed the contests he did not win was largely down to prejudice over his race and it was at Lincoln High where Davis met his first girlfriend, Irene Cawthorn. Davis had formed his own group by this time, performing in local venues such as Huffs Beer Garden with hits such as In the Mood by Glenn Miller
7.
Herbie Mann
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Herbert Jay Solomon, known by his stage name Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flautist and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he played tenor saxophone and clarinet. His most popular single was Hijack, which was a Billboard No.1 dance hit for three weeks in 1975, Mann emphasized the groove approach in his music. Mann felt that from his repertoire, the epitome of a record was Memphis Underground or Push Push. Herbie Mann was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents, Solomon, who was of Russian descent, and Ruth Rose Solomon, who was born in Bukovina, Austria-Hungary but immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of 6. Both of his parents were dancers and singers, as well as dance instructors later in life and he attended Lincoln High School in Brighton Beach. His first professional performance was playing the Catskills resorts at age 15, in the 1950s Mann was primarily a bop flutist, playing in combos with artists such as Phil Woods, occasionally playing bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and solo flute. Mann was a pioneer of the fusion of jazz and world music. In 1959, following a State Department sponsored tour of Africa, in 1961 Mann toured Brazil, returning to the United States to record with Brazilian musicians, including Antonio Carlos Jobim and guitarist Baden Powell. These albums helped popularize bossa nova in the US and Europe and he often worked with Brazilian themes. In the mid-1960s Mann hired a young Chick Corea to play in some of his bands, in the late 1970s and early 1980s Mann played duets at New York Citys The Bottom Line and Village Gate clubs, with Sarod virtuoso Vasant Rai. and Bernard Purdie. In this period Mann had a number of pop hits — rare for a jazz musician, according to a 1998 interview Mann had made at least 25 albums that were on the Billboard 200 pop charts, success denied most of his jazz peers. Mann provided the music for the 1978 National Film Board of Canada animated short Afterlife, in the early 1970s he founded his own label, Embryo Records, distributed by Cotillion Records, a division of Atlantic Records. He later set up Kokopelli Records after difficulty with established labels, in 1996, Mann collaborated with Stereolab on the song One Note Samba/Surfboard for the AIDS-Benefit album Red Hot + Rio produced by the Red Hot Organization. Mann also played horns on the Bee Gees album Spirits Having Flown and he died in his home in Pecos, New Mexico, leaving his wife, Susan Janeal Arison, and four children, Paul Mann, Claudia Mann, Laura Mann-Lepik and Geoffrey Mann. Bio Further discography and biography National Public Radios Jazz Profiles, Herbie Mann Herbie Mann Official Website
8.
Christian McBride
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Christian Lee McBride is an American jazz bassist. He is considered a virtuoso, and is one of the most recorded musicians of his generation and he is also a five-time Grammy award winner. McBride was born to Renee McBride in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and his father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBrides early mentors. After starting on bass guitar, McBride switched to double bass, McBride was heralded as a teen prodigy, having joined saxophonist Bobby Watsons group at the age of 17. From 17 to 22, McBride played in the bands of musicians such as Watson, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson, Milt Jackson. Johnson and Hank Jones as well as his peers such as Roy Hargrove, Benny Green, in 1996, jazz bassist Ray Brown formed a group called SuperBass built around McBride and fellow Brown protégé John Clayton. The group released two CDs, SuperBass, Live at Scullers and SuperBass 2, Live at the Blue Note, McBride was a member of Joshua Redmans Quartet in the 1990s with pianist Brad Mehldau and drummer Brian Blade. In 1995 McBride began leading his own groups after his debut CD Gettin To It was released, saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianists Charles Craig and Joey Calderazzo, and drummers Carl Allen and Greg Hutchinson are among the musicians who played in McBrides early groups. As writer Alan Leeds stated in 2003, it was one of the most intoxicating, the band released two CDs – Vertical Vision and their Live at Tonic three-CD set was released in 2006. In 1996, McBride contributed to the AIDS benefit album Offbeat, McBride primarily plays double bass, but is equally adept on the electric bass. He played bass for the collaborative project The Philadelphia Experiment, which included keyboardist Uri Caine, other projects have included tours and recordings with the Pat Metheny Trio, the Bruce Hornsby Trio, and Queen Latifah. Like Paul Chambers, McBride can solo by playing his bass arco style, in 2006, McBride was named to the position of Creative Chair for Jazz with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, taking over from Dianne Reeves. He was initially signed to a contract that was subsequently renewed for an additional two years. He was eventually succeeded by Herbie Hancock in 2010, McBride performed with Sonny Rollins and Roy Haynes at Carnegie Hall on September 18,2007, in commemoration of Rollins 50th anniversary of his first performance there. McBride was also tapped by CBS to be a producer for the tribute to Rollins on the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors broadcast, in 2008, McBride joined John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Kenny Garrett and Vinnie Colaiuta in a jazz fusion supergroup called the Five Peace Band. They released a CD in February 2009 and completed their tour in May of that year, as Brian Blade took over for Vinnie Colaiuta as drummer in Asia. In March 2016, McBride was named director of the Newport Jazz Festival, succeeding the festivals founder and artistic director. Christian is married to singer and educator Melissa Walker
9.
Nancy Wilson (jazz singer)
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Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than seventy albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, R&B, pop and soul, an actress. The title she prefers, however, is song stylist and she has received many nicknames including Sweet Nancy, The Baby, Fancy Miss Nancy and The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice. On February 20,1937, Wilson was the first of six born to Olden Wilson, an iron foundry worker, and Lillian Ryan. Wilsons father would buy records to listen to at home, at an early age Wilson heard recordings from Billy Eckstine, Nat Cole, and Jimmy Scott with Lionel Hamptons Big Band. Wilson says, The juke joint down on the block had a jukebox and there I heard Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, LaVerne Baker. Wilson became aware of her talent while singing in choirs, imitating singers as a young child. By the age of four, she knew she would become a singer. At the age of 15, while a student at West High School, the prize was an appearance on a twice-a-week television show, Skyline Melodies, which she ended up hosting. She also worked clubs on the east side and north side of Columbus, Ohio, unsure of her future as an entertainer, she entered college to pursue teaching. She spent one year at Ohios Central State College before dropping out and she auditioned and won a spot with Rusty Bryants Carolyn Club Big Band in 1956. She toured with them throughout Canada and the Midwest in 1956 to 1958, while in this group, Wilson made her first recording under Dot Records. When Wilson met Julian Cannonball Adderley, he suggested that she should move to New York City, in 1959, she relocated to New York with a goal of obtaining Cannonball’s manager John Levy as her manager and Capitol Records as her label. Within four weeks of her arrival in New York she got her first big break, the club booked Wilson on a permanent basis, she was singing four nights a week and working as a secretary for the New York Institute of Technology during the day. John Levy sent demos of Guess Who I Saw Today, Sometimes I’m Happy, Capitol Records signed her in 1960. Wilson’s debut single, Guess Who I Saw Today, was so successful that between April 1960 and July 1962 Capitol Records released five Nancy Wilson albums. Her first album, Like in Love, displayed her talent in Rhythm and Blues, Adderley suggested that she should steer away from her original pop style and gear her music toward jazz and ballads. In 1962, they collaborated, producing the album Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley, which propelled her to national prominence, between March 1964 and June 1965, four of Wilsons albums hit the Top 10 on Billboards Top LPs chart
10.
