1.
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
2.
South Carolina State University
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South Carolina State University is a four-year historically black university located in Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States. Currently the program operates through a partnership with North Carolina State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison, as of May 2015,47 bachelors degrees have been conferred by SCSU. South Carolina State is regionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges, in June 2015, the SACS decided to allow the college to retain its accreditation, but kept them on probation for another year. In June 2016, SACSCOC decided to remove the college from probation, the schools campus size is 160 acres, with an additional 267 acres at Camp Harry Daniels in Elloree, South Carolina. Three buildings, Lowman Hall, Hodge Hall, and Dukes Gymnasium are included in the South Carolina State College Historic District, the library is the Miller F. Whittaker Library. The library was allocated $1 million from the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967 for its construction, the library is named in honor of the universitys third president. Originally two levels, a level was added in a 1979 expansion. Academic programs received more attention as the student population increased, but other programs, fortunately, the New Deal Programs were used to create, among other things, Wilkinson Hall, the universitys first separate library building. The colleges campus grew, as it purchased over 150 acres for agricultural learning, after World War II, many students flocked to the college, creating a classroom shortage problem for the school. In 1947, the United States Army created an ROTC detachment, the schools name changed, as well, as the South Carolina General Assembly renamed the school South Carolina State College in 1954. This was done in order to black students an environment of equal education. Also, the created a law program for the college. The law program folded in 1966 after the University of South Carolina integrated, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, many students participated in marches and rallies aimed at ending segregation. The tragedy, known as the Orangeburg massacre, is commemorated by a plaza near the front of the campus. From the late-1960s to the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Dr. M, the school also opened the I. P. Stanback Museum & Planetarium, which is the facility of its kind on a historically black university campus in the United States. In 1993, Dr. Barbara Hatton became the schools first female president and created many improvements for the campus, dawson Bulldog Stadium, constructing new suites and a larger press box, as well as increasing its capacity to 22,000. Hatton also spearheaded the creation of a plaza which resides in front of the Student Union and passes by several dorms, under the leadership of Dr. Andrew Hugine Jr. the school constructed a new 771-bed residence hall, which is the largest dormitory in South Carolina
3.
West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany
4.
Hartford, Connecticut
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Hartford is the capital of the U. S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, as of the 2010 Census, Hartfords population was 124,775, making it Connecticuts third-largest city after the coastal cities of Bridgeport and New Haven. Census Bureau estimates since then have indicated Hartfords subsequent fall to fourth place statewide as a result of sustained growth in the coastal city of Stamford. Nicknamed the Insurance Capital of the World, Hartford houses many insurance company headquarters, founded in 1635, Hartford is among the oldest cities in the United States. In 1868, resident Mark Twain wrote, Of all the towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief. Following the American Civil War, Hartford was the richest city in the United States for several decades, today, Hartford is one of the poorest cities in the nation with 3 out of every 10 families living below the poverty line. In sharp contrast, the Hartford metropolitan area is ranked 32nd of 318 metropolitan areas in total economic production, various tribes, all part of the loose Algonquin confederation, lived in or around present-day Hartford. The area was referred to as Suckiaug, meaning Black Fertile River-Enhanced Earth, the first Europeans known to have explored the area were the Dutch, under Adriaen Block, who sailed up the Connecticut in 1614. Dutch fur traders from New Amsterdam returned in 1623 with a mission to establish a trading post, the original site was located on the south bank of the Park River in the present-day Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood. This fort was called Fort Hoop, or the House of Hope, in 1633, Jacob Van Curler formally bought the land around Fort Hoop from the Pequot chief for a small sum. It was home to perhaps a couple families and a few dozen soldiers, the area today is known as Dutch Point, and the name of the Dutch fort, House of Hope, is reflected in the name of Huyshope Avenue. The fort was abandoned by 1654, but its neighborhood in Hartford is still known as Dutch Point, the Dutch outpost, and the tiny contingent of Dutch soldiers that were stationed there, did little to check the English migration. The Dutch soon realized they were vastly outnumbered, the House of Hope remained an outpost, but it was steadily swallowed up by waves of English settlers. The English began to arrive 1637, settling upstream from Fort Hoop near the present-day Downtown, the settlement was originally called Newtown, but was changed to Hartford in 1637 in honor of Stones hometown of Hertford, England. Hooker also created the town of Windsor. The etymology of Hartford is the ford where harts cross, the Seal of the City of Hartford features a male deer, which in full maturity was referred to by the medieval hunting term hart. The fledgling colony along the Connecticut River had issues with the authority by which it was to be governed because it was outside of the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colonys charter. Historians suggest that Hookers conception of self-rule embodied in the Fundamental Orders went on to inspire the Connecticut Constitution, today, one of Connecticuts nicknames is the Constitution State
5.
