1.
Hamburg
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Hamburg, officially Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, is the second largest city in Germany and the eighth largest city in the European Union. It is the second smallest German state by area and its population is over 1.7 million people, and the wider Hamburg Metropolitan Region covers more than 5.1 million inhabitants. The city is situated on the river Elbe, the official long name reflects Hamburgs history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, a city-state, and one of the 16 states of Germany. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a sovereign state. Prior to the changes in 1919, the civic republic was ruled by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Though repeatedly destroyed by the Great Fire of Hamburg, the floods and military conflicts including WW2 bombing raids, the city managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe. On the river Elbe, Hamburg is a port and a global service, media, logistics and industrial hub, with headquarters and facilities of Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf. The radio and television broadcaster NDR, Europes largest printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg has been an important financial centre for centuries, and is the seat of Germanys oldest stock exchange and the worlds second oldest bank, Berenberg Bank. The city is a fast expanding tourist destination for domestic and international visitors. It ranked 16th in the world for livability in 2015, the ensemble Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2015. Hamburg is a major European science, research and education hub with several universities and institutes and its creative industries and major cultural venues include the renowned Elbphilharmonie and Laeisz concert halls, various art venues, music producers and artists. It is regarded as a haven for artists, gave birth to movements like Hamburger Schule. Hamburg is also known for theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Paulis Reeperbahn is among the best known European entertainment districts, Hamburg is on the southern point of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the north-east. It is on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Alster, the city centre is around the Binnenalster and Außenalster, both formed by damming the River Alster to create lakes. The island of Neuwerk and two neighbouring islands Scharhörn and Nigehörn, in the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, are also part of Hamburg. The neighbourhoods of Neuenfelde, Cranz, Francop and Finkenwerder are part of the Altes Land region, neugraben-Fischbek has Hamburgs highest elevation, the Hasselbrack at 116.2 metres AMSL. Hamburg has a climate, influenced by its proximity to the coast
2.
Windsor, Ontario
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Windsor is a city in Ontario and the southernmost city in Canada. It is located on the shore of the Detroit River, directly across the river from Detroit. Windsor is a contributor to Canadas automotive industry and has a storied history. Prior to European exploration and settlement, the Windsor area was inhabited by the First Nations, a French agricultural settlement was established at the site of Windsor in 1749. It is the oldest continually inhabited European-founded settlement in Canada west of Montreal, the area was first named la Petite Côte. Later it was called La Côte de Misère because of the sandy soils near LaSalle, Windsors French-Canadian heritage is reflected in French street names such as Ouellette, Pelissier, François, Pierre, Langlois, Marentette, and Lauzon. The current street system of Windsor reflects the Canadien method of land division. Today, the street name often indicates the name of the family that at one time farmed the land where the street is now located. The street system of outlying areas is consistent with the British system for granting land concessions, there is a significant French-speaking minority in Windsor and the surrounding area, particularly in the Lakeshore, Tecumseh and LaSalle areas. In 1794, after the American Revolution, the settlement of Sandwich was founded and it was later renamed Windsor, after the town in Berkshire, England. The Sandwich neighbourhood on Windsors west side is home to some of the oldest buildings in the city, including Mackenzie Hall, today, this building functions as a community centre. The oldest building in the city is the Duff-Baby House built in 1792 and it is owned by Ontario Heritage Trust and houses government offices. The François Baby House in downtown Windsor was built in 1812 and houses Windsors Community Museum, Windsor was the site of a battle during the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1838, and also served as a theatre for the Patriot War, later that year. Windsor was established as a village in 1854, then became a town in 1858, the Windsor Police Service was established on July 1,1867. A fire consumed much of Windsors downtown core on October 12,1871, Sandwich, Ford City and Walkerville were separate legal entities in their own right until 1935. They are now historic neighbourhoods of Windsor, Ford City was officially incorporated as a village in 1912, it became a town in 1915, and a city in 1929. Walkerville was incorporated as a town in 1890, Sandwich was established in 1817 as a town with no municipal status. It was incorporated as a town in 1858 and these three towns were annexed by Windsor in 1935
3.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
4.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
5.
