1.
New Orleans
–
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U. S. Census, the New Orleans metropolitan area had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States. The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,452,502. The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and it is well known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music, and its celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is referred to as the most unique in the United States. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River, the city and Orleans Parish are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south, and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, before Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish was the most populous parish in Louisiana. As of 2015, it ranks third in population, trailing neighboring Jefferson Parish, La Nouvelle-Orléans was founded May 7,1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time and his title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris, during the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans remained under Spanish control until 1803, when it reverted briefly to French oversight, nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré dates from the Spanish period, the most notable exception being the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles, and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans, and Italians, Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city. The Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 and established the republic in the Western Hemisphere. It had occurred several years in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue
2.
Dixieland
–
Dixieland, sometimes referred to as hot jazz or traditional jazz, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The first use of the term Dixieland with reference to music was in the name of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, at that time, there was no issue of subgenres of jazz, so Dixieland referred to the band and not the music. That reflected the fact that all of the recorded repertoire of New Orleans musicians was from the period when the format was already evolving beyond the traditional New Orleans format. Dixieland may in that sense be regarded as denoting the jazz movement of the 1940s and 1950s as much as any particular subgenre of jazz. The essential elements that were accepted as within the style were the front lines consisting of trumpets, trombones, and clarinets. The Jim Crow associations of the name Dixieland also did little to attract younger coloured musicians to the revival, well-known jazz standard tunes such as Basin Street Blues and When the Saints Go Marching In are known even to non-jazz fans thanks to the enduring popularity of traditional jazz. The Vietnam-era protest song Feel Like Im Fixin to Die Rag is based on tonal centers, Traditional jazz is a major tourist attraction for New Orleans to the present day. It has been an influence on the styles of modern players such as Charles Mingus. New Orleans music combined earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime, the Dixieland sound is created when one instrument plays the melody or a variation on it, and the other instruments improvise around that melody. This creates a more sound than the heavily arranged big band sound of the 1930s or the straight melodies of bebop in the 1940s. The West Coast revival began in the late 1930s in San Francisco which used banjo, the Dutch old-style jazz was played with trumpets, trombones and saxophones accompanied by a single clarinet, sousaphone and a section of Marching percussion usually including a washboard. Dixieland is the given to early jazz by traditional jazz revivalists. The name is a reference to the Old South, specifically anything south of the Mason-Dixon line, the term encompasses earlier brass band marches, French Quadrilles, biguine, ragtime, and blues with collective, polyphonic improvisation. Louis Armstrongs All-Stars was the band most popularly identified with Dixieland during the 1940s and this creates a more polyphonic sound than the arranged ensemble playing of the big band sound or the straight head melodies of bebop. During the 1930s and 1940s, the earlier group-improvisation style fell out of favor with the majority of black players. Though younger musicians developed new forms, many beboppers revered Armstrong, many Dixieland groups of the revival era consciously imitated the recordings and bands of decades earlier. Other musicians continued to create innovative performances and new tunes, for example, in the 1950s a style called Progressive Dixieland sought to blend polyphonic improvisation with bebop-style rhythm. Spike Jones & His New Band and Steve Lacy played with such bands and this style is sometimes called Dixie-bop
3.
Jazz
–
Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
4.
