1.
Frank Sinatra
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Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the music artists of all time. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943 and he released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatras professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas and his career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice n Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own label, Reprise Records. It was followed by 1968s collaboration with Duke Ellington, using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm and he appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he associated with playing detectives. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B, on television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a natural, intuitive understanding of it, a perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname Ol Blue Eyes, Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976, Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him the greatest singer of the 20th century, Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12,1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was the child of Italian immigrants Antonino Martino Marty Sinatra
2.
Jazz standard
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There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time. Songs included in major book publications and jazz reference works offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards. Not all jazz standards were written by jazz composers, many are originally Tin Pan Alley popular songs, Broadway show tunes or songs from Hollywood musicals – the Great American Songbook. In Europe, jazz standards and fake books may include some traditional folk songs or pieces of ethnic music that have been played with a jazz feel by well known jazz players. A commonly played song can only be considered a jazz standard if it is played among jazz musicians. The jazz standard repertoire has some overlap with blues and pop standards, the most recorded jazz standard was W. C. Handys St. Louis Blues for over 20 years from the 1930s onward, today, the place is held by Body and Soul by Johnny Green. The most recorded standard composed by a musician is Thelonious Monks Round Midnight. From its conception at the change of the century, jazz was music intended for dancing. Edison, Inc. on Blue Amberol in December 1916 and in 1917, the first record with Jass on the label, The Original Dixieland One-Step was issue 18255 by Victor Talking Machine Company in 1917. Originally simply called jazz, the music of jazz bands is today often referred to as Dixieland or New Orleans jazz. Ragtime songs Twelfth Street Rag and Tiger Rag have become popular numbers for jazz artists, as have blues tunes St. Louis Blues, Tin Pan Alley songwriters contributed several songs to the jazz standard repertoire, including Indiana and After Youve Gone. Others, such as Some of These Days and Darktown Strutters Ball, were introduced by vaudeville performers, the most often recorded standards of this period are W. C. Handys St. Louis Blues, Turner Layton and Henry Creamers After Youve Gone and James Hanley, a period known as the Jazz Age started in the United States in the 1920s. Jazz had become popular music in the country, although older generations considered the music immoral, dances such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom were very popular during the period, and jazz bands typically consisted of seven to twelve musicians. Important orchestras in New York were led by Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, however, Chicagos importance as a center of jazz music started to diminish toward the end of the 1920s in favor of New York. In the early years of jazz, record companies were eager to decide what songs were to be recorded by their artists. Popular numbers in the 1920s were pop hits such as Sweet Georgia Brown, Dinah, the first jazz artist to be given some liberty in choosing his material was Louis Armstrong, whose band helped popularize many of the early standards in the 1920s and 1930s
3.
Great American Songbook
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The Great American Songbook, also known as American Standards, is the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century. They have been recorded and performed by a number and wide range of singers, instrumental bands. The Songbook comprises standards by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, and also Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Richard Rodgers, there is no consensus on which songs are in the Great American Songbook. Several music publishing companies, including Hal Leonard, J. W. Pepper & Son, Alfred Music lists the Songbook as its own genre. Music critics have attempted to develop a canon, a composer, Wilder emphasized analysis of composers and their creative efforts in this work. Wilder devotes whole chapters to only six composers, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, vincent Youmans and Arthur Schwartz share a chapter, Burton Lane, Hugh Martin and Vernon Duke are covered together in another. Whiting, Ray Noble, John Green, Rube Bloom and Jimmy Van Heusen, Wilder concludes with a catch-all 67-page chapter entitled Outstanding Individual Songs,1920 to 1950, which includes additional individual songs which he considers memorable. From some perspectives, the Songbook era ended with the advent of rock and roll, Radio personality and Songbook devotee Jonathan Schwartz has described this genre as Americas classical music. What makes these songs classic is their lasting value, the following writers and songs are often included in the Great American Songbook, Harold Arlen Irving Berlin Nacio Herb Brown with lyricist Arthur Freed Hoagy Carmichael Cy Coleman J. Many of the songs in the Great American Songbook are in thirty-two-bar form, many were composed for musicals, and some originally included an introductory sectional verse. The sectional verse is an introduction that typically has a free musical structure, speech-like rhythms. The song itself is usually a 32-bar AABA or ABAC form, and the lyrics refer to more universal and timeless situations and themes – typically, for instance. This universality made it easier for songs to be added to or subtracted from a show, a few of the songs which were written with an introductory sectional verse are nearly always performed in full with the introduction. However, the verse, if it exists, is often dropped in performances of Great American Songbook songs outside their original stage or movie context. Whether or not the verse is sung often depends on what the song is. For example, Frank Sinatra never recorded Fly Me to the Moon with the sectional verse. Since the 1930s, many singers have recorded or performed large parts of the Great American Songbook, ella Fitzgeralds popular and influential Songbook series on Verve in the 1950s and 1960s collated 252 songs from the Songbook. These eight collections paid tribute to Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, since the late 20th century, there has been a revival of the Songbook by contemporary singers
4.
Orchestra
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The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theatre reserved for the Greek chorus. A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called an orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played. The term chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer, the typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, the conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The first violin, commonly called the concertmaster, also plays an important role in leading the musicians, the typical symphony orchestra consists of four groups of related musical instruments called the woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings. The orchestra, depending on the size, contains almost all of the instruments in each group. Chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles, a chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty musicians. The term concert orchestra may also be used, as in the BBC Concert Orchestra, the so-called standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Beethoven. The composers instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, the exceptions to this are his Symphony No. 4, Violin Concerto, and Piano Concerto No,4, which each specify a single flute. Beethoven carefully calculated the expansion of this particular timbral palette in Symphonies 3,5,6, the third horn in the Eroica Symphony arrives to provide not only some harmonic flexibility, but also the effect of choral brass in the Trio movement. Piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones add to the finale of his Symphony No.5. A piccolo and a pair of trombones help deliver the effect of storm and sunshine in the Sixth, for several decades after his death, symphonic instrumentation was faithful to Beethovens well-established model, with few exceptions. Apart from the core orchestral complement, various instruments are called for occasionally. These include the guitar, heckelphone, flugelhorn, cornet, harpsichord. Saxophones, for example, appear in some 19th- through 21st-century scores.6 and 9 and William Waltons Belshazzars Feast, and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th-century works, usually playing parts marked tenor tuba, including Gustav Holsts The Planets, cornets appear in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys ballet Swan Lake, Claude Debussys La Mer, and several orchestral works by Hector Berlioz
5.
Big band
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A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big Bands evolved with the times and continue to this day, a big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra and this does not, however, mean that each one of these names is technically correct for naming a big band specifically. The music is traditionally called charts, improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger. There are two periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then consisting of 10–25 pieces. At that time they played a form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins. A few bands also had violas and cellos, usually one or two along with them, the dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung, many of these artists changed styles or retired after the introduction of swing music. Although unashamedly commercial, these bands often featured front-rank jazz musicians - for example Paul Whiteman employed Bix Beiderbecke, there were also all-girl bands such as Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators. Towards the end of the 1920s, a new form of Big Band emerged which was more authentically jazz and this form of music never gained the popularity of the sweet dance form of jazz. The few recordings made in form of jazz were labelled race records and were intended for a limited urban audience. Few white musicians were familiar with music, Johnny Mercer. The three major centres in this development were New York City, Chicago and Kansas City, some big ensembles, like the Joe King Oliver outfit played a kind of half arranged, half improvised jazz, often relying on head arrangements. Other great bands, like the one of Luis Russell became a vehicle for star instrumentalists, there the whole arrangement had to promote all the possibilities of the star, although they often contained very good musicians, like Henry Red Allen, J. C. Earl Hines became the star of Chicago with his Grand Terrace Cafe band, meanwhile, in Kansas City and across the Southwest, an earthier, bluesier style was developed by such bandleaders as Benny Moten and, later, by Jay McShann and Jesse Stone. Radio was a factor in gaining notice and fame for Benny Goodman. Soon, others challenged him, and the battles of the bands became a staple at theater performances featuring many groups on one bill
6.
Russ Columbo
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Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolfo Colombo, known as Russ Columbo, was an American baritone, songwriter, violinist and actor. He is famous for romantic ballads such as his signature tune You Call It Madness, But I Call It Love and his own compositions Prisoner of Love, Columbo was born in Camden, New Jersey, the twelfth child of Italian immigrant parents, Nicola and Giulia Colombo. He attended Everett Grammar School and started playing the violin at a young age. He sang and played violin in numerous nightclubs, by 1928, at the age of 20, Columbo began to participate in motion pictures, including a Vitaphone short in which Columbo appeared as a member of Gus Arnheim and His Orchestra. Eventually, he did obtain some feature work in front of the camera, at the time of his death, Columbo had just completed work on the film Wake Up and Dream, he was on his way to stardom when his life was cut short. Among Columbos other films are, Woman to Woman, Wolf Song, The Texan, Columbo ran a nightclub for a while, The Club Pyramid, but gave it up when his manager told him he had star potential. In 1931, he traveled to New York City with his manager, songwriter Con Conrad, Conrad secured a late-night radio slot with NBC. This led to numerous engagements, a contract with RCA Victor records. Not long after arriving in New York, Columbo met actress Dorothy Dell at an audition for the Ziegfeld Follies, Conrad did his best to break the relationship up with a series of publicity-created ruse romances involving Columbo and actresses such as Greta Garbo and Pola Negri, it succeeded. The type of singing that was popularized by the likes of Columbo, Rudy Vallee, Columbo disliked the label, but it caught on with the general public. It gained popular credence, despite its use as a term of derision for the singers employing their low. Similarly, to reinforce his romantic appeal, he was called Radios Valentino, perry Como had a no.1 hit on Billboard with his recording. James Brown had a Top 20 pop hit and performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show, on Sunday, September 2,1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown, while Columbo was visiting him at home. Brown had a collection of firearms and the two men were examining various pieces, quoting Browns description of the accident, I was absent-mindedly fooling around with one of the guns. It was of a design and works with a cap. I was pulling back the trigger and clicking it time after time, I had a match in my hand and when I clicked, apparently the match caught in between the hammer and the firing pin. Russ slid to the side of his chair, the ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo above the left eye. Surgeons at Good Samaritan Hospital made an attempt to remove the ball from Columbos brain
7.