Lena Horne
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Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American jazz and pop music singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Hornes career spanned over 70 years appearing in film, television, because of the Red Scare and her political activism, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne, The Lady and Her Music. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards, Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died of heart failure on May 9,2010. Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and her mother, Edna Louise Scottron, was a granddaughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron, she was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively. Ednas maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave, Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne. When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia, for several years, she traveled with her mother. From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother and she then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School, she dropped out without earning a diploma. Aged 18, she moved in with her father in Pittsburgh, staying in the citys Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others. In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall. A few years later, Horne joined Noble Sissles Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she made her first records, issued by Decca. After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41 and she replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBCs popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The shows resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor, Hornes songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood nightclub debut at Felix Youngs Little Troc on the Sunset Strip in January 1942, a few weeks later, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November 1944, she was featured in an episode of the radio series Suspense, as a fictional nightclub singer. In 1945 and 1946, she sang with Billy Eckstines Orchestra, as a result, most of Hornes film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline
6.
Lou Rawls
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Louis Allen Lou Rawls was an American recording artist, voice actor, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his ability, Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had the classiest singing. Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records and he worked as a television, motion picture, and voice actor. He was also a three-time Grammy-winner, all for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, Rawls was born in Chicago on December 1,1933, and raised by his grandmother in the Ida B. Wells projects on the citys South Side, after graduating from Chicagos Dunbar Vocational High School, he sang briefly with Cooke in the Teenage Kings of Harmony, a local gospel group, and then with the Holy Wonders. In 1951, Rawls replaced Cooke in the Highway QCs after Cooke departed to join The Soul Stirrers in Los Angeles, Rawls was soon recruited by the Chosen Gospel Singers and moved to Los Angeles, where he subsequently joined the Pilgrim Travelers. In 1955, Rawls enlisted in the United States Army as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and he left the All-Americans three years later as a sergeant and rejoined the Pilgrim Travelers. In 1958, while touring the South with the Travelers and Sam Cooke, Rawls was pronounced dead before arriving at the hospital, where he stayed in a coma for five and a half days. It took him months to regain his memory, and a year to fully recuperate, Rawls considered the event to be life-changing. Alongside Dick Clark as master of ceremonies, Rawls was recovered enough by 1959 to be able to perform at the Hollywood Bowl. His first 2 single releases were Love, Love, Love and Walkin on Herb Alperts Shar-Dee label in 1959-60, then 2 more in 1960-61 on Candix with In My Little Black Book and 80 Ways. He was signed to Capitol Records in 1962, the year he sang the soulful background vocals on the Sam Cooke recording of Bring It On Home to Me and Thats Where Its At. Rawls himself charted with a cover of Bring It On Home to Me in 1970, Rawls first Capitol solo release was Stormy Monday, a jazz album with Les McCann in 1962. Went gold, Rawls would not have a hit until he made a proper soul album, appropriately named Soulin. The album contained his first R&B #1 single, Love Is a Hurtin Thing, in 1967 Rawls won his first Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance, for the single Dead End Street. In 1967, Rawls also performed at the first evening of the Monterey International Pop Music Festival, in 1969, the singer was co-host of NBCs summer replacement series for the Dean Martin Show along with Martins daughter, singer Gail Martin. After leaving Capitol in 1971, Rawls joined MGM, at which juncture he released his Grammy-winning single Natural Man written for him by comedian Sandy Baron and he had a brief stint with Bell Records in 1974, where he recorded a cover of Hall & Oates Shes Gone. In 1976, Rawls signed with Philadelphia International Records, where he had his greatest album success with the million-selling All Things in Time, subsequent albums, such as 1977s When You Hear Lou, Youve Heard It All yielded such hit singles as Lady Love
7.
