1.
Avranches
–
Avranches is a commune in the Manche department in the Normandy region in northwestern France. It is a subprefecture of the department, by the end of the Roman period, the settlement of Ingena, capital of the Abrincatui tribe, had taken the name of the tribe itself. This was the origin of the name Avranches, in 511 the town became the seat of a bishopric and subsequently of a major Romanesque cathedral dedicated to Saint Andrew which was dismantled during the French revolutionary period. As the region of Brittany emerged from the Roman region of Armorica, Avranchin was briefly held by Alan I, the regions that later became the Duchies of Normandy and Brittany each experienced devastating Viking raids, with Brittany occupied by Vikings from 907 to 937. In 933 Avranches and its territory, the Avranchin, were ceded to the Normans, hugh dAvranches, 1st Earl of Chester, a magnate under William the Conqueror, was the son of Richard le Goz, Vicomte dAvranches. In 1172 a council was held at Avranches in response to the murder of Anglo-Norman Saint Thomas Becket, the same council was forbidden to confer on children benefice, carrying with it the cure of souls, or on the children of priests for the churches of their fathers. Each parish was required to have an assistant, and the Advent fast was commended to all who could observe it, the town was damaged in both the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion. Álvaro Vaz de Almada was made 1st Count of Avranches by King Henry VI of England on August 8,1444, the liberation of Avranches during World War II was led by General George S. Patton and began on 31 July 1944. Avranches is situated at the end of the Cotentin Peninsula on the E40 road connecting Saint-Lô with Brittany. The town was founded on ground overlooking the dunes and coastal marshes along the bay forming the corner between the peninsulas of the Cotentin and Brittany. From Avranches, it is possible to see the Mont Saint-Michel, a museum houses the collection of manuscripts of Mont Saint-Michel, deposited in the municipal archives during the French Revolution. It is one of the largest collections of medieval illuminated manuscripts in France, outside national, the major church Notre Dame des Champs was constructed in Gothic Revival style in the 19th century to restore the religious life of the town after the destruction of the cathedral. A smaller church Saint Gervais houses a treasury, best known for the skull of Saint Aubert complete with hole where the archangel Michaels finger pierced it. The botanical gardens were founded in the grounds of the former Franciscan convent in the late 18th century, the expansion and introduction of exotic species in the 19th century and the location of the gardens overlooking the bay made the gardens an important sight in the town. The Manoir de Brion, an ancient Benedictine priory of Mont Saint-Michel, is located in Dragey, Avranches is twinned with St. Helier in Jersey. On 2 March 2010 a Jersey-registered boat Archangel succeeded in reaching Avranches at Marcey-les-Greves and it is believed this was the first instance of a foreign vessel reaching Avranches in modern times. Hamon de Massey, Norman lord in the barony of Chester, INSEE commune file Herbermann, Charles, ed
Avranches
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Botanical garden
Avranches
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Patton Square
Avranches
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Notre Dame des Champs
2.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
Jazz
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Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) is considered one of the pivotal musicians in jazz for his contributions as a trumpet player, composer and singer.
Jazz
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Double bassist
Reggie Workman, saxophone player
Pharoah Sanders, and drummer
Idris Muhammad performing in 1978
Jazz
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Albert Gleizes, 1915, Composition pour Jazz, gouache on cardboard, mounted on Masonite, 73 x 73 cm,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Jazz
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In the late 18th-century painting
The Old Plantation, African-Americans dance to banjo and percussion.
3.
Jazz fusion
–
Jazz fusion is a musical genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined aspects of jazz harmony and improvisation with styles such as funk, rock, rhythm and blues, and Latin jazz. During this time many jazz musicians began experimenting with electric instruments and amplified sound for the first time, as well as electronic effects, many of the developments during the late 1960s and early 1970s have since become established elements of jazz fusion musical practice. Fusion arrangements vary in complexity—some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a key, or even a single chord. Others can feature odd or shifting time signatures with elaborate chord progressions, melodies, typically, these arrangements, whether simple or complex, will feature extended improvised sections that can vary in length. As with jazz, fusion often employs brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone as melody and soloing instruments, the rhythm section typically consists of electric bass, electric guitar, electric piano/synthesizer and drums. As with traditional jazz improvisation, fusion instrumentalists generally require a level of technical proficiency. The term jazz-rock is often used as a synonym for jazz fusion as well as for music performed by late 1960s, experimentation continued in the 1990s and 2000s. Fusion albums, even those that are made by the group or artist. Rather than being a musical style, fusion can be viewed as a musical tradition or approach. Afro-Cuban jazz, one the earliest form of Latin jazz, is a fusion of Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban jazz first emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauza and Frank Grillo Machito in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans, based in New York City. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as Dizzys and Pozos Manteca and Charlie Parkers and Machitos Mangó Mangüé, were referred to as Cubop. During its first decades, the Afro-Cuban jazz movement was stronger in the United States than in Cuba itself, allmusic Guide states that until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate. One of the earliest releases from Pink Floyd, London 66–67 incorporated jazz-influenced improvisation to their psychedelic compositions, nevertheless, these developments made little impact in the United States. Jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton was an innovator in the 1960s, in 1967, Burton worked with electric guitarist Larry Coryell and recorded Duster, which is considered one of the first fusion records. Texas-born guitarist Coryell was also a pioneer of jazz in the same era. Trumpeter and composer Miles Davis had a influence on the development of jazz fusion with his 1968 album Miles in the Sky. It is the first of Davis albums to incorporate electric instruments, with Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter playing electric piano and bass guitar, respectively
Jazz fusion
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Trumpeter
Miles Davis in 1989: One of the first innovators of jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
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Weather Report began as an experimental group, but eventually garnered a huge following.
Jazz fusion
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Fusion band
Return to Forever in 1976
Jazz fusion
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French jazz violinist
Jean-Luc Ponty performed on acoustic violin and on amplified, electronic effect-modified electric violins.
4.
Bebop
–
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
Bebop
–
Dizzy Gillespie, at the Downbeat Club, NYC, ca 1947
Bebop
–
Several Bebop musicians headlining on
52nd Street, May 1948
5.