Cornet
–
The cornet /ˈkɔːrnɪt/ is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is an instrument in B♭, though there is also a soprano cornet in E♭. Both are unrelated to the renaissance and early baroque cornett, the cornet was initially derived from the post horn around 1820 in France. Among the first manufacturers of modern cornets was Parisian Jean Asté in 1828, cornets first appeared as separate instrumental parts in 19th century French compositions. This instrument could not have developed without the improvement of piston valves by Silesian oboe player Friedrich Blühmel. These two instrument makers almost simultaneously invented valves, though it is likely that Blühmel was the inventor and they jointly applied for a patent and were granted this for a period of ten years. Later, and most importantly, François Périnet received a patent in 1838 for a valve which is the basis of all modern brass instrument piston valves. Up until the early 20th century, the trumpet and cornet coexisted in musical ensembles, symphonic repertoire often involves separate parts for trumpet and cornet. As several instrument builders made improvements to instruments, they started to look and sound more alike. The modern day cornet is used in bands, concert bands. The name cornet derives from corne, meaning horn, itself from Latin cornu, while not musically related, instruments of the Zink family are named cornetto or cornett in modern English to distinguish them from the valved cornet described here. The 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica referred to serpents as old wooden cornets, the Roman/Etruscan cornu is the lingual ancestor of these. It is a predecessor of the post horn from which the evolved and was used like a bugle to signal orders on the battlefield. The instrument was once referred to as a cornopean, referencing the earliest cornets with the Stölzel valve system. The cornet was invented by adding valves to the post horn in 1814, the valves allowed for melodic playing throughout the register of the cornet. Trumpets were slower to adopt the new technology, so for the next 100 years or more. The trumpet would play fanfare-like passages, while the cornet played more melodic passages, the modern trumpet has valves that allow it to play the same notes and fingerings as the cornet. Cornets and trumpets made in a key play at the same pitch
5.
Victor Talking Machine Company
–
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American flagship record company headquartered in Camden, New Jersey. The company was founded by Eldridge R. Johnson, who had previously made gramophones to play Emile Berliners disc records, Victor Talking Machine Co. was incorporated officially in 1901 shortly before agreeing to allow Columbia Records use of its disc record patent. Victor had acquired the Pan-American rights to use the trademark of the fox terrier Nipper listening to a gramophone when Berliner. Barraud noticed that whenever he played a recorded by his brother. Barrauds original depicts Nipper staring intently into the horn of an Edison-Bell while both sit on a wooden surface. The London branch was managed by an American, William Barry Owen, Barraud paid a visit with a photograph of the painting and asked to borrow a horn. Owen gave Barraud an entire gramophone and asked him to paint it into the picture, the original painting still shows the contours of the Edison-Bell phonograph beneath the paint of the gramophone when viewed in the correct light. Only 13 originally commissioned His Masters Voice paintings were commissioned by the company, in 1915, the His Masters Voice logo was rendered in immense circular leaded-glass windows in the tower of the Victrola factory building. The tower remains today with replica windows installed during Radio Corporation of Americas ownership of the plant in its later years, today, one of the original windows is located at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D. C. There are different accounts as to how the Victor name came about, a second account is that Johnson emerged as the Victor from the lengthy and costly patent litigations involving Berliner and Frank Seamans Zonophone. A third story is that Johnsons partner, Leon Douglass, derived the word from his wifes name Victoria, finally, a fourth story is that Johnson took the name from the popular Victor bicycle, which he had admired for its superior engineering. Of these four accounts the first two are the most generally accepted, perhaps coincidentally, the first use of the Victor title on a letterhead, on March 28,1901, was only nine weeks after the death of British Queen Victoria. Before 1925, recording was done by the purely mechanical. No microphone was involved and there was no means of amplification, the recording machine was essentially an exposed-horn acoustical record player functioning in reverse. The sound-vibrated center of the diaphragm was linked to a stylus that was guided across the surface of a very thick wax disc. The wax was too soft to be played back even once without seriously damaging it, although test recordings were sometimes made, although sound quality was gradually improved by a series of small refinements, the process was inherently insensitive. From the start, Victor innovated manufacturing processes and soon rose to preeminence by recording famous performers, in 1903, it instituted a three-step mother-stamper process to produce more stampers and records than previously possible. These new celebrity recordings bore red labels, and were marketed as Red Seal records, for many years these records were single-sided, only in 1923 did Victor begin offering Red Seals in double-sided form
6.