Dee Dee Bridgewater
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Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress, for 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radios syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, she was raised Catholic in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School. At the age of sixteen, she was a member of a rock and rhythmnblues trio, at 18, she studied at the Michigan State University before she went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With their jazz band, she toured the Soviet Union in 1969, the next year, she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, and after their marriage, they moved to New York City, where Cecil played in Horace Silvers band. In the early 1970s, Bridgewater joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra as the lead vocalist and she performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1973. In 1974, her first own album, entitled Afro Blue, appeared, for her role as Glinda the Good Witch she won a Tony Award in 1975 as best featured actress, and the musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. She subsequently appeared in other stage productions. After touring France in 1984 with the musical Sophisticated Ladies, she moved to Paris in 1986. The same year saw her in Lady Day as Billie Holiday, for which role she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, she returned from the world of musical to jazz. Performed also at the San Francisco Jazz Festival and her 1997 tribute album Dear Ella won her the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and the 1998 album Live at Yoshis was also worth a Grammy nomination. Performed again at the Monterey Jazz Festival and she has also explored on This Is New the songs of Kurt Weill, and, on her next album Jai deux amours, the French Classics. Her album Red Earth, released in 2007, features Africa-inspired themes, performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. On December 8,2007 she performed with the Terence Blanchard Quintet at the prestigious John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and she tours frequently, including overseas gigs around the world. October 16,2009 found her opening the Shanghai JZ Jazz Festival, in which she sang tunes associated with Ella Fitzgerald, along with Ellington compositions, Bridgewater is mother to three children, Tulani Bridgewater, China Moses and Gabriel Durand. Her eldest daughter, Tulani Bridgewater, attended the Mirman School for Gifted Children in Los Angeles and she went on to graduate from the Ecole Active Bilingue in Paris, France at age 16, going on to graduate from Vassar College. She serves as Bridgewaters manager and runs Bridgewaters production company and record label, daughter China Moses is an accomplished singer and MTV VJ
11.
Cyrus Chestnut
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Cyrus Chestnut is an American jazz pianist, composer and producer. In 2006, Josh Tyrangiel, music critic for Time, wrote, What makes Chestnut the best jazz pianist of his generation is a willingness to abandon notes and play space. Chestnut enjoys mixing styles and resists being typecast in any one niche, Cyrus Chestnut was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1963, son of McDonald and Flossie. Chestnut started learning piano at the age of seven, and in his boyhood played at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, by the age of nine, he was studying classical music at the Peabody Institute. In 1985, Chestnut earned a degree in composition and arranging from Bostons Berklee College of Music. While at Berklee, Chestnut was awarded the Eubie Blake Fellowship, the Quincy Jones Scholarship, Chestnut toured as pianist for Jon Hendricks, 1986–88, Terrence Blanchard, 1988–90, Donald Harrison, 1988–90, Wynton Marsalis,1991, and the Betty Carter Trio, 1991-93. His association with Carter significantly affected his outlook and approach to music, Carter advised him to take chances and play things Ive never heard, Chestnut said. In 1993, at the age of 30, Chestnut signed with Atlantic Records, releasing the critically acclaimed Revelation, followed by The Dark Before The Dawn, Earth Stories and then Cyrus Chestnut. Their shared church roots resulted in such a chemistry between Battle and Chestnut that he then joined the soprano on a fall 1996 U. S. Tour. Later that year came Blessed Quietness, A Collection of Hymns, Spirituals and Carols, in addition to appearing on the soundtrack to director Robert Altmans 1996 feature film Kansas City, Chestnut also made his big screen debut portraying a Count Basie-inspired pianist. In 2001, he released Soul Food featuring bassist Christian McBride, drummer Lewis Nash and guest soloists including James Carter, Stefon Harris, Wycliffe Gordon and this album was one of Down Beat′s best records of 2002 and ascended to Top 10 on the Jazz Charts. In 2006, Chestnut released his first album, Genuine Chestnut, on it he is accompanied by his regular trio of Michael Hawkins, bass and Neal Smith, drums. Additional artists on this session include Russell Malone, guitar and Steven Kroon, percussion and it includes jazz interpretations of some well-known pop numbers of the past half-century, including If, the early 1970s soft-rock ballad by Bread. This song has been with me ever since the grade, Chestnut recalled. Ive played it in many and various contexts, I actually played it in a Top 40 band when I was just out of school. A lot of time has passed, but then recently I just started thinking about it again, chestnuts own Mason–Dixon line is one of the albums high points, a joyful bebop number. Chestnut continually tours with his trio, playing live at festivals around the world as well as clubs. Chestnut is currently represented by Addeo Music International. org Cyrus Chestnut, pianist, bandleader
12.
East Carolina University
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East Carolina University is a public, doctoral/research university in Greenville, North Carolina, United States. Named East Carolina University by statute and commonly known as ECU or East Carolina, the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities designates East Carolina as a Sea Grant university and an Innovation and Economic Prosperity campus. Founded on March 8,1907 as a training school. The nine undergraduate colleges, graduate school, and four schools are located on these four properties. All of the non-health sciences majors are located on the main campus, the College of Nursing, College of Allied Health Sciences, The Brody School of Medicine, and School of Dental Medicine are located on the health science campus. There are ten social sororities,16 social fraternities, four historically black sororities, five historically black fraternities, one Native American fraternity, there are over 300 registered clubs on campus including fraternities and sororities. Although its purpose was to young white men and women. In 1920, ECTTS became an institution and renamed East Carolina Teachers College. A masters degree program was authorized in 1929, the first such degree granted by ECTC was in 1933. Progress toward full college status was made in 1948 with the designation of the bachelor of arts as an arts degree. A change of name to East Carolina College in 1951 reflected this expanded mission, over the objections of Governor Dan K. The university did not remain independent for long, on July 1,1972, it was incorporated into the University of North Carolina System, the successor to the Consolidated University. Today, ECU is the third–largest university in North Carolina with 21,589 undergraduate and 5,797 graduate students, East Carolina is separated into three distinct campuses, Main Campus, Health Sciences Campus, and West Research Campus. It owns two sports complexes, Blount Recreational Sports Complex and North Recreational Complex and it owns a field station in New Holland, North Carolina. The main campus, also known as the east campus, is about 530 acres in a residential area of downtown Greenville. The 158 buildings on main campus comprise more than 4.6 million square feet of academic, research, many of the Main Campus buildings feature the Spanish–Mission style architecture, inspiration drawn from Thomas Jarvis time as an ambassador to Brazil. He wanted to bring the unique architecture to eastern North Carolina, on the main campus, there are five districts, Campus Core, Downtown District, Warehouse District, Athletic fields and the South Academic District. On the Campus Core, there are 15 residence halls which are divided into three separate neighborhoods, the distinct feature of the main campus is the mall, which is a large tree–laden grassy area where many students go to relax
13.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D. C. The Center, which opened September 8,1971, is a multi-dimensional facility, both an enduring memorial to John F. Now in its 45th season, the Center presents the greatest examples of music, dance and theater, supports artists in the creation of new work and it is both the nations public memorial to President John F. Kennedy and the national center for the performing arts. Its activities include educational and outreach initiatives, almost entirely funded through sales and gifts from individuals, corporations. The building, designed by architect Edward Durell Stone, was constructed by Philadelphia contractor John McShain and it receives annual federal funding to pay for its maintenance and operation. The Library of Congress added an auditorium, but it had restrictions on its use. A congressional resolution in 1938 called for construction of a building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center near Judiciary Square. In 1950, the idea for a national theater resurfaced when U. S, representative Arthur George Klein of New York introduced a bill to authorize funds to plan and build a cultural center. The bill included provisions that the center would prohibit any discrimination of cast or audience, in 1955, the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the center. From 1955 to 1958, Congress debated the idea amid much controversy and this was the first time in history that the federal government helped finance a structure dedicated to the performing arts. The legislation required a portion of the costs, estimated at $10–25 million, Edward Durell Stone was selected as architect for the project in June 1959. He presented preliminary designs to the Presidents Music Committee in October 1959, along with estimated costs of $50 million, by November 1959, estimated costs had escalated to $61 million. The National Cultural Center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, the National Cultural Center Board of Trustees, a group Eisenhower established January 29,1959, led fundraising. Fundraising efforts were not successful, with only $13,425 raised in the first three years, President John F. Kennedy was interested in bringing culture to the nations capital, and provided leadership and support for the project. In 1961, President Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to help develop the National Cultural Center, Stevens recruited First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as Honorary Chairman of the Center, and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chairman. The total cost of construction was $70 million, Congress allocated $43 million for construction costs, including $23 million as an outright grant and the other $20 million in bonds. Donations also comprised a significant portion of funding, including $5 million from the Ford Foundation, other major donors included J. Willard Marriott, Marjorie Merriweather Post, John D. Rockefeller III, and Robert W. Woodruff, as well as many corporate donors. Foreign countries provided gifts to the Kennedy Center, including a gift of 3,700 tons of Carrara marble from Italy from the Italian government, President Lyndon B. Johnson dug the ceremonial first-shovel of earth at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center December 2,1964
14.