Bing Crosby
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Harry Lillis Bing Crosby, Jr. was an American singer and actor. The first multimedia star, from 1931 to 1954 Crosby was a leader in sales, radio ratings. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations such as the microphone and this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Dean Martin. Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music, in 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of only 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the categories of motion pictures, radio, Crosby influenced the development of the postwar recording industry. He became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape. In addition to his work with early tape recording, he helped to finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, Crosby died at the age of 74 on October 14,1977, from a sudden heart attack in Alcobendas, Spain. Crosby was born on May 2,1903 in Tacoma, Washington, in 1906, Crosbys family moved to Spokane, and in 1913, Crosbys father built a house at 508 E. Sharp Avenue. The house now sits on the campus of Crosbys alma mater Gonzaga University and he was the fourth of seven children, brothers Larry, Everett, Ted, and Bob, and two sisters, Catherine and Mary Rose. His parents were Harry Lowe Crosby, Sr. a bookkeeper, Crosbys mother was a second generation Irish-American. In 1910, seven-year-old Harry Crosby Jr. was forever renamed, the Sunday edition of the Spokesman-Review published a feature called The Bingville Bugle. Written by humorist Newton Newkirk, The Bingville Bugle was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter filled with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling, and mock ads. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, shared Crosbys enthusiasm for The Bugle, and noting Crosbys laugh, took a liking to him, eventually, the last vowel was dropped and the nickname stuck. Crosby later described Jolsons delivery as electric, Crosby graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1920 and enrolled at Gonzaga University. He attended Gonzaga for three years, but did not earn a bachelors degree, as a freshman, he played on the universitys baseball team. The university granted him a doctorate in 1937. In 1923, Crosby was invited to join a new band composed of school students a few years younger than himself. Al Rinker, Miles Rinker, James Heaton, Claire Pritchard and Robert Pritchard, along with drummer Crosby, formed the Musicaladers, the group performed on Spokane radio station KHQ, but disbanded after two years
8.
Perry Como
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Pierino Ronald Perry Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years after signing with the label in 1943, Mr. C. as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for RCA and pioneered a musical variety television show. Como was seen weekly on television from 1949 to 1963, then continued hosting the Kraft Music Hall variety program monthly until 1967 and his television shows and seasonal specials were broadcast throughout the world. Also a popular recording artist, Perry Como released numerous hit records from the 1940s through the 1970s, Comos appeal spanned generations and he was universally respected for both his professional standards and the conduct in his personal life. Como was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and he was the seventh of ten children and the first American-born child of Pietro Como and Lucia Travaglini, who both emigrated to the US in 1910 from the Abruzzese town of Palena, Italy. He did not begin speaking English until he entered school, since the Comos spoke Italian at home. The family had a second-hand organ his father had bought for $3, as soon as Como was able to toddle, he would head to the instrument, pump the bellows, and play music he had heard by ear. Pietro, a hand and an amateur baritone, had all his children attend music lessons even if he could barely afford them. He showed more talent in his teenage years as a trombone player in the towns brass band, playing guitar, singing at weddings. Como was a member of the Canonsburg Italian Band along with the father of singer Bobby Vinton, bandleader Stan Vinton, young Como started helping his family at age 10, working before and after school in Steve Fragapanes barber shop for 50¢ a week. By age 13, he had graduated to having his own chair in the Fragapane barber shop and it was also around this time that young Como lost his weeks wages in a dice game. Filled with shame, he locked himself in his room and did not come out until hunger got the better of him and he managed to tell his father what had happened to the money his family depended on. His father told him he was entitled to make a mistake, when Perry was 14, his father became unable to work because of a severe heart condition. Como and his brothers became the support of the household, despite his musical ability, Comos primary ambition was to become the best barber in Canonsburg. Practicing on his father, young Como mastered the skills well enough to have his own shop at age 14. One of Comos regular customers at the shop owned a Greek coffee house that included a barber shop area. Como had so much work after moving to the coffee house and his customers worked mainly at the nearby steel mills. They were well-paid, did not mind spending money on themselves, Perry did especially well when one of his customers would marry
9.
Gene Austin
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Gene Austin was an American singer and songwriter, one of the first crooners. His 1920s compositions When My Sugar Walks Down the Street and The Lonesome Road became pop, Austin was born as Lemeul Eugene Lucas in Gainesville, Texas, to Nova Lucas and the former Serena Belle Harrell. He took the name Gene Austin from his stepfather, Jim Austin, Austin grew up in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, located east of Shreveport. In Minden, he learned to play piano and guitar and he ran away from home at 15 and attended a vaudeville act in Houston, Texas, where the audience was allowed to come to the stage and sing. On a dare from his friends, Austin took the stage, the audience response was overwhelming, and the vaudeville company immediately offered him a billed spot on their ticket. Austin joined the U. S. Army at the age of 17 in hopes of being dispatched to Europe to fight in World War I and he was first stationed in New Orleans, where he played the piano at night in the citys notorious vice district. Thereafter, he served in France in World War I, on returning to the United States in 1919, Austin settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he intended to study dentistry. Soon, however, he was playing piano and singing in local taverns and he started writing songs and formed a vaudeville act with Roy Bergere, with whom he wrote How Come You Do Me Like You Do. The act ended when Bergere married, Austin worked briefly in a club owned by Lou Clayton, who later was a part of the famous vaudeville team Clayton, Jackson and Durante. In the 1940s, Austin and his singers toured the country in a 14-truck caravan with its own power plant and he stopped in Minden, Louisiana, and performed there in a popular tent show on the grounds of the local Coca-Cola plant owned by the Hunter family. In 1925, Austin recorded his popular song When My Sugar Walks Down the Street for the Victor Talking Machine Company in a duet with Aileen Stanley, nathaniel Shilkret, in his autobiography, describes the events leading to the recording. In the next decade with Victor, Austin sold over 80 million records – a total unmatched by a single artist for 40 years, best sellers included The Lonesome Road, Riding Around in the Rain, and Ramona. Such later crooners as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Russ Columbo all credited Austin with creating the genre that began their careers. Gene Austin was an important pioneer crooner whose records in their day enjoyed record sales, the Genial Texan ex-vaudevillian and would-be screen idol, Austin constitutes an underrated landmark in popular music history. He made a number of influential recordings from the mid-1920s including a string of best-sellers. His 1926 Bye Bye Blackbird was in the top twenty records. George A. Whiting and Walter Donaldson’s My Blue Heaven was charted during 1928 for 26 weeks, stayed at #1 for 13 and it was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. Until Bing Crosbys White Christmas replaced it, it was the largest selling record of all time
10.
Phonograph record
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The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. The phonograph disc record was the medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century. It had co-existed with the cylinder from the late 1880s. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as compact cassette were mass-marketed, by the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. The phonograph record has made a resurgence in the early 21st century –9.2 million records were sold in the U. S. in 2014. Likewise, in the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014, as of 2017,48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide,18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new, only two producers of lacquers remains, Apollo Masters in California, USA, and MDC in Japan. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to heat or broken. The large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression, in the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008, along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, unlike the phonautograph, it was capable of both recording and reproducing sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no evidence that Edisons phonograph was based on Scotts phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a paper tape, with the idea of creating a telephone repeater analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. The tinfoil was wrapped around a metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately, Edison also invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. A decade later, Edison developed a greatly improved phonograph that used a wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet. This proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device, the wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Berliners earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, but only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality
11.
Microphone
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A microphone, colloquially nicknamed mic or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Several different types of microphone are in use, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a wave to an electrical signal. Microphones typically need to be connected to a preamplifier before the signal can be recorded or reproduced, in order to speak to larger groups of people, a need arose to increase the volume of the human voice. The earliest devices used to achieve this were acoustic megaphones, some of the first examples, from fifth century BC Greece, were theater masks with horn-shaped mouth openings that acoustically amplified the voice of actors in amphitheatres. In 1665, the English physicist Robert Hooke was the first to experiment with an other than air with the invention of the lovers telephone made of stretched wire with a cup attached at each end. German inventor Johann Philipp Reis designed an early sound transmitter that used a strip attached to a vibrating membrane that would produce intermittent current. Better results were achieved with the transmitter design in Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bells telephone of 1876 – the diaphragm was attached to a conductive rod in an acid solution. These systems, however, gave a poor sound quality. The first microphone that enabled proper voice telephony was the carbon microphone and this was independently developed by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, the carbon microphone is the direct prototype of todays microphones and was critical in the development of telephony, broadcasting and the recording industries. Thomas Edison refined the carbon microphone into his carbon-button transmitter of 1886 and this microphone was employed at the first ever radio broadcast, a performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1910. In 1916, E. C. Wente of Western Electric developed the next breakthrough with the first condenser microphone, in 1923, the first practical moving coil microphone was built. The Marconi Skykes or magnetophon, developed by Captain H. J. Round, was the standard for BBC studios in London and this was improved in 1930 by Alan Blumlein and Herbert Holman who released the HB1A and was the best standard of the day. Also in 1923, the microphone was introduced, another electromagnetic type, believed to have been developed by Harry F. Olson. Over the years these microphones were developed by companies, most notably RCA that made large advancements in pattern control. With television and film technology booming there was demand for high fidelity microphones, electro-Voice responded with their Academy Award-winning shotgun microphone in 1963. During the second half of 20th century development advanced quickly with the Shure Brothers bringing out the SM58, digital was pioneered by Milab in 1999 with the DM-1001. The latest research developments include the use of optics, lasers and interferometers
12.
