1.
Queens Village, Queens
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Queens Village is a mostly residential middle class neighborhood in the eastern part of the New York City borough of Queens. The Queens Village Post Office serves the ZIP codes of 11427,11428, the neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 13. Shopping in the community is located along Braddock Avenue, Hillside Avenue, Hempstead Avenue, located just east of Queens Village, in Nassau County, is the Belmont Park race track. Within the neighborhood are Cunningham Park and Alley Pond Park, as well as the historic Long Island Motor Parkway, home of the turn of the racing competition. Queens Village was founded as Little Plains in the 1640s, homage to this part of Queens Village history is found on the sign above the Long Island Railroad Station there. In 1824, Thomas Brush established a shop in the area. He prospered and built several shops and a factory. On March 1,1837, the railroad arrived, the first station in the area was called Flushing Avenue in 1837, Delancy Avenue by June 20,1837, and Brushville by November 27,1837, likely about a mile west of the present station. In 1856, residents voted to change the name from Brushville to Queens, the name Inglewood also was used for both the village and the train station in the 1860s and 1870s. The name Brushville was still used in an 1860 New York Times article, maps from 1873 show portions of Queens Village in the town of Hempstead, but 1891 maps show it entirely in the town of Jamaica. A1901 article in the Brooklyn Eagle already uses the full name Queens Village, in 1923, the Long Island Railroad added Village to its station’s name to avoid confusion with the county of the same name, and thus the neighborhood became known as Queens Village. Today, many of those charming and well-maintained Dutch Colonial and Tudor homes built in Queens Village during the 1920s and 1930s currently continue to attract a diverse population. Lloyd Harbor, New York, which was formerly in Queens County but now in Suffolk County, in 1885, known then as Lloyd Neck, it seceded from Queens County and became part of the town of Huntington in Suffolk County. Bellaire is in western Queens Village next to Hollis and covers the area surrounding Jamaica Avenue, Bellaire is the largest section of Queens Village. The area considered Bellaire usually falls under the title of Queens Village. There was once a Long Island Rail Road station named Bellaire, 211th Street, formerly known as Belleaire Boulevard has traffic medians on it indicating its history as the main route through this section of Queens Village. It is slightly above sea level due to a glacier from the last Ice Age. Most homes in Hollis Hills are of the Colonial, Tudor, houses here attract predominantly the upper-middle class as some houses in the area can fetch prices of $1,500,000 or higher
2.
Darien, Connecticut
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Darien /dɛəriˈæn/ is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Located on Connecticuts Gold Coast, the population was 20,732 at the 2010 census, Darien is one of the wealthiest communities in the U. S. it was listed at #2 on CNN Moneys list of top-earning towns in the United States as of 2010. Situated just off of I-95 between the cities of Norwalk and Stamford, the town is a community with relatively few office buildings. Most workers commute to Manhattan, and many work in adjacent cities. Two Metro-North railroad stations – Noroton Heights and Darien – link the town to Grand Central Terminal, for recreation, the town includes four small parks, two public beaches on Long Island Sound, four country clubs, a hunt club, and two yacht clubs. According to early records, the first clearings of land were made by men from the New Haven and Wethersfield colonies and from Norwalk in about 1641. It was not until 1740, however, that the Middlesex Society of the Town of Stamford built the first community church, the area became Middlesex Parish in 1737. It was incorporated as the Town of Darien in 1820, tories raided the town several times during the American Revolution, at one point taking 26 men in the parish prisoner for five months, including the Reverend Moses Mather, pastor of the parish. The Loyalist-Patriot conflict in Darien is the setting for the novel Tory Hole, a sailor who had traveled to Darién, Panama, then part of the Spanish Empire, suggested the name Darien, which was eventually adopted by the people of the town. The town name is pronounced /dɛəriˈæn/, with stress on the last syllable, residents say this is still the proper pronunciation, which in most American English, including the local variety, is more precisely. You can always tell when someone is not from here, because they do pronounce it the way its spelled, Louise Berry, director of the town library, until the advent of the railroad in 1848, Darien remained a small, rural community of about 1,000. After the Civil War, the town one of the many resorts where New Yorkers built luxurious. Darien has a reputation as a former sundown town, having effectively kept out African American. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 14.8 square miles, of which 12.9 square miles is land and 2.0 square miles. The town has four exits on the side of Interstate 95. Its northern border is just south of the Merritt Parkway, where Exits 36 and 37 are closest to the town. It also has two Metro-North railroad stations for commuter trains into New York City, with a 38 to 39 miles commute of 46–50 minutes from Noroton Heights, most trains run non-stop after Stamford into New York Citys 125th Street, then Grand Central Terminal. Except for the Noroton Heights business district, commercial zoning is extremely limited outside of the strip along the Post Road
3.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
4.
Cool jazz
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Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the tense, Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that found in other contemporaneous jazz idioms. The term cool started being applied to music around 1953. Musicians from either of the previous categories who were active in California from the 1940s through the 1960s, exploratory music with a subdued effect by Teddy Charles, Chico Hamilton, John LaPorta, and their colleagues during the 1950s. Ted Gioia and Lee Konitz have each identified cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, Gioia cites Beiderbeckes softening of jazzs strong rhythmic impact in favor of maintaining melodic flow, while also employing complex techniques such as unusual harmonies and whole tone scales. Trumbauer, through his smooth and seemingly effortless saxophone work, greatly affected tenor saxophonist Lester Young, Youngs saxophone playing employed a light sound, in contrast to the full-bodied approach of players such as Coleman Hawkins. Young also had a tendency to play behind the beat, instead of driving it and he more strongly emphasized melodic development in his improvisation, rather than hot phrases or chord changes. While Youngs style initially alienated some observers, the school embraced it. Tanner, Gerow, and Megill point out that cool developed gradually, Miles Daviss solo on Charlie Parkers Chasin the Bird in 1947 and John Lewiss piano solo on Dizzie Gillespies record of Round Midnight in 1948 anticipated the Cool Era. In 1947, Woody Herman formed a band that included tenor saxophonists Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Steward, the result was the Four Brothers sound, in which four strong improvisers could still perform well as a coordinated, blended section. The Herman bands recording of Early Autumn launched Getzs career, in 1948, Miles Davis formed a nonet including Mulligan, Konitz, and Evans from Thornhills orchestra. Capitol Records recorded the group in 1949 and 1950 and these recordings, originally issued as 78 rpm records, were later compiled as Birth of the Cool. Gerry Mulligan explained that the idea behind Daviss Nonet was not to get away from bebop, as far as the Cool Jazz part of it, all of that comes after the fact of what it was designed to be. As for Davis, his concern at the time was simply to play with a lighter sound, the Miles Davis Nonets existence was brief, consisting only of a two-week September 1948 engagement at the Manhattans Royal Roost and the three recording dates that make up Birth of the Cool. These recordings were not widely appreciated until some years later, however, they prefigured the work of nonet members John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan. John Lewis went on to co-found the Modern Jazz Quartet, who incorporated classical forms, such as the fugue, tanner, Gerow, and Megill note that the Quartet played classical forms quite precisely. For example, the fugues they played were truly baroque in form except that the parts were improvised
5.
Baritone saxophone
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The baritone saxophone or bari sax is one of the largest members of the saxophone family, only being smaller than the bass, contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones. The baritone saxophone is used in classical music, military bands, marching bands. The baritone saxophone was created in 1846 by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax as one of a family of 14 instruments, the saxophone was created to be a tonal link between the woodwinds and brasses, which Sax believed to be lacking. The family was divided two groups of seven saxophones each from the soprano to the contrabass. The family consisting of saxophones ranged in the keys of B♭, the bari sax, pitched in E♭, is the fifth member of this family. The baritone saxophone, like saxophones, is a conical tube of thin brass. It has an end, flared to form a bell. The baritone saxophone uses a single reed mouthpiece like that of a clarinet, there is a loop in the neck to reduce it to a practical height, colloquially referred to as a “Q”. Baritone saxophones come in two sizes with one ranging to low A and the other to low B♭, originally, all baritone saxophones were low B♭ instruments, but over time players began modifying their horns to reach the low A below. In the 1980s, it common for saxophone manufacturers to produce low A instruments. In modern times, the low A is considered standard and is written in sheet music for the instrument. Despite the ubiquity of the low A horn, some still prefer to use B♭ horns because of the added weight. As is true for other saxophones, the F♯ key was also an addition to the horn now considered standard. The baritone saxophone’s relatively large mass has led to the development of harness-style neckstrap that distributes the weight across the users shoulders. Several different kinds exist, produced by brands as well known as Neotech and Vandoren, and each distributes weight differently across the neck, clavicle. Many marching saxophonists prefer this style for its ability to decrease fatigue and those who mainly perform seated, on the other hand, may dislike the decreased ability to move one’s upper body. It is an instrument in the key of E♭, pitched an octave plus a major sixth lower than written. It is one octave lower than the alto saxophone, modern baritones with a low A key and high F♯ key have a range from C2 to A4
6.
Gil Evans
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Ian Ernest Gilmore Gil Evans was a Canadian jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest orchestrators in jazz, playing an important role in the development of jazz, modal jazz. He is best known for his collaborations with Miles Davis. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, his name was changed early on from Green to Evans and his family moved to Stockton, California where he spent most of his youth. After 1946, he lived and worked primarily in New York City, living for many years at Westbeth Artists Community. Between 1941 and 1948, Evans worked as an arranger for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. ”Evans modest basement apartment behind a New York City Chinese laundry soon became a place for musicians looking to develop new musical styles outside of the dominant bebop style of the day. Those present included the leading performer, Charlie Parker, as well as Gerry Mulligan. In 1948, Evans, with Miles Davis, Mulligan, and others, the Miles Davis-led group was booked for a week at the Royal Roost as an intermission group on the bill with the Count Basie Orchestra. Capitol Records recorded 12 numbers by the nonet at three sessions in 1949 and 1950 and these recordings were reissued on a 1957 Miles Davis LP titled Birth of the Cool. Later, while Davis was under contract with Columbia Records, producer George Avakian suggested that Davis could work with any of several arrangers, the three albums that resulted from the collaboration are Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain. Another collaboration from this period, Quiet Nights was issued later, against the wishes of Davis, although these four records were marketed primarily under Daviss name, Evanss contribution was as important as Daviss. Their work coupled Evanss classic big band jazz stylings and arrangements with Daviss solo playing, Evans also contributed behind the scenes to Davis classic quintet albums of the 1960s. The demands of the score for Porgy and Bess were legendary, the limited time allotted for rehearsals revealed that the ability to read such a challenging score was not consistent among jazz musicians, and there are many audible errors. Evans was an influence on Daviss interest in non-jazz music. Davis died before the release of the album, from 1957 onwards Evans recorded albums under his own name. Tubist Bill Barber and trumpeter Louis Mucci from Thornhills band were both stalwarts in Evanss early ensembles, with Mucci finding a spot on nearly every pre1980s Evans recording. Among the featured soloists on these records were Lee Konitz, Jimmy Cleveland, Steve Lacy, Johnny Coles, in 1965 he arranged the big band tracks on Kenny Burrells Guitar Forms album. Evans was explicitly influenced by Spanish composers Manuel de Falla and Joaquín Rodrigo and his arrangements of pieces already well known to some listeners from their original cabaret, concert hall or Broadway stage arrangements, revealed aspects of the music in a wholly original way
7.
