1.
Dayton, Ohio
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Dayton is the sixth-largest city in the U. S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Montgomery County. A small portion of the city extends into Greene County, the Dayton-Springfield-Greenville Combined Statistical Area had a population of 1,080,044 in 2010, making it the 43rd-largest in the United States. Dayton is within Ohios Miami Valley region, just north of the Cincinnati–Northern Kentucky metropolitan area, Dayton also hosts significant research and development in fields like industrial, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering that have led to many technological innovations. Much of this innovation is due in part to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, with the decline of heavy manufacturing, Daytons businesses have diversified into a service economy that includes insurance and legal sectors as well as healthcare and government sectors. Other than defense and aerospace, healthcare accounts for much of the Dayton areas economy, hospitals in the Greater Dayton area have an estimated combined employment of nearly 32,000 and a yearly economic impact of $6.8 billion. It is estimated that Premier Health Partners, a network, contributes more than $2 billion a year to the region through operating, employment. In 2011, Dayton was rated the No.3 city in the out of the top 50 cities in the United States by HealthGrades for excellence in health care. Many hospitals in the Dayton area are consistently ranked by Forbes, U. S. News & World Report, and HealthGrades for clinical excellence. Dayton is also noted for its association with aviation, the city is home to the National Museum of the United States Air Force and is the birthplace of Orville Wright, other well-known individuals born in the city include poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and entrepreneur John H. Patterson. Dayton is also known for its patents, inventions, and inventors that have come from the area. In 2008,2009, and 2010, Site Selection magazine ranked Dayton the No.1 mid-sized metropolitan area in the nation for economic development, also in 2010, Dayton was named one of the best places in the United States for college graduates to find a job. Dayton was founded on April 1,1796, by 12 settlers known as The Thompson Party and they traveled in March from Cincinnati up the Great Miami River by pirogue and landed at what is now St. Clair Street, where they found two small camps of Native Americans. Among them was Benjamin Van Cleve, whose memoirs provide insights into the Ohio Valleys history, two other groups traveling overland arrived several days later. In 1797, Daniel C. Cooper laid out Mad River Road, Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803, and the city of Dayton was incorporated in 1805. The city was named after Jonathan Dayton, a captain in the American Revolutionary War who signed the U. S, constitution and owned a significant amount of land in the area. Historically, Dayton has been the home for many patents and inventions since the 1870s, according to the National Park Service, citing information from the U. S. Patent Office, Dayton had granted more patents per capita than any other U. S. city in 1890, the Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane, and Charles F. Kettering, world-renowned for his numerous inventions, hailed from Dayton. Paul Laurence Dunbar – a famous African-American poet and novelist – penned his most famous works in the late 19th century, innovation led to business growth in the region
2.