Okeh Records
–
Okeh Records was a record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. Since 1926, it has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, today, Okeh is an imprint of Sony Masterworks, a specialty label of Columbia. Okeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann, a German-American manager for the U. S. branch of German-owned Odeon Records, Heinemann formed the name of the record label from his initials, on early disc labels, the name is spelled OkeH. The first discs were vertical cut, in 1919, Okeh switched to the lateral-cut method of sound recording, more commony used for disc records. In that year the parent company was renamed the General Phonograph Corporation. The common 10-inch discs retailed for 75 cents each, the 12-inch discs for $1.25, the companys musical director was Fred Hager, who was also credited under the pseudonym Milo Rega. Okeh produced lines of recordings in German, Czech, Polish, Swedish, some were pressed from masters leased from European labels, others were recorded by Okeh in New York. In 1920, Ralph Peers recordings of the African-American blues singer Mamie Smith were a smash hit for Okeh. The company perceived the significant, little-tapped market for blues and jazz by African-American artists, in 1922, Okeh hired Clarence Williams as director of race recordings for Okehs New York studios, in addition to making recordings under his own name. Okeh then opened a studio in Chicago, the center of jazz in the 1920s. Many classic jazz performances by prominent artists as King Oliver, Lucille Bogan, Sidney Bechet, Hattie McDaniel, Louis Armstrong. As part of the Carl Lindstrom Company, Okeh recordings were distributed by other Lindstrom labels, King Oliver and Bennie Moten recorded for Okeh before moving on to other labels. The 8000 race series is highly prized by collectors, partly because Okeh recorded many blues, in 1926, Okeh was sold to Columbia Records. Columbia and its subsequent parent companies have controlled Okeh since then, the original Mamie Smith recording was in 1920, of Crazy Blues. General Phonograph Corp, Okehs manufacturer, used Smith’s success as the press to cultivate the new found market. Okeh had further prominence in the demographic, as African-American artists such as Sara Martin, Eva Taylor, Shelton Brooks, Esther Bigeou, Okeh started a special 8000 series devoted exclusively to race artists. The success of this series led Okeh to start recording where the music was being performed, the 8000 series, which began in 1921, lasted until late 1934, the final number being 8966. Okeh Records pioneered the practice of recording in 1922
7.
Vocalion Records
–
The name was derived from one of their corporate divisions, the Vocalion Organ Co. The fledgling label first issued single-sided, vertical-cut disc records but soon switched to double-sided and then, in 1920, aeolian pressed Vocalion discs in a good-quality reddish brown shellac, which set the product apart from the usual black shellac used by other record companies. Advertisements stated that Vocalion Red Records are best or Red Records last longer, however, Vocalions shellac was no more durable than good-quality black shellac. In 1925 the label was acquired by Brunswick Records, during the 1920s Vocalion also began the celebrated 1000 race series. The 15000 series continued, but after the Brunswick takeover, it seems that Vocalion took a seat to the Brunswick label. By 1928–1929, many of the records issued on the Vocalion 15000 series were hot jazz exclusive to Vocalion and are extremely rare, in retrospect, it seems that Brunswick never really had a plan for the Vocalion 15000 series. From 1925 to 1930, Brunswick appeared to use this series as a specialty label for other than general sale. This seems to also be an explanation as to why the early 1930s Vocalions are rarer than Brunswick records. In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records and, for a time, in December 1931 Warner Bros. licensed the entire Brunswick and Vocalion operation to the American Record Corporation. ARC used Brunswick as their flagship 75-cent label and Vocalion as one of their 35-cent labels, the Vocalion race/blues series continued and continued to be popular. Starting in 1933, a number of Brunswick artists were assigned to Vocalions then-new 2500 series, new signings contributed to the growing popularity of the label. Coupled with other short-term signings, including Fletcher Henderson, Phil Harris, Earl Hines, and Isham Jones, also, starting in 1935, Vocalion started reissuing titles that were still selling from the recently discontinued OKeh label. In 1936 and 1937 Vocalion produced the recordings of the influential blues artist Robert Johnson. From 1935 through 1940, Vocalion was one of the most popular labels for small-group swing, blues, after the short-lived Variety label was discontinued, many titles were reissued on Vocalion, and the label continued to release new recordings made by Master/Variety artists through 1940. This added Cab Calloway and the Duke Ellington small groups-within-his-band to the label, ARC was purchased by CBS and Vocalion became a subsidiary of Columbia Records in 1938. The popular Vocalion label was discontinued in 1940, and the current Vocalions were reissued on the recently revived OKeh label with the catalog numbers. The name Vocalion was resurrected in the late 1950s by Decca as a label for back-catalog reissues. In 1975, MCA issued five albums on the Vocalion label
8.