Miles Davis
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Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz, with his ever-changing directions in music, Davis was at the forefront of a number of major stylistic developments in jazz over his five-decade career. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records, after a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the 1957 album Round About Midnight. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers and his million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genres commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26,1926 into an affluent middle class African-American family in Alton, Illinois,15 miles north of St. Louis. The second of three children, he had a sister, Dorothy Mae, and a younger brother. His father, Miles Dewey Davis II of Arkansas, was a dental surgeon who earned three college degrees, and his mother Cleota Mae Davis, also of Arkansas, was a music teacher. They owned a 200-acre estate near Pine Bluff, Arkansas where Davis and his siblings would ride horses, fish, and hunt. In 1927, the moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. From 1932 to 1934, Davis attended John Robinson Elementary School, an institution, followed by Crispus Attucks School where he performed well in mathematics, music. It was in East St. Louis and Pine Bluff that the young Davis developed his earliest appreciation for music, Davis later suggested that his fathers instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpets sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato, Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a voice with not too much tremolo. If I cant get that sound I cant play anything, in 1939, the family moved to 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis. For his 13th birthday held that year, Davis father bought his son a new trumpet, around this time, Davis took additional trumpet lessons from Joseph Gustat, first chair of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. In 1941, the 15-year-old Davis began at East St. Louis Lincoln High School where he joined the marching band directed by Buchanan. Davis claimed the contests he did not win was largely down to prejudice over his race and it was at Lincoln High where Davis met his first girlfriend, Irene Cawthorn. Davis had formed his own group by this time, performing in local venues such as Huffs Beer Garden with hits such as In the Mood by Glenn Miller
8.
Chet Baker
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Chesney Henry Chet Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, and vocalist. Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals, Jazz historian Dave Gelly described the promise of Bakers early career as James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one. His well-publicized drug habit also drove his notoriety and fame, Baker was in and his maternal grandmother, Randi Moser, was Norwegian. Baker notes that due to the Great Depression, his father, though talented, had to quit as a musician, Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. His father introduced him to brass instruments with a trombone, which was replaced with a trumpet when the trombone proved too large, peers later described Baker as a natural musician, and that playing came effortlessly to him. Baker received some education at Glendale Junior High School. He was posted to Berlin, where he joined the 298th Army band, after leaving the army in 1948, he studied theory and harmony at El Camino College in Los Angeles. He dropped out in his year, however, re-enlisting in the army in 1950. Baker became a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco, but was spending time in San Francisco jazz clubs such as Bop City. In 1952, Baker once again obtained a discharge from the army to pursue a career as a professional musician, in 1952, Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which was an instant phenomenon. Several things made the Mulligan/Baker group special, the most prominent of which being the interplay between Mulligans baritone sax and Bakers trumpet, the Quartets version of My Funny Valentine, featuring a Baker solo, was a hit, and became a tune with which Baker was intimately associated. With the Quartet, Baker was a performer at Los Angeles jazz clubs such as The Haig. The Quartet found success quickly, but lasted less than a year because of Mulligans arrest and imprisonment on drug charges. Baker formed his own quartet with pianist and composer Russ Freeman in 1953, along with bassists Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon, and Jimmy Bond and drummers Shelly Manne, Larry Bunker, and Bob Neel. The Chet Baker Quartet found success with their sets. In 1953 and 1954, Baker won the Down Beat and Metronome magazines Readers Jazz Polls, down Beat readers also voted Baker as the top jazz vocalist in 1954. In 1956, Pacific Jazz released Chet Baker Sings, a record that increased his profile but alienated traditional jazz fans, Bakers chiseled features led to an approach by Hollywood studios, and he made his acting debut in the film Hells Horizon, released in the fall of 1955. He declined an offer of a contract, preferring life on the road as a musician
9.
Lee Konitz
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Lee Konitz is an American composer and alto saxophonist. He has performed successfully in a range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz. Konitzs association with the jazz movement of the 1940s and 1950s includes participation in Miles Daviss Birth of the Cool sessions. He was notable during this era as one of relatively few alto saxophonists to retain a distinctive style when Charlie Parker exerted a massive influence, other saxophonists were strongly influenced by Konitz, notably Paul Desmond and Art Pepper. Konitz was born on October 13,1927 in Chicago, Illinois to Jewish parents of Austrian and Russian descent, aged 11, Konitz received his first instrument, a clarinet. However, he dropped the instrument in favor of the tenor saxophone. He eventually moved from tenor to alto and his greatest influences at the time were the swing big bands, to whom he and his brother listened on the radio, specifically, Benny Goodman. Hearing Goodman on the radio is, in fact, what prodded him to ask for a clarinet and he recalls improvising on the saxophone before ever learning to play any standards. Konitz began his career in 1945 with the Teddy Powell band as a replacement for Charlie Ventura. A month later, the band parted ways, between 1945 and 1947, he worked off and on with Jerry Wald. In 1946, he first met pianist Lennie Tristano, and the two worked together in a cocktail bar. His next substantial work was done with Claude Thornhill, in 1947, with Gil Evans arranging and Gerry Mulligan as a composer, in most part. The presence of Konitz and other musicians in the group angered some black jazz players, many of whom were unemployed at the time. Konitz has stated he considered the group to belong to Gerry Mulligan and his debut as leader also came in 1949 with sides later collected on the album Subconscious-Lee. He also turned down an opportunity to work with Goodman in 1949—a decision he is on record as regretting, Parker lent him support on the day Konitzs child was being born in Seattle, Washington, while he was stuck in New York City. The two were good friends, and not the rivals some jazz critics once made them out to be. In the early 1950s, Konitz recorded and toured with Stan Kentons orchestra, in 1961, he recorded Motion with Elvin Jones on drums and Sonny Dallas on bass. This spontaneous session, widely regarded as a classic, consisted entirely of standards, the loose trio format aptly featured Konitzs unorthodox phrasing and chromaticism
10.
Paul Desmond
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Paul Desmond was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer, best known for the work he did in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for composing that groups greatest hit, Take Five. He was one of the most popular musicians to come out of the West Coasts cool jazz scene. In addition to his work with Brubeck, he led several of his own groups and engaged in significant collaborations with such as Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Jim Hall. After years of smoking and general poor health, Desmond succumbed to lung cancer in 1977 following one last tour with Brubeck. Desmond was born Paul Emil Breitenfeld in San Francisco, California, in 1924 and his father was from a Jewish family from Bohemia and Austria, and his mother was Catholic, throughout his life, Desmond was unsure of his fathers background. His father was a pianist, organist, and composer, who accompanied silent films in movie theaters and his mother was emotionally unstable throughout his upbringing. During childhood he spent years living with relatives in New York City due to problems at home, Desmond began playing violin at an early age, though his father forbade him to play it. Desmond began to study clarinet at the age of twelve, which he continued while at San Francisco Polytechnic High School, Paul was not only a gifted musician, but a talented writer who took an early interest in show business. As co-editor of his school newspaper, he helped secure an interview with Bob Hope during his visit to San Francisco. It was not until he became a freshman at San Francisco State College that he picked up the alto saxophone, in his first year Desmond was drafted into the United States Army and joined the Army band while stationed in San Francisco. He spent three years in the military, but his unit was never called to combat, following the conclusion of World War II, Desmond started working outside Palo Alto, California, at the Band Box in Redwood City. He also worked with Brubeck at the Geary Cellar in San Francisco, in 1950 Desmond left for New York City playing alto and clarinet for Jack Fina, but returned to California after hearing Brubecks trio on the radio. The story of their encounter is somewhat humorous, brubeck—married with three children and holding a grudge from his earlier experience with Desmond—instructed his wife, Iola, not to let him set foot in his house. However, Desmond came to his home in San Francisco one day while Dave was out back hanging diapers on a laundry line, apparently all the begging in the world would not convince Brubeck to hire him, at least not until Desmond offered to babysit Brubecks children. Desmond had first met Dave Brubeck in 1944 while still in the military, Brubeck was trying out for the 253rd Army band which Desmond belonged to. After making the cut he—unlike Desmond—was sent to war in 1944, Desmond once told Marian McPartland of National Public Radios Piano Jazz that he was taken aback by the chord changes Brubeck introduced during that 1944 audition. That is how the Dave Brubeck Quartet had its start, a group began in 1951. The success of the led to a Time magazine piece on them in 1954
11.
