1.
Yonkers, New York
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Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the U. S. state of New York, and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976. It is an suburb of New York City, directly to the north of the Bronx. Yonkerss downtown is centered on a known as Getty Square. The area also houses significant local businesses and non-profits, and serves as a retail hub for Yonkers. This grant was purchased in July 1645 by Adriaen van der Donck, van der Donck was known locally as the Jonkheer or Jonker, a word from which the name Yonkers is directly derived. Van der Donck built a saw mill near where the Nepperhan Creek met the Hudson, van der Donck was killed in the Peach War. His wife, Mary Doughty, was taken captive and ransomed later, near the site of van der Doncks mill is Philipse Manor Hall, a Colonial-era manor house which today serves as a museum and archive, offering many glimpses into life before the American Revolution. The original structure was built around 1682 by Frederick Philipse and his wife Margaret Hardenbroeck, Frederick was a wealthy Dutchman who by the time of his death had amassed an enormous estate, which encompassed the entire modern City of Yonkers, as well as several other Hudson River towns. Philipses great-grandson, Frederick Philipse III, was a prominent Loyalist during the American Revolution, all the lands that belonged to the Philipse family were confiscated and sold. For its first two hundred years, Yonkers was a farming town with an active industrial waterfront. Yonkerss later growth rested largely on developing industry, in 1853, Elisha Otis invented the first safety elevator and the Otis Elevator Company, opened the first elevator factory in the world on the banks of the Hudson near what is now Vark Street. It relocated to larger quarters in the 1880s, the community was incorporated as a village in the northern part of the Town of Yonkers in 1854 and as a city in 1872. In 1874 the southern part of Yonkers, including Kingsbridge and Riverdale, was annexed by New York City as The Bronx, in 1898, Yonkers voted on a referendum to determine if they wanted to become part of New York City. Still, some call the city the Sixth Borough referring to its location on the New York City border, its urban character. The New York City and Northern Railway Company connected Yonkers to Manhattan, a three-mile spur to Getty Square existed until 1943. Aside from being a center, Yonkers also played a key role in the development of entertainment in the United States. In 1888, Scottish-born John Reid founded the first golf course in the United States, St. Andrews Golf Club, bakelite, the first completely synthetic plastic, was invented in Yonkers circa 1906 by Leo Baekeland, and manufactured there until the late 1920s. Early in the 20th century, Yonkers also hosted a brass era automobile maker, Colt Runabout Company, despite the cars seemingly glowing performance, Yonkers was also the headquarters of the Waring Hat Company, at the time the nations largest hat manufacturer
2.
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
3.
Benny Goodman
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Benjamin David Benny Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as the King of Swing. In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular groups in America. Goodmans bands launched the careers of many jazz artists. During an era of segregation, he led one of the first well-known integrated jazz groups. Goodman performed nearly to the end of his life while exploring an interest in classical music, Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father, David Goodman, came to America in 1892 from Warsaw in partitioned Poland and his mother, Dora, came from Kaunas, Lithuania. His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born, hundreds of houses are unconnected with the street sewer. Money was a constant problem in the family, Bennys father earned at most $20 per week. On Sundays, his father took the children to free concerts in Douglas Park. The following year Benny joined the club band at Jane Addamss Hull House. By joining the band, he was entitled to two weeks at a summer camp about fifty miles from Chicago. It was the time he was able to get away from the bleak environment of his urban neighborhood. He also received two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp and his early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo and Jimmie Noone. Goodman learned quickly, becoming a player at an early age. Goodman made his debut in 1921 at the Central Park Theater on Chicagos West Side. He entered Harrison High School in Chicago in 1922 and he joined the musicians’ union in 1923 and by the age of 14 was in a band featuring Bix Beiderbecke. Goodman attended Lewis Institute in 1924 as a sophomore, while also playing the clarinet in a dance hall band. When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicagos top bands, when he was 17, his father was killed by a passing car after stepping off a streetcar
4.