Hurricane Katrina
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Hurricane Katrina was the costliest natural disaster and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. The storm is ranked as the third most intense United States landfalling tropical cyclone. Overall, at least 1,245 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, total property damage was estimated at $108 billion, roughly four times the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 in the United States. Early the following day, the new depression intensified into Tropical Storm Katrina, the cyclone headed generally westward toward Florida and strengthened into a hurricane only two hours before making landfall at Hallandale Beach and Aventura on August 25. After very briefly weakening to a storm, Katrina emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26. The storm caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge, severe property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as Mississippi beachfront towns, over 90 percent of these were flooded. Boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, over fifty breaches in New Orleanss hurricane surge protection were the cause of the majority of the death and destruction during Katrina on August 29,2005. Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, according to a modeling exercise conducted by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, two-thirds of the deaths in Greater New Orleans were due to levee and floodwall failure. All of the studies concluded that the USACE, the designers and builders of the levee system as mandated by the Flood Control Act of 1965, is responsible. This is mainly due to a decision to use shorter steel sheet pilings in an effort to save money, exactly ten years after Katrina, J. Many other government officials were criticized for their responses, especially New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, several agencies including the United States Coast Guard, National Hurricane Center, and National Weather Service were commended for their actions. They provided accurate hurricane weather tracking forecasts with sufficient lead time, Hurricane Katrina formed as Tropical Depression Twelve over the southeastern Bahamas on August 23,2005, as the result of an interaction of a tropical wave and the remains of Tropical Depression Ten. It strengthened into Tropical Storm Katrina on the morning of August 24, the tropical storm moved towards Florida, and became a hurricane only two hours before making landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura on the morning of August 25. The storm weakened over land, but it regained hurricane status about one hour after entering the Gulf of Mexico, on August 27, the storm reached Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, becoming the third major hurricane of the season. An eyewall replacement cycle disrupted the intensification, but caused the storm to nearly double in size, the storm rapidly intensified after entering the Gulf, growing from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just nine hours. This rapid growth was due to the movement over the unusually warm waters of the Loop Current. Katrina attained Category 5 status on the morning of August 28 and reached its peak strength at 1800 UTC that day, with sustained winds of 175 mph. However, this record was broken by Hurricane Rita
15.
Leonard Feather
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Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing. Feather was born in London into a strictly conformist upper middle-class Jewish family and he learned to play the piano and clarinet without formal training and started writing about jazz and film by his late teens. Feather was co-editor of Metronome magazine and served as chief jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times until his death. But it was as a writer on jazz that he made his biggest mark, Feather was for a time the most widely read. Even jazz enthusiasts who didnt read his books and articles would have known him from the notes that he wrote for hundreds of jazz albums. He wrote the lyrics to the jazz song Whisper Not, which were recorded by Ella Fitzgerald on her 1966 Verve release of the same name, feathers archives are held by the University of Idaho Librarys Special Collections & Archives department as part of the International Jazz Collections. Feather died in Sherman Oaks, California, nine days after his 80th birthday and he was the father of lyricist and songwriter Lorraine Feather. Birdland 1954, Cats Vs. Chicks 1954, Winter Sequence 1956, West Coast vs. Carr, Ian, Digby Fairweather, ISBN 1-85828-528-3 Richard Cook & Brian Morton. The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD 6th edition, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 Leonard Feather pianist and producer appearing on Donald H. Gabors Continental 78 RPM Jazz Records
16.
Duke Ellington
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Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years. Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, in the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Some of the musicians who were members of Ellingtons orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz, Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades, a master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington often composed specifically to feature the style and skills of his individual musicians. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizols Caravan, and Perdido, after 1941, Ellington collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major career revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in films, scoring several. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999, Ellington was born on April 29,1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Ellington in Washington, D. C. Daisy primarily played parlor songs and James preferred operatic arias and they lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place, NW, in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D. C. Dukes father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15,1879, Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D. C. on January 4,1879, the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy, when Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D. C. worked to protect their children from the eras Jim Crow laws, at the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners, Ellingtons childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited his chum Edgar McEntree for the nickname, I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was interested in baseball. President Roosevelt would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play, Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D. C. He gained his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games, in the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, Soda Fountain Rag. He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read, I would play the Soda Fountain Rag as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot, Ellington recalled
17.
Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.)
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Paul Laurence Dunbar High School is a public secondary school located in Washington, D. C. The school is located in the Truxton Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington, Dunbar, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the District of Columbia Public Schools. The school was Americas first public school for black students. The school was renamed in 1916, when its location was changed from M Street, after the famous African-American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar and it later was designated as the citys academic high school, with other schools providing more vocational or technical training goals. Dunbar was known for its excellent academics, enough so that some black parents moved to Washington specifically so their children could attend it and its faculty was paid well by the standards of the time, earning parity pay with Washingtons white school teachers because they were all federal employees. It also boasted a high number of graduates who went on to higher education. All three schools are highly regarded for their athletic programs within their respective school district in the sports of football, basketball. There is also a Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, one of Dunbars first principals was the first black graduate of Harvard College. Almost all the teachers had graduate degrees, and several earned PhDs, by the 1950s, Dunbar High School was sending 80 percent of its students to college. Dunbar, which had been accepting outstanding black students from anywhere in the city, virtually overnight, Dunbar became a typical ghetto school. As unmotivated, unruly and disruptive students flooded in, Dunbar teachers began moving out, more than 80 years of academic excellence simply vanished into thin air. Its illustrious faculty included Anna Julia Cooper, Kelly Miller, Mary Church Terrell, birch Jr. Carter G. Woodson and Julia Evangeline Brooks who was also a graduate of the school. Among its principals were Anna J. Cooper, Richard Greener, Mary Jane Patterson, and Robert Heberton Terrell. An unusual number of teachers and principals held Ph. D. degrees, including Carter G. Woodson, father of Black history Month and the second African American to earn a Phd. from Harvard. As a consequence, however, Dunbar High School was considered the nations best high school for African Americans during the first half of the 20th century and it helped make Washington an educational and cultural capital. Frank Coleman, professor of physics, founder of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and he would play for the Kings, Vancouver Grizzlies, and Washington Wizards. Anthony Jones, former player for Georgetown Univ and UNLV. Jones was selected in the 1st round by the Washington Bullets in the 1986 NBA Draft, also played for the Spurs, Bulls and Mavericks
18.