Newark, New Jersey
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Newark is the most populous city in the U. S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County. For 2015, the Census Bureaus Population Estimates Program calculated a population of 281,944, Newark is the second largest city in the New York metropolitan area, located approximately 8 miles west of lower Manhattan. Settled in 1666 by Puritans from New Haven Colony, Newark is one of the oldest European cities in the United States and its location at the mouth of the Passaic River, has made the citys waterfront an integral part of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Today, Port Newark-Elizabeth is the container shipping terminal of the busiest seaport on the American East Coast. In addition, Newark Liberty International Airport was the first municipal airport in the United States. Several leading companies have their headquarters in Newark, including Prudential, PSEG, Panasonic Corporation of North America, Audible. com, IDT Corporation, the U. S. District Court for the District of New Jersey sits in the city as well. Local cultural venues include the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark Symphony Hall, The Prudential Center and the Newark Museum. Newark is divided into five wards, the East, West, South, North and Central wards. Newarks Branch Brook Park is the oldest county park in the United States and is home to the nations largest collection of cherry blossom trees, Newark was settled in 1666 by Connecticut Puritans led by Robert Treat from the New Haven Colony. It was conceived as an assembly of the faithful, though this did not last for long as new settlers came with different ideas. On October 31,1693 it was organized as a New Jersey township based on the Newark Tract, Newark was granted a Royal charter on April 27,1713. It was incorporated on February 21,1798 by the New Jersey Legislatures Township Act of 1798, during its time as a township, portions were taken to form Springfield Township, Caldwell Township, Orange Township, Bloomfield Township and Clinton Township. Newark was reincorporated as a city on April 11,1836, replacing Newark Township, the previously independent Vailsburg borough was annexed by Newark on January 1,1905. In 1926, South Orange Township changed its name to Maplewood, as a result of this, a portion of Maplewood known as Ivy Hill was re-annexed to Newarks Vailsburg. During the American Revolutionary War British troops made several raids into the town, the city has experienced revitalization since the 1990s. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had an area of 26.107 square miles. It has the third-smallest land area among the 100 most populous cities in the U. S. behind neighboring Jersey City and Hialeah, the citys altitude ranges from 0 in the east to approximately 230 feet above sea level in the western section of the city. Newark is essentially a large basin sloping towards the Passaic River, historically, Newarks high places have been its wealthier neighborhoods
8.
United States Air Force
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The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947. It is the most recent branch of the U. S. military to be formed, the U. S. Air Force is a military service organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense, the U. S. Air Force provides air support for surface forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field. As of 2015, the service more than 5,137 military aircraft,406 ICBMs and 63 military satellites. It has a $161 billion budget with 313,242 active duty personnel,141,197 civilian employees,69,200 Air Force Reserve personnel, and 105,500 Air National Guard personnel. According to the National Security Act of 1947, which created the USAF and it shall be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The stated mission of the USAF today is to fly, fight, and win in air, space and we will provide compelling air, space, and cyber capabilities for use by the combatant commanders. We will excel as stewards of all Air Force resources in service to the American people, while providing precise and reliable Global Vigilance, Reach and it should be emphasized that the core functions, by themselves, are not doctrinal constructs. The purpose of Nuclear Deterrence Operations is to operate, maintain, in the event deterrence fails, the US should be able to appropriately respond with nuclear options. Dissuading others from acquiring or proliferating WMD, and the means to deliver them, moreover, different deterrence strategies are required to deter various adversaries, whether they are a nation state, or non-state/transnational actor. Nuclear strike is the ability of forces to rapidly and accurately strike targets which the enemy holds dear in a devastating manner. Should deterrence fail, the President may authorize a precise, tailored response to terminate the conflict at the lowest possible level, post-conflict, regeneration of a credible nuclear deterrent capability will deter further aggression. Finally, the Air Force regularly exercises and evaluates all aspects of operations to ensure high levels of performance. Nuclear surety ensures the safety, security and effectiveness of nuclear operations, the Air Force, in conjunction with other entities within the Departments of Defense or Energy, achieves a high standard of protection through a stringent nuclear surety program. The Air Force continues to pursue safe, secure and effective nuclear weapons consistent with operational requirements, adversaries, allies, and the American people must be highly confident of the Air Forces ability to secure nuclear weapons from accidents, theft, loss, and accidental or unauthorized use. This day-to-day commitment to precise and reliable nuclear operations is the cornerstone of the credibility of the NDO mission, positive nuclear command, control, communications, effective nuclear weapons security, and robust combat support are essential to the overall NDO function. OCA is the method of countering air and missile threats, since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source
9.