Al Jolson
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Al Jolson was an American singer, film actor, and comedian. At the peak of his career, he was dubbed The Worlds Greatest Entertainer and his performing style was brash and extroverted, and he popularized a large number of songs that benefited from his shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach. Numerous well-known singers were influenced by his music, including Bing Crosby, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Dylan once referred to him as somebody whose life I can feel. Broadway critic Gilbert Seldes compared him to the Greek god Pan, claiming that Jolson represented the concentration of our national health, in the 1930s, Jolson was Americas most famous and highest-paid entertainer. Between 1911 and 1928, Jolson had nine sell-out Winter Garden shows in a row, more than 80 hit records, and 16 national and international tours. Although he is best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with The Jolson Story, for which Larry Parks played Jolson, the formula was repeated in a sequel, Jolson Sings Again. In 1950, he became the first star to entertain GIs on active service in the Korean War. He died just weeks after returning to the U. S. partly owing to the exertion of performing. Defense Secretary George Marshall posthumously awarded him the Medal of Merit, According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock n roll. Being the first popular singer to make a spectacular event out of singing a song and his specialty was performing on stage runways extending out into the audience. According to music historian Larry Stempel, No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway, author Stephen Banfield agreed, writing that Jolsons style was arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical. Jolson also enjoyed performing in blackface makeup, a convention since the mid-19th century. With his unique and dynamic style of singing black music, such as jazz and blues, as early as 1911, he became known for fighting against black discrimination on Broadway. Al Jolson was born as Asa Yoelson in the Jewish village of Srednik now known as Seredžius, near Kaunas in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He was the fifth and youngest child of Moses Rubin Yoelson and Nechama Naomi Cantor, his four siblings were Rose, Etta, another sister who died in infancy, and Hirsch. Jolson claimed not to know when he was born, and later chose to claim he was born on May 26,1886. His one-time sister-in-law, Margaret Weatherwax, claimed Jolson was the age as their father, Ralph
13.
Al Bowlly
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He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941. Bowlly was born in Lourenço Marques, in the then Portuguese colony of Mozambique, to Greek and Lebanese parents who met en route to Australia, Bowlly was brought up in Johannesburg. However, he fell out with Adeler and was fired from the band in Surabaya, after a spell with a Filipino band in Surabaya he was then employed by Jimmy Liquime in India. Bowlly worked his passage back home by busking and that year, If I Had You became one of the first popular songs by an English jazz band to become well known in America as well, and Bowlly had gone out on his own by the beginning of the 1930s. First, however, the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 resulted in Bowlly being made redundant, during the next four years, he recorded over 500 songs. By 1933 Lew Stone had ousted Fox as bandleader, and Bowlly was singing Stones arrangements with Stones band, with him and Marjie separated and his band dissolved, that year he was once again down on his luck. He was forced to borrow money from friends for a trip to New York for the surgery of which he was so in need. In 1938, he returned to the United States to undergo successful major throat surgery for the removal of his vocal wart. His absence from the UK in the early 1930s damaged his popularity with British audiences, despite his association with the gifted pianist, Monia Liter and his career began to suffer as a result of problems with his voice from around 1936, which affected the frequency of his recordings. He played a few parts in films around this time. The parts he did play were cut, and scenes that were shown were brief. Noble was offered a role in Hollywood although the offer did not, unfortunately, include Bowlly, Bowlly moved back to London with his wife Marjie in January 1937. He underwent a revival from 1940, as part of an act with Jimmy Messene, with an act called Radio Stars with Two Guitars. It was his last venture before his death in April 1941 and his last recorded song, made two weeks before his death, was a duet with Messene of Irving Berlins satirical song on Hitler, When That Man is Dead and Gone. In December 1931, Bowlly married Constance Freda Roberts in St Martins District, London, the couple separated after a fortnight, and sought a rapid divorce. He remarried in December 1934, this time to Marjie Fairless, on 17 April 1941, Bowlly and Messene had just given a performance at the Rex Cinema in Oxford Street, High Wycombe, now demolished. Both were offered the opportunity of a stay in the town. His decision proved to be fatal, as he was killed by a Luftwaffe parachute mine that detonated outside his flat later that evening
14.
Art Gillham
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Art Gillham, was an American songwriter, who was among the first crooners as a pioneer radio artist and a recording artist for Columbia Records. With Billy Smythe and Scott Middleton he wrote Hesitation Blues, which he recorded as one of the first electrical recordings for Columbia Records. The song is heard in the following movies The Public Enemy, Of Human Bondage, with J. Russell Robinson he wrote In My Sweethearts Arms. As a song plugger for Ted Browne Music, Art Gillham traveled around the United States, when radio began he would stop at radio stations in his travels to promote the music by Browne and other music publishers. In 1923 Gillham was dared to sing over the radio, and he sang in a soft crooning voice, and in February,1924, while appearing on WSB in Atlanta, he was dubbed The Whispering Pianist by the stations general manager, Lambdin Kay. In 1924 he gave advice to Irene Beasley that encouraged her to begin her radio, on November 4,1924 he appeared with Will Rogers, Wendell Hall and Carson Robison during the Presidential Election Night broadcast of The Eveready Hour over WEAF and an 18-station hook-up. Before networks were formed Gillham appeared on over 300 radio stations, sometimes he broadcast from airfields with a portable keyboard on the field. In 1930 he had two CBS programs, Breakfast With Art and Syncopated Pessimism and he ended his radio programs with the question Have you got a cup of coffee in your pocket. From 1937 through 1954 Art appeared on radio in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 1939 he was featured in the first demonstration of television in the South at Atlantas Richs Department Store. World War II delayed the introduction of television in Atlanta until 1949. Gillham appeared frequently as a guest on WAGA-TV, from 1937 he had regular radio programs on Atlantas WSB, WGST and WQXI. He concluded his career in radio at WQXI after two heart attacks damaged his coordination in 1954, in October 1924, Gillham signed a contract with Columbia Records as an exclusive artist. On February 25–27,1925 Art recorded seven electrical masters, six of which were released, Columbia began using the new electrical process with its other artists beginning on February 27,1925. The first electrical master was 140125, You May Be Lonesome released on Columbia 328-D, Victor began using the electrical process in March 1925. Gillham was a popular artist with Columbia from 1924 through 1931 and his 130 recordings included Angry, Im Confessing, Shine On, Harvest Moon, Id Climb the Highest Mountain, Cecilia, Im Waiting for Ships That Never Come In, Thinking and Tenderly. Most of his recordings were vocals with his piano accompaniment, some recordings included small groups which included Red Nichols, Benny Goodman, Miff Mole, Jimmy Dorsey and others. His primary competitors were Gene Austin, Jack Little, Cliff Edwards, Jack Smith began recording for Victor in the Fall of 1925. Victor set him up as a competitor by calling him the Whispering Baritone or Whispering Jack Smith
15.
Vaughn De Leath
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Vaughn De Leath was an American female singer who gained popularity in the 1920s, earning the sobriquets The Original Radio Girl and the First Lady of Radio. Although very popular in the 1920s, De Leath is obscure in modern times, De Leath was an early exponent of a style of vocalizing known as crooning. One of her hit songs, Are You Lonesome Tonight, recorded in 1927, achieved fame when it became a hit for Elvis Presley in 1960. Born Leonore Vonderlieth in the town of Mount Pulaski, Illinois in 1894, her parents were George, at age 12, Leonore relocated to Los Angeles with her mother and sister, where she finished high school and studied music. While at Mills College, she began writing songs, but dropped out to pursue a singing career and she then adopted the stage name Vaughn De Leath. Her vocals ranged from soprano to deep contralto, De Leath adapted to the emerging, less restrictive jazz vocal style of the late 1910s and early 1920s. In January 1920, inventor and radio pioneer Lee DeForest brought her to the studio of his station, 2XG, located in New York Citys Worlds Tower. Although not, as is stated, the first broadcast of live singing, she established herself as a skilled radio performer. Her voice and her cordial, unassuming microphone presence were ideally suited to the novel task, without instruction she seemed to sense exactly what was necessary in song and patter to successfully put herself across. By 1921, in the years of commercial radio, De Leath began singing at WJZ, in Newark. She also performed on the New York stage in the early to mid-1920s, but radio became her primary medium and her recording career began in 1921. Over the next decade she recorded for a number of labels, including Edison, Columbia, Okeh, Gennett, Victor and she occasionally recorded for major label subsidiaries under various pseudonyms. These included Gloria Geer, Mamie Lee, Sadie Green, Betty Brown, Nancy Foster, Marion Ross, Glory Clark, Angelina Marco, and Gertrude Dwyer. De Leath had a versatile range of styles, and as material required could adapt as a serious balladeer, playful girl, vampish coquette. De Leath also recorded songs for silent films, and composed songs, such as Oliver Twist, written by the singer herself and she demonstrated a high level of instrumental ability on the ukulele, and occasionally accompanied herself on recordings. In performance she played banjo, guitar, and piano and she also recorded ukulele instruction records on YouTube. In 1923, she one of the first women to manage a radio station, WDT in New York City. In 1928, she appeared on a television broadcast
16.