Billy Taylor
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William Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. Critic Leonard Feather once said, It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the worlds foremost spokesman for jazz, Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina, but moved to Washington, D. C. when he was five years old. He grew up in a family and learned to play different instruments as a child, including guitar, drums. He was most successful at the piano, and had classical piano lessons with Henry Grant, Taylor made his first professional appearance playing keyboard at the age of 13 and was paid one dollar. Taylor attended Dunbar High School, the U. S. s first high school for African-American students and he went to Virginia State College and majored in sociology. Pianist Dr. Undine Smith Moore noticed young Taylors talent in piano and he changed his major to music, Taylor moved to New York City after graduation and started playing piano professionally from 1944, first with Ben Websters Quartet on New Yorks 52nd Street. The same night he joined Websters Quartet, he met Art Tatum, among the other musicians Taylor worked with was Machito and his mambo band, from whom he developed a love for Latin music. After an eight-month tour with the Don Redman Orchestra in Europe, Taylor stayed there with his wife Theodora and worked in Paris and the Netherlands. Taylor returned to New York later that year and cooperated with Bob Wyatt and Sylvia Syms at the Royal Roost jazz club and Billie Holiday in a successful show called Holiday on Broadway. A year later, he became the house pianist at Birdland and performed with Charlie Parker, J. J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Taylor played at Birdland longer than any other pianist in the history of the club. In 1949, Taylor published his first book, a textbook about bebop piano styles. In 1952 Taylor composed one of his most famous tunes, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, nina Simone covered the song in her 1967 album Silk & Soul. The tune is known in the UK as a piano instrumental version. In 1958, he became the Musical Director of NBCs The Subject Is Jazz, Taylor also worked as a DJ and program director on radio station WLIB in New York in the 1960s. During the 1960s, the Billy Taylor Trio was a feature of the Hickory House on West 55th Street in Manhattan. From 1969 to 1972, he served as the director for The David Frost Show and was the first African American to lead a talk-show band. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich were just a few of the musicians who played on the show, in 1981, Jazzmobile produced a jazz special for National Public Radio, for which the program received the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting Programs. Jazzmobiles 1990 Tribute Concert to Dr. Taylor at Avery Fisher Hall, part of the JVC Jazz Festival, featured Nancy Wilson, Ahmad Jamal Trio and Terence Blanchard Quintet
12.
Ben Webster
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Benjamin Francis Ben Webster was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, is considered one of the three most important swing tenors along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Known affectionately as The Brute, or Frog, he had a tough, raspy, stylistically he was indebted to alto star Johnny Hodges, who, he said, taught him to play his instrument. Webster learned to play piano and violin at an age before taking up the saxophone, although he did return to the piano from time to time. Once Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster began to play that instrument in the Young Family Band, Kansas City at this point was a melting pot from which emerged some of the biggest names in 1930s jazz. Webster joined Bennie Motens band in 1932, a grouping which also included Count Basie, Oran Hot Lips Page and this era was recreated in Robert Altmans film Kansas City. Ben Webster played with Duke Ellingtons orchestra for the first time in 1935 and he credited Johnny Hodges, Ellingtons alto soloist, as a major influence on his playing. Webster left the band in 1943 after an altercation during which he allegedly cut up one of Ellingtons suits. In an interview with the Newark Star-Ledger in 2003, trumpeter Clark Terry claimed that Webster left Ellington because he slapped Duke, for a few months in 1948, he returned briefly to Ellingtons orchestra. Along with Peterson, trumpeter Harry Sweets Edison and others, he was touring and recording with Granzs Jazz at the Philharmonic package, in 1956, he recorded a classic set with pianist Art Tatum, supported by bassist Red Callender and drummer Bill Douglass. Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster with fellow tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was recorded on December 16,1957, along with Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Alvin Stoller. The Hawkins and Webster recording is a classic, the coming together of two giants of the tenor saxophone, who had first met back in Kansas City. In the late 1950s, he formed a quintet with Gerry Mulligan and it was there that the Webster-Mulligan group backed up blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon on an album recorded live. Webster generally worked steadily, but in 1965 he moved permanently to Europe and he played when he pleased during his last decade. He lived in London for one year, followed by four years in Amsterdam, Webster appeared as a sax player in a low-rent cabaret club in the 1970 Danish blue film titled Quiet Days in Clichy. In 1971, Webster reunited with Duke Ellington and his orchestra for a couple of shows at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, in addition and he also recorded or performed with Buck Clayton, Bill Coleman and Teddy Wilson. Webster suffered a hemorrhage in Amsterdam in September 1973, following a performance at the Twee Spieghels in Leiden. His body was cremated in Copenhagen and his ashes were buried in the Assistens Cemetery in the Nørrebro section of the city, after Websters death, Billy Moore Jr. together with the trustee of Websters estate, created the Ben Webster Foundation
13.
Duke Ellington
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Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years. Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, in the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Some of the musicians who were members of Ellingtons orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz, Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades, a master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington often composed specifically to feature the style and skills of his individual musicians. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizols Caravan, and Perdido, after 1941, Ellington collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major career revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in films, scoring several. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999, Ellington was born on April 29,1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Ellington in Washington, D. C. Daisy primarily played parlor songs and James preferred operatic arias and they lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place, NW, in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D. C. Dukes father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15,1879, Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D. C. on January 4,1879, the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy, when Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D. C. worked to protect their children from the eras Jim Crow laws, at the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners, Ellingtons childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited his chum Edgar McEntree for the nickname, I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was interested in baseball. President Roosevelt would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play, Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D. C. He gained his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games, in the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, Soda Fountain Rag. He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read, I would play the Soda Fountain Rag as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot, Ellington recalled
14.
Stan Getz
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Stanley Stan Getz was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as The Sound because of his warm, lyrical tone, his influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Hermans big band, Getz was born on February 2,1927, at St. Vincents Hospital in Philadelphia. In 1913, Harris and Beckie emigrated to the United States with their three sons Al, Phil, and Ben after their son Louis Gayetski in 1912. The Getz family first settled in Philadelphia, but during the depression the family moved to New York City, Getz worked hard in school, receiving straight As, and finished sixth grade close to the top of his class. Getzs major interest was in musical instruments and he played a number of them before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Getz instantly fell in love with the saxophone and he attended James Monroe High School in the Bronx. In 1941, he was accepted into the All City High School Orchestra of New York City and this gave him a chance to receive private, free tutoring from the New York Philharmonics Simon Kovar, a bassoon player. He also continued playing the saxophone and he eventually dropped out of school in order to pursue his musical career, but was later sent back to the classroom by the school systems truancy officers. In 1943 at the age of 16, he was accepted into Jack Teagardens band, Getz also played along with Nat King Cole and Lionel Hampton. With Herman, he had a hit with Early Autumn and after Getz left The Second Herd he was able to launch his solo career and he was the leader on almost all of his recording sessions after 1950. Getzs reputation was enhanced by his featured status on Johnny Smiths 1952 album Moonlight in Vermont. The single of the tune became a hit that stayed on the charts for months. In the mid to late 1950s working from Scandinavia, Getz became popular playing cool jazz with Horace Silver, Johnny Smith, Oscar Peterson, and many others. His first two quintets were notable for their personnel, including Charlie Parkers rhythm section of drummer Roy Haynes, pianist Al Haig, a 1953 line-up of the Dizzy Gillespie/Stan Getz Sextet featured Gillespie, Getz, Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Max Roach. Returning to the U. S. from Europe in 1961, teaming with guitarist Charlie Byrd, who had just returned from a U. S. State Department tour of Brazil, Getz recorded Jazz Samba in 1962 and it quickly became a hit. Getz won the Grammy for Best Jazz Performance of 1963 for Desafinado and it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. His second bossa nova album, also recorded in 1962, was Big Band Bossa Nova with composer and arranger Gary McFarland, as a follow-up, Getz recorded the album, Jazz Samba Encore. with one of the originators of bossa nova, Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfá
15.
Dave Brubeck
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David Warren Dave Brubeck was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. He wrote a number of standards, including In Your Own Sweet Way. Brubecks style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mothers attempts at classical training and his music is known for employing unusual time signatures, and superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities. Brubeck experimented with time throughout his career, recording Pick Up Sticks in 6/4, Unsquare Dance in 7/4, Worlds Fair in 13/4. He was also a composer of orchestral and sacred music, and wrote soundtracks for television such as Mr. Broadway. Dave Brubeck was born in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Concord, California and his father had Swiss ancestry and possibly Native American Modoc lineage, while his maternal grandparents were English and German. Brubeck originally did not intend to become a musician, but took lessons from his mother and he could not read music during these early lessons, attributing this difficulty to poor eyesight, but faked his way through, well enough that this deficiency went mostly unnoticed. Intending to work with his father on their ranch, Brubeck entered the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California and he changed to music on the urging of the head of zoology, Dr. Arnold, who told him Brubeck, your minds not here. Its across the lawn in the conservatory, stop wasting my time and yours. Later, Brubeck was nearly expelled when one of his professors discovered that he could not read music on sight, several of his professors came forward, arguing that his ability to write counterpoint and harmony more than compensated, and demonstrated his familiarity with music notation. The college was still afraid that it would cause a scandal, after graduating in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the U. S. Army. He served in Europe in the Third Army and he volunteered to play piano at a Red Cross show and was such a hit that he was spared from combat service and ordered to form a band. He created one of the U. S. armed forces first racially integrated bands, while serving in the military, Brubeck met Paul Desmond in early 1944. He returned to college after serving four years in the army. He studied under Darius Milhaud, who encouraged him to study fugue and orchestration, but not classical piano. While on active duty, he received two lessons from Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA in an attempt to connect with high modernist theory and practice. ”After completing his studies under Milhaud, Brubeck worked with an octet, and a trio including Cal Tjader and Ron Crotty. Highly experimental, the group made few recordings and got even fewer paying jobs, the trio was often joined by Paul Desmond on the bandstand, at Desmonds own insistence. Jack Sheedy owned San Francisco-based Coronet Records, which had recorded area Dixieland bands
16.
Bob Brookmeyer
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Robert Edward Bob Brookmeyer was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brookmeyer first gained public attention as a member of Gerry Mulligans quartet from 1954 to 1957. He later worked with Jimmy Giuffre, before rejoining Mulligans Concert Jazz Band and he garnered 8 Grammy Award nominations during his lifetime. Brookmeyer was born on December 19,1929 Kansas City, Missouri and he was the only child of Elmer Edward Brookmeyer and Mayme Seifert. Brookmeyer began playing professionally when in his teens and he attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, but did not graduate. He played piano in big bands led by Tex Beneke and Ray McKinley and he was part of small groups led by Stan Getz, Jimmy Giuffre, and Gerry Mulligan in the 1950s. During the 1950s and 1960s Brookmeyer played in New York clubs, on television, in the early 1960s Brookmeyer joined flugelhorn player Clark Terry in a band that achieved some success. In February 1965 Brookmeyer and Terry appeared together on BBC2s Jazz 625, Brookmeyer moved to Los Angeles in 1968 and became a full-time studio musician. He spent 10 years on the West Coast, and had an alcohol problem. After he overcame this, he returned to New York, Brookmeyer became musical director of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1979, although he had not composed any music for a decade. Brookmeyer wrote for and performed with groups in Europe from the early 1980s. He founded and ran a school in the Netherlands, and taught at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In June 2005, Brookmeyer joined ArtistShare and announced a project to fund a third album featuring his New Art Orchestra. The resulting Grammy-nominated CD, titled Spirit Music, was released in 2006, Brookmeyer was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in the same year. His eighth Grammy Award nomination was for an arrangement from the Vanguard Jazz Orchestras album, Forever Lasting, Brookmeyer died on December 15,2011, in New London, New Hampshire. With Benny Aronov Shadow Box With Gary Burton Who Is Gary Burton
17.