Avedis Zildjian Company
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The Avedis Zildjian Company, simply known as Zildjian /ˈzɪldʒiən/, is an American cymbal manufacturer based in Norwell, Massachusetts. The company was founded in Constantinople by Armenian Avedis Zildjian in the 17th century, being nearly 400 years old, Zildjian is one of the oldest companies in the world. Zildjian also sells drum-related accessories, such as sticks and cymbal carriers. It is the largest cymbal manufacturer in the world, on December 20,2010, it was announced that Avedis Zildjian Company had merged with Vic Firth, Inc. According to the announcement, both companies will continue to run autonomously, Avedis was given the name of Zildjian by the Sultan Osman II and began an industry in 1623, the details of whose main product remained secret for generations. It became family tradition that only the heirs would know the manufacturing process. The Zildjian Company moved from manufacturing noisemakers that frightened the enemies of the Ottoman Empire to manufacturing its cymbals as instruments in the 19th century. Avedis made many innovations in cymbals that are still today, he was the first to develop drum-set cymbals and gave cymbals names such as ride, crash, splash. Avedis IIIs son Armand Zildjian, also known as the Father of Artist Relations, in 1968, the K. Zildjian Co. and all European trademarks were bought back on behalf of the Avedis Zildjian Co. Also in 1968, Avedis split production into two operations, opening the Azco factory in Meductic, New Brunswick, Canada. From 1968 to 1970, the Azco factory produced Zilco cymbals, there were two types of Zilco, one was a thin rolling produced without any hammering, which cut costs. At about this time in the Azco factory, the process for pressing cymbals into shape came about. Before this it was done by bumping with the Quincy drop hammer, in 1970, Zildjian needed all their production capabilities at Azco for their regular Zildjian line, so the factory in Quincy would send up castings to be finished into cymbals at Azco. In 1975, Zildjian began making K. Zildjian cymbals at the Azco plant, within four years, all K Cymbals were being made in the Norwell USA plant, because the Ks demanded far more oversight. Armand worked with friends, the great Elvin Jones and Tony Williams to relaunch the K Series, in early 1977, Armand Zildjian was appointed President of the Avedis Zildjian Company by his father. Soon after, Robert Zildjian split from the company amidst conflict with his brother, shortly thereafter, in 1981, Robert started making Sabian cymbals in the Meductic Azco factory. Other than cymbals, the Avedis Zildjian Company produces products such as drum sticks, the Artist Series drum sticks allow these endorsers to personalize their drum sticks, and these sticks are sold to the public. Zildjians sheet bronze cymbals are made out of identical bronze discs, which are shaped, hammered and these cymbals have a higher pitch than their cast bronze counterparts and produce a more consistent sound
5.
Bix Beiderbecke
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Leon Bismark Bix Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer. With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s and his turns on Singin the Blues and Im Coming, Virginia, in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz style and hinted at what, in the 1950s. In a Mist, one of a handful of his piano compositions, a native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering some critics have connected to his original sound. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer joined Goldkette in 1926, the band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in October 1926. He made his greatest recordings in 1927, in 1928, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known dance orchestra in the country, the New-York-based Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Beiderbeckes most influential recordings date from his time with Goldkette and Whiteman, a few stints in rehabilitation centers, as well as the support of Whiteman and the Beiderbecke family in Davenport, did not check Beiderbeckes decline in health. He left the Whiteman band in 1930 and the following summer died in his Queens apartment at the age of 28 and his death, in turn, gave rise to one of the original legends of jazz. In magazine articles, musicians memoirs, novels, and Hollywood films, Beiderbecke has been reincarnated as a Romantic hero, the Young Man with a Horn. His life has been portrayed as a battle against such common obstacles to art as family and commerce, the musician-critic Benny Green sarcastically called Beiderbecke jazzs Number One Saint, while Ralph Berton compared him to Jesus. Beiderbecke remains the subject of controversy regarding his true name, the cause of his death. Beiderbecke was born on March 10,1903, in Davenport, Iowa, there is disagreement over whether Beiderbecke was christened Leon Bismark or Leon Bix. His father was nicknamed Bix, as, for a time, was his older brother, Burnie Beiderbecke claimed that the boy was named Leon Bix and subsequent biographers have reproduced birth certificates to that effect. However, more recent research—which takes into account church and school records in addition to the will of a relative—has suggested that he was originally named Leon Bismark, regardless, his parents called him Bix, which seems to have been his preference. In a letter to his mother when he was nine years old, Beiderbecke signed off, Beiderbeckes father, the son of German immigrants, was a well-to-do coal and lumber merchant, named after the Iron Chancellor of his native Germany. Beiderbeckes mother was the daughter of a Mississippi riverboat captain and she played the organ at Davenports First Presbyterian Church, and encouraged young Bixs interest in the piano. Beiderbecke was the youngest of three children and his brother, Burnie, was born in 1895, and his sister, Mary Louise, in 1898. He began playing piano at age two or three and his sister recalls that he stood on the floor and played it with his hands over his head
6.