Clarinet
–
The clarinet is a musical-instrument family belonging to the group known as the woodwind instruments. It has a mouthpiece, a straight cylindrical tube with an almost cylindrical bore. A person who plays a clarinet is called a clarinetist, the word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette, or from Provençal clarin, oboe. It would seem however that its roots are to be found amongst some of the various names for trumpets used around the renaissance. Clarion, clarin and the Italian clarino are all derived from the medieval term claro which referred to a form of trumpet. This is probably the origin of the Italian clarinetto, itself a diminutive of clarino, according to Johann Gottfried Walther, writing in 1732, the reason for the name is that it sounded from far off not unlike a trumpet. The English form clarinet is found as early as 1733, while the similarity in sound between the earliest clarinets and the trumpet may hold a clue to its name, other factors may have been involved. The trumpet parts that required this speciality were known by the term clarino, Johann Christoph Denner is generally believed to have invented the clarinet in Germany around the year 1700 by adding a register key to the earlier chalumeau. Over time, additional keywork and airtight pads were added to improve the tone and these days the most popular clarinet is the B♭ clarinet. However, the clarinet in A, just a lower, is commonly used in orchestral music. Since the middle of the 19th century the clarinet has become an essential addition to the orchestra. The clarinet family ranges from the BBB♭ octo-contrabass to the A♭ piccolo clarinet, the clarinet has proved to be an exceptionally flexible instrument, equally at home in the classical repertoire as in concert bands, military bands, marching bands, klezmer, and jazz. The cylindrical bore is primarily responsible for the clarinets distinctive timbre, the tone quality can vary greatly with the musician, the music, the instrument, the mouthpiece, and the reed. The most prominent were the German/Viennese traditions and the French school, the latter was centered on the clarinetists of the Conservatoire de Paris. The proliferation of recorded music has made examples of different styles of clarinet playing available, the modern clarinetist has a diverse palette of acceptable tone qualities to choose from. The A clarinet and B♭ clarinet have nearly the same bore, orchestral players using the A and B♭ instruments in the same concert could use the same mouthpiece for both. The A and the B♭ instruments have nearly identical tonal quality, the tone of the E♭ clarinet is brighter than that of the lower clarinets and can be heard even through loud orchestral or concert band textures. The bass clarinet has a deep, mellow sound, while the alto clarinet is similar in tone to the bass
Clarinet
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Bass clarinet
Clarinet
–
Written range (though it is possible to play higher):
Clarinet
–
Sound wave propagation in the soprano clarinet
Clarinet
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Schüller's quarter-tone clarinet
6.
Atlantic Records
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Atlantic Recording Corporation is an American major record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. In 2004, Atlantic Records and its sister label Elektra Records merged into Atlantic Records Group, craig Kallman is currently the chairman of Atlantic Records. Ahmet Ertegün served as founding chairman until his death on December 14,2006, the brothers had become ardent fans of jazz and rhythm & blues music, amassing a collection of over 15,00078 RPM records. He convinced the family dentist, Dr Vahdi Sabit, to invest $10,000 and recruited Herb Abramson, Abramson had worked as a part-time A&R manager/producer for the jazz label National Records, signing Big Joe Turner and Billy Eckstine. He founded Jubilee Records in 1946, but had no interest in its most successful artists, so, in September 1947, he sold his share in Jubilee to his partner, Jerry Blaine, and invested $2500 in the new Atlantic label. When interviewed in 2009 she attributed her reputation to the companys chronic cash-flow shortage, most of the problems we had with artists were that they wanted advances, and that was very difficult for us. We were undercapitalized for a long time, the labels original office in the Ritz Hotel, Manhattan proved too expensive so they relocated to an $85 per month room in the Hotel Jefferson. In its early years Atlantic focused principally on modern jazz although it released some country and western and spoken word recordings. The union action forced Atlantic to use almost all its capital to cut and stockpile enough recordings to last through the ban, Ertegun and Abramson spent much of the late 1940s and early 1950s scouring nightclubs in search of talent. Ertegun composed many songs under the alias A, in early 1949 a New Orleans distributor phoned Ertegun trying to obtain Stick McGhees Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee, which was unavailable due to the closure of McGhees previous label. Ertegun knew Sticks younger brother Brownie McGhee, with whom Stick happened to be staying, so he contacted the McGhee brothers, Ertegun asked about artists royalties, which he paid, which surprised Columbia executives, who did not, which scuttled the deal. On the recommendation of broadcaster Willis Conover, Ertegun and Abramson went to see Ruth Brown at the Crystal Caverns club in Washington and she was badly injured in a car accident en route to New York but Atlantic supported her for nine months and then signed her. Her first release for the label So Long, cut at her second Atlantic session on May 25,1949 with the Eddie Condon band, was a major hit, reaching #6 on the R&B chart. Brown went on to more than eighty songs for the label, becoming the most prolific. So significant was Browns success to Atlantics fortunes that the label became known colloquially as The House That Ruth Built. The Clovers Dont You Know I Love You became the labels first R&B #1 in September 1951 and she hit #1 again in March–April 1952 with 5-10-15 Hours. After she left the label in 1961 Browns fortunes declined rapidly - within a few years was reduced to working as a cleaner and bus-driver to support her children. Brown eventually received a payment of $20,000 and founded a charity
Atlantic Records
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"Weird Al" Yankovic edits the Atlantic Records' Wikipedia page to read "YOU SUCK!" in the music video for the song "
White & Nerdy "
Atlantic Records
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Atlantic Records logo as of 2015.
7.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
Columbia Records
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Original home of Columbia in Washington, D.C., in 1889
Columbia Records
Columbia Records
–
A Columbia type AT cylinder
graphophone, first released in 1898
Columbia Records
–
This article is about the American record label active worldwide except in Japan. For the Columbia label which was a unit of EMI, see
Columbia Graphophone Company. For the Columbia label in Japan, see
Nippon Columbia.
8.
Blue Note Records
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Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards and it derives its name from the characteristic blue notes of jazz and the blues. Originally dedicated to recording traditional jazz and small group swing, from 1947 the label began to switch its attention to modern jazz, while the original company did not itself record many of the pioneers of bebop, significant exceptions are Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro and Bud Powell. Historically, Blue Note has principally been associated with the hard bop style of jazz, but also recorded essential albums in the avant-garde and free styles of jazz. Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Grant Green, Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, the label is currently owned by the Universal Music Group. Lion first heard jazz as a boy in Berlin. The Blue Note label initially consisted of Lion and Max Margulis, musicians were supplied with alcoholic refreshments, and recorded in the early hours of the morning after their evenings work in clubs and bars had finished. Francis Wolff, a photographer, emigrated to the USA at the end of 1939 and soon joined forces with Lion. In 1941, Lion was drafted into the army for two years, Milt Gabler at the Commodore Music Store offered storage facilities and helped keep the catalog in print, with Wolff working for him. By late 1943, the label was back in recording musicians. Johnson, who was returning to a degree of musical activity after having largely recovered from a stroke suffered in 1940. Towards the end of the war, saxophonist Ike Quebec was among those who recorded for the label, Quebec would act as a talent scout for the label until his death in 1963. Although stylistically belonging to a generation, he could appreciate the new bebop style of jazz. Lion recorded several Monk sessions before he began to release the resulting sides, monks recordings for Blue Note between 1947 and 1952 did not sell well for some years, but have since come to be regarded as the most important of his career. The sessions by Powell are commonly ranked among his best, J. J. Johnson and trumpeter Miles Davis both recorded several sessions for Blue Note between 1952 and 1954, but by then the musicians who had created bebop were starting to explore other styles. The recording of musicians performing in a jazz idiom, such as Sidney Bechet and clarinettist George Lewis. In 1951, Blue Note issued their first vinyl 10 releases, the label was soon recording emerging talent such as Horace Silver and Clifford Brown. Meanwhile, Milt Jackson and the Jazz Messengers recorded for Blue Note, the Milt Jackson Quartet session was a one-off, but Blakeys various groups recorded for the label extensively, if intermittently, for the next decade
Blue Note Records
–
Blue Note Records
9.