Virginia State University
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Virginia State University, also known as Virginia State, is a historically black public land-grant university located north of the Appomattox River in Petersburg. Founded on March 6,1882, Virginia State developed as the United Statess first fully state-supported four-year institution of learning for black Americans. The university is a school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The new line extended from Norfolk to Bristol, after the AM&O struggled to operate for several years under receiverships, the railroad was sold at auction in 1881 and became part of the Norfolk and Western Railway. Mahone, a former Confederate general, led Virginias Readjuster Party and he was a major proponent of public schools for the education of freedmen and free blacks. Elected by the legislature as a United States Senator from Virginia. Alfred W. Harris, an attorney who was a state delegate. In 1882, the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute at Ettrick was established, the next morning I asked my father about the school for coloured people, which was being projected under the influence of General Mahone at Petersburg, now a State Normal School. He told me much about it and it was to open the following fall. The Hon. John M. Langston, he said, a man who was as well educated as any white person that he knew of, was to be the president. He said I might go if I wished and that he would do what he could to help me, Virginia States first president was John Mercer Langston, former dean of Howard Universitys law school, and later elected to Congress as the first African-American Representative from Virginia. The board of trustees was composed of prominent African-American men, with one seat for a white man, until the mid-1960s, following federal civil rights legislation that ended racial segregation, the faculty of the collegiate program and the normal school was exclusively African American. In response to the 1890 Amendments to the federal Morrill Act, the United States Congress required that states either open their land-grant colleges to all races or else establish additional land-grant educational facilities for blacks. In 1902, the legislature revised the charter and renamed it the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute. With expansion of programs and a curriculum, in 1930 the college was renamed Virginia State College for Negroes. In 1979, the addition of more departments and graduate programs was recognized in a change of name to Virginia State University. In 2003, the university accepted its first students in its first Ph. D. program, on July 1,2010, President Keith T. Miller was named as the 13th president of Virginia State University. He previously served as President of Lock Haven University, Miller earned his bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees from the University of Arizona
19.
Kappa Alpha Psi
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Kappa Alpha Psi is a collegiate Greek-letter fraternity with a predominantly African-American membership. Since the fraternitys founding on January 5,1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the president of the national fraternity is known as the Grand Polemarch, who assigns a Province Polemarch for each of the twelve provinces of the nation. The Kappa Alpha Psi Journal is the magazine of the fraternity since 1914. The Journal is published four times a year in February, April, frank M. Summers was the magazines first editor and later became the Fourteenth Grand Polemarch. The former editor of the magazine was Jonathan Hicks, the current editor of the magazine is Earl T. Tildon. Kappa Alpha Psi is a member of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Kappa Alpha Psi celebrated its 100th anniversary on January 5,2011, and is one of only four predominantly African American collegiate fraternities to do so. The founders endeavored to establish the fraternity with a foundation before embarking on plans of expansion. By the end of the first year, the ritual was completed, frederick Mitchell name is on the application for the Incorporation of the Fraternity but withdrew from school and thus never became a member of the Fraternity. Instead, these young men organized their own fraternity, the organization known today as Kappa Alpha Psi was nationally incorporated under the name of Kappa Alpha Nu on May 15,1911. The name of the organization was changed to its current name in 1915, the motto of the Fraternity is, Achievement in every field of human endeavor. During this time there were very few African-American students at the majority white campus at Bloomington, Indiana, African-American students were denied membership on athletic teams with the exception of track and field. The racial prejudice and discrimination encountered by the founders strengthened their bond of friendship, by 1913, the fraternity expanded with the second undergraduate chapter opened at the University of Illinois—Beta chapter, then the University of Iowa—Gamma chapter. After this, Kappa Alpha Psi chartered undergraduate chapters on Black college campuses at Wilberforce University—Delta Chapter, in 1920, Xi Chapter was chartered at Howard University. In 1921, the fraternity installed the Omicron chapter at Columbia University, the fraternitys first chapter in the South was established in 1921 at Morehouse College— Pi Chapter. Kappa Alpha Psi expanded through the Midwest, South, and West at both white and black colleges, some believe the Greek letters Kappa Alpha Nu were chosen as a tribute to Alpha Kappa Nu, but the name became an ethnic slur among racist factions. Founder Elder Watson Diggs, while observing a young initiate compete in a meet, overheard fans referring to the member as a kappa alpha nig. Kappa Alpha Psi has been the name since April 15,1915. In 1947, at the Los Angeles Conclave, the National Silhouettes of Kappa Alpha Psi were established as an auxiliary group, in 1980, the Silhouettes were officially recognized and granted a seat on the Board of Directors of the Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation
20.
Ben Webster
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Benjamin Francis Ben Webster was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, is considered one of the three most important swing tenors along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Known affectionately as The Brute, or Frog, he had a tough, raspy, stylistically he was indebted to alto star Johnny Hodges, who, he said, taught him to play his instrument. Webster learned to play piano and violin at an age before taking up the saxophone, although he did return to the piano from time to time. Once Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster began to play that instrument in the Young Family Band, Kansas City at this point was a melting pot from which emerged some of the biggest names in 1930s jazz. Webster joined Bennie Motens band in 1932, a grouping which also included Count Basie, Oran Hot Lips Page and this era was recreated in Robert Altmans film Kansas City. Ben Webster played with Duke Ellingtons orchestra for the first time in 1935 and he credited Johnny Hodges, Ellingtons alto soloist, as a major influence on his playing. Webster left the band in 1943 after an altercation during which he allegedly cut up one of Ellingtons suits. In an interview with the Newark Star-Ledger in 2003, trumpeter Clark Terry claimed that Webster left Ellington because he slapped Duke, for a few months in 1948, he returned briefly to Ellingtons orchestra. Along with Peterson, trumpeter Harry Sweets Edison and others, he was touring and recording with Granzs Jazz at the Philharmonic package, in 1956, he recorded a classic set with pianist Art Tatum, supported by bassist Red Callender and drummer Bill Douglass. Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster with fellow tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was recorded on December 16,1957, along with Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Alvin Stoller. The Hawkins and Webster recording is a classic, the coming together of two giants of the tenor saxophone, who had first met back in Kansas City. In the late 1950s, he formed a quintet with Gerry Mulligan and it was there that the Webster-Mulligan group backed up blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon on an album recorded live. Webster generally worked steadily, but in 1965 he moved permanently to Europe and he played when he pleased during his last decade. He lived in London for one year, followed by four years in Amsterdam, Webster appeared as a sax player in a low-rent cabaret club in the 1970 Danish blue film titled Quiet Days in Clichy. In 1971, Webster reunited with Duke Ellington and his orchestra for a couple of shows at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, in addition and he also recorded or performed with Buck Clayton, Bill Coleman and Teddy Wilson. Webster suffered a hemorrhage in Amsterdam in September 1973, following a performance at the Twee Spieghels in Leiden. His body was cremated in Copenhagen and his ashes were buried in the Assistens Cemetery in the Nørrebro section of the city, after Websters death, Billy Moore Jr. together with the trustee of Websters estate, created the Ben Webster Foundation
21.