Columbia Records
–
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
9.
Southland Records
–
Southland Records is a record label in New Orleans, Louisiana known for its 1950s recordings of Dixieland jazz. Southland Records was founded in 1953 by Joe Mares, a clarinetist and he created the label after noticing the number of unsigned musicians in New Orleans. Mares recorded George Lewis, Papa Celestin, Sharkey Bonano, Nick LaRocca, bands practiced at the labels studio behind Mares Brothers Furs, a company begun by his father, uncle, and grandfather. Sessions were recorded at concert halls and at TV and radio stations, in the 1960s Mares sold the label to George Buck and it became part of the Jazzology Records group under the control of the George H. Buck Jr
10.
Original Dixieland Jass Band
–
The Original Dixieland Jass Band was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their Livery Stable Blues became the first jazz single ever issued, the group made the first recordings, and claimed authorship, of many jazz standards, the most famous being Tiger Rag. In late 1917 the spelling of the name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The band consisted of five musicians who had played in the Papa Jack Laine bands, an integrated group of musicians who played for parades, dances. ODJB billed itself as the Creators of Jazz and it was the first band to record jazz commercially and to have hit recordings in the new genre. Band leader and cornetist Nick LaRocca argued that ODJB deserved recognition as the first band to record jazz commercially and they then assembled trombonist Eddie Edwards, pianist Henry Ragas, and cornetist Frank Christian. Shortly before they were to leave, Christian backed out, on March 3,1916 the musicians began their job at Schillers Cafe in Chicago under the name Steins Dixie Jass Band. The band was a hit and received offers of higher pay elsewhere, LaRocca and Nunez had personality conflicts, and on October 30 Tom Browns Band and ODJB agreed to swap clarinetists, bringing Larry Shields into the Original Dixieland Jass Band. The band attracted the attention of theatrical agent Max Hart, who booked the band in New York City, at the start of 1917 the band began an engagement playing for dancing at Reisenwebers Cafe, on Columbus Circle, in Manhattan. While a couple of other New Orleans bands had passed through New York City slightly earlier, shortly after arriving in New York, a letter dated January 29,1917, offered the band an audition for the Columbia Graphophone Company. The session took place on Wednesday, January 31,1917, nothing from this test session was issued. The band then recorded two sides for the Victor Talking Machine Company, Livery Stable Blues and Dixieland Jass Band One-Step, on February 26,1917 and these titles were released as Victor 18255 in May 1917, the first issued jazz record. The bands recordings, first marketed as a novelty, were a surprise hit, musician Joe Jordan sued, since the One Step incorporated portions of his 1909 ragtime composition That Teasin Rag. The record labels subsequently were changed to Introducing That Teasin Rag by Joe Jordan, a court case dispute over the authorship of Livery Stable Blues resulted in the judge declaring the tune in the public domain. Numerous jazz bands were formed in the wake of the success of ODJB that copied and replicated its style, also bands were brought from Chicago and California in an attempts to join the jazz craze. Established musicians and bandleaders such as Wilbur Sweatman started billing their groups as jass or jazz bands, earl Fuller, bandleader at a competing New York venue, was ordered by management to form a jass band. In 1918, the song When You Hear That Dixieland Jazz Band Play by Shelton Brooks and it was a tribute to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who were featured on the cover. Durante was very impressed with the band and invited them to play at a called the Alamo in Harlem where Jimmy played piano
11.