Frederick Delius
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Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a mercantile family. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation, there he soon neglected his managerial duties, and in 1886 returned to Europe. Having been influenced by African-American music during his stay in Florida. Deliuss first successes came in Germany, where Hans Haym and other conductors promoted his music from the late 1890s, in Deliuss native Britain, it was 1907 before his music made regular appearances in concert programmes, after Thomas Beecham took it up. After 1918 Delius began to suffer the effects of syphilis, contracted during his years in Paris. He became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions between 1928 and 1932 with the aid of an amanuensis, Eric Fenby. The lyricism in Deliuss early compositions reflected the music he had heard in America, as his skills matured, he developed a style uniquely his own, characterised by his individual orchestration and his uses of chromatic harmony. Deliuss music has been intermittently popular, and often subject to critical attacks. Delius was born in Bradford in Yorkshire and he was baptised as Fritz Theodore Albert Delius, and used the forename Fritz until he was about 40. He was the second of four born to Julius Delius and his wife Elise Pauline. Deliuss parents were born in Bielefeld, Westphalia, of Dutch origin, Juliuss father, Ernst Friedrich Delius, had served under Blücher in the Napoleonic Wars. Julius moved to England to further his career as a wool merchant, the Delius household was musical, famous musicians such as Joseph Joachim and Carlo Alfredo Piatti were guests, and played for the family. Despite his German parentage, the young Fritz was drawn to the music of Chopin and Grieg rather than the Austro-German music of Mozart and Beethoven, a preference that endured all his life. The young Delius was first taught the violin by a Mr. Bauerkeller of the Hallé Orchestra, from 1874 to 1878, Delius was educated at Bradford Grammar School, where the singer John Coates was his slightly older contemporary. He then attended the International College at Isleworth between 1878 and 1880, as a pupil he was neither especially quick nor diligent, but the college was conveniently close to London for Delius to attend concerts and opera. Julius Delius assumed that his son would play a part in the wool business. Deliuss first job was as the representative in Stroud in Gloucestershire
7.
Tom-tom drum
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A tom-tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snares. The name came originally from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala, the tom-tom drum was added to the drum kit in the early part of the 20th century. Most toms range in size between 6 and 20 inches in diameter, though floor toms can go as large as 24 inches, the first drum kit tom-toms had no rims, the heads were tacked to the shell. As major drum manufacturers began to offer tunable tom-toms with hoops and tuning lugs, later a 16 in drum mounted on three legs was added. Finally, a drum was mounted on the right of the bass drum. Together with a 14 in snare drum and a drum of varying size. Later, the mounted tom-toms, known as hanging toms or rack toms, were deepened by one inch each, extra-deep hanging toms, known as cannon depth, never achieved popularity. A wide variety of configurations are available and in use at all levels from advanced student kits upwards. Most toms range in size between 6 and 20 inches in diameter, though floor toms can go as large as 24 inches. Note that these terms do not imply drum depths, so for example and these terms fusion and rock are really marketing terms invented by drum manufacturing companies, and there is not an absolute definition for them, more a case of an accepted norm. In the 50s and early 60s, it was common to have only a single hanging tom, Standard tom-tom depths The standard depth rack toms popular in the 1950-1980s were 12×8 and 13×9. This classic configuration is popular among many players. FAST sizes are 10×8, 12×9, 13×10, etc, DW use the marketing term FAST for these sizes, but they are not unique to DW, and are widely popular sizes with all drum manufacturers. New Standard - 10×9, 12×10, 13×11, etc. i. e, the New standard sizes are 2 deeper than what was considered standard in the 50s. However, despite the term, these are becoming standard in favour of FAST sizes. Power toms are one inch deeper than standard, so standard sizes are 10×9 or 10×10, 12×11 and this depth overtook the classic setup in popularity during the 1980s. Square - 10×10, 12×12, 13×13, etc, popular in the 80s and 90s but no longer popular. Hyperdrive - Shallow depths made popular initially by Tama, 10×6.5, 12×7, 13×7.5, single-headed tom-toms have also been used in drumkits, though their use has fallen off in popularity since the 1970s
8.
Barbara Stanwyck
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Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress, model and dancer. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence, deMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra. After a short but notable career as an actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood. Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times, for Stella Dallas, Ball of Fire, Double Indemnity and Sorry, Wrong Number. For her television work she won three Emmy Awards, for The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Big Valley and The Thorn Birds, the Thorn Birds also won her a Golden Globe. She received an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony and she was also the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the American Film Institute, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Screen Actors Guild. Stanwyck received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16,1907, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the child of Byron E. and Catherine Ann Stevens. Her father was a native of Massachusetts and her mother was an immigrant from Nova Scotia, Ruby was of English and Scottish ancestry, by her father and mother, respectively. When Ruby was four, her mother died of complications from a miscarriage after a drunken stranger accidentally knocked her off a moving streetcar, two weeks after the funeral, Byron Stevens joined a work crew digging the Panama Canal and was never seen again. Ruby and her brother, Byron, were raised by their elder sister Mildred, when Mildred got a job as a showgirl, Ruby and Byron were placed in a series of foster homes, from which young Ruby often ran away. Ruby toured with Mildred during the summers of 1916 and 1917, watching the movies of Pearl White, whom Ruby idolized, also influenced her drive to be a performer. At the age of 14 she dropped out of school, to take a job wrapping packages at a department store in Brooklyn, Ruby never attended high school, although early biographical thumbnail sketches had her attending Brooklyns famous Erasmus Hall High School. Soon afterward, she took a job filing cards at the Brooklyn telephone office for a wage of $14 a week and she disliked both jobs, her real goal was to enter show business, even as her sister Mildred discouraged the idea. She then took a job cutting dress patterns for Vogue magazine and her next job was as a typist for the Jerome H. Remick Music Company, a job she reportedly enjoyed. However, her ambition was to work in show business. In 1923, a few months before her 16th birthday, Ruby auditioned for a place in the chorus at the Strand Roof, a night club over the Strand Theatre in Times Square. A few months later, she obtained a job as a dancer in the 1922 and 1923 seasons of the Ziegfeld Follies, I just wanted to survive and eat and have a nice coat, Stanwyck said
9.