Prestige Records
–
Prestige Records was a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the jazz musicians of the day. In 1971, the company was sold to Fantasy, which was absorbed by Concord. Weinstock opened a store for collectors in 1948 while still a teenager. The store was adjacent to the Metropole Jazz Club in New York City, Jazz musicians hung out and rehearsed at the club, and then moved upstairs adjacent to Weinstocks store. Weinstock got the idea to record these jazz stars by offering them cash payments, Prestige office was located at 446 West 50th Street, New York City. The labels name was initially New Jazz, but changed to Prestige Records the following year and its catalogue included Gene Ammons, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Wardell Gray, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins. Weinstock stated a desire for an authentic, spontaneous sound, unlike Blue Note, Prestige would not pay musicians for rehearsals and discouraged repeated takes. Another Weinstock practice, of rewinding the tapes after bad takes, has resulted in very few alternate takes surfacing from the classic Prestige years, audio engineer Rudy Van Gelder was in charge of recording many albums in the 1950s. Prestige created new labels in 1960, Swingsville, Moodsville, and Bluesville, musicians recording for the label at this time included Jaki Byard and Booker Ervin, while Prestige remained commercially viable by recording a number of soul jazz artists like Charles Earland. In the mid-sixties the companys headquarters were located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, Bob Weinstock has been criticized over the years for allegedly exploitive business practices. Jackie McLean in A. B. Spellmans Four Lives in the Bebop Business is particularly outspoken and he resented Weinstocks economic exploitation, but appreciated the chance Weinstock gave him when his career was at its low point. The company was sold to Fantasy Records in 1971, and original releases on the label formed a significant proportion of their Original Jazz Classics line, Fantasy was purchased by Concord Records in 2005. Prestige – official site Prestige discography at Discogs Prestige discography at JazzDisco
Prestige Records
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Prestige Records
10.
Philips Records
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Not to be confused with Phillips International Records. Philips Records is a label that was founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. In 1946 Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Deccas Dutch outlet in Amsterdam, the record label was started by Philips Phonographische Industrie in June 1950 when it began issuing classical recordings. Recordings were also made with artists of various nationalities and with classical artists from Germany, France. Launched under the slogan Records of the Century, the first releases in Britain appeared at the beginning of January 1953 on 1078 rpm discs, Philips also distributed recordings made by the Columbia Records in the UK and on the European continent. After the separation of the English Columbia label and American Columbia, the first single on the label to chart was Frankie Laines I Believe, which reached the No.1 chart position in the UK that April. Many of the first British recordings on the label were produced by Norman Newell until John Franz was appointed artists, in 1958 Philips created a subsidiary label, Fontana Records, which meant that American-Columbia recordings were being issued on both the Philips and Fontana labels. This arrangement lasted until April 1962 when, under pressure from Columbia in America, Philips then created a label for them. In late 1964, under the stewardship of U. S. President of Columbia Records Goddard Lieberson, CBS Records formed its own international operations, CBS Records set up their UK operation in Theobalds Road in Holborn. Singles and albums on the Philips and Fontana labels by Columbia-owned product were subsequently withdrawn, in 1962, Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon formed the Grammophon-Philips Group joint venture, which later became PolyGram in 1972. UK pressings were manufactured at the large factory based at Walthamstow in N. E. In 1961, after Philips lost its North American distribution deal with Columbia Records, a year later, Philips US affiliate Consolidated Electronics Industries Corp. bought Mercury and its subsidiary labels, such as Smash. Philips classical, jazz and pop records were marketed by Mercury in the US under the Philips label, the Mercury Living Presence team also made classical recordings for Philips, in July 1961. 69 for cello and piano by Richter and Rostropovich, classical groups that Philips heavily recorded included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Quartetto Italiano. Violinist Arthur Grumiaux and the pianist Claudio Arrau were under contract to Philips, symphony orchestras under contract, including the LSO, were under the command of prestigious young conductors such as Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink. From 1961 until the late 1980s, Philips Records issued many classical titles in US-specific packaging, the records were pressed at Mercurys plant in Richmond, Indiana, and mastered in New York by George Piros at Fine Recording, using 2-track and mono master tapes provided by Philips. These releases were the PHS900 xxx series for stereo and the 500 xxx series for mono, clair Van Ausdal in Mercurys New York office oversaw the Philips classical US releases through the mid-1960s. These records were made through Mercurys existing jazz operations and produced by Jack Tracy, in addition to jazz and classical music, Philips also became a major player in the world of rock and pop music in the late 1950s till late 1970s
Philips Records
–
Divisions and subsidiaries
11.
Epic Records
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Epic Records is an American record company owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. Epic was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical music label in 1953 and it later expanded its scope to include a more diverse range of musical genres, including pop, R&B, rock and hip hop. Historically, the label has housed popular acts such as Boston, ABBA, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Dave Clark Five, Gloria Estefan, Pearl Jam, Shakira, Anastacia, and Sly & the Family Stone. Along with Columbia and RCA Records, Epic is one of Sony Music Entertainments three main record labels, L. A. Reid has served as chairman and CEO of Epic since July 2011. Sylvia Rhone was appointed president in March 2014, Epic Records was launched in 1953 by Columbia Records for the purpose of marketing jazz, pop and classical music that did not fit the theme of its more mainstream Columbia Records label. Initial classical music releases were from Philips Records which distributed Columbia product in Europe, pop talent on co-owned Okeh Records were transferred to Epic which made Okeh a rhythm and blues label. Epics bright-yellow, black, and blue became a familiar trademark for many jazz. By 1960, the musical base had been expanded to include all genres. This was done in part to prevent the roster of Columbia Records from being overstuffed with newer artists, subsequently, Epic became better known for its signing of newer, fledgling acts. By the end of the 1960s, Epic earned its first gold records and had evolved into a formidable hit-making force in rock and roll, R&B and country music. Among its many acts, it included Roy Hamilton, Bobby Vinton, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies, Tammy Wynette, Donovan, The Yardbirds, Lulu, July, Helen Shapiro and Jeff Beck. Also during the 1960s, Epic oversaw the smaller subsidiary CBS labels including Okeh Records, in 1968, Epic recordings began being distributed in the UK by CBS after the distribution deal with EMI expired that year, Epic itself launched in England around 1971. Epic was involved in a trade of artists. Graham Nash was signed to Epic because of his membership in The Hollies, when the newly formed Crosby, Stills & Nash wanted to sign with Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegün worked out a deal with Clive Davis whereby Richie Furays new band Poco would sign with Epic. Also contributing to the success was its distribution of Philadelphia International Records. Sony bought CBS Records in 1987, and the company was renamed Sony Music in 1991. In 2004, Sony merged with another powerhouse music distributor, BMG, bringing labels such as RCA, Arista, Columbia, Epic, Jive, in February 2009, singer and songwriter Amanda Ghost was appointed president of Epic Records. Later in the year, Sony BMG Music merged Epic and Columbias operations, Sony BMGs Legacy Recordings reissues the companys classic and catalog titles
Epic Records
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Classic radial sound sunburst logo, used from the 1960s to 1973, revived in late 1998; used until 2005. Still used on Japanese operations. This logo was used on
Pearl Jam 's
Vitalogy in 1994,
No Code in 1996 and
Yield in February 1998.
Epic Records
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Epic Records
Epic Records
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Primary businesses
12.