Trumpet
–
A trumpet is a musical instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group contains the instruments with the highest register in the brass family, trumpets are used in art music styles, for instance in orchestras, concert bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as in popular music. They are played by blowing air through almost-closed lips, producing a sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the instrument. Since the late 15th century they have primarily been constructed of brass tubing, there are many distinct types of trumpet, with the most common being pitched in B♭, having a tubing length of about 1.48 m. Early trumpets did not provide means to change the length of tubing, most trumpets have valves of the piston type, while some have the rotary type. The use of rotary-valved trumpets is more common in orchestral settings, each valve, when engaged, increases the length of tubing, lowering the pitch of the instrument. A musician who plays the trumpet is called a trumpet player or trumpeter, the earliest trumpets date back to 1500 BC and earlier. The bronze and silver trumpets from Tutankhamuns grave in Egypt, bronze lurs from Scandinavia, trumpets from the Oxus civilization of Central Asia have decorated swellings in the middle, yet are made out of one sheet of metal, which is considered a technical wonder. The Shofar, made from a ram horn and the Hatzotzeroth and they were played in Solomons Temple around 3000 years ago. They were said to be used to blow down the walls of Jericho and they are still used on certain religious days. The Salpinx was a straight trumpet 62 inches long, made of bone or bronze, Salpinx contests were a part of the original Olympic Games. The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD300, the earliest trumpets were signaling instruments used for military or religious purposes, rather than music in the modern sense, and the modern bugle continues this signaling tradition. Improvements to instrument design and metal making in the late Middle Ages, the natural trumpets of this era consisted of a single coiled tube without valves and therefore could only produce the notes of a single overtone series. Changing keys required the player to change crooks of the instrument, the development of the upper, clarino register by specialist trumpeters—notably Cesare Bendinelli—would lend itself well to the Baroque era, also known as the Golden Age of the natural trumpet. During this period, a vast body of music was written for virtuoso trumpeters, the art was revived in the mid-20th century and natural trumpet playing is again a thriving art around the world. The melody-dominated homophony of the classical and romantic periods relegated the trumpet to a role by most major composers owing to the limitations of the natural trumpet. Berlioz wrote in 1844, Notwithstanding the real loftiness and distinguished nature of its quality of tone, there are few instruments that have been more degraded. The attempt to give the trumpet more chromatic freedom in its range saw the development of the keyed trumpet, the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven, and as late as Brahms, were still played on natural trumpets
12.
Tiger Rag
–
Tiger Rag is a jazz standard, originally recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions of all time, in 2003, the 1918 ODJB recording of Tiger Rag was placed on the U. S. Library of Congress National Recording Registry, the Aeolian Vocalion sides did not sell well, as they were recorded in a vertical format becoming obsolete at the time which could not be played successfully on most contemporary phonographs. The song was copyrighted, published, and credited to bandmembers Nick LaRocca, Eddie Edwards, Henry Ragas, Tony Sbarbaro, harry DaCosta later wrote lyrics to the instrumental when it became a million-seller and a No.1 national hit for The Mills Brothers in 1931. Other New Orleans musicians claimed, however, that the tune or at least portions of it had been a standard in the city even before. Some others even copyrighted the same melody or close variations on it under their own names, including Ray Lopez under the title Weary Weasel and Johnny DeDroit under the title Number Two Blues. A number of veterans of Papa Jack Laines band said the tune had been known in New Orleans as Number Two long before the Dixieland Jass Band copyrighted it, in one interview, Papa Jack Laine said that the actual composer of the number was Achille Baquet. Punch Miller claimed to have originated the cornet & trombone breaks with Jack Carey, jelly Roll Morton also claimed to have written the tune, basing part of it on his jazzed up version of an old French quadrille. This appears to be the earliest dated reference to this tune and it is noted that both Larry Shields, and Ray Lopez, who also have claimed composition of this tune often played in Watzkes band c. Frank Tirro states in Jazz, A History, Morton claims credit for transforming a French quadrille that was performed in different meters into Tiger Rag. According to writer Samuel Charters, Tiger Rag was worked out by the Jack Carey Band, the work was known as Jack Carey by the black musicians of the city and as Nigger #2 by the white. It was compiled when Jacks brother Thomas, Papa Mutt, pulled the first strain from a book of quadrilles. The band evolved the second and third strains in order to show off the clarinetist, George Boyd, and the strain was worked out by Jack, a trombonist. While the exact details are unclear, it seems that at least something similar to Tiger Rag or various strains of it were played in New Orleans before the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded it, how close these were to the Bands recording is a matter of speculation. After the success of the Original Dixieland Jass Band recordings, the tune gained national popularity, dance band and march orchestrations were published for the benefit of bands that couldnt get the hang of the new jazz music. Hundreds of recordings of the tune appeared in the late 1910s, among the more notable is the New Orleans Rhythm Kings version with a clarinet solo by Leon Roppolo. The ubiquitous tune even echoed around the ruins of Chichen Itza in the 1920s, with the coming of sound film, it often appeared on soundtracks of both live action movies and animated cartoons when something very energetic was wanted. The Canadian Brass tuba player Chuck Daellenbach has become associated with Luther Hendersons Tuba Tiger Rag
13.