Tucson, Arizona
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Tucson is a city and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States, and home to the University of Arizona. The 2010 United States Census put the population at 520,116, the Tucson MSA forms part of the larger Tucson-Nogales combined statistical area, with a total population of 1,010,025 as of the 2010 Census. Tucson is the second-largest populated city in Arizona behind Phoenix, both of which anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor, the city is located 108 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 mi north of the U. S. –Mexico border. Tucson is the 33rd largest city and the 53rd largest metropolitan area in the United States, Major incorporated suburbs of Tucson include Oro Valley and Marana northwest of the city, Sahuarita south of the city, and South Tucson in an enclave south of downtown. Communities in the vicinity of Tucson include Casas Adobes, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Midvale Park, Tanque Verde, Tortolita, towns outside the Tucson metro area include Benson to the southeast, Catalina and Oracle to the north, and Green Valley to the south. The Spanish name of the city, Tucsón, is derived from the Oodham Cuk Ṣon, meaning base of the black, Tucson is sometimes referred to as The Old Pueblo. Tucson was probably first visited by Paleo-Indians, known to have been in southern Arizona about 12,000 years ago, recent archaeological excavations near the Santa Cruz River have located a village site dating from 2100 BC. The floodplain of the Santa Cruz River was extensively farmed during the Early Agricultural Period and these people constructed irrigation canals and grew corn, beans, and other crops while gathering wild plants and hunting. The Early Ceramic period occupation of Tucson saw the first extensive use of vessels for cooking. The groups designated as the Hohokam lived in the area from AD600 to 1450 and are known for their vast irrigation canal systems and their red-on-brown pottery. Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino visited the Santa Cruz River valley in 1692, a separate Convento settlement was founded downstream along the Santa Cruz River, near the base of what is now A mountain. Hugo OConor, the father of the city of Tucson, Arizona authorized the construction of a military fort in that location, Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón. During the Spanish period of the presidio, attacks such as the Second Battle of Tucson were repeatedly mounted by Apaches, eventually the town came to be called Tucson and became a part of Sonora after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Tucson was not included in the Mexican Cession and Cookes road through Tucson became one of the important routes into California during the California Gold Rush, Arizona, south of the Gila River, was obtained via treaty from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase on June 8,1854. Tucson became a part of the United States of America, although the American military did not formally take control until March 1856. In 1857, Tucson became a station on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line. The Overland Mail Corporation attempted to continue running, however, following the Bascom Affair, devastating Apache attacks on the stations, from August 1861 to mid-1862, Tucson was the western capital of the Confederate Arizona Territory, the eastern capital being Mesilla. In 1862, the California Column drove the Confederate forces out of Arizona, Tucson and all of what is now Arizona were part of New Mexico Territory until 1863, when they became part of the new Arizona Territory
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.
Alto saxophone
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The alto saxophone, also referred to as alto sax, is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s, and patented in 1846. It is pitched in E♭, and is smaller than the tenor, the alto sax is the most common saxophone and is commonly used in classical music, military bands, marching bands, and jazz. The alto saxophone was also commonplace in music from the 1980s. The saxophone fingerings are all universal, so a player can play any type of saxophone. The range of the saxophone is from concert A♭3 to concert A♭5. As with most types of saxophones, the standard range is B♭3 to F6. Above that, the altissimo register begins at F♯6 and extends upwards, the saxophones altissimo register is more difficult to control than that of other woodwinds and is usually only expected from advanced players. By covering or partially covering the bell of the saxophone when playing B♭3, also of note is Kadri Gopalnath, a pioneer of Carnatic music, plays a modified alto saxophone. Some companies that currently produce saxophones are Buffet Crampon, KHS/Jupiter, Conn-Selmer, Selmer Paris, Yamaha, Leblanc/Vito, Keilwerth, Cannonball, new alto saxophones range in price between €250 for lower quality student models to over €6000 for professional models. The alto saxophone has a classical solo repertoire that includes solos with orchestra, piano. Two of the most well-known solo compositions are Jacques Iberts Concertino da Camera, also, the alto saxophone is part of the standard instrumentation of concert bands and saxophone quartets. The alto saxophone is also used in orchestral compositions. Several orchestral examples are listed below, georges Bizet features it in the Minuet from the second suite of music from LArlésienne. He also includes it in his Suite No.1 and Suite No.2, maurice Ravel uses the saxophone prominently in his orchestration of Modest Moussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition, most notably as the soloist in Il vecchio castello. Alban Berg uses the saxophone in his orchestral works, most notably Der Wein, Lulu. Sergei Rachmaninoff uses the saxophone in his Symphonic Dances as a soloist in the first movement, george Gershwin includes it in a few pieces, such as Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. Pierre Boulez wrote for 2 alto saxes in his composition Pli selon pli, benjamin Britten calls for an alto in his Sinfonia da Requiem and The Prince of the Pagodas. Leonard Bernstein includes an alto sax in his Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, vincent dIndy enlists two altos in his opera Fervaal
5.