52nd Street (Manhattan)
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52nd Street is a 1. 9-mile long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was known as the center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s. Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, 52nd Street replaced 133rd street as Swing Street of the city, the blocks of 52nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue became renowned for the abundance of jazz clubs and lively street life. The street was convenient to musicians playing on Broadway and the nightclubs and was also the site of a CBS studio. Musicians who played for others in the evening played for themselves on 52nd Street. Although musicians from all schools performed there, after Mintons Playhouse in uptown Harlem, in fact, a tune called 52nd Street Theme by Thelonious Monk became a bebop anthem and jazz standard. By the late 1940s the jazz scene began moving elsewhere around the city, by the 1960s, most of the legendary clubs were razed or fell into disrepair. The last club there closed its doors in 1968, today, the street is full of banks, shops, and department stores and shows little trace of its jazz history. The block from 5th to 6th Avenues is formally co-named Swing Street, the 21 Club is the sole surviving club on 52nd Street that also existed during the 1940s. The venue for the original Birdland at 1674 Broadway, which came into existence in 1949, is now a gentlemens club, the current Birdland is on 44th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. This is a list of places within one block of 52nd Street. The route begins at the West Side Highway, Duncan Center on the block after moving from its original location. The Duncan Center is named for a patrolman who was shot while chasing a car in the neighborhood on May 17,1930. Closed Midtown Branch of Saint Vincents Catholic Medical Center The Manhattan School – Public School 35, radio City Station Post Office The Link, 43–story, 215–unit, glass tower condominium, opened in 2007 on site of the S. I. R. Building at 310 W 52nd, known as the Palm Gardens Building, occupied the building from 1974 until 2004. Cheetah, the club that had once been at 53rd and Broadway. Cheetah became a popular Latin-American dance club that helped popularize Salsa to mainstream America. C, sixth Avenue to Fifth Avenue is signed Swing Street AXA Financial Center 43-story 174 m 571 ft completed in 1963. It has a large Thomas Hart Benton mural in lobby, CBS Building, headquarters of the network and popularly referred to as Black Rock 31 West 52nd Street 30-floor 125 m 411 ft completed in 1986 originally for the E. F. Hutton headquarters
22.
Art Tatum
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Arthur Art Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist. Tatum is widely acknowledged as the greatest jazz pianist of all time and he was hailed for the technical proficiency of his performances, which set a new standard for jazz piano virtuosity. Critic Scott Yanow wrote, Tatums quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries. For a musician of such stature, there is little published information available about Tatums life, only one full-length biography has been published, Too Marvelous for Words, by James Lester. Lester interviewed many of Tatums contemporaries for the book and drew from many articles published about him, Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Arthur Tatum, Sr. was a guitarist and an elder at Grace Presbyterian Church and he had two siblings, Karl and Arlene. From infancy he suffered from cataracts which left him blind in one eye, a number of surgical procedures improved his eye condition to a degree but some of the benefits were reversed when he was assaulted in 1930. A child with perfect pitch, Tatum learned to play by ear, in a Voice of America interview, he denied the widespread rumor that he learned to play by copying piano roll recordings made by two pianists. He developed a very fast playing style, without losing accuracy, as a child he was also very sensitive to the pianos intonation and insisted it be tuned often. While playing piano was the most obvious application of his mental and physical skills, in 1925, Tatum moved to the Columbus School for the Blind, where he studied music and learned braille. He subsequently studied piano with Overton G. Rainey at either the Jefferson School or the Toledo School of Music, Rainey, who was also visually impaired, probably taught Tatum in the classical tradition, as Rainey did not improvise and discouraged his students from playing jazz. In 1927, Tatum began playing on Toledo radio station WSPD as Arthur Tatum, Toledos Blind Pianist, during interludes in Ellen Kays shopping chat program, by the age of 19, Tatum was playing at the local Waiters and Bellmens Club. In 1931, vocalist Adelaide Hall commenced a tour that lasted almost two years, during which she discovered Tatum in Toledo and employed him as one of her stage pianists. In 1932, Hall returned to New York with Tatum and introduced him to Harlem on stage at the Lafayette Theatre, in August 1932, she made four recordings using Tatum as one of her pianists including the songs Strange As It Seems and You Gave Me Everything But Love. Tatum drew inspiration from the pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, who exemplified the stride piano style, Tatum identified Waller as his main influence, but according to pianist Teddy Wilson and saxophonist Eddie Barefield, Art Tatums favorite jazz piano player was Earl Hines. He used to buy all of Earls records and would improvise on them, hed play the record but hed improvise over what Earl was doing. Course, when you heard Art play you didnt hear nothing of anybody, but he got his ideas from Earls style of playing – but Earl never knew that. A major event in his rise to success was his appearance at a cutting contest in 1933 at Morgans bar in New York City that included Waller, Johnson
23.
Machito
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Machito was an influential Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music. He was raised in Havana alongside the singer Graciela, his foster sister, in New York City, Machito formed the band the Afro-Cubans in 1940, and with Mario Bauzá as musical director, brought together Cuban rhythms and big band arrangements in one group. He made numerous recordings from the 1940s to the 1980s, many with Graciela as singer, Machito changed to a smaller ensemble format in 1975, touring Europe extensively. He brought his son and daughter into the band, and received a Grammy Award in 1983, Machitos music had an effect on the lives of many musicians who played in the Afro-Cubans over the years, and on those who were attracted to Latin jazz after hearing him. George Shearing, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton credited Machito as an influence, an intersection in East Harlem is named Machito Square in his honor. Machito gave conflicting accounts of his birth and he sometimes said he was a native Cuban from Havana. Other accounts place his birth in Tampa, Florida, making him an American of Cuban ancestry. He may have born in 1908 in the Jesús María district of Havana or in Tampa,1909 in the Marianao Beach district of Havana or in Tampa,1912 in Tampa or Havana. Regardless of his place of birth, Machito was raised from an age in the Jesús María district of Havana. Her parents raised both of them, Young Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, the son of a cigar manufacturer, was nicknamed Macho as a child because he was the first son born to his parents after they had three daughters. In his teens and twenties in Cuba, Macho became a professional musician, Macho moved to New York City in 1937 as a vocalist with La Estrella Habanera. He worked with several Latin artists and orchestras in the late 1930s, recording with Conjunto Moderno, Cuarteto Caney, Orchestra Siboney, and the bandleader Xavier Cugat. After an earlier attempt to launch a band with Mario Bauzá, in 1940 he founded the Afro-Cubans, Macho was at this time going by Machito out of respect for his new bride. A big band-style brass section with trumpets and saxes was backed by a Cuban rhythm section, Machito took on Bauza the following year as musical director, a role he kept for 34 years. Bauza also played trumpet and alto saxophone, the band had an early hit with Sopa de Pichon in 1941. Its title is slang for pigeon soup, a Puerto Rican joke about nearly starving as an immigrant in New York, Tito Puente played timbales on the track, and Chino Pozo played percussion. Machitos bands of the 1940s, especially the band named the Afro-Cubans, were among the first to fuse Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz improvisation, Machito was the front man, conductor, and maraca player of the Afro-Cubans and its successors while Bauza determined the character of the band. Bauza, Machitos brother-in-law from his marriage to Machitos sister Estela, hired jazz-oriented arrangers, as a result, Machitos music greatly inspired such North American jazz giants as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton
24.
Bob Wyatt
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Robert Bob Elliott Storey Wyatt was an English cricket player. He played for Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and the English cricket team, a determined batsman and handy medium pace bowler, Wyatt made his first-class cricket debut in 1923. He played his first Test match against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1927 and he was appointed captain for Englands last Test against the dominant Australian touring team in 1930, but lost the role to Douglas Jardine for the next few years. Nevertheless, he was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1930, after Jardine resigned following the political and administrative fallout caused by Bodyline, Wyatt was made captain again, and led England a further 15 times. Wyatt was noted for sustaining several injuries during his career, most famously, a ball bowled by West Indian bowler Manny Martindale hit him in the jaw during a match in Jamaica in 1935. He was carried unconscious from the field with his jaw broken in four places, when he regained consciousness in the dressing room, his first action was to signal for a pencil and paper – when these were supplied he wrote down an amended batting order for his team. He played his last Test against Australia in Melbourne in 1937 and he continued with a vigorous career in County cricket on both sides of World War II, playing his last first-class game in 1957, aged 56. He lived to be 93 years old, and was Englands oldest living Test cricketer before his death and he has a stand named after him at Warwickshires home ground of Edgbaston. Wyatt played 40 Tests for England, scoring 1,839 at an average of 31.70, and taking 18 wickets at an average of 35.66. In his first-class career he played 739 matches, scoring 39,405 runs at an average of 40.04 and he was the cousin of politician and broadcaster Woodrow Wyatt. Bob Wyatt at CricketArchive Bob Wyatt at ESPNcricinfo
25.