The Vagabond Lover
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The Vagabond Lover is a 1929 American Pre-Code black-and-white, comedy-drama musical film about a small-town boy who finds fame and romance when he joins a dance band. The film was directed by Marshall Neilan, and is based on the novel of the name, written by James Ashmore Creelman. It was Rudy Vallees first feature film, and also starred Sally Blane, Marie Dressler, the film premièred in New York City on November 26,1929, and was released wide on December 1. A DVD version was released on March 29,2005, Rudy Bronson is a senior in a small college in the Midwest. While in school, he completes a course in the saxophone. Bronson and his friends form a band, but have difficulty finding work, believing that Grant will help them land professional jobs, the band heads to the Long Island, New York home of Grant. Once there, they pester Grant for an interview, to the point where Grant leaves his home, along with his manager, to stay in New York City, until Bronson gives up and goes home. After Grant has left, his next door neighbor, Mrs. Whitehall, thinking they might be burglars, she calls the police. Whitehall and her niece, Jean, go over to Grants house to confront Bronson, thinking quickly, one of Bronsons friends introduce him as Ted Grant, who Whitehall, despite being neighbors, has never met. The police are suspicious, but when Bronson and his band plays for them. In fact, Whitehall is so impressed, and slightly embarrassed over having called the police, as they are waiting for the day of the concert to arrive, Bronson and Jean become romantically involved, and the band becomes relatively successful. However, another socialite does report Bronson to the police, but before he can be arrested, Grant returns and claims credit for discovering Bronson, the band becomes a great success, and Bronson is reconciled with Jean. Rudy Vallee as Rudy Bronson Sally Blane as Jean Whitehall Marie Dressler as Mrs. Ethel Bertha Whitehall Charles Sellon as Officer George C, tuttle Norman Peck as Swiftie Danny OShea as Sam Edward J. Nugent as Sport Nella Walker as Mrs. The film was a hit and made a profit of $335,000, mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, gave it an overall positive review, noting that film. Relies on fun, tuneful songs and appealing music and he applauded Rudy Vallees and Marie Dresslers performances, although he did have some negative points regarding the dialogue and was ambivalent regarding some of the acting. A review published in Motion Picture Magazine was less than positive, once and for all, this movie should refute the theory apparently held by picture producers that a celebrity in any line is good movie material, the reviewer summed up. The reviewer did, however, praise Marie Dresslers performance and wrote in conclusion, If you like sentimental songs that rhyme Moonbeams with June-dreams, youll love the ones in The Vagabond Lover. Its true that the lad of the radio has not quite mastered all of the celluloid technique
17.
William Henry O'Connell
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William Henry OConnell was an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death, William OConnell was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to John and Bridget OConnell, who were Irish immigrants. The youngest of children, he had six brothers and four sisters. His father worked at a mill and died when William was four years old. During his high school career, he excelled at music, particularly the piano, OConnell entered St. Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1876. At St. Charles, he was a pupil of the noted poet John Banister Tabb and he returned to Massachusetts two years later and entered Boston College, from which he graduated in 1881 with gold medals in philosophy, physics, and chemistry. He then furthered his studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, OConnell was ordained to the priesthood by Lucido Cardinal Parocchi on June 8,1884. A pneumonia and bronchial congestion cut short his pursuit of a doctorate in divinity at the Pontifical Urban Athenaeum and he then served as curate of St. Joseph Church in Medford until 1886, when he became curate of St. Joseph Church in the West End of Boston. Returning to Rome, OConnell was named rector of the North American College in 1895 and he was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate of His Holiness in 1897. On February 8,1901, OConnell was appointed the third Bishop of Portland, Maine and he received his episcopal consecration on the following May 19 from Francesco Cardinal Satolli, with Archbishops Edmund Stonor and Rafael Merry del Val, at the Lateran Basilica. Upon his arrival in Maine, he was given a reception by Governor John F. Hill. He was presented with a reliquary of the True Cross by Pope Pius X after the election in 1903. In 1905, in addition to his duties as a bishop, OConnell was named papal envoy to Emperor Meiji of Japan. He was made an Assistant at the Pontifical Throne in 1905 as well and he was also viewed as having actively campaigned to become Archbishop of Boston, donating to numerous Vatican causes and publicly expressing his loyalty to the pope. OConnell was named Coadjutor Archbishop, with right of succession, of Boston, as coadjutor, he served as the designated successor of Archbishop John Williams, who was then in declining health. He later succeeded Williams as the second Archbishop of Boston upon the death on August 30,1907. On November 27,1911, OConnell became Bostons first Archbishop to become Cardinal, OConnell was late to two papal conclaves in a row, in 1914 and 1922, due to having to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the slower transportation of the day. He made a protest to Pope Pius XI, who in response lengthened the time between the death of the Pope and the start of the conclave, OConnell was able to participate in the subsequent 1939 conclave, although by that time air travel was available
18.
Boston
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Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
19.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
20.
Tenor
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Tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is one of the highest of the male voice types. The tenors vocal range lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, and A4, the A above middle C, in solo work, this range extends up to C5, or tenor high C. The low extreme for tenors is roughly A♭2, at the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to two Fs above middle C. The tenor voice type is divided into the leggero tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor. The name tenor derives from the Latin word tenere, which means to hold, in medieval and Renaissance polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the tenor was the structurally fundamental voice, vocal or instrumental. All other voices were normally calculated in relation to the tenor, until the late 16th century introduction of the contratenor singers, the tenor was usually the highest voice, assuming the role of providing a foundation. It was also in the 18th century that tenor came to signify the male voice that sang such parts, thus, for earlier repertoire, a line marked tenor indicated the parts role, and not the required voice type. Indeed, even as late as the century, partbooks labelled tenor might contain parts for a range of voice types. The vocal range of the tenor is one of the highest of the voice types. Within opera, the lowest note in the tenor repertoire is probably A♭2 in Rossinis rarely performed La donna del lago in the role of Rodrigo di Dhu. Within more frequently performed repertoire, Mime and Herod both call for an A2, a few tenor roles in the standard repertoire call for a tenor C. Some of the few top Cs in the operatic repertoire are either optional or interpolated by tradition. However, the highest demanded note in the standard operatic repertoire is D5. Some operatic roles for tenors require a darker timbre and fewer high notes, in the leggero repertoire, the highest note is F5, therefore, very few tenors can, given the raising of concert pitch since its composition, have this role in their repertoire without transposition. Within the tenor voice type category are seven generally recognized subcategories, leggero tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, Mozart tenor, Also known as the tenore di grazia, the leggero tenor is essentially the male equivalent of a lyric coloratura. This voice is light, agile, and capable of executing difficult passages of fioritura, the typical leggero tenor possesses a range spanning from approximately C3 to E♭5, with a few being able to sing up to F5 or higher in full voice. In some cases, the chest register of the leggero tenor may extend below C3, voices of this type are utilized frequently in the operas of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and in music dating from the Baroque period. Leggero tenor roles in operas, The lyric tenor is a warm voice with a bright, full timbre that is strong but not heavy
21.
Baritone
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A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice types. It is the most common male voice, the baritone voice type is generally divided into the baryton-Martin baritone, lyric baritone, Kavalierbariton, Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, baryton-noble baritone, and the bass-baritone. The first use of the term baritone emerged as baritonans, late in the 15th century, at this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices, but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the average male choral voice. Baritones took roughly the range as it is today at the beginning of the 18th century. Indeed, many works of the 18th century have roles marked as bass that in reality are low baritone roles. Examples of this are to be found, for instance, in the operas, the greatest and most enduring parts for baritones in 18th-century operatic music were composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They include Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Papageno in The Magic Flute and these included the likes of Filippo Galli, Giovanni Inchindi, and Henri-Bernard Dabadie. The basse-taille and the bass were commonly confused because their roles were sometimes sung by singers of either actual voice part. The bel canto style of vocalism which arose in Italy in the early 19th century supplanted the castrato-dominated opera seria of the previous century and it led to the baritone being viewed as a separate voice category from the bass. More often than not, however, baritones found themselves portraying villains, the principal composers of bel canto opera are considered to be, Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and the young Giuseppe Verdi. Figaro in Il barbiere is often called the first true baritone role, however, Donizetti and Verdi in their vocal writing went on to emphasize the top fifth of the baritone voice, rather than its lower notes—thus generating a more brilliant sound. The major international baritone of the first half of the 19th century was the Italian Antonio Tamburini and he was a famous Don Giovanni in Mozarts eponymous opera as well as being a Bellini and Donizetti specialist. Commentators praised his voice for its beauty, flexibility and smooth tonal emission, Tamburinis range, however, was probably closer to that of a bass-baritone than to that of a modern Verdi baritone. His French equivalent was Henri-Bernard Dabadie, who was a mainstay of the Paris Opera between 1819 and 1836 and the creator of several major Rossinian baritone roles, including Guillaume Tell. Dabadie sang in Italy, too, where he originated the role of Belcore in Lelisir damore in 1832, the most important of Tamburinis Italianate successors were all Verdians. In France, Paul Barroilhet succeeded Dabadie as the Paris operas best known baritone, like Dabadie, he also sang in Italy and created an important Donizetti role, in his case, Alphonse in La favorite. Antonio Pini-Corsi was the standout Italian buffo baritone in the period between about 1880 and World War I, reveling in comic roles by Rossini, Donizetti and Paer. In 1893, he created the part of Ford in Verdis last opera, notable among their contemporaries were the cultured and technically adroit French baritones Jean Lassalle, Victor Maurel, Paul Lhérie, and Maurice Renaud
22.