Laurindo Almeida
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Laurindo Almeida was a Brazilian virtuoso guitarist and composer who made many recordings of enduring impact in classical, jazz and Latin genres. He is widely credited, with fellow artist Bud Shank, for creating the fusion of Latin, Almeida was the first artist to receive Grammy Awards for both classical and jazz performances. His discography encompasses more than a hundred recordings over five decades, Laurindo Jose de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto was born in the village of Prainha, Brazil near Santos in the state of São Paulo. Born into a family, Almeida was a self-taught guitarist. During his teenage years, Almeida moved to São Paulo, where he worked as a radio artist, staff arranger, at the age of 19, he worked his way to Europe playing guitar in a cruise ship orchestra. In Paris, he attended a performance at the Hot Club by Stephane Grappelli and famed guitarist Django Reinhardt, returning to Brazil, Almeida continued composing and performing. He became known for playing both classical Spanish and popular guitar and he moved to the United States in 1947, a trip financed when one of his compositions, a song known as Johnny Peddler became a hit recorded by the Andrews Sisters. In Los Angeles, Almeida immediately went to work in film studio orchestras, Almeida was first introduced to the jazz public as a featured guitarist with the Stan Kenton band in the late 1940s during the height of its success. Famed Kenton arranger Pete Rugolo composed Lament specifically for Almeidas cool, quiet sound, Almeida stayed with Kenton until 1952. Almeidas classical solo recording career on Capitol Records began in 1954 with The Guitar Music of Spain, Almeida made a series of highly successful classical recordings produced by Robert E. Myers. In this recording, Almeida arranges standard classical and folk repertoire through the prism of several Latin musical forms, including the modenha, charo, maracatu, the result, according to Hi-Fi and Music Review was. a prize winner in my collection. Laurindo Almeidas guitar playing captures the poignancy and rhythmic élan of Brazilian music with superb assurance. The recording was nominated for two Grammy Awards and won for Best Classical Engineering for Sherwood Hall III at the first Grammy Awards ceremony and it became one of my most cherished recordings. Of Almeidas five career Grammys, four were awarded in classical categories and his classical recording discography also includes the debut recordings of two major guitar works, Heitor Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto and Radamés Gnattalis Concerto de Copacabana. In 1964, Almeida again expanded his repertoire by joining forces with the Modern Jazz Quartet on Collaboration. Almeida also toured with the MJQ, both in the 1960s and again in the 1990s, Almeida made cameo appearances in the 1954 movie A Star is Born and on a 1959 episode of Peter Gunn titled Skin Deep. His performing credits included major motions pictures such as Good-bye, My Lady, Funny Girl and he composed the complete film scores for ten motion pictures and portions for hundreds of others, including Charles and Ray Eamess 1957 film Day of the Dead. He also underscored and performed for Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven and his final film work was in The Cat in the Hat in which his whistling cover of The Girl From Ipanema is briefly heard
6.