Koch Records
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Entertainment One Music, a primary division of Entertainment One, is an independent record label in the United States. It has garnered the most Billboard hits of any independently owned music label in history and it is also distributed by the Universal Music Group in Europe under the name eOne Universal. On January 22,2009, Koch Records was officially branded as E1 Music by parent company Entertainment One, E1 Entertainment acquired KOCH Entertainment in June 2005, and renamed the company E1 Music. Since its inception as KOCH Records, E1 Music has charted over 100 albums on Billboards Independent Chart, E1 Music has been the number one independent label according to Billboard for the last six years and quickly grew to become North Americas largest independently owned and distributed record label. E1 Music covers all genres from adult-contemporary to rock, hip hop/urban to country. E1 Music was formed in January 1987 as Koch Records to serve as the North American umbrella for Koch Entertainment. They would sign many country, classical, and rock acts including Ringo Starr, Joan Baez, Chris Brubeck, Bob James, the label soon began to gain ground on the other independent record labels in the United States. In the 2000s, they began to sign hip hop acts. They signed various distribution deals with labels like Open Bar Entertainment, Terror Squad, D-Block Records, in 2004, they were able to sign a deal with Snoop Dogg and his Doggystyle Records along with Mobb Deep. They hired Snoop Dogg on to head up their western spin off Koch West, Koch also added onto their roster, Camron and his Diplomat Records. Diplomat rapper, Jim Jones would rise to prominence on the label through the deal, Koch later signed Yonkers rapper, J-Hood and his label On Da Grind Ent. Koch has also had releases from 2Pac, Tha Dogg Pound, Kurupt, Daz Dillinger and Gangsta Advisory. In 2007, when they signed J-Hood they gave him a big position in their Koch East division, J-Hood never released this album and he was booted from D-Block. In 2007, they signed a deal with Foxy Brown and her Black Rose Entertainment, as well as with Ray J. Slim Thug was signed to the label along with his Boss Hoggs label in late 2005. Latin Thug Records was formed by CEO Reyes to build a business with his brother and acting VP of A&R Mellow Man Ace that would focus on releasing personal projects. The label represents the extended Latin Thug family, including projects from Sen and Mellow and collaborations with B Real, Soul Assassins. In March 2008, the company signed neo-soul singer Dwele to their lineup, in October 2008, they signed also pop-jazz singer Basia, and released her comeback album Its That Girl Again a year later. Koch Records also releases music, such as Pokémon, Barney, Sesame Street, The Wiggles
Koch Records
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Entertainment One U.S. LP
13.
Polygram Records
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PolyGram was a Dutch entertainment company, a division of Seagram. It started as a record label recording company founded by Philips. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records, the company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disk gramophone, Emil Berliner. Later on, PolyGram expanded into the largest global entertainment company, creating film, in May 1998, it was sold to Seagram which owned MCA Inc. PolyGram Music Group was merged into Universal Music Group, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was merged into Universal Pictures. When the new company faced difficulties, its parent Seagram was sold in large part to Vivendi. Vivendi is the current owner of UMG, in February 2017, Polygram Entertainment was re-launched as the film & television division of Universal Music Group. In 1929, Decca Records licensed record shop owner H. W. Van Zoelen as a distributor in the Netherlands, by 1931, his company Hollandsche Decca Distributie had become exclusive Decca distributor for all of the Netherlands and its colonies. Over the course of the 1930s, HDD put together its own facilities for A&R, recording, HDD was commercially successful during World War II because of the absence of American and British competition. Van Zoelen wanted to sell to Philips so that HDD would have sufficient financial backing when their major competitors returned after the war and this led Philips to purchase HDD in 1942. Philips labs were developing magnetic tape and LPs, and they could support eventual new formats, after the war, Philips built a large factory in Doetinchem to produce 78 rpm records. During the late 1940s, Philips combined its various businesses into Philips Phonografische Industrie. PPIs early growth was based on alliances, a merger was first proposed with Decca of London in late 1945, but was rejected by Edward Lewis, Deccas owner. In the early 1950s, Philips set itself the goal of making PPI the largest record company in Europe, PPIs second attempt at a merger was with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. DGG, owned by Siemens AG, and well known for its repertoire, had been the German licensee for Decca from 1935. PPI and DGG finally merged in 1962, the alliance with DGG still left PPI without repertoire in Britain or the United States. But in 1951, after Columbia had failed to renew its international distribution agreement with EMI, Columbia became PPIs distributor within the US. This agreement ran until 1961 when Columbia set up its own European network, PPI signed a worldwide distribution deal with Mercury Records in 1961
Polygram Records
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Divisions and subsidiaries
Polygram Records
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PolyGram
14.
John McLaughlin (musician)
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John McLaughlin, also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer. His music includes many genres of jazz which he coupled with elements of rock, Indian classical music, Western classical music, flamenco, after contributing to several key British groups of the early 1960s McLaughlin made Extrapolation, his first album as a bandleader, in 1969. His 1970s electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz, McLaughlin has been cited as an influence by a number of prominent musicians. He is a Grammy award winner and has awarded multiple Guitarist of the year and Best Jazz Guitarist awards from magazines such as Down Beat. In 2003, he was ranked 49th in Rolling Stone magazines list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, in 2009, Down Beat Magazine included McLaughlin in its unranked list of 75 Great Guitarists, in the Modern Jazz Maestros category. In 2012, Guitar World magazine ranked him #63 on its top 100 list, in 2010, guitarist Jeff Beck called him the best guitarist alive. McLaughlin was also referred to as the best guitarist alive by Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin is a leading guitarist in jazz and jazz fusion. His style has been described as one that incorporates aggressive speed, technical precision and he is known for using exotic scales and unconventional time signatures. Indian music has had a influence on his style, and, it has been written. Speaking of himself, McLaughlin has stated that the guitar is part of his body. During the 1960s he often had to himself with session work which he often found unsatisfying. Also, he gave lessons to Jimmy Page. In 1963, Jack Bruce formed the Graham Bond Quartet with Bond, Ginger Baker and they played an eclectic range of music genres, including bebop, blues and rhythm and blues. In January 1969 McLaughlin recorded his debut album Extrapolation in London and it prominently features John Surman on saxophone and Tony Oxley on drums. The albums Post-bop style is different than McLaughlins later fusion works. McLaughlin moved to the U. S. in 1969 to join Tony Williams group Lifetime, a recording from the Record Plant, NYC, dated 25 March 1969, exists of McLaughlin jamming with Jimi Hendrix. McLaughlin recollects we played one night, just a jam session, and we played from 2 until 8, in the morning. I thought it was a wonderful experience, I was playing an acoustic guitar with a pick-up
John McLaughlin (musician)
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John McLaughlin performing in 2008
John McLaughlin (musician)
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John McLaughlin, Zirkus Krone, Munich, West Germany, 13 April 1973
John McLaughlin (musician)
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McLaughlin performing in The Netherlands, 1978
John McLaughlin (musician)
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Left to right:
Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and
Paco de Lucía performing in
Barcelona, Spain in the 1980s
15.