Sylvia Syms (singer)
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Sylvia Syms was an American jazz singer. She was born Sylvia Blagman in Brooklyn, New York, United States, as a child, she had polio. As a teenager, she went to jazz-oriented nightclubs on New Yorks 52nd Street, in 1941 she made her debut at Kellys Stable. In 1948, performing at the Cinderella Club in Greenwich Village, she was seen by Mae West, among others who observed her in nightclubs was Frank Sinatra who considered her the worlds greatest saloon singer. Sinatra subsequently conducted her 1982 album, Syms by Sinatra, Syms made regular appearances at the Carlyle in Manhattan. At times, impromptu, while enjoying a cocktail in the bar of the Carlyle, she would walk on stage and perform with the other regular. She died on stage at the Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel in New York from a heart attack, the Goldbergs The Blue Veil Night Without Sleep It Happens Every Thursday Some of My Best Friends Are. com
26.
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
27.
Birdland (New York jazz club)
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Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15,1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979. A revival began in 1986 with the opening of the second nightclub by the name that is now located in Manhattans Theater District. The current location is in the next to The New York Observer headquarters. 1678 Broadway, below the street level Irving Levy, Morris Levy and they adopted the name Birdland to capitalize on the popularity of their regular headliner Charlie Yardbird Parker, who, at that time, had been enjoying undisputed popularity as a jazz artist. The club was scheduled to open on September 8,1949. Parker, in reality, played very few jobs at Birdland, not because he was troublesome, Ramey had persuaded Goodstein to let Parker perform at Birdland with his band on a pair of Monday nights in 1954. The neon sign at the front of the read, Birdland. The venue seated 500 people and had space for a full orchestra and it had a long bar, tables, booths, and a fenced-in bullpen — a drinkless area, nicknamed the peanut gallery, where teenagers were sometimes allowed to watch. Irving Levy and Morris Levy were the owners but the club was operated by Oscar Goodstein. The name was carried through into the feature of caged finches inside the club, the venue attracted other jazz musicians who also made recordings there. This includes Art Blakeys 1954 two-volume A Night at Birdland, most of John Coltranes Live at Birdland, dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Louie Bellson, Bud Powell, Johnny Smith, Stan Getz, Lester Young, and many others made appearances. George Shearings standard Lullaby of Birdland was named in the clubs honor, the clubs original master of ceremonies, the diminutive, four feet tall Pee Wee Marquette, was notorious for mispronouncing the names of musicians if they refused to tip him. The disc jockey Symphony Sid broadcast live on WJZ early in the clubs existence, Irving Levy was stabbed to death at the club in 1959. His younger brother, Morris, took over Irvings role in the club, and from 1959 through the early 1960s, Chapter 11 bankruptcy In June 1964, Birdland filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York Federal Court. Goodstein was president of the club at the time, creditors included Goodstein himself, NLP Restaurant, and Gerry Mulligan, who had been booked through International Talent Associates. In an effort to stem losses in 1964, Birdland started booking jazz artists that played a traditional style of jazz. The premises was taken over by Lloyd Price, an R&B and rock-and-roll singer who re-dedicated the venue,2745 Broadway at 105th The current version of Birdland, initially owned by John R. Valenti, opened in Uptown, Manhattan in 1985 at 2745 Broadway at 105th Street
28.
Stan Getz
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Stanley Stan Getz was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as The Sound because of his warm, lyrical tone, his influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Hermans big band, Getz was born on February 2,1927, at St. Vincents Hospital in Philadelphia. In 1913, Harris and Beckie emigrated to the United States with their three sons Al, Phil, and Ben after their son Louis Gayetski in 1912. The Getz family first settled in Philadelphia, but during the depression the family moved to New York City, Getz worked hard in school, receiving straight As, and finished sixth grade close to the top of his class. Getzs major interest was in musical instruments and he played a number of them before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Getz instantly fell in love with the saxophone and he attended James Monroe High School in the Bronx. In 1941, he was accepted into the All City High School Orchestra of New York City and this gave him a chance to receive private, free tutoring from the New York Philharmonics Simon Kovar, a bassoon player. He also continued playing the saxophone and he eventually dropped out of school in order to pursue his musical career, but was later sent back to the classroom by the school systems truancy officers. In 1943 at the age of 16, he was accepted into Jack Teagardens band, Getz also played along with Nat King Cole and Lionel Hampton. With Herman, he had a hit with Early Autumn and after Getz left The Second Herd he was able to launch his solo career and he was the leader on almost all of his recording sessions after 1950. Getzs reputation was enhanced by his featured status on Johnny Smiths 1952 album Moonlight in Vermont. The single of the tune became a hit that stayed on the charts for months. In the mid to late 1950s working from Scandinavia, Getz became popular playing cool jazz with Horace Silver, Johnny Smith, Oscar Peterson, and many others. His first two quintets were notable for their personnel, including Charlie Parkers rhythm section of drummer Roy Haynes, pianist Al Haig, a 1953 line-up of the Dizzy Gillespie/Stan Getz Sextet featured Gillespie, Getz, Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Max Roach. Returning to the U. S. from Europe in 1961, teaming with guitarist Charlie Byrd, who had just returned from a U. S. State Department tour of Brazil, Getz recorded Jazz Samba in 1962 and it quickly became a hit. Getz won the Grammy for Best Jazz Performance of 1963 for Desafinado and it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. His second bossa nova album, also recorded in 1962, was Big Band Bossa Nova with composer and arranger Gary McFarland, as a follow-up, Getz recorded the album, Jazz Samba Encore. with one of the originators of bossa nova, Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfá
29.
Nina Simone
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Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Simone employed a range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel. Born in North Carolina, the child of a preacher. With the help of the few supporters in her hometown of Tryon, North Carolina, Waymon then applied for a scholarship to study at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied despite a well-received audition. Waymon became fully convinced this rejection had been due to her race. Years later, two days before her death, the Curtis Institute of Music bestowed on her an honorary degree, to make a living, Eunice Waymon changed her name to Nina Simone. The change related to her need to disguise herself from family members and she was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, and this effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. Simone recorded more than forty albums, mostly between 1958, when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue, and 1974, and had a hit in the United States in 1958 with I Loves You, Porgy. Simones musical style fused gospel and pop with music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach. Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in North Carolina and raised in Tryon, the sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at age three, the first song she learned was God Be With You, Till We Meet Again. Demonstrating a talent with the instrument, she performed at her local church, but her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was 12. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. She said that she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, Simones mother, Mary Kate Waymon, was a Methodist minister and a housemaid. Simones father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman who at one time owned a dry cleaning business, Simones music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education. Subsequently, a fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina. After her graduation, Simone spent the summer of 1950 at the Juilliard School, as a student of Carl Friedberg, discouraged, she took private piano lessons with Vladimir Sokoloff, a professor at Curtis, but never re-applied to the institution. She took a job as an assistant, but also found work as an accompanist at Arlene Smiths vocal studio
30.