Annette Hanshaw
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Catherine Annette Hanshaw was an American Jazz Age singer. She was one of the most popular stars of the 1930s. Over four million of her records had sold by 1934. In her ten-year recording career, she recorded about 250 sides, in a 1934 poll conducted by Radio Stars magazine, she received the title of best female popular singer. Second place went to Ethel Shutta, third went to Ruth Etting. Catherine Annette Hanshaw was born on October 18,1901 to Frank Wayne Hanshaw and she had two brothers, George and Frank. Her father loved show-business and music, he ran away to join the circus and her aunt Nellie McCoy and Bob Uke Hanshaw were vaudeville performers. She sang for guests at hotels owned by her father and demoed sheet music at her familys music shop, The Melody Shop, in Mount Kisco, Hanshaw aspired to be a portrait painter, studying at the National School of Design for a year. Her professional music career started when she was paid to sing for society, before recording, in 1926, Hanshaw sang on local radio stations while visiting Florida with her family. Her first recording is a featuring a medley of popular songs for Pathé. Her first commercial recordings are Black Bottom and Six Feet of Papa and she recorded for Pathé until 1928, Pathé released her sides on both the Pathé and the Perfect labels. Starting in June 1928, she recorded for Columbia, most of these recordings were issued on their dime-store labels Harmony, Diva, Clarion, a handful were also released on their regular-priced Columbia and OKeh labels. Although most were released under her name, she was renamed Gay Ellis and she recorded under a number of other pseudonyms, including Ethel Bingham, Marion Lee, Janet Shaw, and Lelia Sandford. Starting in August 1932, she began recording for ARC, her recordings were issued on their Melotone, Perfect, Conqueror, Oriole and her final session, on February 3,1934, was placed on ARCs Vocalion label. Throughout her recording career, she sang with the Original Memphis Five, Willard Robisons Deep River Orchestra, Sam Lanins Orchestra, Lou Golds Orchestra, and Rudy Vallées Connecticut Yankees. She had been accompanied by Red Nichols, Miff Mole, Phil Napoleon, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Adrian Rollini, Vic Berton, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Hanshaw began appearing on the radio in 1929. In the early 1930s, she sang on the air with Glen Grays Casa Loma Orchestra, from 1932 to 1934, she was featured on the popular Thursday evening radio program Maxwell House Show Boat. She made her appearance on film in the 1933 Paramount short Captain Henrys Radio Show
23.
Mildred Bailey
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Mildred Rinker Bailey was a popular and influential American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as The Queen of Swing, The Rockin Chair Lady and Mrs. Swing. Some of her hits are Its So Peaceful in the Country, Trust in Me. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart, Small Fry, Please Be Kind, Darn That Dream, Rockin Chair, Blame It on My Last Affair, Bailey was born Mildred Rinker in Tekoa, Washington. Her mother, Josephine, was an member of the Coeur dAlene Tribe. Her father, Charles, played fiddle and called square dances and her mother played piano every evening after supper and taught Mildred to play and sing. Her brothers were the vocalist and composer Al Rinker and the lyricist Charles Rinker, at seventeen, Bailey moved to Seattle and worked as a sheet music demonstrator at Woolworths. She married and divorced Ted Bailey, keeping his last name because she thought it sounded more American than Rinker, with the help of her second husband, Benny Stafford, she became an established blues and jazz singer on the West Coast. According to Gary Giddins, in his book Bing Crosby, A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years 1903–1940, in 1925 she secured work for her brother, Al Rinker, and his partner, Bing Crosby. Giddins further states that Crosby first heard of Louis Armstrong and other Chicago black jazz records from Baileys collection, Crosby helped Bailey in turn by introducing her to Paul Whiteman. She sang with Whitemans band from 1929 to 1933 and her first two records were as uncredited vocalist for a session by the Eddie Lang Orchestra in 1929 and a 1930 recording of I Like to Do Things for You for Frankie Trumbauer. She was Whitemans popular female vocalist through 1932, when she left the band over salary disagreements and she then recorded a series of records for Brunswick in 1933 and an all-star session with Benny Goodmans studio band in 1934, featuring Coleman Hawkins. In the mid-1930s, she recorded with her husband, Red Norvo. A dynamic couple, they earned the nicknames Mr. and Mrs. Swing, from 1936 to 1939 Norvo recorded for Brunswick and Bailey made her own recordings for Vocalion, often with Norvos band. Some of her recordings instead featured members of Count Basies band, despite their divorce, the two continue to record together off and on until 1945. She also sang on a number of Benny Goodmans Columbia recordings in 1939 and 1940, a large woman, she suffered from diabetes and depression. She only made a few recordings following World War II, Bailey died of heart failure, due chiefly to diabetes, on December 12,1951, in Poughkeepsie, New York, aged 44. Norvo outlived Bailey by nearly half a century, dying in April 1999, in 1989, Bailey was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1938, Bailey had two number one hits with Red Norvo and his Orchestra, Please Be Kind reached number one on the Hit Parade chart on May 7
24.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
25.
Mark Reizen
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Mark Osipovich Reizen, also Reisen or Reyzen was a leading Soviet opera singer with a beautiful and expansive bass voice. Reizen was born into a Jewish family of workers in 1895 at Zaitsevo village in Ekaterinoslav province. He had four brothers and a sister, and all were trained in music, playing mandolin, guitar, balalaika and he served as a soldier in the First World War. He studied engineering at the Kharkiv Politechnic, and also voice at the Kharkiv Conservatory with the Italian professor Federico Bugamelli in 1919-1920 and he debuted at the Kharkiv Opera in 1921 as Pimen in Mussorgskys Boris Godunov, and in 1925 moved to the Mariinsky Theatre in Leningrad. Reizen toured Europe performing in Paris, Berlin, Monte Carlo, a tall man commanding a strong stage presence, he joined the Bolshoi Theatre in 1930, remaining there as a principal bass until his retirement in 1954. He became a particularly memorable interpreter of Boris and Dosifey in the two greatest operas of Mussorgsky, Reizen was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941,1949 and 1951. In 1967 he began teaching, and became a professor at Moscows Gnessin Institute and he gave an important recital for his 80th birthday, and for his 90th sang Prince Gremin at the Bolshoi in Moscow in July 1985. On both occasions, his voice sounded remarkably preserved, Reizen died of a stroke in 1992 in Moscow at the age of 97. A number of his recordings are available on CD, attesting to his greatness. Film clips of him in action also exist and his lush, voluminous basso rolls through the music unconstrainedly. It sits easily at the bottom, peels forth brilliant Fs and F-sharps at the top, and in-between displays flowing line, ruslans heroic fire and tenderness are there - its a complete piece of work. “In 1930, Reizen went on a tour of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, sang Mephistopheles and was noticed by Stalin. He described a somewhat comical scene as he was invited to the government box during the intermission. The dialogue went something like this, –You sing very well, –Why dont you come here more often. –You see, I sing in Leningrad and only visit here, –Why not move here and visit there. –You see, I have a there, and an apartment too… –Perhaps we can do something. The following day and in typical Soviet style, he was surprised by the visit of an official car with an NKVD agent. This is how Mark Reizen was engaged at the Bolshoi. ”2nd edition 1986 pp135) Lebendige Vergangenheit - Mark Reizen CD0717281890595 Label, Preiser 1997, Time,76 minutes
26.
Leonid Utyosov
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Leonid Utyosov was brought up in Odessa, Russian Empire and attended the Faig School of Commerce, from which he dropped out and joined the Borodanov Circus troupe as an acrobat. In 1917, he won a competition in Gomel, Belarus. In the 1920s, he moved to Leningrad and set up one of the first Soviet jazz bands, in Leningrad, he began collaboration with the popular composer, Isaak Dunayevsky, which turned out to be a breakthrough for both artists. In 1928, Utyosov toured Europe and attended performances of American jazz bands in Paris, during the 1930s, Utyosov and his band, called Thea-Jazz had a regular gig at the Marble Hall of the Kirov Palace of Culture in Leningrad. Utyosovs jazz band also performed at the Leningrad Maly Opera theatre, at the Svoboda-teatr, in his performances, Utyosov delivered a variety of musical styles, including such genres as American jazz, Argentine tango, French chanson, upbeat dance, and Russian folk music. His popularity was on the rise in the 1930s when he co-starred with Lyubov Orlova in the comedy Jolly Fellows, in it, Utyosov performed such hits as Serdtse. During World War II, Utyosov performed on the front lines, on Victory Day, he performed on Sverdlov Square in Moscow. Utyosov lived in Moscow for the rest of his life, albeit in many of his songs he alluded to his town of Odessa. Richard Stites writes, In the years of the red jazz age European, the kings were Alexander Tsfasman and Leonid Utesov. He resembled his idol, the personable Ted Lewis more than he did any of the great figures of the time. In fact, Utesov was the typical estrada entertainer - quick witted, versatile and he was not only one of the stars of the 1930s but also a personal favorite of Stalin. 1919 - Lieutenant Schmidt - Freedom Fighter 1923 - Trade-House Entente and Co
27.
Georg Ots
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Georg Ots was a Soviet singer. He was released a later, and on his return home he auditioned for a place at the conservatory in Tallinn. At the same time, he became a member of the chorus at the Estonia Theatre in Tallinn and his solo opera debut was a tiny part in Eugene Onegin. He soon became one of the most revered singers in Estonia and Finland, Ots often performed in many major opera houses of the former Soviet Union, being especially cherished at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. His repertoire included the roles of, Eugene Onegin, Yeletzky, Escamillo, Renato, Don Giovanni, Papageno, Rigoletto, Iago, Porgy, Figaro, and the title role in Kabalevskys Colas Breugnon. Ots sang in Estonian, Russian, Finnish, German, Italian and French, Otss most famous role, with which he is often identified with, was the leading character in Anton Rubinsteins opera The Demon. The libretto of The Demon is based on Mikhail Lermontovs famous epic poem, Georg Otss interpretation of the angel mesmerised audiences and received rapturous reviews, making Lermontovs controversial poem even more famous. The popularity of Ots culminated in 1958 with the release of the Lenfilm Studios musical Soviet film Mister X, Ots loved to perform songs by Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, and several other Russian composers, and was also a devoted interpreter of Estonian folk songs. His voice could be heard on radio and TV all over the Soviet Union and he also performed successfully in various European countries. After his death in 1975, the Tallinn Music School was named after him, in 1997, Russian scientists gave his name to a newly discovered minor planet,3738 Ots. He was married three times and had two daughters, a son, and two adopted sons. In November 2005, a musical Georg based on the life of Georg Ots was premiered in Tallinn, and on October 5,2007, Georg, the asteroid 1977 QA1 was named 3738 Ots in his honour in 1996. A street next to the Estonia theatre which houses the Estonian National Opera is named after Georg Ots, Georg Ots Tallinn School of Music, one of the most important music schools in Estonia. Georg Ots at the Internet Movie Database Георг Отс на сайте Peoples. ru
28.