Horace Silver
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Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, particularly in the hard bop style that he helped pioneer in the 1950s. After playing tenor saxophone and piano at school in Connecticut, Silver got his break on piano when his trio was recruited by Stan Getz in 1950, Silver soon moved to New York City, where he developed a reputation as a composer and for his bluesy playing. Frequent sideman recordings in the mid-1950s helped further, but it was his work with the Jazz Messengers, co-led by Art Blakey and their Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers album contained Silvers first hit, The Preacher. After leaving Blakey in 1956, Silver formed his own quintet, with became the standard small group line-up of tenor saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass. Their public performances and frequent recordings for Blue Note Records increased Silvers popularity and his most successful album was Song for My Father, made with two iterations of the quintet in 1963 and 1964. The last two of these were combined, resulting in commercially unsuccessful releases such as The United States of Mind series. Silver left Blue Note after 28 years, founded his own record label, in 1993, he returned to major record labels, releasing five albums before gradually withdrawing from public view because of health problems. His compositions similarly emphasized catchy melodies, but often also contained dissonant harmonies, Many of his varied repertoire of songs, including Doodlin, Peace, and Sister Sadie, became jazz standards that are still widely played. His considerable legacy encompasses his influence on other pianists and composers, Silver was born on September 2,1928, in Norwalk, Connecticut. His mother, Gertrude, was from Connecticut, his father, John Tavares Silver, was born on the island of Maio, Cape Verde and she was a maid and sang in a church choir, he worked for a tire company. Horace had a much older half-brother, Eugene Fletcher, from his mothers first marriage, and was the child for his parents, after John, who lived to 6 months, and Maria. Silver began playing the piano in his childhood and had music lessons. His father taught him the music of Cape Verde. At the age of 11 Silver became interested in becoming a musician, after hearing the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra. His early piano influences included the styles of boogie-woogie and the blues, the pianists Nat King Cole, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, Silver graduated from St. Marys Grammar School in 1943. From ninth grade he played Lester Young-influenced tenor saxophone in the Norwalk High School band, Silver played gigs locally on both piano and tenor saxophone while still at school. He was rejected for service by a draft board examination that concluded that he had an excessively curved spine. Around 1946 he moved to Hartford, Connecticut to take up a job as pianist in a nightclub
10.
Florence, South Carolina
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Florence /ˈflɔːrəns/ is a city in Florence County, South Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Florence County and the city within the Florence metropolitan area. The area forms the core of the historical Pee Dee region of South Carolina, as of the 2010 census, the population of Florence was 37,056, and the estimated population in 2015 was 38,228. In 1965, Florence was named an All-American City, presented by the National Civic League, the city was founded as a railroad hub and became the junction of three major railroad systems, including the Wilmington and Manchester, the Northeastern, and the Cheraw and Darlington. As of 2013, the city retains its status as a hub, both for industry and infrastructure, while establishing itself as a regional center for business, medicine, culture. The City of Florence was chartered in 1871 and incorporated in 1890 following the 1888 creation of Florence County, prior to its charter, the city was part of one of the original townships laid out by the Lords Proprietors in 1719. The area was settled through the late 19th and early 20th century. Early settlers practiced subsistence farming and produced indigo, cotton, naval stores and timber, in the mid-19th century two intersecting railroads were built, the Wilmington and Manchester, and the Northeastern. Gen. W. W. Harllee, the president of the W & M, built his home at the junction, over 2,800 of the prisoners died of disease, and the burial ground adjacent to the prison became the Florence National Cemetery after the war. After the war, Florence grew and prospered, using the railroad to supply its cotton, timber, during the 20th century the economy of Florence came to rely heavily on the healthcare industry, driven by two major hospitals and a number of pharmaceutical plants. Industry grew, especially after World War II, when Florence became increasingly known for textiles, pharmaceuticals, paper, Florence is located in the coastal plain of South Carolina. It is in the part of the state and the northern part of Florence County. The average elevation above sea level is around 140 ft. Jeffries Creek is a tributary of the Great Pee Dee River and is the waterway that flows through the city. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 20.9 square miles, of which 20.9 square miles are land and 0.04 square miles. Autumn, winter and spring are mild, with winter nights below freezing. Florences summers can be hot and humid. The city, like cities of the Southeast, is prone to inversions. The city of Florence has a form of government
11.