Silk & Soul
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Silk & Soul is the thirteenth studio album by American musician Nina Simone released in October 1967 by RCA Victor. It features the cuts Go To Hell and a cover of I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, in 1968, Simone got a Grammy nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for the song Youll Go to Hell from this album. It Bes That Way Sometime, a written by Ninas brother Sam Waymon. The Look of Love, a song by Burt Bacharach, originally written for the movie Casino Royale, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, this song was written by Billy Taylor. It was later recorded by Solomon Burke and Levon Helm, turning Point, which at first seems to be a childs song about making a new friend, later turns into a song questioning the origins of racism. Consummation is a song written by Nina Simone. Nina Simone - piano, vocals Gene Taylor - bass Sammy Lowe - arrangements, conductor Ray Hall - engineer
31.
BBC Television
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BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927 and it produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936. The BBCs domestic television channels have no advertising and collectively they account for more than 30% of all UK viewing. The services are funded by a television licence, the BBC operates several television networks, television stations, and related programming services in the United Kingdom. As well as being a broadcaster, the corporation also produces a number of its own programmes in-house. The simultaneous transmission of sound and pictures was achieved on 30 March 1930, by late 1930, thirty minutes of morning programmes were broadcast from Monday to Friday, and thirty minutes at midnight on Tuesdays and Fridays after BBC radio went off the air. Bairds broadcasts via the BBC continued until June 1932, the BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. Ally Pally housed two studios, various stores, make-up areas, dressing rooms, offices, and the transmitter itself. BBC television initially used two systems on alternate weeks, the 240-line Baird intermediate film system and the 405-line Marconi-EMI system. The use of both made the BBCs service the worlds first regular high-definition television service, it broadcast from Monday to Saturday between 15,00 and 16,00, and 21,00 and 22,00. The two systems were to run on a basis for six months, early television sets supported both resolutions. Television production was switched from Bairds company to what is now known as BBC One on 2 August 1932, regularly scheduled electronically scanned television began from Alexandra Palace in London on 2 November 1936, to just a few hundred viewers in the immediate area. The first programme broadcast – and thus the first ever, on a dedicated TV channel – was Opening of the BBC Television Service at 15,00, the first major outside broadcast was the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. The service was reaching an estimated 25, 000–40,000 homes before the outbreak of World War II which caused the service to be suspended in September 1939. Also, many of the services technical staff and engineers would be needed for the war effort. According to figures from Britains Radio Manufacturers Association,18,999 television sets had been manufactured from 1936 to September 1939, BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at 15,00. Jasmine Bligh, one of the announcers, made the first announcement, saying. Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh, the Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939 was repeated twenty minutes later
32.
National Educational Television
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National Educational Television was an American educational broadcast television network that was owned by the Ford Foundation and later co-owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The network was founded as the Educational Television and Radio Center in November 1952 by a grant from the Ford Foundations Fund for Adult Education. It was originally a service for exchanging and distributing educational television programs produced by local television stations to other stations. In the spring of 1954, ETRC moved its operations to Ann Arbor, Michigan and it put together a daily five-hour package of television programs, distributing them primarily on kinescope film to the affiliated stations by mail. The programming was noted for treating subjects in depth, including interviews with people of literary. The programming was noted for being dry and academic, with little consideration given to entertainment value. Many of the shows were designed as adult education, and ETRC was nicknamed the University of the Air, the centers headquarters moved from Ann Arbor to New York City in 1958, and the organization became known as the National Educational Television and Radio Center. The center became more aggressive at this time, aiming to ascend to the role of the U. S. fourth television network, among its efforts, the network began importing programs from the BBC into the United States, starting with An Age of Kings in 1961. It increased its output to ten hours a week. The organization changed tactics again in November 1963 and it renamed itself National Educational Television, and spun off its radio assets. Under the centerpiece program NET Journal, NET began to air controversial, hard-hitting documentaries that explored numerous social issues of the day such as poverty and racism. While praised by critics, many affiliates, especially those in politically and culturally conservative markets, in 1966, NETs viability came into question when the Ford Foundation decided to begin withdrawing financial support because of NETs continual need for additional funding. In the meantime, the affiliated stations kept the network afloat by developing reliable sources of revenue, the U. S. government intervened and created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967 to fund the network for the time being. However, the CPBs intent was to create its own broadcasting network. The CPB embarked on that course of action because many NET affiliates were alienated by the programming that the network offered and these affiliates further felt that NETs simultaneous production and distribution of programming constituted a conflict of interest. The Public Broadcasting Service first began operations in 1969, with NET continuing to produce several programs, however, NETs refusal to stop airing the critically praised but controversial documentaries led to Ford and the CPB deciding to shut the network down. In early 1970, both threatened to cut their funding unless NET merged its operations with Newark, New Jersey public television station WNDT-TV, on October 5,1970, PBS officially began broadcasting after NET and WNDT-TV completed their merger. WNDTs call sign was changed to WNET shortly afterward, some programs that began their runs on NET, such as Washington Week and Sesame Street, continue to air on PBS today
33.
Aaron Copland
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Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the Dean of American Composers, the open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in an accessible style often referred to as populist. Works in this include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera. After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland traveled to Paris and he studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste. Determined upon his return to the U. S. to make his way as a composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission. He found composing orchestral music in the modernist style he had adapted abroad a financially contradictory approach and he shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik, music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, during the late 1940s, Copland became aware that Stravinsky and other fellow composers had begun to study Arnold Schoenbergs use of twelve-tone techniques. After he had exposed to the works of French composer Pierre Boulez, he incorporated serial techniques into his Piano Quartet, Piano Fantasy, Connotations for orchestra. From the 1960s onward, Coplands activities turned more from composing to conducting and he became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U. S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records. Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14,1900 and he was the youngest of five children in a Conservative Jewish family of Lithuanian origins. While emigrating from Russia to the United States, Coplands father, Harris Morris Copland, Copland was however unaware until late in his life that the family name had been Kaplan, and his parents never told him this. His father was a staunch Democrat, the family members were active in Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes, where Aaron celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. Not especially athletic, the young man became an avid reader. Coplands father had no musical interest and his mother, Sarah Mittenthal Copland, sang, played the piano, and arranged for music lessons for her children. Of his siblings, oldest brother Ralph was the most advanced musically and his sister Laurine had the strongest connection with Aaron, she gave him his first piano lessons, promoted his musical education, and supported him in his musical career. A student at the Metropolitan Opera School and a frequent opera-goer, Copland attended Boys High School and in the summer went to various camps
34.
Bill Evans
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William John Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist and composer who mostly worked in a trio setting. In 1955, he moved to New York City, where he worked with bandleader, in 1958, Evans joined Miles Daviss sextet, where he was to have a profound influence. In 1959, the band, then immersed in modal jazz, recorded Kind of Blue, in late 1959, Evans left the Miles Davis band and began his career as a leader with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, a group now regarded as a seminal modern jazz trio. In 1961, ten days recording the highly acclaimed Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. After months of seclusion, Evans re-emerged with a new trio, in 1963, Evans recorded Conversations with Myself, an innovative solo album using the unconventional technique of overdubbing over himself. In 1966, he met bassist Eddie Gómez, with whom he would work for eleven years, several successful albums followed, such as Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Alone and The Bill Evans Album, among others. Many of his compositions, such as Waltz for Debby, have become standards and have played and recorded by many artists. Evans was honored with 31 Grammy nominations and seven awards, and was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, Bill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, to Harry and Mary Evans. His father was of Welsh descent and ran a course, his mother was of Rusyn ancestry. The marriage was due to his fathers heavy drinking, gambling. He had a brother, Harry, two years his senior, with whom he shared a close relationship. Given Harry Evans Sr. s destructive character, Mary Evans would often leave home with her sons to nearby Somerville, to stay with her sister Justine, there, Harry began piano lessons somewhere between age 5 and 7 with local teacher Helen Leland. Even though Bill was thought to be too young to receive lessons, soon both brothers were taking piano lessons. Evans remembered Leland with affection for not insisting on a technical approach, with scales. He would soon develop a fluid sight-reading ability, though his teacher rated his brother as a better pianist, at age 7, Bill began violin lessons, and soon also flute and piccolo. Even though he soon dropped those instruments, it is believed they later influenced his keyboard style and he later cited Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert as frequently played composers. Around the same time came his first exposure to jazz. At the age of 13, Bill stood in for a sick pianist in Buddy Valentinos rehearsal band, soon, Bill began to perform for dances and weddings throughout New Jersey, playing music like boogie woogie and polkas for $1 per hour
35.