Ravi Shankar
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Ravi Shankar, KBE, born Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury, his name often preceded by the title Pandit, was an Indian musician and a composer of Hindustani classical music. He was one of the exponents of the sitar in the second half of the 20th century. Shankar was born to a Bengali family in India, and spent his youth touring India and he gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray and his influence on the latter helped popularize the use of Indian instruments in pop music throughout the 1960s. Shankar engaged Western music by writing compositions for sitar and orchestra, from 1986 to 1992, he served as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. He continued to perform until the end of his life, in 1999, Shankar was awarded Indias highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. Shankar was born on 7 April 1920 in Benares, British India, in a Bengali family and his father, Shyam Shankar, was a Middle Temple barrister and scholar from East Bengal. A respected statesman, lawyer and politician, he served for years as dewan of Jhalawar, Rajasthan. Shyam was married to Hemangini Devi who hailed from a village named Nasrathpur in Mardah block of Ghazipur district, near Benares. Shyam later worked as a lawyer in London, England, and there he married a second time while Devi raised Shankar in Benares, Shankar shortened the Sanskrit version of his first name, Ravindra, to Ravi, for sun. Shankar had six siblings, only four of whom lived past infancy, Uday, Shankar attended the Bengalitola High School in Benares between 1927 and 1928. At the age of ten, after spending his first decade in Benares, by the age of 13 he had become a member of the group, accompanied its members on tour and learned to dance and play various Indian instruments. Shankar was sporadically trained by Khan on tour, and Khan offered Shankar training to become a musician under the condition that he abandon touring. Shankars parents had died by the time he returned from the European tour, Shankar gave up his dancing career in 1938 to go to Maihar and study Indian classical music as Khans pupil, living with his family in the traditional gurukul system. He often studied with Khans children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi, Shankar began to perform publicly on sitar in December 1939 and his debut performance was a jugalbandi with Ali Akbar Khan, who played the string instrument sarod. Shankar completed his training in 1944 and he moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian Peoples Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946. Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song Sare Jahan Se Achcha at the age of 25 and he began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio, New Delhi, from February 1949 to January 1956. Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra at AIR and composed for it, in his compositions he combined Western, beginning in the mid-1950s he composed the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, which became internationally acclaimed
7.
Stan Kenton
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Stanley Newcomb Stan Kenton was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who led an innovative, influential, and often controversial progressive jazz orchestra. In later years he was active as an educator, Stan Kenton was born on December 15,1911 in Wichita, Kansas, and was raised first in Colorado, then in California. He graduated from Bell High School, in Bell, California, Kenton learned piano as a child, and while still a teenager toured as a member of several bands. He played in the 1930s in the bands of Vido Musso and Gus Arnheim. In June 1941 he formed his first orchestra, which later was named after his theme song Artistry in Rhythm, a competent pianist, influenced by Earl Hines, Kenton worked in the early days much more as an arranger than later, and as inspiration for his loyal sidemen. Although there were no musicians in his first band, Kenton spent the summer of 1941 playing regularly before an audience at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach. Influenced by Jimmie Lunceford, the Stan Kenton Orchestra struggled for a time after its initial success and its Decca recordings were not big sellers and a stint as Bob Hopes backup radio band during the 1943–44 season was an unhappy experience, Les Brown permanently took Kentons place. Kentons first appearance in New York was in February 1942 at the Roseland Ballroom and its soloists during the war years included Art Pepper, briefly Stan Getz, altoist Boots Mussulli, and singer Anita ODay. By 1945, the band had evolved, the songwriter Joe Greene provided the lyrics for hit songs like And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine and Dont Let the Sun Catch You Cryin. A popular recording of Laura was made, the song from the film Laura. In the mid-1940s, Kentons band and style known as the wall of sound or wall of brass. Calling his music progressive jazz, Kenton sought to lead an orchestra as opposed to a dance band at a time when most big bands were beginning to wind up. Kenton had succeeded in forming a radical and very original band that gained its own audience, in 1949, Kenton took a year off. In 1950 he put together his most advanced band, the 39-piece Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra that included 16 strings, a woodwind section and its music ranged from the unique and very dense modern classical charts of Bob Graettinger to works that somehow swung despite the weight. Kenton managed two tours during 1950–1951 but soon reverted to his usual 19-piece lineup, then quite unexpectedly, Kenton went through a swinging period. The charts of such arrangers as Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Richards, the music was never predictable and could get quite bombastic, but it managed to swing while still keeping the Kenton sound. In 1956, when the band returned from its European trip, the Kenton band was playing in Ontario, Canada, at the time, and Kenton dispatched a telegram which lamented a new minority, white jazz musicians, and stated his disgust literary geniuses of jazz. Jazz critic Leonard Feather, responded in the October 3,1956, Feather implied that Kentons failure to win the Critics Poll was probably the real reason for the complaint, and wondered if racial prejudice was involved