Zoot Sims
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John Haley Zoot Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto and later soprano. Sims was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and his father was a vaudeville hoofer, and Sims prided himself on remembering many of the steps his father taught him. Growing up in a family, he learned to play drums. His brother was the trombonist Ray Sims, following in the footsteps of Lester Young, Sims developed into an innovative tenor saxophonist. Throughout his career, he played with big bands, starting with those of Kenny Baker and he played with Benny Goodmans band in 1943 and replaced his idol Ben Webster in Sid Catletts Quartet in 1944. Sims served as a corporal in the United States Army Air Force from 1944 to 1946, then returned to music in the bands of Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton and he was one of Woody Hermans Four Brothers. He frequently led his own combos and toured with his friend Gerry Mulligans sextet, Sims rejoined Goodman in 1962 for a tour of the Soviet Union. In the 1950s and 60s, Sims had a long, successful partnership as co-leader of a quintet with Al Cohn, the group was a favorite at New York Citys Half Note Club. He also played on some of Jack Kerouacs recordings, Sims acquired the nickname Zoot early in his career while he was in the Kenny Baker band in California. The name was appropriated for a sax-playing Muppet. Sims played a 30-second solo on the song Poetry Man, written by singer Phoebe Snow on her eponymous album in 1975. Together Again. with Serge Chaloff and Herbie Steward Al and Zoot Locking Horns, with Joe Newman Stretching Out, (Mercury,1959 Quincy Jones Explores the Music of Henry Mancini With Stan Kenton Portraits on Standards The Kenton Era With Jack Kerouac Blues and Haikus With Irene Kral SteveIreneo. With Sarah Vaughan Vaughan and Violins The Duke Ellington Songbook, Vol.1 Linger Awhile, Live at Newport and More With Joe Williams At Newport 63 Downbeat Magazine article, April 13,1961
18.
Claude Thornhill
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Claude Thornhill was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. He composed the jazz and pop standards Snowfall and I Wish I Had You, as a youth, he was recognized as an extraordinary talent and formed a traveling duo with Danny Polo, a musical prodigy on the clarinet and trumpet from nearby Clinton, Indiana. As a student at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, he played with several theater bands, Thornhill entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age 16. That same year he and clarinetist Artie Shaw started their careers at the Golden Pheasant in Cleveland, Thornhill and Shaw went to New York together in 1931. Claude went to the West Coast in the late 1930s with the Bob Hope Radio Show, in 1935, he played on sessions for Glenn Millers first recordings under his own name, as Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. He played on Glenn Millers composition Solo Hop, which was released on Columbia Records, Danny Polo was his lead clarinet player. The band played without vibrato so that the timbres of the instruments could be better appreciated, the band was popular with both musicians and the public, the Miles Davis Nonet was modeled in part on Thornhills cool sound and use of unconventional instrumentation. The bands most successful records were Snowfall, A Sunday Kind of Love and Love for Love and his most famous recording, Snowfall, was released in 1941 as Columbia 36268. He released the song also as a V-Disc recording, as V-Disc 271A1, playing at the Paramount Theater in New York for $10,000 a week in 1942, Thornhill dropped everything to enlist in the US Navy to support the war effort. As chief musician, he played shows across the Pacific Theater with Jackie Cooper as his drummer, in 1946, he was discharged from the Navy. Then in April, he reformed his ensemble and he kept his same stylistic lines, but added some Bop lines to it. He got his old members of Danny Polo, Gerry Mulligan, and Barry Galbraith back together, Barber, a tuba player, was considered as a soft brass player rather than a bass so as to not interfere with Shulman on the bass. In the mid 1950s, Thornhill was briefly Tony Bennetts musical director and he offered his big band library to Gerry Mulligan when Gerry formed the Concert Jazz Band, but Gerry regretfully declined the gift, since his instrumentation was different. A large portion of his library of music is currently held by Drury University in Springfield. After his discharge from the Navy he continued to perform with his orchestra until his death of an attack at 1,30 a. m. July 2,1965, at his home in Caldwell, New Jersey, Thornhill was booked at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the time, the engagement was kept in his memory with his music director in his place. He was survived by his wife, actress Ruth Thornhill, and his mother, Maude Thornhill, of Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1984, Claude Thornhill was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. The 1941 Claude Thornhill piano composition Snowfall later had written by his wife Ruth Thornhill
19.
Stan Kenton
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Stanley Newcomb Stan Kenton was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who led an innovative, influential, and often controversial progressive jazz orchestra. In later years he was active as an educator, Stan Kenton was born on December 15,1911 in Wichita, Kansas, and was raised first in Colorado, then in California. He graduated from Bell High School, in Bell, California, Kenton learned piano as a child, and while still a teenager toured as a member of several bands. He played in the 1930s in the bands of Vido Musso and Gus Arnheim. In June 1941 he formed his first orchestra, which later was named after his theme song Artistry in Rhythm, a competent pianist, influenced by Earl Hines, Kenton worked in the early days much more as an arranger than later, and as inspiration for his loyal sidemen. Although there were no musicians in his first band, Kenton spent the summer of 1941 playing regularly before an audience at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach. Influenced by Jimmie Lunceford, the Stan Kenton Orchestra struggled for a time after its initial success and its Decca recordings were not big sellers and a stint as Bob Hopes backup radio band during the 1943–44 season was an unhappy experience, Les Brown permanently took Kentons place. Kentons first appearance in New York was in February 1942 at the Roseland Ballroom and its soloists during the war years included Art Pepper, briefly Stan Getz, altoist Boots Mussulli, and singer Anita ODay. By 1945, the band had evolved, the songwriter Joe Greene provided the lyrics for hit songs like And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine and Dont Let the Sun Catch You Cryin. A popular recording of Laura was made, the song from the film Laura. In the mid-1940s, Kentons band and style known as the wall of sound or wall of brass. Calling his music progressive jazz, Kenton sought to lead an orchestra as opposed to a dance band at a time when most big bands were beginning to wind up. Kenton had succeeded in forming a radical and very original band that gained its own audience, in 1949, Kenton took a year off. In 1950 he put together his most advanced band, the 39-piece Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra that included 16 strings, a woodwind section and its music ranged from the unique and very dense modern classical charts of Bob Graettinger to works that somehow swung despite the weight. Kenton managed two tours during 1950–1951 but soon reverted to his usual 19-piece lineup, then quite unexpectedly, Kenton went through a swinging period. The charts of such arrangers as Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Richards, the music was never predictable and could get quite bombastic, but it managed to swing while still keeping the Kenton sound. In 1956, when the band returned from its European trip, the Kenton band was playing in Ontario, Canada, at the time, and Kenton dispatched a telegram which lamented a new minority, white jazz musicians, and stated his disgust literary geniuses of jazz. Jazz critic Leonard Feather, responded in the October 3,1956, Feather implied that Kentons failure to win the Critics Poll was probably the real reason for the complaint, and wondered if racial prejudice was involved
20.
Astor Piazzolla
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Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz, a virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as the worlds foremost composer of tango music, Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1921, the only child of Italian immigrant parents, Vicente Nonino Piazzolla and Asunta Manetti. His mother was the daughter of two Italian immigrants from Lucca in Tuscany and his parents worked long hours and Piazzolla soon learned to take care of himself on the streets despite having a limp. At home he would listen to his fathers records of the orchestras of Carlos Gardel and Julio de Caro. He began to play the bandoneon after his father spotted one in a New York pawn shop in 1929, after their return to New York City from a brief visit to Mar del Plata in 1930, the family moved to Little Italy in lower Manhattan. In 1932 Piazzolla composed his first tango, La Catinga, the following year he took music lessons with the Hungarian classical pianist Bela Wilda, a student of Rachmaninoff who taught him to play Bach on his bandoneon. In 1934 he met Carlos Gardel, one of the most important figures in the history of tango, Gardel invited the young bandoneon player to join him on his tour. Much to Piazzollas dismay, his father decided that he was not old enough to go along, the disappointment of being forbidden to join the tour proved to be fortunate, as it was on this tour in 1935 that Gardel and his entire orchestra perished in a plane crash. In later years, Piazzolla made light of this near miss, joking that if his father had not been so careful, Piazzolla would be playing the harp rather than the bandoneon. In 1936, he returned with his family to Mar del Plata, Vardaro’s novel interpretation of tango made a great impression on Piazzolla and years later he would become Piazzolla’s violinist in his Orquesta de Cuerdas and his First Quintet. Piazzolla was employed as a replacement for Toto Rodríguez who was ill. Apart from playing the bandoneon, Piazzolla also became Troilo’s arranger, by 1941 he was earning a good wage, enough to pay for music lessons with Alberto Ginastera, an eminent Argentine composer of classical music. During his five years of study with Ginastera he mastered orchestration and that same year he married his first wife, Dedé Wolff, an artist, with whom he had two children, Diana and Daniel. As time went by Troilo began to fear that the musical ideas of the young bandoneonist might undermine the style of his orchestra. Tensions mounted between the two bandoneonists until, in 1944, Piazzolla announced his intention to leave Troilo and join the orchestra of the tango singer and bandoneonist Francisco Fiorentino. Piazzolla would lead Fiorentinos orchestra until 1946 and make recordings with him. Having disbanded his first orchestra in 1950 he almost abandoned tango altogether as he continued to study Bartok and Stravinsky and he spent a lot of time listening to jazz and searching for a musical style of his own beyond the realms of tango
21.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
22.