Saxophone
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The saxophone is a family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet, the saxophone family was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1840. He patented the saxophone on June 28,1846, in two groups of seven instruments each, each series consisted of instruments of various sizes in alternating transposition. The series pitched in B♭ and E♭, designed for bands, have proved extremely popular. The saxophone is used in music, military bands, marching bands. The saxophone was developed in 1846 by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker, flautist, born in Dinant and originally based in Brussels, he moved to Paris in 1842 to establish his musical instrument business. Prior to his work on the saxophone, he had several improvements to the bass clarinet by improving its keywork and acoustics. Sax was also a maker of the ophicleide, a large conical brass instrument in the bass register with keys similar to a woodwind instrument. His experience with two instruments allowed him to develop the skills and technologies needed to make the first saxophones. As an outgrowth of his work improving the bass clarinet, Sax began developing an instrument with the projection of a brass instrument and he wanted it to overblow at the octave, unlike the clarinet, which rises in pitch by a twelfth when overblown. An instrument that overblows at the octave has identical fingering for both registers, Sax created an instrument with a single-reed mouthpiece like a clarinet, conical brass body like an ophicleide, and some acoustic properties of both the horn and the clarinet. Having constructed saxophones in several sizes in the early 1840s, Sax applied for, and received, the patent encompassed 14 versions of the fundamental design, split into two categories of seven instruments each, and ranging from sopranino to contrabass. Although the instruments transposed at either F or C have been considered orchestral, the C soprano saxophone was the only instrument to sound at concert pitch. Saxs patent expired in 1866, thereafter, numerous saxophonists and instrument manufacturers implemented their own improvements to the design, the first substantial modification was by a French manufacturer who extended the bell slightly and added an extra key to extend the range downwards by one semitone to B♭. It is suspected that Sax himself may have attempted this modification and this extension is now commonplace in almost all modern designs, along with other minor changes such as added keys for alternate fingerings. Using alternate fingerings allows a player to play faster and more easily, a player may also use alternate fingerings to bend the pitch. Some of the alternate fingerings are good for trilling, scales, a substantial advancement in saxophone keywork was the development of a method by which the left thumb operates both tone holes with a single octave key, which is now universal on modern saxophones. This enables a chromatic scale to be played two octaves simply by playing the diatonic scale combined with alternately raising and lowering this one digit
6.
Accordion
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Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist, the concertina and bandoneón are related, the harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family. The instrument is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing pallets to open and these vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instruments reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the manual. The accordion is widely spread across the world, nevertheless, in Europe and North America, some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is used in cajun, zydeco, jazz music. The piano accordion is the official city instrument of San Francisco, the oldest name for this group of instruments is harmonika, from the Greek harmonikos, meaning harmonic, musical. Today, native versions of the accordion are more common. These names refer to the type of accordion patented by Cyrill Demian, accordions have many configurations and types. Similar to a bow, the production of sound in an accordion is in direct proportion to the motion of the player. The bellows is located between the right- and left-hand manuals, and is made from pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, with added leather and metal. It is used to pressure and vacuum, driving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibration. These boxes house reed chambers for the right- and left-hand manuals, each side has grilles in order to facilitate the transmission of air in and out of the instrument, and to allow the sound to better project. The grille for the manual is usually larger and is often shaped for decorative purposes. The right-hand manual is used for playing the melody and the left-hand manual for playing the accompaniment. The manual mechanism of the instrument either enables the air flow, or disables it, the different types have varying components. All instruments have reed ranks of some format, the most typical accordion is the piano accordion, which is used for many musical genres
7.
Capitol Records
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Capitol Records, LLC is an American record label which operates as a division of the Capitol Music Group. The label was founded as the first West Coast-based record label in the United States in 1942 by three industry insiders named Johnny Mercer, Buddy DeSylva and Glenn Wallichs, in 1955, the label was acquired by the British music conglomerate EMI as its North American subsidiary. EMI was later acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012 and was merged with the company in 2013, making Capitol Records, Capitol Records circular headquarter building located in Los Angeles is a recognized landmark of California. Mercer first raised the idea of starting a company while golfing with Harold Arlen. By 1941, Mercer was a songwriter and a singer with multiple successful releases. Mercer next suggested the idea to Wallichs while visiting his record store, Wallichs expressed interest in the idea and the pair negotiated an agreement whereby Mercer would run the company and identify their artists, while Wallichs managed the business side. On February 2,1942, Mercer and Wallichs met with DeSylva at a Hollywood restaurant to inquire about the possibility of investment of the company from Paramount Pictures, while DeSylva declined the proposal, he handed the pair a check worth $15,000. On March 27,1942, the three men incorporated as Liberty Records, in May 1942, the application was amended to change the companys name to Capitol Records. On April 6,1942, Mercer supervised Capitols first recording session where Martha Tilton recorded the song Moon Dreams, on May 5, Bobby Sherwood and his orchestra recorded two tracks in the studio. On May 21, Freddie Slack and his orchestra recorded three tracks in the studio, one with the orchestra, one with Ella Mae Morse called Cow-Cow Boogie, on June 4,1942, Capitol opened its first office in a second-floor room south of Sunset Boulevard. On that same day, Wallichs presented the companys first free record to Los Angeles disc jockey Peter Potter, on June 5,1942, Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra recorded four songs at the studio. On June 12, the recorded five more songs in the studio. On June 11, Tex Ritter recorded Jingle Jangle Jingle and Goodbye My Little Cherokee for his first Capitol recording session, and the songs formed Capitols 110th produced record. 133 - Get On Board Little Chillun - July 31,1942 - is a Freddie Slack/Ella Mae Morse/Mellowaires recording that might be the first rock n roll record and she has sometimes been called the first rock n roll singer. A good example is her 1942 recording of song which, with strong gospel, blues, boogie. Bone Walker recorded Mean Old World a pioneering example of the use of electric guitar. The earliest recording artists included co-owner Mercer, Whiteman, Tilton, Morse, Margaret Whiting, Jo Stafford, the Pied Pipers, Johnnie Johnston, Tex Ritter, Capitols first gold single was Morses Cow Cow Boogie in 1942. Capitols first album was Capitol Presents Songs By Johnny Mercer, a three 78-rpm disc set with recordings by Mercer, Stafford and the Pied Pipers, all with Westons Orchestra
8.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
9.