Mahavishnu Orchestra
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Mahavishnu Orchestra were a multinational jazz-rock fusion band formed in New York City in 1971 by English guitarist John McLaughlin. The group underwent several changes throughout its history across two stints from 1971 to 1976 and 1984 to 1987. McLaughlin had worked with Cobham and Goodman on his solo album My Goals Beyond, and asked Cobham to become the drummer in his new jazz-rock fusion band he wished to form. The violin was an instrument that had interested McLaughlin since childhood, after listening to various albums with a violinist, he hired Goodman of The Flock. Although bassist Tony Levin was the first person McLaughlin wanted to join the band, Laird had known McLaughlin for several years, Hammer was found through the mutual friendship with Miroslav Vitous of Weather Report. The group first met in July 1971, and rehearsed for one week and their first live performance followed at the The Gaslight Cafe in New York City, where they were the opening act for bluesman John Lee Hooker. McLaughlin recalled, The first set was shaky but the set just took off. They wanted to hold us over and a few days after the second week, McLaughlin had particular ideas for the instrumentation of the group, in keeping with his highly original concept of genre-blending in composition. He particularly wanted a violinist as a contributor to its overall sound. Due to the pressures of fame, exhaustion and a lack of communication. The stress was exacerbated by a disastrous recording session at Londons Trident Studios that found some of the players not speaking to others. Their project was never fully completed, the last straw came as John McLaughlin read an interview in Crawdaddy magazine in which Jan Hammer and Jerry Goodman expressed their frustrations with Johns leadership style. An effort to fix things back in New York fell through, later on in the 1970s, McLaughlin stated in an interview in Gig magazine that he would like the album to come out, as he thought it was good. In its place, the live album Between Nothingness & Eternity was released featuring material from the studio album, almost 30 years later, during the beginning of a renaissance of Mahavishnus music, the incomplete album from the failed London recording was released as The Lost Trident Sessions. This new Mahavishnu Orchestra changed personnel slightly between 1974s Apocalypse and Visions of the Emerald Beyond in 1975, Apocalypse was recorded in London with the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, with George Martin producing and Geoff Emerick engineering the sessions. Ponty would later settle over the royalties for the tracks Pegasus and Opus 1 for an amount of money. In 1984, McLaughlin reformed the Mahavishnu Orchestra with Bill Evans on saxophones, Jonas Hellborg on bass, Mitchel Forman on keyboards, and original member Billy Cobham on drums. Cobham participated in the sessions for their self-titled 1984 album, but was replaced by Danny Gottlieb for live work and this bands overall sound was different from the original Mahavishnu Orchestra, in particular because of McLaughlins extensive use of the Synclavier synthesizer system
Mahavishnu Orchestra
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Left to right: Jerry Goodman, Jan Hammer, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Rick Laird
16.
Svend Asmussen
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Svend Asmussen was a jazz violinist from Denmark, known as The Fiddling Viking. A Swing style virtuoso, he played and recorded many of the greats of Jazz, including Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman. He played publicly until 2010 when he had a blood clot, at the age of 100, he died on 7 February 2017. Asmussen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, raised in a musical family, at age 16 he first heard recordings by jazz violin great Joe Venuti and began to emulate his style. He started working professionally as a violinist, vibraphonist, and singer at age 17, early in his career he worked in Denmark and on cruise ships with artists such as Josephine Baker and Fats Waller. Asmussen later was influenced by Stuff Smith, whom he met in Denmark. Asmussen played with Valdemar Eiberg and Kjeld Bonfils during World War II, during which time jazz had moved to the underground, in the late 1950s, Asmussen formed the trio Swe-Danes with singer Alice Babs and guitarist Ulrik Neumann. The group became popular in Scandinavia for their music hall style entertainment. Asmussen also worked with Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, and Duke Ellington, Asmussen was invited by Ellington to play on his Jazz Violin Session recording in 1963 with Stéphane Grappelli and Ray Nance. In 1966 Asmussen appeared alongside Grappelli, Stuff Smith, and Jean-Luc Ponty in a jazz Violin Summit in Switzerland that was issued as a live recording. He made an appearance at the 1967 Monterey Jazz Festival, which included a celebrated violin summit with him, Ray Nance, in 1969 he guested on Snakes in a Hole, an album by the jazz-rock band Made in Sweden. He was still active playing violin at the age of 94 and he turned 100 in February 2016. A few weeks before Asmussen would have turned 101, on 7 February 2017, asmussens collection of jazz music, photographs, posters and other material is held in the jazz collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark. Asmussens son, Claus Asmussen, is a player in Denmark. 1951, Svend Asmussen 1953, Plays Hot Fiddle 1955, Svend Asmussen And His Unmelancholy Danes 1955, Svend Asmussen And His Unmelancholy Danes, Vol.21955, Skol. and Music. L. Subramaniam featuring Svend Asmussen 1987, On the Good Ship Lollipop, with Teresa Brewer 1988, Svingin with Svend, with David Grisman Quintet featuring Svend Asmussen Sources Brooks, Richard. Notes The Jazz collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark AllMusic Biography by Scott Yanow Svend Asmussen, Phenomenal Jazz Fiddler by Richard J. Brooks Svend Asmussen on YouTube
Svend Asmussen
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Svend Asmussen on the cover of the Swedish weekly Se 1945
Svend Asmussen
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Svend Asmussen with The
Swe-Danes in 1961, including with
Alice Babs central and
Ulrik Neumann to the right.
17.
Frank Zappa
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Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his generation, as a self-taught composer and performer, Zappas diverse musical influences led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky and he began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the format was rock. Zappas output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed Project/Object, with musical phrases, ideas. His lyrics reflected his views of established social and political processes, structures and movements. Unlike many other musicians of his era, he personally disapproved of and seldom used drugs. During Zappas lifetime, he was a productive and prolific artist, earning widespread acclaim from critics. He had some success, particularly in Europe, and worked as an independent artist for most of his career. He remains an influence on musicians and composers. His honors include an induction into the 1995 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at number 71 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His mother, Rosemarie was of Italian and French ancestry, his father, whose name was Anglicized to Francis Vincent Zappa, was an immigrant from Partinico, Sicily, with Greek and Arab ancestry. Frank, the eldest of four children, was raised in an Italian-American household where Italian was often spoken by his grandparents, the family moved often because his father, a chemist and mathematician, worked in the defense industry. After a time in Florida in the 1940s, the returned to Maryland. Due to their homes proximity to the arsenal, which stored mustard gas, gas masks were kept in the home in case of an accident and this had a profound effect on Zappa, and references to germs, germ warfare and the defense industry occur throughout his work. Zappa was often sick as a child, suffering from asthma, earaches, a doctor treated his sinusitis by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappas nostrils
Frank Zappa
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Zappa performing in
Ekeberghallen, Oslo, on January 16, 1977
Frank Zappa
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Zappa's senior yearbook photo, 1958
Frank Zappa
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Zappa with the Mothers of Invention,
Theatre de Clichy, Paris, 1971
Frank Zappa
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Frank Zappa in Paris, early 1970s
18.