Cannonball Adderley
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Julian Edwin Cannonball Adderley was a jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is remembered for his 1966 single Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, a hit on the pop charts. He was the brother of jazz cornetist Nat Adderley, a member of his band. Originally from Tampa, Florida, Adderley moved to New York in 1955 and his nickname derived from cannibal, a title imposed on him by high school colleagues as a tribute to his voracious appetite. Cannonball moved to Tallahassee, when his parents obtained teaching positions at Florida A&M University, both Cannonball and brother Nat played with Ray Charles when Charles lived in Tallahassee during the early 1940s. Cannonball was a legend in Southeast Florida until he moved to New York City in 1955. One of his known addresses in New York was in the neighborhood of Corona and he left Florida originally to seek graduate studies at New York conservatories, but one night in 1955 he brought his saxophone with him to the Café Bohemia. Adderley formed his own group with his brother Nat after signing onto the Savoy jazz label in 1957 and he was noticed by Miles Davis, and it was because of his blues-rooted alto saxophone that Davis asked him to play with his group. He joined the Davis band in October 1957, three months prior to the return of John Coltrane to the group, some of Daviss finest trumpet work can be found on Adderleys first solo album Somethin Else, which was recorded shortly after the two giants met. Adderley then played on the seminal Davis records Milestones and Kind of Blue and this period also overlapped with pianist Bill Evans time with the sextet, an association that led to recording Portrait of Cannonball and Know What I Mean. His interest as an educator carried over to his recordings, in 1961, Cannonball narrated The Childs Introduction to Jazz, released on Riverside Records. The Cannonball Adderley Quintet featured Cannonball on alto sax and his brother Nat Adderley on cornet, Cannonballs first quintet was not very successful, however, after leaving Davis group, he formed another, again with his brother, which enjoyed more success. By the end of the 1960s, Adderleys playing began to reflect the influence of the jazz, avant-garde. On his albums from this period, such as Accent on Africa and The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free, he began doubling on soprano saxophone, showing the influence of Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. In 1975 he also appeared in a role alongside José Feliciano. Songs made famous by Adderley and his bands include This Here, The Jive Samba, Work Song, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, a cover version of Pops Staples Why. also entered the charts. His instrumental Sack o Woe was covered by Manfred Mann on their debut album and he had a cerebral hemorrhage and four weeks later, on August 8,1975, he died at St. Mary Methodist Hospital in Gary, Indiana. He was buried in the Southside Cemetery, Tallahassee, later that year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
36.
Jimmy Rushing
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He joined Walter Pages Blue Devils in 1927 and then joined Bennie Motens band in 1929. He stayed with the successor Count Basie band when Moten died in 1935, Rushing said that his first time singing in front of an audience was in 1924. He was playing piano at a club when the singer, Carlyn Williams. I got out there and broke it up, I was a singer from then on, he said. Rushing was a singer who had a range from baritone to tenor. He could project his voice so that it soared over the horn, Basie claimed that Rushing never had an equal as a blues vocalist, though Rushing really thought of himself as a ballad singer. George Frazier, the author of Harvard Blues, called Rushings distinctive voice a magnificent gargle, Dave Brubeck defined Rushings status among blues singers as the daddy of them all. Late in his life Rushing said of his style, I dont know what kind of blues singer youd call me. Among his best-known recordings are Going to Chicago, with Basie, Rushing was born into a family with musical talent and accomplishments. His father, Andrew Rushing, was a trumpeter, and his mother, Cora and he studied music theory with Zelia N. Breaux at Oklahoma Citys Douglass High School, and was unusual among his musical contemporaries for having attended college, at Wilberforce University. Rushing was inspired to music and eventually sing blues by his uncle Wesley Manning and George Fathead Thomas. Rushing toured the Midwest and California as an itinerant blues singer in 1923 and 1924 before moving to Los Angeles, Rushing also sang with Billy King before moving on to Pages Blue Devils in 1927. He, along other members of the Blue Devils, defected to the Bennie Moten band in 1929. Moten died in 1935, and Rushing joined Count Basie for what would be a 13-year tenure, after leaving Basie, his recording career soared, as a solo artist and a singer with other bands. When the Basie band broke up in 1950 he briefly retired and he also made a guest appearance with Duke Ellington for the 1959 album Jazz Party. In 1960, he recorded an album with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, known for their cerebral cool jazz sound, Rushing appeared in the 1957 television special Sound of Jazz, singing one of his signature songs I Left My Baby backed by many of his former Basie band compatriots. In 1958 he was among the musicians included in an Esquire magazine photo by Art Kane, in 1958 Rushing toured the UK with Humphrey Lyttelton and his band. A BBC broadcast with Rushing accompanied by Lytteltons specially organised big band was released on CD in 2009, in 1969 Rushing appeared in The Learning Tree, the first major studio feature film directed by an African-American, Gordon Parks
37.
Langston Hughes
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James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. He famously wrote about the period that the negro was in vogue, like many African Americans, Hughes has complex ancestry. Both of Hughes paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved African Americans and both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners in Kentucky, according to Hughes, one of these men was Sam Clay, a Scottish-American whiskey distiller of Henry County and supposedly a relative of the statesman Henry Clay. The other was Silas Cushenberry, a Jewish-American slave trader of Clark County, Hughess maternal grandmother Mary Patterson was of African-American, French, English and Native American descent. One of the first women to attend Oberlin College, she married Lewis Sheridan Leary, also of mixed race, Leary subsequently joined John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 and died from his wounds. In 1869 the widow Mary Patterson Leary married again, into the elite and her second husband was Charles Henry Langston, of African-American, Euro-American and Native American ancestry. He and his younger brother John Mercer Langston worked for the abolitionist cause, Charles Langston later moved to Kansas, where he was active as an educator and activist for voting and rights for African Americans. Charles and Marys daughter Caroline was the mother of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, the second child of school teacher Carrie Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. Langston Hughes grew up in a series of Midwestern small towns, Hughes father left his family and later divorced Carrie. He traveled to Cuba and then Mexico, seeking to escape the racism in the United States. After his parents separated, his mother traveled seeking employment, and young Langston Hughes was raised mainly in Lawrence, Kansas by his maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston. Through the black American oral tradition and drawing from the activist experiences of her generation and he spent most of his childhood in Lawrence. In his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea he wrote, I was unhappy for a long time, after the death of his grandmother, Hughes went to live with family friends, James and Mary Reed, for two years. Later, Hughes lived again with his mother Carrie in Lincoln and she had remarried when he was still an adolescent, and eventually they moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended high school. His writing experiments began when he was young, while in grammar school in Lincoln, Hughes was elected class poet. He stated that in retrospect he thought it was because of the stereotype about African Americans having rhythm, I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry
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