Wilmington, Delaware
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Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine River and it is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn after his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, as of the 2015 United States Census estimate, the population of the city is 71,948, reflecting an increase of 1. 5% from the 2010 Census. The Wilmington Metropolitan Division, comprising New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD and Salem County, Wilmington is built on the site of Fort Christina and the settlement Kristinehamn, the first Swedish settlement in North America. The area now known as Wilmington was settled by the Lenape band led by Sachem Mattahorn just before Henry Hudson sailed up the Len-api Hanna in 1609, the area was called Maax-waas Unk or Bear Place after the Maax-waas Hanna that flowed by. It was called the Bear River because it flowed west to the Bear People, the Dutch heard and spelled the river and the place as Minguannan. The area was known as The Rocks, and is located near the foot of present-day Seventh Street. Fort Christina served as the headquarters for the colony of New Sweden which consisted of, for the most part, the lower Delaware River region, dr. Timothy Stidham was a prominent citizen and doctor in Wilmington. He was born in 1610, probably in Hammel, Denmark and raised in Gothenburg and he arrived in New Sweden in 1654 and is recorded as the first physician in Delaware. The most important Swedish governor was Colonel Johan Printz, who ruled the colony under Swedish law from 1643 to 1653. He was succeeded by Johan Rising, who upon his arrival in 1654, seized the Dutch post Fort Casimir, located at the site of the present town of New Castle and this marked the end of Swedish rule in North America. Although during the American Revolutionary War only one small battle was fought in Delaware, the British remained in the town until they vacated Philadelphia in 1778. In 1800, Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, a French Huguenot, knowledgeable in the manufacture of gunpowder, by 1802 DuPont had begun making the explosive in a mill on the Brandywine River north of Brandywine Village and just outside the town of Wilmington. The DuPont company became a supplier to the U. S. military. Located on the banks of the Brandywine River, the village was annexed by Wilmington city. The greatest growth in the city occurred during the Civil War, Delaware, though officially remaining a member of the Union, was a border state and divided in its support of both the Confederate and the Union causes. The war created enormous demand for goods and materials supplied by Wilmington including ships, railroad cars, gunpowder, shoes, and other war-related goods. By 1868, Wilmington was producing more iron ships than the rest of the combined and it rated first in the production of gunpowder and second in carriages
23.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
24.
Marion, Ohio
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Marion is a city in and the county seat of Marion County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in north-central Ohio, approximately 50 miles north of Columbus, the population was 36,837 at the 2010 census. According to the US Census 2008 estimate Ohios Columbus–Marion–Chillicothe Combined Statistical Area has 2,002,604 people, Marion is the countys largest city and the center of the Marion Micropolitan Statistical Area. President Warren G. Harding, an owner of the Marion Star, was a resident of Marion for much of his adult life. The city and its development were closely related to industrialist Edward Huber, the city is home to several historic properties, some listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Marion County, Ohio. The current mayor of Marion is Scott Schertzer, Marion was laid out in 1822, and is named in honor of General Francis Marion. Marion was one of Ohios major industrial centers until the 1970s, in 1911, 80% of the nations steam shovel and heavy duty earth moving equipment was manufactured in Marion, Ohio. The city is also a center for CSX, and Norfolk Southern. Marion has long been a center of grain based snack and other products given its proximity to nearby growing regions in adjacent counties. Whirlpool Corporation of Benton Harbor, Michigan is the largest employer in the city operating the largest clothes dryer manufacturing facility in the world, nucor Steels facility in Marion is the largest producer of rebar and signpost in Ohio. Marion is located at 40°35′12″N 83°7′35″W, the city is located about 50 miles north of Ohios capital city, Columbus, due north along U. S. Route 23. Marion occupies most of Marion Township, which is located just outside the city limits. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 11.82 square miles. As of the census of 2010, there were 36,837 people,12,868 households, the population density was 3,137.7 inhabitants per square mile. There were 15,066 housing units at a density of 1,283.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 86. 7% White,9. 6% African American,0. 2% Native American,0. 4% Asian,1. 1% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 3. 0% of the population. 30. 4% of all households were made up of individuals and 12. 7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.00. The median age in the city was 37.3 years
25.
Player piano
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The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sales peaked in 1924, then declined as the improvement in phonograph recordings due to electrical recording methods developed in the mid-1920s. The idea of musical devices can be traced back many centuries. These devices were later extended to operate musical boxes, which contain a set of tuned metal teeth plucked by the player mechanism, an early musical instrument to be automated was the organ, which is comparatively easy to operate automatically. The power for the notes is provided by air from a system. The playing task is performed by a pinned barrel. The piano is an instrument, requiring each note to be struck with a different force to control the dynamics of the performance. The entire force required to sound the note must be given by the hitting the keys. It proved to be difficult for a device to combine a variable percussive force. Barrels do not provide a force, but a relatively gentle switching motion. Early barrel pianos moved the back and forwards continuously as the operator turned the handle. The hammers hit repeatedly until the pin was removed and this played the note, but at a fixed dynamic and with a tremolo action quite unlike a pianist. The development of the piano was the gradual overcoming of the various difficulties of controlled percussive striking. The earliest practical piano playing device was probably the Forneaux Pianista and this bellows struck the piano key and so played the note. The acceleration of developments leading to the player device started in the 1840s. The start of the period can probably be seen as the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia. At this exhibition were a number of automatic devices, including the Pianista. The earliest description of a piano playing device using perforated paper rolls was Claude Seytres French patent of 1842, the concept was sound, but the device described was impractical in the way it read the roll and operated the piano
26.
Fats Waller
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Thomas Wright Fats Waller was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid the groundwork for modern jazz piano and his best-known compositions, Aint Misbehavin and Honeysuckle Rose, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999. Waller was the youngest of 11 children born to Adeline Locket Waller and he started playing the piano when he was six and graduated to playing the organ at his fathers church four years later. His mother instructed him when he was a youth, at the age of 14 he was playing the organ at the Lincoln Theater, in Harlem, and within 12 months he had composed his first rag. Wallers first piano solos were recorded in October 1922, when he was 18 years old and he was the prize pupil and later the friend and colleague of the stride pianist James P. Johnson. Against the opposition of his father, a clergyman, Waller became a professional pianist at the age of 15, working in cabarets, in 1918 he won a talent contest playing Johnsons Carolina Shout, a song he learned from watching a player piano play it. Waller became one of the most popular performers of his era, finding critical and commercial success in the United States and he was also a prolific songwriter, and many songs he wrote or co-wrote are still popular, such as Honeysuckle Rose, Aint Misbehavin and Squeeze Me. Fellow pianist and composer Oscar Levant dubbed Waller the black Horowitz, Waller is believed to have composed many novelty tunes in the 1920s and 1930s and sold them for small sums, attributed to another composer and lyricist. Standards attributed to Waller, sometimes controversially, include I Cant Give You Anything but Love and he further supports the conjecture, noting that early handwritten manuscripts in the Dana Library Institute of Jazz Studies of Spreadin Rhythm Around are in Wallers hand. Machlin comments that the Singer conjecture has considerable justification, maurice Wallers biography similarly notes his fathers objections to hearing On the Sunny Side of the Street playing on the radio. The anonymous sleeve notes on the 1960 RCA Victor album Handful of Keys state that Waller copyrighted over 400 songs, many of them co-written with his closest collaborator, Razaf described his partner as the soul of melody. A man who made the piano sing, both big in body and in mind. After a balance had been taken, wed just need one take to make a side, on one occasion his playing seemed to have put him at risk of injury. Waller was kidnapped in Chicago leaving a performance in 1926, four men bundled him into a car and took him to the Hawthorne Inn, owned by Al Capone. Waller was ordered inside the building, and found a party in full swing, gun to his back, he was pushed towards a piano, and told to play. A terrified Waller realized he was the surprise guest at Capones birthday party and it is rumored that Waller stayed at the Hawthorne Inn for three days and left very drunk, extremely tired, and had earned thousands of dollars in cash from Capone and other party-goers as tips. After sessions with Ted Lewis, Jack Teagarden and Billy Banks Rhythmakers, he began in May 1934 the voluminous series of recordings with a band known as Fats Waller. This six-piece group usually included Herman Autrey, Gene Sedric or Rudy Powell, Waller wrote Squeeze Me, Keepin Out of Mischief Now, Aint Misbehavin, Blue Turning Grey Over You, Ive Got a Feeling Im Falling, Honeysuckle Rose and Jitterbug Waltz
27.
South Jersey
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South Jersey comprises the southern portions of the U. S. state of New Jersey between the lower Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean. New Jersey is sandwiched between the two cities of New York in the northeast and Philadelphia in the southwest, Benjamin Franklin called the state a barrel tapped at both ends. South Jersey may be defined geographically as the area below Interstate 195, in particular the lower eight counties of New Jersey, Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties have several older streetcar towns, and many residents commute to Philadelphia. The Courier-Post daily newspaper, which refers to itself as South Jerseys Newspaper is based in Camden County and it covers all of South Jersey, but focuses primarily on these three counties. The Gloucester County Times based in the city of Woodbury, however, is the newspaper for that county. Salem County and to lesser extents lower Gloucester County and upper Cumberland County serve as communities for the industries in New Castle County. The Atlantic shore areas, in particular Atlantic City in Atlantic County, New Jersey, Cape May has the distinction of being geographically as far south as Washington, D. C. thus giving another sense to the name South Jersey. South Jersey is a peninsula, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, the Delaware Bay to the southwest, and the Delaware River to the northwest. All of South Jersey is part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Atlantic Coastal Plain can be divided into three physiographic subprovinces, the Inner Lowlands, Outer Lowlands, and Central Uplands. The Inner Lowlands are fertile due to the deposition of sediment in the region, the Outer Lowlands is dominated by coastal estuaries, swamplands, and barrier islands near the Atlantic Ocean and is generally infertile. The Central Uplands varies slightly from the Lowlands in altitude and is covered by the Pine Barrens, the Uplands has rolling hills at an elevation over 50 feet, rarely exceeding 200 feet in elevation, along with sandy, acidic soil that makes it unsuitable for agriculture. Commercial farming in the Pine Barrens is limited to plants that thrive in its nutrient-poor soil—generally acidic fruits, in the Pine Barrens, cranberries and blueberries are cultivated in lowland bogs that have accumulated depths of organic matter. South Jersey has a subtropical climate. Compared to northern parts of New Jersey, South Jersey has slightly higher temperatures and receives annual precipitation. Along the Jersey Shore, temperatures are moderated by sea breezes, in 2015, a NJ. com poll with 90,000 respondents asked readers to identify the communities in North, Central, and South Jersey. The Ocean County communities north of Lacey Township were considered to be part of Central Jersey, Camden, located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, has historically been considered the economic hub of South Jersey. Much of Camdens growth resulted from its location near Philadelphia, particularly its role as a transportation hub. For decades after World War II, Camden suffered an economic decline and high crime rate due to the loss of its manufacturing base
28.