Stuff Smith
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Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith, better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist. He is well known for the song If Youre a Viper, Smith was, along with Stéphane Grappelli, Michel Warlop, Svend Asmussen and Joe Venuti, one of jazz musics preeminent violinists of the swing era. He was born in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1909 and studied violin with his father, Smith cited Louis Armstrong as his primary influence and inspiration to play jazz, and like Armstrong, was a vocalist as well as instrumentalist. In the 1920s, he played in Texas as a member of Alphonse Trents band. After moving to New York City he performed regularly with his sextet at the Onyx Club starting in 1935 and also with Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and later, Sun Ra. After being signed to Vocalion Records in 1936, he had a hit with Ise a Muggin and was billed as Stuff Smith and he recorded for Vocalion in 1936, Decca in 1937, and Varsity in 1939–1940. He is featured in numbers on the Nat King Cole Trio album. Smith was critical of the movement, although his own style represented a transition between swing and bebop. He is credited as being the first violinist to use electric amplification techniques on a violin and he was one of the writers of the song Its Wonderful, which was often performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald throughout their careers. Smith moved to Copenhagen in 1965, performed actively in Europe and he is buried at Klakring Cemetery in Jutland, Denmark. Stuff Smith is one of the 57 jazz musicians photographed in the 1958 portrait A Great Day in Harlem
Stuff Smith
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Stuff Smith by William P. Gottlieb
19.
Al Di Meola
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Al Di Meola is an American jazz fusion and Latin jazz guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. Albums such as Friday Night in San Francisco have earned him both artistic and commercial success with a fan base throughout the world. Di Meola grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and attended Bergenfield High School and he has been a resident of Old Tappan, New Jersey. Having grown up with the music of Elvis Presley, The Ventures and The Beatles. By his early teens, he was already an accomplished player. He was soon taken with Larry Coryell’s blending of jazz, blues and rock in the late 1960s, which would become known as fusion, in 1972, Di Meola enrolled in Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. By his second semester at Berklee, Al had joined a fusion quartet headed by keyboardist Barry Miles, in 1974, Di Meola made his Return to Forever debut on the album Where Have I Known You Before. Two more albums, No Mystery and Romantic Warrior were released during Di Meolas stay in the band and this lineup featured him playing with Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White until it was disbanded in 1976. Di Meola went on to explore a variety of styles, but is most noted for his Latin-influenced jazz fusion works and he also guested on Allergies from Paul Simons Hearts and Bones album. He also appeared with Frank Zappa, live at the Ritz, NYNY in 1981. In the beginning of his career, as evidenced on his first solo album Land of the Midnight Sun, Di Meola was noted for his mastery and extremely fast, complex guitar solos. But even on his albums, he had begun to explore Mediterranean cultures. Good examples are Mediterranean Sundance and Lady of Rome, Sister of Brazil from the Elegant Gypsy album and his early albums were very influential among rock and jazz guitarists alike. Di Meola continued to explore Latin music within the jazz fusion genre on albums like Casino, the latter album became one of the most popular live albums for acoustic guitar ever recorded, and sold more than two million copies worldwide. In 1980, he toured with fellow Latin rocker Carlos Santana. After being named Best Jazz Guitarist in Guitar Player Magazines Readers Poll for a consecutive year in 1981. With Scenario, he explored the electronic side of jazz in a collaboration with Jan Hammer, beginning with this change, he further expanded his horizons with the acoustic album Cielo e Terra. He began to incorporate the Synclavier guitar synthesizer on mid-1980s albums such as Soaring Through a Dream, by the 1990s, Di Meola recorded albums closer to World music and modern Latin styles than jazz
Al Di Meola
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Al Di Meola playing at the
Granada Theater, Dallas, Texas, December 6, 2006
Al Di Meola
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Di Meola with
Return to Forever at
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, New York, 1974
Al Di Meola
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Al Di Meola,
John McLaughlin, and
Paco de Lucía performing in
Barcelona, Spain in the 1980s
20.
Stanley Clarke
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Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass as well as for his numerous film and television scores. He is best known for his work with the fusion band Return to Forever and he was introduced to the bass as a schoolboy when he arrived late on the day instruments were distributed to students and acoustic bass was one of the few remaining selections. A graduate of Roxborough High School in Philadelphia, he attended the Philadelphia Musical Academy, during the 1970s, Clarke joined the jazz fusion group Return to Forever, led by pianist and synth player Chick Corea. The group released albums that achieved both mainstream popularity and critical acclaim. In 1981, Clark and George Duke formed the Clarke/Duke Project and their song Sweet Baby was a Top 20 hit. In 2006 Clarke reunited with George Duke and toured with him for the first time in fifteen years, Stanley Clarke was also a member of The New Barbarians, a band Ronnie Wood had assembled in 1979 to play gigs in the US, Canada and UK. Other band members included Keith Richards, Ziggy Modeliste, Ian McLagan and this version of the New Barbarians played their final concert in the Knebworth Festival,1979. To date three official live recordings have been released of the New Barbarians 1979 tour and these all include Stanley Clarke as bass player. In the late 1980s, Clarke and drummer Stewart Copeland, of the rock band The Police, in 2005 Clarke toured as Trio. with Béla Fleck and Jean-Luc Ponty. The U. S. and European tour was nominated for a 2006 Jammy Award in the category of Tour of the Year and he has also played with Jeff Beck, Ron Wood, Larry Carlton, Billy Cobham and Al Di Meola. In 2009 he released Jazz in the Garden, featuring the Stanley Clarke Trio with pianist Hiromi Uehara, the following year he released the Stanley Clarke Band, with Ruslan Sirota on keyboards and Ronald Bruner, Jr. on drums, the album also features Hiromi on piano. Clarke started his career in the early 1970s and released a number of albums under his own name. His best known solo album is School Days, which, along with Jaco Pastoriuss self-titled debut, is one of the most influential solo bass recordings in fusion history and his albums Stanley Clarke and Journey to Love are also notable. Clarke released The Toys of Men in 2007 and this was his first release in five years, on October 17,2007. The first week of release it went to No.2 on the Contemporary Jazz Chart of Billboard magazine, the album examines the subject of war, and it includes performances by Esperanza Spalding, Ruslan Sirota, Paulinho da Costa and Mads Tolling. Since the 1980s, Clarke has turned much of his energy to television and he is credited for the scores for the ABC Family Channel series Lincoln Heights as well as composing the theme song for the show. Clarke began with TV scores for ABCs short-lived series A Man Called Hawk and he also scored The Transporter and Remember the Time a video by Michael Jackson directed by John Singleton. In the 2000s, he composed music for Soul Food on the Showtime Network, BET-J launched a series hosted by Clarke entitled On the Road with Stanley Clarke in June 2006
Stanley Clarke
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Clarke, touring with George Duke in The Netherlands
Stanley Clarke
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Clarke with Return to Forever, Onondaga Community College Syracuse, NY, 1974
Stanley Clarke
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Clarke, on tour with Jeff Beck, in Amsterdam July 5, 1979
Stanley Clarke
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Stanley Clarke and
Victor Wooten in the
SMV Thunder Tour at
Stockholm Jazz Festival, 2009
21.