Muslim Magomayev (musician)
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Muslim Magometovich Magomayev, dubbed the King of Songs and the Soviet Sinatra was a Soviet and Azerbaijani baritone operatic and pop singer of the 1960s and 1970s. He achieved iconic status in Russia and the countries, including his native Azerbaijan, for his vocal talent. Muslim Magomayev represented one of the most respected artistic dynasties in Azerbaijan and his grandfather Muslim Magomayev, a friend and contemporary of the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov, was one of the founders of modern Azerbaijani classical music. Magomayevs father was of mixed origin whose parents moved to Azerbaijan from Chechnya and Georgia respectively, whereas his Adyghean-born mother was of mixed Turkish, Adyghe, however, when asked about his ethnicity, Magomayev considered himself Azerbaijani. Estranged from his mother after his fathers death, Magomayev was raised by his paternal grandmother and he learned to play the piano as a child, and began to take voice lessons at the age of 14. As a teenager, he interested in Italian songs, American jazz. He majored in piano and composition at the Baku Conservatoire and he was 19 when he first performed at an international youth music festival in Helsinki. His performance was noted by Yekaterina Furtseva, then Minister of Culture of the Soviet Union, in 1962, at the age of 20, Magomayev first appeared in Moscow where he performed during the Days of Azerbaijani Culture. He sang an aria from Gounod’s Faust, and the song Do the Russians Want War, in a gala concert at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and became a celebrity on the spot. A year later, he gave his first solo concert in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Concert Hall to a house and became a soloist of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera. Muslim earned fame in the USSR as a singer with his performance in Rossinis Barber of Seville. He also became known for his arias from Puccinis Tosca, Hajibeyovs Koroghlu and Shah Ismayil, in 1964 and 1965, Muslim was a visiting artist at La Scala in Milan, but turned down the invitation to sing in the Moscow Bolshoi Theater upon his return. Instead, the singer turned to music, becoming a pop idol for several generations of music lovers in the Soviet Union. Muslim Magomayevs popularity in the USSR was overwhelming and he quickly became a cult figure and gave three concerts a day filling huge arenas all across the Soviet Union, while his albums sold millions. In 1966 and 1969, Magomayev performed in Paris Olympia with great success, in 1969 he received the MIDEM Gold Disc Award in Cannes for album sales of over 4.5 million units. In 1973, at the age of 31, Muslim was awarded the Soviet Unions highest artistic title, Magomayev moved to Moscow in the early 1970s. He became the art director of the Azerbaijan State Bandstand-Symphonic Orchestra in 1975 and toured in France, Bulgaria, Finland, Magomayev was also known as a composer, writing several film soundtracks and songs. In addition, Magomayev acted in films and hosted television and radio broadcasts devoted to prominent musicians of the 20th century, Magomayev was an influence on many important Soviet musical figures including Alla Pugacheva, who often spoke fondly of him
29.
Joseph Kobzon
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Iosif Davydovich Kobzon is a Russian singer, known for his crooner style. Kobzon was born to Jewish parents in the town of Chasiv Yar. As a boy he demonstrated a talent for singing, winning numerous regional singing contests and he reached the national finals on two separate occasions, appearing in concerts dedicated to Joseph Stalin - a significant honour at the time. In 1958, Kobzon officially started his career in Moscow. In the next few years he made contacts in Moscows entertainment world. In 1962, he recorded his first LP which included songs written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and his popularity rose quickly, and demand for his singing saw him frequently performing two to three concerts a day. His most popular hit song at the time was titled A u nas vo dvore, during Leonid Brezhnevs time in office, there was hardly an official concert where Kobzon did not take part, and in 1980 he was awarded the honour of Peoples Artist of the USSR. His best-known song is Instants from the legendary Soviet TV series Seventeen Instants of Spring, however, the following year, his reputation was restored, as he was honored with the USSR State Prize. Joseph Kobzon has performed in concerts in most cities of the former USSR. Throughout his career, he has shared the stage with many Western superstars, including the likes of Liza Minnelli, in 1965, he married the singer, Veronika Kruglova, then in 1969 Kobzon married Lyudmila Gurchenko, one of the best known comic actresses of the Soviet cinema. In 1971, he married his current wife Ninel Drizina with whom he has two children, on many occasions, Kobzon performed in disaster areas and military hot-spots such as Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War, and Chechnya during the Chechen War. In 1986, Kobzon was the first celebrity to visit and perform in the town of Chernobyl to cheer the nuclear reactor rescuers, two years later, Kobzon was the first celebrity to visit and perform for victims of the 1988 Armenian earthquake. Kobzon has been active in Russian politics since 1989 and he is an experienced Russian MP, and enjoyed landslide election victories. His first major political achievement transpired when his promotion of Jewish culture in the USSR aided the establishment of ties between USSR and Israel. For many years, Kobzon has presided over numerous charitable organisations, since 1989, he has been Chairman of The Movement for Honour and Dignity of Russian Citizens. He is Chairman of the Public Council of Moscow’s Police Department, since the early 1990s, Kobzon has personally funded numerous orphanages around the country. In 2002, he risked his life as key negotiator in the Moscow theater hostage crisis and his involvement resulted in the release of a mother with three children and a British citizen. Between 2005 and 2007, he was the head of the State Dumas culture committee, in 2007, his name was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the most decorated artist in the countrys history
30.
Ballad
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A ballad /ˈbæləd/ is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally danced songs, Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the British Isles from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in the Americas, Australia, Ballads are 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides, the form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is now often used for any love song. The ballad derives its name from medieval French dance songs or ballares, from which ballet is also derived, as a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling that can be seen in poems such as Beowulf. Musically they were influenced by the Minnesinger, the earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is Judas in a 13th-century manuscript. This means that the two words, ballad and ballet, are derived from the French language. Ballads were originally written to accompany dances, and so were composed in couplets with refrains in alternate lines and these refrains would have been sung by the dancers in time with the dance. Most northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed, there is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult. Ballads usually use the dialect of the people and are heavily influenced by the region in which they originate. Scottish ballads in particular are distinctively un-English, even showing some pre-Christian influences in the inclusion of elements such as the fairies in the Scottish ballad Tam Lin. The ballads do not have any known author or correct version, instead, having passed down mainly by oral tradition since the Middle Ages. The ballads remained a tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy to publish volumes of popular ballads. In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a story, often concise, and rely on imagery, rather than description. Themes concerning rural laborers and their sexuality are common, and there are many ballads based on the Robin Hood legend. Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas
31.
Swing music
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Swing music, or simply swing, is a form of American music that dominated in the 1930s and 1940s. The name swing came from the swing feel where the emphasis is on the off–beat or weaker pulse in the music, Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, the verb to swing is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Notable musicians of the era include Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Woody Herman. Swing has roots in the late 1920s as larger ensembles began using written arrangements, a typical song played in swing style would feature a strong, anchoring rhythm section in support of more loosely tied wind and brass. The most common style consisted of having a soloist take center stage, Swing music began to decline in popularity during World War II because of several factors. By the late 1940s, swing had morphed into traditional pop music, or evolved into new styles such as jump blues, Swing music saw a revival in the late 1950s and 1960s with pop vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald. Swing blended with other genres to create new styles, in country music, artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican and Bob Wills introduced many elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called western swing. Gypsy swing is an outgrowth of Venuti and Langs jazz violin swing, in the 1970s, and 1980s, fans of big band music attended swing music performances at supper clubs. In the late-1980s a trendier, more urban-styled swing-beat emerged called new jack swing, in the late 1990s and into the 2000s there was a swing revival, led by Squirrel Nut Zippers, Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Lavay Smith. In Canada, some of the early 2000s records by The JW-Jones Blues Band included swing revival elements, the 1920s saw parallel trends in jazz and popular music that would later converge into the swing style. New Orleans style jazz was based on a meter and contrapuntal improvisation led by a trumpet or cornet, typically followed by a clarinet. The rhythm section consisted of a tuba and drums, and sometimes a banjo, by the early 1920s guitars and pianos sometimes substituted for the banjo and a string bass sometimes substituted for the tuba. Further innovations in small ensemble playing led to development of the Chicago style identified with Louis Armstrong, a stint with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra familiarized him with arranged ensemble playing that differed from the New Orleans style, in which saxophones became the dominant sound among the reeds. Armstrong brought those back to his smaller ensembles, the soloist played over an ensemble relegated to a supporting role in the background. The string bass also lent itself to playing in a 4/4 rhythm rather than the 2/4 rhythm dictated by the tuba. The new format gave the soloist the opportunity to play with more rhythmic freedom, but playing with swing remained the province of the soloist, not the ensemble. The late 1920s saw increasingly sophisticated arrangements used by bigger ensembles, some arrangements used call-response between horn sections to build the melody
32.
Rock and roll
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While elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s. For the purpose of differentiation, this deals with the first definition. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars, a double bass or string bass or an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music and it went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply rock music or rock. The term rock and roll now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s. In 1934, the song Rock and Roll by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round, in 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term rock-and-roll to describe upbeat recordings such as Rock Me by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. By 1943, the Rock and Roll Inn in South Merchantville, in 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it. The origins of rock and roll have been debated by commentators. The migration of former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called race music, particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. The 1940s saw the use of blaring horns, shouted lyrics. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll. Rock and roll arrived at a time of technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock. Because the development of rock and roll was a process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously the first rock. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
33.
