Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist 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 and Native American descent. One of the first women to attend Oberlin College, she married Lewis Sheridan Leary, 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 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, 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 divorced Carrie. He traveled to Cuba and 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 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, 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
Ben Webster
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, 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 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 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
Nancy Wilson (jazz singer)
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 worked clubs on the east side and north side of Columbus, 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
Machito
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, 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 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 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
52nd Street (Manhattan)
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 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, the street is full of banks 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 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
Art Tatum
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 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 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, who was 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
Jazz
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 and response vocals, 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 and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine 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, 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, 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
Count Basie
William James Count Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens, dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16 years old, he played jazz piano at parties, resorts. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his career expanded, he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis. In 1929 he joined Bennie Motens band in Kansas City, in 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. William Basie was born to Harvey Lee and Lillian Basie in Red Bank and his father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his became an groundskeeper and handyman for several wealthy families in the area. Both of his parents had some type of musical background and his father played the mellophone, and his mother played the piano, in fact, she gave Basie his first piano lessons.
She took in laundry and baked cakes for sale for a living and she paid 25 cents a lesson for piano instruction for him. Not much of a student in school, Basie dreamed of a traveling life and he finished junior high school but spent much of his time at the Palace Theater in Red Bank, where doing occasional chores gained him free admission to performances. He quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to the acts and the silent movies, though a natural at the piano, Basie preferred drums. Discouraged by the talents of Sonny Greer, who lived in Red Bank and became Duke Ellingtons drummer in 1919. Greer and Basie played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career, by then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances and amateur shows, including Harry Richardsons Kings of Syncopation. When not playing a gig, he hung out at the pool hall with other musicians. He got some jobs in Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore, around 1920, Basie went to Harlem, a hotbed of jazz, where he lived down the block from the Alhambra Theater.
Early after his arrival, he bumped into Sonny Greer, who was by the drummer for the Washingtonians, Basie met many of the Harlem musicians who were making the scene, including Willie the Lion Smith and James P. Johnson. His touring took him to Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, throughout his tours, Basie met many jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong. Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist and music director for blues singers and this provided an early training that was to prove significant in his career
BBC Television
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 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 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
Manhattan
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, 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
Christian McBride
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 a five-time Grammy award winner. McBride was born to Renee McBride in Philadelphia 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 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
East Carolina University
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, 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, 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
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