Robbie Robertson
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Jaime Royal Robbie Robertson, OC, is a Canadian musician, songwriter, film composer, producer, actor, and author. Robertson is best known for his work as lead guitarist and primary songwriter for The Band and his work with The Band was instrumental in creating the Americana music genre. He is ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists. As a songwriter, Robertson is credited for writing The Weight, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up on Cripple Creek, Broken Arrow, Somewhere Down the Crazy River, and many others. Robertson has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, as a film soundtrack producer and composer, Robertson is best known for his numerous collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. His working relationship with Scorsese began with the influential rockumentary film The Last Waltz and he has also worked on many other soundtracks for film and television. Robertson was born in Toronto, an only child and his mother, Rosemarie Dolly Myke Chrysler, was a Mohawk raised on the Six Nations Reserve southwest of Toronto, Ontario. In her early life as an orphan, Chrysler lived with an aunt in Toronto. Robertsons biological father was Alexander David Klegerman, a Jewish professional gambler, Klegerman was killed in a hit-and-run accident as he was changing a tire on the Queen Elizabeth Way. Robertsons mother married James Patrick Robertson, a co-worker at the jewelry plating factory, Robertson earned his nickname from teachers and students at school, who started calling him Robbie in reference to his last name. As a child, Robertsons mother would travel with her son to the Six Nations Reserve to visit her family. These two experiences would impact Robertsons view of Americana, influencing The Band song Life is a Carnival and the movie Carny, Robertson began playing in bands in 1957 with his friend Pete Thumper Traynor, who would later found Traynor Amplifiers. Traynor customized Robertsons guitar for The Robots, fitting it with antennae, after Robbie and The Robots, Robertson played with Little Caesar and the Consuls, and with the Traynor-led combo The Suedes, which featured Scott Cushnie on piano. Robertson became a fan of the Arkansas-based rockabilly group Ronnie Hawkins, Hawkins took a liking to Robertson and would have him run errands for the Hawks. Hawkins hired pianist Scott Cushnie away from The Suedes, and took him on tour with Ronnie Hawkins, when The Hawks bass player left the group, Cushnie recommended that Hawkins hire Robertson to replace him on bass. Hawkins invited Robertson to come to Arkansas, and then flew to the UK to perform on television there, meanwhile, Robertson spent his living allowance on records and practiced intensively each day. Upon returning, Hawkins was amazed at Robertsons progress and hired him to play bass, Cushnie left the band a few months after joining them, and Robertson soon switched over from bass to playing lead guitar for The Hawks. Robertson soon developed into a guitar virtuoso, Levon Helm was already a member of the Hawks and soon became close friends with Robertson
10.
Soprano saxophone
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The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, a transposing instrument pitched in the key of B♭, modern soprano saxophones with a high F♯ key have a range from A♭3 to E6 and are therefore pitched one octave above the tenor saxophone. Some saxophones have additional keys, allowing them to play an additional F♯ and these extra keys are commonly found on more modern saxophones. Additionally, skilled players can make use of the altissimo register, there is also a soprano pitched in C, which is less common and until recently had not been made since around 1940. The soprano saxophone can be compared to the B♭ clarinet, although the clarinet can play a fourth lower and over a fifth higher. Professional players will use the technique of voicing to fix problems with intonation, due to its similarity in tone to the oboe, the soprano saxophone is sometimes used as a substitute for it. In addition to straight sopranos, there are also slightly and fully curved sopranos, the fully curved variety looks much like a small alto saxophone with a straighter crook. There is some debate over the effect of the straight and curved neck, with some believing that a curved neck on a soprano gives it a warmer. The soprano has all the keys of other models and some may have a top G key next to the F♯ key. Soprano saxophone mouthpieces are available in various designs, allowing players to tailor their tone as required, in 2001, François Louis created the aulochrome, a woodwind instrument made of two joined soprano saxophones, which can be played either in unison or in harmony. The soprano saxophone is used as a solo and chamber instrument in classical music. It is included in the quartet and plays a lead role. Many solo pieces have been written for it by such as Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alan Hovhaness, Jennifer Higdon, Takashi Yoshimatsu. As an orchestral instrument, it has used in several compositions. It was used by Richard Strauss in his Sinfonia Domestica, where included in the music are parts for four saxophones and it is also used in Maurice Ravels Bolero and has a featured solo directly following the tenor saxophones solo. Vincent dIndy includes a soprano in his opera Fervaal, greats of the jazz soprano sax include 1930s virtuoso Sidney Bechet, 1950s innovator Steve Lacy, and, beginning with his landmark 1960 album My Favorite Things, John Coltrane. Other notable soprano saxophonists include Jay Beckenstein, Dave Koz, Grover Washington, Jr. Ronnie Laws, and Nigerian Afrobeat multi-instrumentalist Fela Kuti