Matt Monro
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Matt Monro, known as The Man with the Golden Voice, was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. AllMusic has described Monro as one of the most underrated pop vocalists of the 60s and he was born Terence Edward Parsons in Shoreditch, London and attended Duncombe School in Islington, and Elliott School in Putney. Matt was first noticed while serving in the British armed forces in Hong Kong, agreeing to the deal, he performed his first on-air concert for Rediffusion on June 27,1953. By 1956, Monro had become a featured vocalist with the BBC Show Band, an important influence on his early career was the pianist Winifred Atwell, who became his mentor, provided him with his stage name, and helped him sign with Decca Records. In 1957 Monro released Blue and Sentimental, a collection of standards, a short recording contract with Fontana Records followed. By the end of the 1950s, Monros mid-decade fame had evaporated and he and his wife Mickie lived from her wages as a song plugger and his royalties from a TV advertising jingle for Camay soap. In 1959 he recorded a country song, Bound for Texas, for The Chaplin Revue. It would be the first of many Monro soundtrack themes, when Sellers heard the recording he decided to use it to open the record rather than record his own version. Their second single and Monros highest UK chart success, Portrait of My Love, written by Cyril Ornadel, by the following year, he had been named Top International Act by Billboard. In February 1961, the British music magazine, NME reported that Monro had won ITVs A Song for Britain with My Kind of Girl and his follow-up hits included that song, plus Softly as I Leave You and the song from the James Bond film From Russia with Love. For the latter, his vocals were not used in the titles, as became the standard for the series, they were heard on a radio during the film. The Austrian entry Warum nur warum, performed by songwriter Udo Jürgens, caught Monros ear, despite its sixth-place finish, and he recorded an English version titled Walk Away, earning him another hit single late in 1964. He also had a hit with the Beatles Yesterday in 1965, releasing the first single of the most recorded song of all time, the following year, Monro sang the Oscar-winning title song for the film, Born Free, which became his signature tune. It was also his second collaboration with John Barry, following From Russia With Love, Monro went on to record two further songs from Barry film scores, Wednesdays Child and This Way Mary. Both Born Free and On Days Like These had lyrics by Don Black, in the late 60s he recorded another Udo Jürgens song with the name Was Ich Dir Sagen Will. It was adapted to English as The Music Played, Matt recorded a Spanish version of the song with adapted title of Alguien Canto. The Spanish version was a top hit in Spain in 1969
34.
Adult contemporary music
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Adult contemporary is rather a continuation of the easy listening and soft rock style that became popular in the 1960s and 1970s with some adjustments that reflect the evolution of pop/rock music. Adult contemporary tends to have lush, soothing and highly polished qualities where emphasis on melody and it is usually melodic enough to get a listeners attention, and is inoffensive and pleasurable enough to work well as background music. Like most of pop music, its songs tend to be written in a basic format employing a verse–chorus structure, the format is heavy on romantic sentimental ballads which mostly use acoustic instruments such as acoustic guitars, pianos, saxophones, and sometimes an orchestral set. The electric guitars are normally faint and high-pitched, however, recent adult contemporary music may usually feature synthesizers. An AC radio station may play mainstream music, but it excludes hip hop, dance tracks, hard rock, and some forms of teen pop, as these are popular among adults. AC radio often targets the 25–44 age group, the demographic that has received the most attention from advertisers since the 1960s, a common practice in recent years of adult contemporary stations is to play less newer music and more hits of the past. This de-emphasis on new songs slows the progression of the AC chart, over the years, AC has spawned subgenres including hot AC, soft AC, urban AC, rhythmic AC, and Christian AC. Some stations play only hot AC, soft AC, or only one of the variety of subgenres, therefore, it is not usually considered a specific genre of music, it is merely an assemblage of selected tracks from musicians of many different genres. Adult contemporary traces its roots to the 1960s easy listening format, a few offered 90% instrumentals, and a handful were entirely instrumental. Billboard first published the Easy Listening chart July 17,1961, with 20 songs, the chart described itself as not too far out in either direction. Initially, the vocalists consisted of such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Johnny Mathis, Connie Francis, Nat King Cole, Perry Como. The custom recordings were usually instrumental versions of current or recent rock and roll or pop hit songs, some stations would also occasionally play earlier big band-era recordings from the 1940s and early 1950s. After 1965, differences between the Hot 100 chart and the Easy Listening chart became more pronounced, better reflecting what middle of the road stations were actually playing, the composition of the chart changed dramatically. As rock music continued to harden, there was much less crossover between the Hot 100 and Easy Listening chart than there had been in the half of the 1960s. Roger Miller, Barbra Streisand and Bobby Vinton were among the charts most popular performers and these middle of the road stations also frequently included older, pre-rock-era adult standards and big band titles to further appeal to adult listeners who had grown up with those songs. Another big impetus for the evolution of the AC radio format was the popularity of easy listening or beautiful music stations, stations with music specifically designed to be purely ambient, hard rock had been established as a mainstream genre by 1965. From the end of the 1960s, it common to divide mainstream rock music into soft and hard rock. Soft rock was often derived from rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody
35.
Tony Bennett
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Anthony Dominick Benedetto, known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. He is also a painter, having created works under the name Anthony Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions and he is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York. Born and raised in Astoria to an Italian-American family, Bennett began singing at an early age and he fought in the final stages of World War II as a U. S. Army infantryman in the European Theater. Afterward, he developed his technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with Because of You in 1951. Several top hits such as Rags to Riches followed in the early 1950s and he then refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached a peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. His career and his personal life experienced a downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and he has won 19 Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards, and was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has sold over 50 million records worldwide, Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on August 3,1926, in Astoria, Queens, New York, to grocer John Benedetto and seamstress Anna Suraci. In 1906, John had emigrated from Podàrgoni, an eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria. Anna had been born in the U. S. shortly after her parents emigrated from the Calabria region in 1899. Other relatives came over as well as part of the migration of Italians to America. Tony grew up with a sister, Mary, and an older brother. With a father who was ailing and unable to work, the children grew up in poverty, John Sr. instilled in his son a love of art and literature and a compassion for human suffering, but died when Tony was 10 years old. The experience of growing up in the Great Depression and a distaste for the effects of the Hoover Administration would make the child a lifelong Democrat. Young Tony grew up listening to Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland, and Bing Crosby as well as artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden. His Uncle Dick was a tap dancer in vaudeville, giving him a window into show business
36.
Barry Manilow
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Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, musician, and producer with a career that has spanned over 50 years. He is best known for a string of hit recordings such as Mandy, Cant Smile Without You. He has recorded and released 47 Top 40 singles, including 12 that hit number one and 27 of which appeared within the top ten, and has released many multi-platinum albums. He is ranked as the top Adult Contemporary chart artist of all time, according to R&R and Billboard magazines, Manilow has been praised by several well-known entertainers, including Sinatra, who was quoted in the 1970s saying, Hes next. In 1988, Bob Dylan stopped Manilow at a party, hugged him and said, Dont stop what youre doing, as well as producing and arranging albums for other artists, including Bette Midler and Dionne Warwick, Manilow has written songs for musicals, films, and commercials. From February 2005 to December 2009, he was the headliner at the Las Vegas Hilton, since March 2010, he has headlined at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. He has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the worlds best-selling artists of all time, Manilow was born Barry Alan Pincus on June 17,1943, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus. His father was born to a Jewish father and an Irish-American Catholic mother, Barry adopted his mothers maiden name, Manilow, at the time of his bar mitzvah. Manilow grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and attended Eastern District High School and that same year, he enrolled in the City College of New York where he briefly studied before entering the New York College of Music. He also worked at CBS while he was a student in order to pay his expenses, according to one source, he married Susan Deixler that year, with the marriage lasting only one year. Another source says Manilow got an annulment from Deixler in 1966 after two years of marriage and he later studied Musical Theater at the Juilliard performing arts school. In 1964, Manilow met Bro Herrod, a CBS director, instead, Manilow wrote an entire original score. Herrod used Manilows composition in the Off Broadway musical, which enjoyed a run at New Yorks 13th Street Theatre. Manilow then earned money by working as a pianist, producer and arranger, during this time, he began to work as a commercial jingle writer, continuing well into the 1970s. Many of the jingles he wrote and/or composed he would perform, including State Farm Insurance. A1965 Polaroid Swinger commercial featuring Manilows Meet The Swinger jingle starred a young Ali MacGraw and his singing-only credits include commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, and the famed McDonalds You Deserve a Break Today campaign. Manilow won two Clio Awards in 1976 for his work for Tab and Band-Aid, by 1967, Manilow was the musical director for the WCBS-TV series Callback, which premiered on January 27,1968. He next conducted and arranged for Ed Sullivans production company, arranging a new theme for The Late Show, while writing, producing, and singing his radio and television jingles
37.