Kalamazoo, Michigan
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Kalamazoo /ˌkæləməˈzuː/ is a city in the southwest region of the U. S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County, as of the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a total population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolitan Statistical Area. Kalamazoo is equidistant from the major American cities of Chicago and Detroit, one of Kalamazoos most notable features is the Kalamazoo Mall, an outdoor pedestrian shopping mall. The city created the mall in 1959 by closing part of Burdick Street to auto traffic, Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University, a large public university, Kalamazoo College, a liberal arts school, and Kalamazoo Valley Community College, a two-year community college. Originally known as Bronson in the township of Arcadia, the names of both the city and the township were changed to Kalamazoo in 1836 and 1837, respectively, the Kalamazoo name comes from a Potawatomi word, first found in a British report in 1772. However, the Kalamazoo River, which passes through the city of Kalamazoo, was located on the route between Detroit and Fort Saint-Joseph. French-Canadian traders, missionaries, and military personnel were quite familiar with this area during the French era, the name for the Kalamazoo River was then known by Canadians and French as La rivière Kikanamaso. The name Kikanamaso was also recorded by Father Pierre Potier, a Jesuit missionary for the Huron-Wendats at the Assumption mission, while en route to Fort Saint-Joseph during the fall of 1760. Legend has it that Ki-ka-ma-sung, meaning boiling water, referring to a footrace held each fall by local Native Americans, still another theory is that it means the mirage or reflecting river. Another legend is that the image of boiling water referred to fog on the river as seen from the hills above the current downtown, the name was also given to the river that flows almost all the way across the state. The name Kalamazoo, which sounds unusual to English-speaking ears, has become a metonym for exotic places, today, T-shirts are sold in Kalamazoo with the phrase Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo. The area on which the city of Kalamazoo stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a mound in downtowns Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to decline after the 8th century and was replaced by other groups, the Potawatomi culture lived in the area when the first European explorers arrived. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, passed just southeast of the present city of Kalamazoo in late March 1680, the first Europeans to reside in the area were itinerant fur traders in the late 18th and early 19th century. There are records of several traders wintering in the area, during the War of 1812, the British established a smithy and a prison camp in the area. The 1821 Treaty of Chicago ceded the territory south of the Grand River to the United States federal government, however, the area around present-day Kalamazoo was reserved as the village of Potawatomi Chief Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish
29.
Catholic school
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Catholic schools are parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. As of 2011, the Church operates the worlds largest non-governmental school system, in 2016, the church supported 43,800 secondary schools, and 95,200 primary schools. Catholic schools participate in the mission of the Church, integrating religious education as the core subject within their curriculum. Irish immigration provides the main contribution to the increases in Catholic communities across the globe, the Irish immigration established the revival of Catholicism through movement to countries across Europe, United Kingdom and Australia. Historically, the establishment of Catholic schools in Europe encountered various struggles following the creation of the Church of England in the Elizabethan Religious settlements of 1558-63, anti-Catholicism in this period encouraged Catholics to create modern Catholic education systems to preserve their traditions. The Relief Acts of 1782 and the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 later increased the possibility to openly practice Catholicism in England and this led to the development of numerous native religious congregations which established schools, hospitals, orphanages, reformatories, and workhouses. Traditionally, Catholic schools originated as single sex schools, Catholic schools were previously required to depend on school fees and endowments. Endowments dropped off sharply causing fees to rise and this prevented some students from enrolling due to their inability to pay. Catholic schools are distinct from their public school counterparts in focusing on the development of individuals as practitioners of the Catholic faith, the leaders, teachers and students are required to focus on four fundamental rules initiated by the Church and school. This includes the Catholic identity of the school, education in regards to life and faith, celebration of life and faith, however, non-Catholics, whether Christian or not, may need to participate in or be exempted from required activities, particularly those of a religious nature. These are in keeping with the spirit of social inclusiveness. ”The education also involves, “the distinct but complementary aspect of the religious dimension of liturgical and prayer life of the school community. ”In Catholic schools. Both teacher and Bishop therefore, contribute to the planning and teaching Religious Education Lessons, Catholic schools in Malaysia have been the backbone of formal education in the country. Catholic schools have many changes since independence in the late 50s. The education policy in Malaysia is very centralized, in 1988, all Catholic religious brothers older than 55 were asked to retire with immediate effect, creating vacancies for lay teachers to take over. Any new brother wanting to join the profession in Malaysia have to be in the civil service. Many of the Lasallian traditions such as inter-La Salle games or sports are now integrated into other government funded programmes. With Islam being the religion, compulsory or elective Bible lessons today are limited only to those of the Catholic faith. The missionaries who opened schools in Malaysia gave a solid education framework, today, there are 68 Sisters of the Infant Jesus,11 Parish Convents and 46 La Salle Brothers schools in the country
30.
Richard Rodgers
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Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television and he is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. His compositions have had a significant impact on popular music up to the present day and he has also won a Pulitzer Prize, making him one of two people to receive each award. Richard began playing the piano at age six,10, Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School. Rodgers spent his teenage summers in Camp Wigwam where he composed some of his first songs. Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and later collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University, at Columbia, Rodgers joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. In 1921, Rodgers shifted his studies to the Institute of Musical Art, Rodgers was influenced by composers such as Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern, as well as by the operettas his parents took him to see on Broadway when he was a child. In 1919, Richard met Lorenz Hart, thanks to Phillip Leavitt, Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in the field of musical comedy, writing several amateur shows. They made their debut with the song Any Old Place With You. Their first professional production was the 1920 Poor Little Ritz Girl and their next professional show, The Melody Man, did not premiere until 1924. When he was just out of college Rodgers worked as director for Lew Fields. Among the stars he accompanied were Nora Bayes and Fred Allen, Rodgers was considering quitting show business altogether to sell childrens underwear, when he and Hart finally broke through in 1925. They wrote the songs for a show presented by the prestigious Theatre Guild, called The Garrick Gaieties. Only meant to run one day, the Guild knew they had a success, the shows biggest hit — the song that Rodgers believed made Rodgers and Hart — was Manhattan. The two were now a Broadway songwriting force, throughout the rest of the decade, the duo wrote several hit shows for both Broadway and London, including Dearest Enemy, The Girl Friend, Peggy-Ann, A Connecticut Yankee, and Present Arms. Their 1920s shows produced standards such as Here in My Arms, Mountain Greenery, Blue Room, My Heart Stood Still, with the Depression in full swing during the first half of the 1930s, the team sought greener pastures in Hollywood. Rodgers also wrote a melody for which Hart wrote three consecutive lyrics which either were cut, not recorded or not a hit, the fourth lyric resulted in one of their most famous songs, Blue Moon. In 1935, they returned to Broadway and wrote an almost unbroken string of hit shows that only with Harts death in 1943
31.
Reading, Pennsylvania
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Reading, is the county seat of Berks County and with a population of 98,653 is the fifth-largest city in Pennsylvania. Located in southeastern Pennsylvania, it is the city of the Greater Reading Area. Reading Railroad is one of the four properties in the classic United States version of the Monopoly board game. Reading was one of the first localities where outlet shopping became a tourist industry and it has been known as The Pretzel City, because of numerous local pretzel bakeries. Currently, Bachman, Dieffenbach, Tom Sturgis, and Unique Pretzel bakeries call the Reading area home, according to the 2010 census, Reading has the highest share of citizens living in poverty in the nation. In recent years, the Reading area has become a destination for cyclists, with more than 125 miles of trails in five major preserves, it is an International Mountain Bicycling Association Ride Center and it annually hosts the Reading 120 international road cycling race. In April 2017, it was announced that an indoor velodrome, or cycling track, will be built in Reading as the first of its kind on the East Coast and it will also serve as the Cycling Leagues world headquarters. Lenni Lenape people, also known as Delaware Indians, were the inhabitants of the Reading area. The Colony of Pennsylvania was a 1680 land grant from King Charles II of England to William Penn, comprising more than 45,000 square miles, it was named for his father, Sir William Penn. In 1743, Richard and Thomas Penn mapped out the town of Reading with Conrad Weiser, taking its name from Reading, Berkshire, England, the town was established in 1748. Upon the creation of Berks County in 1752, Reading became the county seat, the region was settled by emigrants from southern and western Germany, who bought land from the Penns. The first Amish community in the New World was established in Greater Reading, the Pennsylvanian German dialect was spoken in the area well into the 1950s and later. During the French and Indian War, Reading was a base for a chain of forts along the Blue Mountain. By the time of the American Revolution, the iron industry had a total production which exceeded Englands. That output that would help supply George Washingtons troops with cannons, rifles, during the early period of the conflict, Reading was again a depot for military supply. Hessian prisoners from the Battle of Trenton were also detained here, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the capital of the United States at the time of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. President Washington traveled to Reading, and considered making it the national capital. Susanna Cox was tried and convicted for infanticide in Reading in 1809 and her case attracted tremendous sympathy,20,000 viewers came to view her hanging, swamping the 3,000 inhabitants
32.
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
33.