Count Basie
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William James Count Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens, dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16 years old, he played jazz piano at parties, resorts. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his career expanded, he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis. In 1929 he joined Bennie Motens band in Kansas City, in 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. William Basie was born to Harvey Lee and Lillian Basie in Red Bank and his father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his became an groundskeeper and handyman for several wealthy families in the area. Both of his parents had some type of musical background and his father played the mellophone, and his mother played the piano, in fact, she gave Basie his first piano lessons. She took in laundry and baked cakes for sale for a living and she paid 25 cents a lesson for piano instruction for him. Not much of a student in school, Basie dreamed of a traveling life and he finished junior high school but spent much of his time at the Palace Theater in Red Bank, where doing occasional chores gained him free admission to performances. He quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to the acts and the silent movies, though a natural at the piano, Basie preferred drums. Discouraged by the talents of Sonny Greer, who also lived in Red Bank and became Duke Ellingtons drummer in 1919. Greer and Basie played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career, by then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, including Harry Richardsons Kings of Syncopation. When not playing a gig, he hung out at the pool hall with other musicians. He got some jobs in Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore, around 1920, Basie went to Harlem, a hotbed of jazz, where he lived down the block from the Alhambra Theater. Early after his arrival, he bumped into Sonny Greer, who was by then the drummer for the Washingtonians, soon, Basie met many of the Harlem musicians who were making the scene, including Willie the Lion Smith and James P. Johnson. His touring took him to Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, throughout his tours, Basie met many jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong. Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers and this provided an early training that was to prove significant in his later career
10.
Sal Mineo
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Salvatore Mineo, Jr. was an American film and theatre actor, known for his performance as John Plato Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles in Rebel Without a Cause, Mineo was born in the Bronx, the son of coffin makers Josephine and Salvatore Mineo, Sr. He was of Sicilian descent, his father was born in Italy and his mother and his mother enrolled him in dancing and acting school at an early age. He had his first stage appearance in Tennessee Williams play The Rose Tattoo and he also played the young prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage musical The King and I. Brynner took the opportunity to help Mineo better himself as an actor, as a teenager, Mineo appeared on ABCs musical quiz program Jukebox Jury, which aired in the 1953-1954 season. Mineo made several appearances before making his screen debut in the Joseph Pevney film Six Bridges to Cross. He beat out Clint Eastwood for the role, Mineo had also successfully auditioned for a part in The Private War of Major Benson, as a cadet colonel opposite Charlton Heston. His breakthrough as an actor came in Rebel Without a Cause, in which he played John Plato Crawford and his performance resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and his popularity quickly developed. In Multiculturalism and the Mouse, Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment, Douglas Brode states that the casting of Mineo as White Bull again ensured a homosexual subtext. By the late 1950s, the actor was a celebrity, sometimes referred to as the Switchblade Kid—a nickname he earned from his role as a criminal in the movie Crime in the Streets. ]In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into pop music by recording a handful of songs. Two of his singles reached the Top 40 in the United States Billboard Hot 100, the more popular of the two, Start Movin, reached #9 on Billboards pop chart. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc and he starred as drummer Gene Krupa in the movie The Gene Krupa Story, directed by Don Weis with Susan Kohner, James Darren, and Susan Oliver. He appeared as the celebrity guest challenger on the June 30,1957, Mineo made an effort to break his typecasting. By the early 1960s, he was becoming too old to play the type of role that had made him famous, for example, he auditioned for David Leans film Lawrence of Arabia, but was not hired. He also appeared in The Longest Day, wherein he played a private who is killed by a German after the landing in Sainte-Mère-Église. Mineo was baffled by his loss of popularity, later saying, One minute it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle. The high point of this period was his portrayal of Uriah in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Mineo also appeared on the Season 2 episode of The Patty Duke Show, Patty Meets a Celebrity. Mineo guest-starred in an episode of ABCs TV series Combat. in 1966 and he did two more appearances on the same show, including appearing in an installment with Fernando Lamas