Gerald Wilson
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Gerald Stanley Wilson was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer/arranger, and educator. Born in Mississippi, he was based in Los Angeles from the early 1940s, Wilson was born in Shelby, Mississippi, and at the age of 16 moved to Detroit, where he graduated from Cass Technical High School. He joined the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra in 1939, replacing its trumpeter and arranger, during World War II, Wilson also performed for a brief time with the U. S. Navy, with musicians including Clark Terry, Willie Smith and Jimmy Nottingham, among others. Around 2005, many of the members of the band reunited as The Great Lakes Experience Big Band, with Wilson conducting, Wilson also played and arranged for the bands of Benny Carter, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Wilson formed his own band, with success in the mid-1940s. In 1960, he formed a Los Angeles-based band that began a series of acclaimed recordings for the Pacific Jazz label. His 1968 album California Soul featured a track written by Ashford & Simpson. Musicians in the band at times included lead trumpeter Snooky Young, trumpet soloist Carmell Jones and saxophonists Bud Shank, Joe Maini, Harold Land, Teddy Edwards. The rhythm section included guitarist Joe Pass, Richard Holmes, vibists Roy Ayers and Bobby Hutcherson, and drummers Mel Lewis and Mel Lee. Along with his wife, Wilson had three daughters, his son Anthony, and a number of grandchildren, all of whom have songs composed for them - his compositions were inspired by his family members. Wilson continued leading bands and recording in later decades for the Discovery, recent musicians included Luis Bonilla, Rick Baptist, Randall Willis, Wilsons son-in-law Shuggie Otis and son Anthony Wilson, his grandson Eric Otis also played on such recordings. Wilson continued to record Spanish-flavored compositions, notably the bravura trumpet solos Carlos, the National Endowment for the Arts named Wilson an NEA Jazz Master in 1990. In 1998 Wilson received a commission from the Monterey Jazz Festival for a composition, resulting in Theme for Monterey. In later years, he formed orchestras on the West and East coasts and he hosted an innovative show, in the 1970s, on KBCA in Los Angeles, which was co-hosted by Dennis Smith, where he played. Music of the past, the present, and the future, Wilson was a member of the faculty at California State University, Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles, for many years recently winning a teacher of the year award. In February 2006, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra performed his music with Gerald Wilson conducting. He had a style of conducting, Garbed in well tailored suits, his long white hair flowing, Wilson shaped the music with dynamic movements. Asked about his style of conducting by Terry Gross on the NPR show Fresh Air in 2006, he replied, I choreograph the music as I conduct
Gerald Wilson
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Wilson in 2005
Gerald Wilson
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Gerald Wilson at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay CA 1/24/88. Photo: Brian McMillen
22.
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen
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Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, often known as NHØP, was a Danish jazz upright bassist known for his technique and musical approach. Ørsted Pedersen was born in Osted, near Roskilde, on the Danish island of Zealand, the son of a church organist. When seventeen, he had turned down an offer to join the Count Basie orchestra, mainly because he was too young to get legal permission to live. He also played with Jean-Luc Ponty, and became the bassist of choice whenever a big-name musician was touring Copenhagen and he was awarded Best Bass Player of the Year by Downbeat Critics Poll in 1981. Ørsted Pedersen worked in duo and trio arrangements with pianist Kenny Drew and he also worked with Stéphane Grappelli and Joe Pass and recorded extensively as a leader. His best known songs are My Little Anna, Jaywalkin, and The Puzzle, a duo performance with Rune Gustafsson at Vossajazz 1980, concluded on the album Just The Way You Are on the label Sonet Gramofon, recorded half a year after this first meeting. He was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1991 and this was the first time this prize for composition was awarded to a performing musician, and this must be ascribed to his great international standing. He was presumably the most sought-after Danish instrumentalist internationally ever, and had traveled and recorded with a series of the greatest jazz soloists internationally, Ørsted Pedersen also had a particular ability to interpret Danish songs and folk melodies. In 1999, he co-led a duo with pianist Mulgrew Miller, touring Europe, Japan, Australia and this format was later enlarged into a trio featuring drummer, Alvin Queen. This trio remained intact until Pedersens death, Ørsted Pedersen died of heart failure in 2005 at the age of 58 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was survived by his wife, Solveig, and his three children, oscar Peterson wrote,1974, Grammy Award
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen
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Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
23.
Return to Forever
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Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by pianist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Coreas being bassist Stanley Clarke, along with Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever is often cited as one of the core groups of the jazz-fusion movement of the 1970s. Several musicians, including Clarke, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira and Al Di Meola, however, in 1972, after having become a member of Scientology, Corea decided that he wanted to better communicate with the audience. This essentially translated into his performing a more accessible style of music. The first edition of Return to Forever performed primarily Latin-oriented music, within this first line-up in particular, Clarke played acoustic double bass in addition to electric bass. Coreas electric piano formed the basis of this sound, he was yet to discover synthesizers. Clarke and Farrell were given ample solo space themselves, while Purims vocals lent some commercial appeal to the music, many of their compositions were also instrumental and somewhat experimental in nature. The music was composed by Corea with the exception of the track of the second album which was written by Stanley Clarke. Lyrics were often written by Coreas friend Neville Potter, and were quite often Scientology-themed, Clarke himself became involved in Scientology through Corea, but eventually left the religion in the early 1980s. Their first album, titled simply Return to Forever, was recorded for ECM Records in 1972 and was released only in Europe. This album featured Coreas now famous compositions Crystal Silence and La Fiesta and their second album, Light as a Feather, was released by Polydor and included the song Spain, which also became quite well known. After the second album, Farrell, Purim and Moreira left the group to form their own band, however, Gadd was unwilling to tour with the band and risk his job as an in-demand session drummer. Lenny White replaced Gadd and Lewis on drums and percussion, and their music was still relatively melodic, relying on strong themes, but the jazz element was by this time almost entirely absent, replaced by a more direct, rock oriented approach. Over-driven, distorted guitar had become prominent in the bands new sound. A replacement on vocals was not hired, and all the songs were now instrumentals and this change did not lead to a decrease in the bands commercial fortunes however, Return to Forevers jazz rock albums instead found their way onto US pop album charts. In the September 1988 Down Beat magazine interview with Chick Corea by Josef Woodward, Josef says, Miles crystallized electric jazz fusion and that he sent his emissaries out. But there were things that occurred that I thought were equally as important. What John McLaughlin did with the electric guitar set the world on its ear, No one ever heard an electric guitar played like that before, and it certainly inspired me
Return to Forever
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Return to Forever in
Rochester, New York, 1976
24.