WPHT
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WPHT is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The station is owned by CBS Radio and broadcasts a radio format. Its transmitter and broadcast tower are located in Moorestown, New Jersey and its studios are at 2 Bala Plaza in Bala Cynwyd, WPHT uses HD Radio on its AM signal 24 hours a day. The stations programming is available to listeners with an HD Radio receiver via a simulcast on the HD3 subchannel of sister station WOGL. WPHT programming is mostly conservative talk-radio with a focus on local to the Delaware Valley. Local news briefs are heard on weekdays, WPHT was the flagship station for Philadelphia Phillies baseball for 32 years, until the 2016 season, when co-owned 94.1 WIP-FM became the exclusive Philadelphia radio home for the games. WPHT airs Temple University football and mens basketball, the station first began broadcasting in May 1922 as WCAU, a 250-watt station operating out of electrician William Durhams home at 19th and Market Streets. It is Philadelphias third-oldest radio station, having signed on two months after WIP and WFIL, in 1924, WCAU was sold to law partners Ike Levy and Daniel Murphy. Murphy later bowed out in favor of Ikes brother, Leon, the network struggled to find advertisers, however, and William S. Actor Paul Douglas began his career at WCAU, where he worked as an announcer and sportscaster from 1928 to 1934. In 1930, WCAU initiated a shortwave service, operating under the call sign W3XAU. It is believed that this was the first license issued by the FCC for an international shortwave broadcast station. Initially W3XAU simulcast WCAU programming, but eventually original programming was created specifically for international listeners, W3XAU, later WCAI, then WCAB, was closed down in 1941 as CBS consolidated various shortwave operations. The 10 kW shortwave transmitter was disassembled, and WCAU staff were told that it was sent to England to aid the BBC war propaganda efforts. A series of power brought the station to 50,000 watts, with a new 50. The Levy brothers eventually became major stockholders in CBS, and were members of the board for many years. On December 26,1932, WCAU moved to a new facility at 1622 Chestnut Street, Broadcasting called it a thoroughly modern 9-story building. Erected especially for the WCAU Broadcasting Co, the building included eight studios and a special office for Leopold Stokowski, director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Levys agreed to sell WCAU-AM-FM to The Philadelphia Record in 1946, in a complex deal, the Bulletin sold off WPEN and WCAU-FM, while changing WPEN-FMs calls to WCAU-FM and WPEN-TVs calls to WCAU-TV
34.
Tommy Tucker (bandleader)
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Gerald L. Duppler, better known under his stage name Tommy Tucker, was an American bandleader. The Tommy Tucker Orchestra entertained many listeners as a big band in the 1930s and 1940s, popular as a dance band, the Tucker orchestra played concert halls, theatres, hotels and various venues across the country—for a span of 25 years. Recorded for Okeh in June 1941, his biggest hit, I Dont Want to Set the World on Fire, Tucker wrote his own theme song, I Love You, it was published on four record labels, including Brunswick, in 1935, and MGM in 1951. In 1941, Tucker led the orchestra for a New York City version of the Pot o Gold radio program, Tommy Tucker opened each performance—on radio or live—with his signature tic-toc, tic-toc, its Tommy Tucker time. And he usually ended each session with Time to Go. Born Gerald L. Duppler, May 18,1903, in Souris, North Dakota, he received a Bachelor of Arts at the University of North Dakota in 1924, shortly after college, Tucker organized a small band and played at a fairground pavilion in Minot, ND. They played at the Breen Hotel in St. Cloud, MN that winter, the group began to travel and landed in California. His first recordings were with Crown Records in 1933, under the name Tommy Tucker and he used the name Tommy Tucker and His Orchestra for his next recordings for Brunswick in 1935. With Columbia records dominant, Tucker recorded over one thousand sides for over 10 record companies, then the band first toured the country, Tucker devised his own marketing approach. When he planned a route, Tucker would send messages to various towns announcing that he was traveling through the area. Later in the thirties, Joe Galkin became the orchestras official manager who planned all bookings. Television shows that Tucker appeared on include The Kate Smith Show, Cavalcade of Bands, Arthur Murray House Party, one of his longtime trumpeters was Carlton Buster Brown who played first chair. Vocalists include Amy Arnell, Clare Nelson, Madeline Russell, Kerwin Somerville, Don Brown, Peter Hanley, eydie Gorme sang with the band when Tucker settled on the east coast near Asbury Park. Many songs recorded over the years were written by Irving Berlin, when Tucker retired from the band business, he became a professor emeritus in music at Monmouth College in West Long Branch, New Jersey, close to his home in West Allenhurst. He conducted the concert band and taught classes for the schools degree programs in music and music education. After twenty years as an educator, he retired to Florida in 1979, Tommy died in Sarasota, Florida on July 11,1989. Remembered as a sound and appreciated as swing, critiques note that his charts can contrast exotic effects with jazz-time passages
35.
Elliot Lawrence
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Elliot Lawrence is an American jazz pianist and bandleader. Son of the broadcaster Stan Lee Broza, Lawrence led his first dance band at age 20 and he recorded copiously as a bandleader for Columbia, Decca, King, Fantasy, Vik, and SESAC between 1946 and 1960. Lawrence is currently music director for the Tony awards show, Elliot Lawrence was born Elliot Lawrence Broza on February 14,1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents, Stan Lee Broza and Esther Broza were radio, in 1927 they created and produced the Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour, which ran on WCAU radio from 1927–1958 and concurrently on television from 1948–1958. Stan Lee Broza was also the first president of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia from 1962-1963, Stan Lee was the host of the Children’ Hour and Esther produced it. Childhood stars that appeared on the show include Eddie Fisher, Frankie Avalon, Joey Bishop, Bernadette Peters, the idea for The Children’s Hour was originally born by Stan Lee when a new shopping mall in Philadelphia was looking to sponsor a show on the radio. He came up with the idea to create a variety show in which talented children would sing, while looking for sponsors, one of Stan Lees’ first customers was William Paley, who bought advertising time on WCAU for his fathers cigar shop. William Paley went on to become the chairman of CBS, Stan Lee Broza and Esther Broza were pioneers of broadcasting and of the variety show. Both are in the Philadelphia Broadcasters Hall of Fame, Elliot grew up in this show biz environment and began studying piano at the age of 3. His first public performance was at age 4 conducting the orchestra on the Children’ Hour stage show, at the age of six he wrote his first composition, “Falling Down Stairs” and he was stricken with polio. Lawrence fought the illness for 6 months, after which he recovered, by the age of 12, Elliot had formed his first band, a 15-piece unit called The Band Busters. and had already begun doing club dates on the weekends. Elliot finished high school at age 16 and entered The University Of Pennsylvania, during his junior year his band, now named The Elliot Broza Orchestra, began playing college proms around Pennsylvania. At Penn, he majored in symphonic conducting under Harl McDonald, in 1944, after three years at Penn, Elliot graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree and received the Thornton Oakely Award, given each year to the undergraduate who has contributed most to the arts. Elliot took on the name Elliot Lawrence to distinguish himself from his name when he became the music director of WCAU’S House Band in 1945. The band premiered on the radio on January 18,1945 as The Elliot Lawrence Orchestra in a weekly half-hour broadcast “Listen to Lawrence”. The Eliot Lawrence Band, of which he was the player and leader, soon incorporated classical instruments like oboe, French horn, English horn. “Listen to Lawrence became nationally broadcast on CBS radio in 1945 shortly after a review in the March 1945 issue of Metronome Magazine by George T. Simon. Elliot’s theme song was “Heart to Heart”, the Elliot Lawrence Band performed in Philadelphia at the World Series in 1950, playing his original song “The Fightin’ Phils”
36.
Gene Krupa
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Eugene Bertram Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer, band leader, actor, and composer. Known for his energetic, flamboyant style and for his showmanship, Krupa is considered one of the most influential drummers of all time. He is also known for defining the standard drum kit used today in collaboration with brands Slingerland, Krupa is considered the founding father of modern drumset by Modern Drummer magazine. Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna, Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, also of Polish descent and his parents were very religious Roman Catholics and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his school days at various parochial schools. Upon graduation he attended Saint Josephs College for a year, Krupa studied with Sanford A. Moeller and began playing drums professionally in the mid-1920s with bands in Wisconsin. The Playboys were the band at The Golden Pumpkin nightclub in Chicago. Krupa made his first recordings in 1927, with a band under the leadership of Red McKenzie, along with other recordings by musicians from the Chicago jazz scene such as Bix Beiderbecke, these recordings are examples of Chicago style jazz. The numbers recorded at that session were China Boy, Sugar, Nobodys Sweetheart, the McKenzie-Condon recordings are notable for being early examples of the use of a bass drum and snare drum/cymbals on recordings, at least for the studio where these recordings were made. Some of Krupas big influences during this time were Father Ildefonse Rapp, later, there were cylinder recordings of African drumming that Gene intensely studied. Drummers such as Tubby Hall, Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds contributed to Genes developing his own sound, Gene absorbed every bit of what he heard and formulated his own style very early in his career, pulling from hundreds of different sources. There were many other drummers whose work influenced Genes approach to drumming and other instrumentalists, Krupa also appeared on six recordings made by the Thelma Terry band in 1928. In December 1934, he joined Benny Goodmans band, where his featured drum work made him a national celebrity and his tom-tom interludes on their hit Sing, Sing, Sing were the first extended drum solos to be recorded commercially. However, artistic and personal disputes with Goodman prompted Krupa to leave the group and form his own orchestra, shortly after the famous Carnegie Hall concert in January 1938. He appeared in the 1941 film Ball of Fire, in which he and his band perform a version of the hit Drum Boogie, sung by Barbara Stanwyck. As an encore to this piece, he plays a version of the same song using matchsticks as drumsticks and a matchbox as a drum, while Stanwyck. In 1943, his arrest for possession of marijuana forced the breakup of his own orchestra, as the 1940s ended, large orchestras fell by the wayside, Count Basie closed his large band and Woody Herman reduced his to an octet
37.