Swing music
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Swing music, or simply swing, is a form of American music that dominated in the 1930s and 1940s. The name swing came from the swing feel where the emphasis is on the off–beat or weaker pulse in the music, Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, the verb to swing is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Notable musicians of the era include Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Woody Herman. Swing has roots in the late 1920s as larger ensembles began using written arrangements, a typical song played in swing style would feature a strong, anchoring rhythm section in support of more loosely tied wind and brass. The most common style consisted of having a soloist take center stage, Swing music began to decline in popularity during World War II because of several factors. By the late 1940s, swing had morphed into traditional pop music, or evolved into new styles such as jump blues, Swing music saw a revival in the late 1950s and 1960s with pop vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald. Swing blended with other genres to create new styles, in country music, artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican and Bob Wills introduced many elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called western swing. Gypsy swing is an outgrowth of Venuti and Langs jazz violin swing, in the 1970s, and 1980s, fans of big band music attended swing music performances at supper clubs. In the late-1980s a trendier, more urban-styled swing-beat emerged called new jack swing, in the late 1990s and into the 2000s there was a swing revival, led by Squirrel Nut Zippers, Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Lavay Smith. In Canada, some of the early 2000s records by The JW-Jones Blues Band included swing revival elements, the 1920s saw parallel trends in jazz and popular music that would later converge into the swing style. New Orleans style jazz was based on a meter and contrapuntal improvisation led by a trumpet or cornet, typically followed by a clarinet. The rhythm section consisted of a tuba and drums, and sometimes a banjo, by the early 1920s guitars and pianos sometimes substituted for the banjo and a string bass sometimes substituted for the tuba. Further innovations in small ensemble playing led to development of the Chicago style identified with Louis Armstrong, a stint with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra familiarized him with arranged ensemble playing that differed from the New Orleans style, in which saxophones became the dominant sound among the reeds. Armstrong brought those back to his smaller ensembles, the soloist played over an ensemble relegated to a supporting role in the background. The string bass also lent itself to playing in a 4/4 rhythm rather than the 2/4 rhythm dictated by the tuba. The new format gave the soloist the opportunity to play with more rhythmic freedom, but playing with swing remained the province of the soloist, not the ensemble. The late 1920s saw increasingly sophisticated arrangements used by bigger ensembles, some arrangements used call-response between horn sections to build the melody
12.
Eddie Harris
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Eddie Harris was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the piano and organ. His best-known compositions are Freedom Jazz Dance, recorded and popularized by Miles Davis in 1966, Harris was born and grew up in Chicago. His father was originally from Cuba, and his mother from New Orleans and he later studied music at Roosevelt University, by which time he was proficient on piano, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone. While in college, he performed professionally with Gene Ammons, after college, Harris was drafted into the United States Army and while serving in Europe, he was accepted into the 7th Army Band, which also included Don Ellis, Leo Wright, and Cedar Walton. Leaving military service, he worked in New York City before returning to Chicago where he signed a contract with Vee Jay Records and his first album for Vee Jay, Exodus to Jazz, included his own jazz arrangement of Ernest Golds theme from the movie Exodus. The single climbed into the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached No.16 in the U. S. R&B chart, some jazz critics, however, regarded commercial success as a sign that a jazz artist had sold out and Harris soon stopped playing Exodus in concert. He moved to Columbia Records in 1964 and then to Atlantic Records the following year where he re-established himself, in 1965, Atlantic released The In Sound, a bop album that won back many of his detractors. In 1967, his album, The Electrifying Eddie Harris reached second place on the R&B charts, the albums lead track, Listen Here, was issued as a single, climbing to No.11 R&B and No.45 on the Hot 100. Harris released several different versions of his composition over the years, the first appeared on an early Atlantic album, Mean Greens, featuring him on electric piano. He was to re-work the track two years later, stretching it out to seven minutes in length, for his iconic sax solo version. The whole track appeared on both sides of the Atlantic hit single, edited into two parts, in 1969, he performed with pianist and vocalist Les McCann at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Although the musicians had been unable to rehearse, their session was so impressive that a recording of it was released by Atlantic as Swiss Movement and this became one of the best-selling jazz albums ever, also reaching second place on the R&B charts. Harris also came up with the idea of the reed trumpet, from 1970 to 1975, he experimented with new instruments of his own invention, with singing the blues, with jazz-rock. He also started singing and to perform comic R&B numbers, such as That is Why Youre Overweight, in 1975, however, he alienated much of his audience with his album The Reason Why Im Talking S--t, which consisted mainly of comedy. He had moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, Harris died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, at the age of 62. Homecoming With Horace Parlan Glad I Found You With Horace Silver Spiritualizing the Senses Theres No Need to Struggle Eddie Harris at AllMusic Eddie Harris Illustrated Discography