Brian Evans (singer)
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Brian Evans is an American big band singer and actor. He is mostly known as a crooner, Evans grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts. His parents divorced when he was young and he was raised by his mother, Helen Bousquet, and grandmother, in 1986, he and his mother moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career for him in the entertainment industry. His first acting role was in a McDonalds commercial and he was later cast in the pilot of Beverly Hills,90210 and Full House. He also appeared in New Line Cinemas Book of Love and his autobiography, Dreamer, was published in 1994. Evans, Helen Bousquet, and Mark Andrew Biltz are the creators of the book series Horrorscope. Kirkus Reviews described Horrorscope as offbeat but clumsy, noting the often formulaic prose, in 1996, Evans moved to Vancouver where he performed at the Babalu Lounge and released his first album, Quite Frankly. It became the #1 best selling independently released CD in Canadian history, for the next two years he performed throughout Canada. His second Canadian release, Maybe This Time, outsold the first and he is the only artist ever to record a live CD at the Desert Inn. After the hotel was demolished, Evans opened for Jay Leno at The Mirage and then returned to Los Angeles where he made music for television, in 2011, Evans returned to Los Angeles and began work on his album My Turn with producer Narada Michael Walden. In 2012 he released At Fenway and it became the first song to be licensed by Major League Baseball about the park in its history, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame added it to its library. In 2015, Evans filmed a video for his song Creature at The Bates Motel. It is the first time any music artist has been allowed to shoot a video at The Bates Motel. By 2016 Evans had returned to Maui and to hosting the Maui Celebrity Series, in January 2017, Evans said he would finish a record album he had been working on. In 2004, Evans moved to Maui and was a candidate for the United States Senate in Hawaii and he lost in the Democratic primary to incumbent Daniel Inouye 95% to 5%. Evans says he ran to bring attention to the lack of coverage in health care plans. In March 2014, Evans announced he would run for United States Senator from Hawaii, according to Evans, he wanted to bring attention to his mothers death and chose to enter the race after he saw how much national media attention it was receiving. He did not think he could win and spent no money on advertising and he finished third in the Democratic primary with 2% of the vote
38.
Alex Turner (musician)
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Alexander David Alex Turner is an English musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and principal songwriter of the English indie band Arctic Monkeys, the only child of two teachers, Turner was raised in the Sheffield suburb of High Green. Turner has also recorded with his side-project The Last Shadow Puppets, Turner was born in Sheffield to Penny and David Turner. He is a child and was raised in High Green. His mother is from Amersham and his father grew up in Sheffield, both parents worked at local secondary schools, his mother was a German teacher and his father taught physics and music at Rawmarsh Community School. His father was a jazz-head, had been a member of big bands, Turner was educated at Stocksbridge High School. His form teacher, Mark Coleman, remembers him as a student who excelled at sports. His English teacher, Steve Baker, described him as quite reserved, a little bit different, with a brightness and a cleverness that would serve him well. Baker noted that Turner had an incredibly laid-back, lackadaisical approach to school work, while Turner did not write poetry in school, his English teacher was encouraging and he was first introduced to John Cooper Clarkes poetry in Bakers class. Turner then spent two years at Barnsley College, where he studied English, psychology, music technology and media, after college, Turners parents reluctantly agreed to let him defer university for one year to pursue his musical ambitions. During this time, he worked as a barman at the Sheffield venue The Boardwalk, before Arctic Monkeys signed a record deal, Turner was half-heartedly filling out university application forms and hoped to study in Manchester. Turner and Matt Helders became friends at the age of seven, they were neighbours and they performed Oasiss Morning Glory together in their final primary school assembly. They met Andy Nicholson at secondary school and, for most of their teenage years and they spent their weekends making crap hip-hop beats using Turners fathers Cubase system. Following the breakthrough of The Strokes, Turner was drawn to guitar bands including The Hives, Turner attended his first gig in 2002, watching The Vines in Manchester. In 2003, at the age of sixteen, he travelled to London with Helders and Nicholson to watch The Strokes play at Alexandra Palace, Turners parents bought him a guitar for Christmas 2001. In a 2013 interview, Turner states that it was during this time that he first began writing songs, using a bass guitar, in mid-2002, Turner, Cook, Nicholson and Helders decided to form a band, having watched friends including Milburn play at local pubs. The name Arctic Monkeys was conceived by Cook, Turner initially did not want to be the singer, a number of schoolmates including Glyn Jones tried out before he became the frontman. All four were beginners on their instruments, they practiced in both Turner and Helders garages and, later, at a warehouse in Wath
39.
Richard Hawley
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Richard Willis Hawley is an English guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer. After his first band Treebound Story broke up, Hawley found success as a member of Britpop band Longpigs in the 1990s, after that group broke up in 2000, he later joined the band Pulp, led by his friend Jarvis Cocker, for a short time. As a solo musician, Hawley has released seven studio albums and he has been nominated for a Mercury prize twice and once for a Brit Award. He has collaborated with Lisa Marie Presley, Arctic Monkeys and Paul Weller, born in Sheffield, Hawley grew up in a working-class area of the city with two sisters. He was born with a cleft palate, which required numerous operations, both his parents were musicians, his father David a guitarist with a number of local bands, and his mother Lynne a singer. They divorced when he was 16 years old and he noted that I always wrote songs since childhood and realising that you could actually make something up of your own was quite a big one then. He attended Hucklow Middle School together with future Pulp bassist Steve Mackey, Hawley briefly worked at the local HMV. While still at school, Hawley formed the Treebound Story and at the age of 19 recorded a Peel Session together with the band, as a member of the Longpigs, Hawley released two albums, The Sun Is Often Out and Mobile Home. After the demise of the band, he joined Pulp as a touring guitarist while also working as a session musician. During his time with both bands he was able to hone his songwriting skills, citing that I was never really very good about bleating on about being a songwriter. Impressed by a demo of his songs, both Cocker and Mackey urged Hawley to record the material. He used some studio time to demo material and to experiment. Pointing out that I just wanted to make something gentle for myself – I never expected it to be released. He recorded a song per day, recording most of the instruments himself with a boom mike in the middle so I could walk between instruments – I mixed it in my head. His eponymous debut was a mini-album that featured seven songs and released in April 2001 through Setanta Records and it was supported by the single Coming Home. While Hawley played 90% of the stuff he was assisted by former Longpigs drummer Andy Cook and Colin Elliot and he later commented that I think with anybodys early stuff you can batter it and take things apart. Doing those early records I was trying to get back to a way of being creative with recording rather than taking this approach to it. He admitted that he didnt get it every time but I got what I wanted to achieve
40.
Harry Connick Jr.
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Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. is an American singer, big band leader, talk show host and actor. He has sold over 28 million albums worldwide, Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 16 million in certified sales. He has had seven top 20 US albums, and ten number-one US jazz albums, Connicks best-selling album in the United States is his Christmas album When My Heart Finds Christmas. His highest-charting album is his release Only You, which reached No.5 in the US and he has won three Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards. He played Graces husband, Leo Markus, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace from 2002 to 2006, Connick began his acting career as a tail gunner in the World War II film Memphis Belle. He played a killer in Copycat, before being cast as a fighter pilot in the blockbuster Independence Day. Connicks first role as a man was in Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock. His first thriller film since Copycat came in the film Basic with John Travolta, additionally, he played the violent ex-husband in Bug, before two romantic comedies, P. S. I Love You, and the man in New in Town with Renée Zellweger. In 2011, he appeared in the family film Dolphin Tale as Dr. Clay Haskett, Harry Connick Jr. was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. His mother, Anita Frances, was a lawyer and judge in New Orleans and, later and his father, Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Sr. was the district attorney of Orleans Parish from 1973 to 2003. His parents also owned a record store, Connicks father is a Catholic of Irish, English, and German ancestry. Connicks mother, who died from cancer, was Jewish. Connick has a sister, Suzanna, the siblings were raised in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans, Connick is a first cousin of both Jefferson Parish District Attorney, Paul Connick, and State Representative Patrick Connick. Connicks musical talents soon came to the fore when he started learning the keyboards at age three, playing publicly at age five, and recording with a jazz band at ten. The song was Im Just Wild About Harry and this was recorded for a Japanese documentary called Jazz Around the World. The clip was shown in a Bravo special, called Worlds of Harry Connick. His musical talents were developed at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis Jr. Connick attended Jesuit High School, Isidore Newman School, Lakeview School, and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, all in New Orleans
41.
Neil Hannon
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Edward Neil Anthony Hannon is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter. He is the creator and front man of the pop group The Divine Comedy. Hannon wrote the tunes for the sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd. He grew up in Fivemiletown Co. Tyrone and Attended Portora Royal School, Hannon was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, the son of Brian Hannon, a Church of Ireland minister at the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe and later Bishop of Clogher. He spent some of his youth in Fivemiletown before moving with his family to Enniskillen, in County Fermanagh, while there, he attended Portora Royal School. Hannon continues to release albums under The Divine Comedy name, the most recent being Foreverland, in 2000 he and Joby Talbot contributed four tracks for Ute Lempers collaboration album, Punishing Kiss. In 2004 he played alongside the Ulster Orchestra for the event of the Belfast Festival at Queens. In 2005, he contributed vocals to his long-time collaborator Joby Talbots soundtrack for the version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This was in order to attempt to exploit the new UK singles chart download rules, the same year Hannon added his writing and vocal talents to the Air album Pocket Symphony, released in the United States on 6 March 2007. He is featured on the track Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping and this song had been originally written for and sung by Charlotte Gainsbourg on her album,5,55. Though it was not included in its 2006 European release, it was added as a track for its American release on 24 April 2007. Hannon won the 2007 Choice Music Prize for his 2006 album and it was announced the next day that he had left EMI by mutual consent. When the band Keane played at the O2 Arena in London in July and he introduced it by reading the poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W. B. Yeats, upon which the song is based, both shows were created or co-created by Graham Linehan. For the Father Ted episode, A Song for Europe, Hannon co-wrote and sang My Lovely Horse, for the same episode, Hannon wrote The Miracle Is Mine, the typical Eurovision ballad sung by Teds nemesis, Father Dick Byrne. Hannon appears on stage with him as one of the backing singers, a dream sequence in the episode shows Ted and Dougal in the songs pop video, with Hannon providing vocals. Hannon also wrote and performed My Lovely Mayo Mammy, sung by Eoin McLove in the episode Night of the Nearly Dead, both of the advertisements for telephone numbers, in The IT Crowd and Father Ted have jingles composed by Hannon. In the episode A Christmassy Ted, his name is mentioned by Mrs Doyle while she attempts to guess that of the mysterious guest, a new Divine Comedy album, Bang Goes the Knighthood, was released in May 2010
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