Bebop
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As bebop was not intended for dancing, it enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, Bebop groups used rhythm sections in a way that expanded their role. The term bebop is derived from nonsense syllables used in scat singing and it appears again in a 1936 recording of Ise a Muggin by Jack Teagarden. A variation, rebop, appears in several 1939 recordings, the first, known print appearance also occurred in 1939, but the term was little-used subsequently until applied to the music now associated with it in the mid-1940s. Some researchers speculate that it was a used by Charlie Christian because it sounded like something he hummed along with his playing. Another theory is that it derives from the cry of Arriba, used by Latin American bandleaders of the period to encourage their bands. At times, the bebop and rebop were used interchangeably. By 1945, the use of bebop/rebop as nonsense syllables was widespread in R&B music, ability to play sustained, high energy, and creative solos was highly valued for this newer style and the basis of intense competition. Swing-era jam sessions and cutting contests in Kansas City became legendary, the Kansas City approach to swing was epitomized by the Count Basie Orchestra, which came to national prominence in 1937. One young admirer of the Basie orchestra in Kansas City was an alto saxophone player named Charlie Parker. Young was equally daring with his rhythm and phrasing as with his approach to harmonic structures in his solos and he would frequently repeat simple two or three note figures, with shifting rhythmic accents expressed by volume, articulation, or tone. His phrasing was far removed from the two or four bar phrases that players had used until then. They would often be extended to an odd number of measures and he would take a breath in the middle of a phrase, using the pause, or free space, as a creative device. The overall effect was that his solos were something floating above the rest of the music, Parker played along with the new Basie recordings on a Victrola until he could play Youngs solos note for note. That understatement of harmonically sophisticated chords would soon be used by young musicians exploring the new language of bebop. That solo showed a sophisticated harmonic exploration of the tune, with implied passing chords, Hawkins would eventually go on to lead the first formal recording of the bebop style in early 1944. As the 1930s turned to the 1940s, Parker went to New York as a player in the Jay McShann Orchestra. Guitarist Charlie Christian, who had arrived in New York with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1939 was, like Parker, christians major influence was in the realm of rhythmic phrasing
38.
How High the Moon
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How High the Moon is a jazz standard with lyrics by Nancy Hamilton and music by Morgan Lewis. It was first featured in the 1940 Broadway revue Two for the Show, in Two for the Show, this was a rare serious moment in an otherwise humorous revue. The earliest recorded hit version was by Benny Goodman & His Orchestra and it was recorded on February 7,1940, and released by Columbia Records as catalog number 35391, with the flip side Fable of the Rose. The Les Paul Trio recorded a released as V-Disc 540B with a spoken introduction which was issued in November,1945 by the U. S. In 1948, bandleader Stan Kenton enjoyed some success with his version of the tune, the recording, with a vocal by June Christy, was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 911 and 15117. It reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on July 9,1948, its only week on the chart, a recording of the song by Les Paul and Mary Ford was made on January 4,1951. The record was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 1451, with the flip side Walkin and Whistlin Blues, the record was subsequently re-released by Capitol as catalog number 1675, with Josephine on the B-side. This recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1979 and is on the list of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum of the Songs That Shaped Rock, the song was sung in various recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, becoming Ellas signature tune. She first performed the song at Carnegie Hall on September 29,1947 and her first recording, backed by the Daydreamers, was recorded December 20,1947, and released by Decca Records as catalog number 24387, with the flip side You Turned the Tables on Me. The song has become a jazz standard and has been recorded by several musicians of the genre. The Jack Benny Show- Mahlon Merrick arrangement, February 18,1940 Pat Suzuki on her album Miss Pony Tail. The Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded a 9, 11-length version of the piece at Oberlin College in March 1953 that is included on the Fantasy Records LP, Dave Brubeck and Jon Hendricks recorded it as a short, slow ballad on Brubecks 1995 CD Young Lions & Old Tigers. Kaye Connor Duke Ellington and his orchestra Ziggy Elman Erroll Garner Erroll Garner Trio Natalie Gauci performed this song on the Top 4 Big Band show. Marvin Gaye Gloria Gaynor Along with the tracks, Casanova Brown and Do It Yourself, manhattan Transfer Johnny Mathis Big Jay McNeely on the album Live at Birdland,1957, recorded live in stereo at the Seattle, Washington, Birdland Club in 1957. Bud Powell on the album Spring Broadcasts 1953, with Oscar Pettiford on bass and this broadcast was recorded March 21,1953. Sarah Vaughan in 1957 recorded live at Mr. Kellys in Chicago, notation is given to a version performed by Ella Fitzgerald on which she scats the verses, for which Sarah emulates. Charlie Ventura Paul Weston and his orchestra Mary Lou Williams (released by Disc Records as catalog number 5025, lola Albright in Peter Gunn season 1, episode 5 The Frog,1958. Jeff Beck paid tribute to Les Paul and Mary Ford at the 2010 Grammy Awards Ceremony by playing a version of How High the Moon with Imelda May singing
39.
Charlie Parker
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Charles Charlie Parker, Jr. also known as Yardbird and Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Parker was an influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso, and he introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords and his tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Parker acquired the nickname Yardbird early in his career, Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer. Charles Parker, Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the child of Charles Parker and Adelaide Addie. He attended Lincoln High School in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his schools band using a rented school instrument. His father, Charles, was absent but provided some musical influence, he was a pianist. He later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways, Parkers mother Addie worked nights at the local Western Union office. His biggest influence at that time was a trombone player who taught him the basics of improvisation. In the late 1930s Parker began to practice diligently, during this period he mastered improvisation and developed some of the ideas that led to bebop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, he said that he spent three to four years practicing up to 15 hours a day, bands led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten certainly influenced Parker. In 1937, Parker played at a jam session at the Reno Club in Kansas City and his attempt to improvise failed when he lost track of the chord changes. This prompted Jo Jones, the drummer for Count Basies Orchestra, in 1938 Parker joined pianist Jay McShanns territory band. The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago, Parker made his professional recording debut with McShanns band. As a teenager, Parker developed a morphine addiction while hospitalized after an automobile accident and he continued using heroin throughout his life, and it ultimately contributed to his death. In 1939 Parker moved to New York City, to pursue a career in music and he held several other jobs as well. He worked for nine dollars a week as a dishwasher at Jimmies Chicken Shack, in 1942 Parker left McShanns band and played for one year with Earl Hines, whose band included Dizzy Gillespie, who later played with Parker as a duo. This period is virtually undocumented, due to the strike of 1942–1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, Parker joined a group of young musicians, and played in after-hours clubs in Harlem, such as [[Clark Monroes Uptown House
40.
Reed (mouthpiece)
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A reed is a thin strip of material which vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. The reeds of most woodwind instruments are made from Arundo donax or synthetic material, musical instruments may be classified according to the type and number of reeds used. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the reed is a tongue cut. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane, by contrast, in a an uncapped double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece, the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Single reeds are used on the mouthpieces of clarinets and saxophones, the back of the reed is flat and is placed against the mouthpiece, the rounded top side tapers to a thin tip. These reeds are roughly rectangular in shape except for the thin vibrating tip, all single reeds are shaped similarly but vary in size to fit each instruments mouthpiece. Reeds designed for the instrument may look identical to each other. Hardness is generally measured on a scale of 1 through 5 from softest to hardest and this is not a standardized scale and reed strengths vary by manufacturer. The thickness of the tip and heel and the profile in between affect the sound and playability, cane of different grades, even if cut with the same profile, will also respond differently. This is due to the natural differences in the density of the cane fibers. The cane used to make reeds for saxophone, clarinet, once the cane is cut, it must lay out and dry in direct sunlight for about a month. The cane is rotated regularly to ensure proper and complete drying, once dry, they are taken to be stored in a warehouse. As the cane is needed, it is pulled from the warehouse, once at the factory, the cane is taken to the cutting department where it is cut into tubes. The tubes are graded by diameter and wall density, the tubes are then cut into splits which are transformed into reed blanks. The blanks are tapered and profiled using blades or CNC machines into reeds, after the reeds are completed, they are taken to a machine that grades them for strength. Double reeds are used on the oboe, oboe damore, English horn, bass oboe, Heckelphone, bassoon, contrabassoon, sarrusophone, shawm, bagpipes, nadaswaram and they are typically not used in conjunction with a mouthpiece, rather the two reeds vibrate against each other. Reed strengths are graded from hard to soft, the making of double reeds begins in the same way as how single reeds are made. The cane is collected from Arundo donax, dried, processed, similar to single reed production, the cane is separated into various diameters. The most common diameters for American-style oboe reeds are as follows,9. 5–10 mm, 10–10.5 mm, many American oboists prefer a specific diameter at one time of the year and a different diameter at other times, depending on the season and the weather
41.
John Lewis (pianist)
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John Aaron Lewis was an American jazz pianist, composer and arranger, best known as the founder and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet. John Lewis was born in La Grange, Illinois, and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico and his family was musical and had a family band that allowed him to play frequently and he also played in a Boy Scout music group. Even though he learned piano by playing the classics, he was exposed to jazz from an early age because his aunt loved to dance and he attended the University of New Mexico, where he led a small dance band that he formed and double majored in Anthropology and Music. Eventually, he decided not to pursue Anthropology because he was advised that careers from degrees in Anthropology did not pay well, in 1942, Lewis entered the army and played piano alongside Kenny Clarke, who influenced him to move to New York once their service was over. Lewis moved to New York in 1945 to pursue his studies at the Manhattan School of Music. Although his move to New York turned his attention more towards jazz, he still frequently played and listened to classical works and composers such as Chopin, Bach. Once Lewis moved to New York, he and Clarke tried out for Dizzy Gillespies bop-style big band by playing a song called Bright Lights that Lewis had written for the band played for in the army. They both were asked to join Gillespies band, and the tune they played for Gillespie, renamed Two Bass Hit. Lewis composed, arranged and played piano for the band from 1945 until 1948 after the made a concert tour of Europe. When Lewis returned from the tour with Gillespies band, he left it to work individually, in an article about Dexter Gordon for WorldPress. com, reviewer Ted Panken suggests that. Panken seems certain of his claim but does not offer corroboration to a charge that Davis took credit for music that was not his own, Lewis also was part of trumpeter Miles Daviss Birth of the Cool sessions. From when he returned to the U. S. in 1948 through 1949, for the Birth of the Cool sessions, Lewis arranged Sil Vous Plait, Rouge, Move and Budo. The Modern Jazz Quartet was formed out of the foursomes need for freedom and complexity than Gillespies big band. While Lewis wanted the MJQ to have more freedom, he also wanted to incorporate some classical elements and arrangements to his compositions. Lewis assumed the role of director from the start, even though the group claimed not to have a leader. It is commonly thought that John Lewis, for reasons of his contributions to the band, was apparently the first among the equals, Davis even once said that John taught all of them, Milt couldnt read at all, and bassist Percy Heath hardly. It was Lewis who elevated the groups collective talent because of his musical abilities. Lewis also made sure that the band was always dressed impeccably, Lewis believed that it was important to dress the way that they came across in their music, polished, elegant and unique