Conservatoire de Paris
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The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music, dance, and drama, today the conservatories operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. On 3 December 1783 Papillon de la Ferté, intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, the school was instituted by a decree of 3 January 1784 and opened on 1 April with the composer François-Joseph Gossec as the provisional director. Piccinni refused the directorship, but did join the faculty as a professor of singing, the new school was located in buildings adjacent to the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs at the junction of the rue Bergère and the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. In June, a class in dramatic declamation was added, in 1792, Bernard Sarrette created the École gratuite de la garde nationale, which in the following year became the Institut national de musique. On 3 August 1795, the government combined the École royale with the Institut national de musique, the combined organization remained in the facilities on the rue Bergère. The first 351 pupils commenced their studies in October 1796, a concert hall, designed by the architect François-Jacques Delannoy, was inaugurated on 7 July 1811. The hall, which exists today, was in the shape of a U. It held an audience of 1055, the acoustics were generally regarded as superb. The French composer and conductor Antoine Elwart described it as the Stradivarius of concert halls, in 1828 François Habeneck, a professor of violin and head of the Conservatorys orchestra, founded the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. The Society held concerts in the hall almost continuously until 1945, the French composer Hector Berlioz premiered his Symphonie fantastique in the conservatorys hall on 5 December 1830 with an orchestra of more than a hundred players. The original library was created by Sarrette in 1801, after the construction of the concert hall, the library moved to a large room above the entrance vestibule. In the 1830s, Berlioz became a curator in the Conservatory library and was the librarian from 1852 until his death in 1869. He was succeeded as librarian by Félicien David, Sarrette was dismissed on 28 December 1814, after the Bourbon Restoration, but was reinstated on 26 May 1815, after Napoleons return to power during the Hundred Days. However, after Napoleons fall, Sarrette was finally compelled to retire on 17 November, in 1819, François Benoist was appointed professor of organ. Probably the best known director in the 19th century was Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini maintained high standards and his staff included teachers such as François-Joseph Fétis, Habeneck, Fromental Halévy, Le Sueur, Ferdinando Paer, and Anton Reicha. Cherubini was succeeded by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber in 1842, in 1852, Camille Urso, who studied with Lambert Massart, became the first female student to win a prize on violin. The Conservatory Instrument Museum, founded in 1861, was formed from the instrument collection of Louis Clapisson, the French music historian Gustave Chouquet became the curator of the museum in 1871 and did much to expand and upgrade the collection
Conservatoire de Paris
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Entrance to the
CNSAD (48°52′21″N 2°20′49″E / 48.872559°N 2.34690°E / 48.872559; 2.34690)
Conservatoire de Paris
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Former Conservatoire building (until 1911) in the
9th arrondissement of Paris, which now houses the
CNSAD (48°52′23″N 2°20′49″E / 48.873074°N 2.347001°E / 48.873074; 2.347001)
Conservatoire de Paris
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Site plan (1836) of the
Menus-Plaisirs, the Concert Hall, and the Conservatoire
Conservatoire de Paris
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A concert in March 1843
25.
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 that housed a profitable pig farm 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. As a youngster Davis developed his earliest appreciation for music, citing the the blues, big bands, and gospel music. In 1935, Davis received his first trumpet as a gift from John Eubanks, a friend of his father and his mother objected the choice of instrument as she preferred her son took up the violin. Davis would carry his 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, principal trumpeter 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, I went and got everything, every book I could get to learn about theory
Miles Davis
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Davis in 1955, photo by
Tom Palumbo
Miles Davis
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Miles Davis Youth House on 17th st. and Kansas Av.,
East St. Louis, IL in oct. 2014
Miles Davis
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Tommy Potter,
Charlie Parker, Miles Davis,
Duke Jordan,
Max Roach, August 1947
Miles Davis
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Coleman Hawkins and Miles Davis, c. September 1947
26.
John Coltrane
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John William Coltrane, also known as Trane, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career and he led at least fifty recording sessions during his career, and appeared as a sideman on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on a spiritual dimension. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant saxophonists in music history and he received many posthumous awards and recognitions, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane and a special Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane and their son Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist, Coltrane was born in his parents apartment at 200 Hamlet Avenue, Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23,1926. His father was John R. Coltrane and his mother was Alice Blair and he grew up in High Point, North Carolina, attending William Penn High School. Beginning in December 1938 Coltranes aunt, grandparents, and father all died within a few months of one another, leaving John to be raised by his mother, in June 1943 he moved to Philadelphia. In September of that year his mother bought him his first saxophone, Coltrane played the clarinet and the alto horn in a community band before taking up the alto saxophone during high school. He had his first professional gigs in early to mid-1945 – a cocktail lounge trio, with piano and guitar. To avoid being drafted by the Army, Coltrane enlisted in the Navy on August 6,1945, by the time he got to Hawaii, in late 1945, the Navy was already rapidly downsizing. As the Melody Masters was a band, however, Coltrane was treated merely as a guest performer to avoid alerting superior officers of his participation in the band. He continued to other duties when not playing with the band, including kitchen. By the end of his service, he had assumed a role in the band. His first recordings, a session in Hawaii with Navy musicians. Coltrane played alto saxophone on a selection of standards and bebop tunes. In Philadelphia after the war, he studied theory with guitarist and composer Dennis Sandole. Originally an altoist, in 1947 Coltrane also began playing saxophone with the Eddie Vinson Band. Coltrane later referred to point in his life as a time when a wider area of listening opened up for me
John Coltrane
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Coltrane in 1963
John Coltrane
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Coltrane's first recordings were made when he was a sailor.
John Coltrane
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The rivalry, tension, and mutual respect between Coltrane and bandleader
Miles Davis was formative for both of their careers.
John Coltrane
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As Coltrane's interest in jazz became increasingly experimental, he added Pharoah Sanders to his ensemble.
27.
Tenor saxophone
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The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones, the tenor is pitched in the key of B♭, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef, sounding an octave and a major second lower than the written pitch. Modern tenor saxophones which have a high F♯ key have a range from A♭2 to E5 and are pitched one octave below the soprano saxophone. People who play the saxophone are known as tenor saxophonists or tenor sax players. The tenor saxophone uses a larger mouthpiece, reed and ligature than the alto, visually, it is easily distinguished by the bend in its neck, or its crook, near the mouthpiece. The alto saxophone lacks this and its neck goes straight to the mouthpiece, the tenor saxophone is commonly used in classical music, military bands, marching bands and jazz. In concert bands, the plays mostly a supporting role, sometimes sharing parts with the euphonium, horn. In jazz ensembles, the plays a more prominent role as a member of a section that includes the alto. Many of the most innovative and influential musicians have been tenor saxophonists. These include Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, the work of younger players such as Michael Brecker and Chris Potter has been an important influence in more recent jazz. The tenor saxophone was one of a family of fourteen instruments constructed in 1846 by Adolphe Sax, saxs patent, granted on 28 June 1846, divided the family into two groups of seven instruments, each ranging from sopranino down to contrabass. One family, pitched alternatively in B♭ and E♭, was designed specifically to integrate with the instruments then common in military bands. The tenor saxophone, pitched in B♭, is the member of this family. The tenor saxophone, like all saxophones, consists of a conical tube of thin brass. The wider end of the tube is flared slightly to form a bell, at intervals down the bore are placed between 20 and 23 tone holes, these are covered by pads which can be pressed onto the holes to form an airtight seal. There are also two small holes which, when opened, disrupt the lower harmonics of the instrument. The pads are controlled by pressing a number of keys with the fingers of the left and right hands, the tenor saxophone is also curved at the top, above the highest tone-hole but below the highest speaker hole. While the alto is usually bent only through 80–90° to make the mouthpiece fit more easily in the mouth, the reed is shaved to come to an extremely thin point, and is clamped over the mouthpiece by the use of a ligature
Tenor saxophone
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Tenor saxophone
Tenor saxophone
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Tenor (left) and
soprano saxophones, showing their comparative sizes
Tenor saxophone
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A silver-plated
Conn 'New Wonder' Series II tenor saxophone, with a serial number which dates manufacture to 1934. It is a very late "Transitional" model tenor sax with split bell-keys, and was manufactured just before production of the Conn 10M started.
Leon "Chu" Berry played a tenor saxophone which was very similar to this instrument.
Tenor saxophone
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Tenor saxophone manufactured in 2008
28.
Be-bop
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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
Be-bop
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Dizzy Gillespie, at the Downbeat Club, NYC, ca 1947
Be-bop
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Several Bebop musicians headlining on
52nd Street, May 1948