Livery Stable Blues
–
Livery Stable Blues is a jazz composition copyrighted by Ray Lopez and Alcide Nunez in 1917. It was recorded by the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York City at its studio at 46 West 38th Street on the 12th floor – the top floor, the Original Dixieland Jass Band was a group of white musicians from New Orleans. The ODJB made test recordings for Columbia on January 30,1917, on February 26 the ODJB recorded Livery Stable Blues for the Victor label. Dixieland Jass Band One-Step was recorded in the same session, Victor executives quickly released the record, which became an instant hit. The record was a big hit, and was possibly the first popular recording to sell a million copies. It established jazz as popular music and spawned demand for small bands in New York and Chicago. Both sides of the record were originally labeled as compositions by members of the band, however, two other New Orleans musicians, Nunez and Lopez, beat the ODJB in registering a copyright on the tune. Alcide Nunez had been clarinetist with the ODJB until a few months earlier, trumpeter Ray Lopez had worked with most of the ODJB musicians in New Orleans, especially in the bands of Papa Jack Laine. The members of the ODJB published the piece copyrighted as their own composition under the alternative title Barnyard Blues, the two parties and their respective publishers sued each other. The case resulted in the judge declaring neither party had copyright over the work, that it was based on a pre-existing melody, the judge also expressed doubt that musicians unable to read or write music could be said to have composed anything. Meanwhile, a lawsuit arose from one of the strains of Dixieland Jass Band One-Step being almost identical to the 1909 Joe Jordan number That Teasin Rag. Later pressings of the record added Jordan as co-composer and he was awarded a share of the royalties, later pressings of Livery Stable Blues omitted the phrase Composed and played by from the original pressings. After Victors release became a hit, Columbia had the back to record again. The Original Dixieland Jass Band published the music for the composition under the alternate title of Barnyard Blues with Leo Feist in New York listing Nick LaRocca as the composer. The sheet music cover contained a reference to the Victor release of Livery Stable Blues,18255, Alcide Nunez and Ray Lopez published sheet music with Roger A. Graham in Chicago listing themselves as the composers, on their rival sheet music cover they refer to the same Victor release, Victor Record No.18255. In a second issue of the music, Marvin Lee added lyrics to the Nunez and Lopez version. Musically, Livery Stable Blues is a New Orleans style twelve-bar blues and it starts with a four-bar introduction, followed by three distinct themes played in succession, each repeated twice
14.
Sicily
–
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant
15.
Salaparuta
–
Salaparuta is a town and comune in South-Western Sicily, Italy, in the valley of the Belice river, administratively part of the province of Trapani. It had 1,781 inhabitants as of 2007, in 1968 the original site of the town was near epicentre of the Belice Valley earthquake. As a result, Salaparuta was completely destroyed and rebuilt not far from the original location, the current Salaparuta is still home to many of the citizens of the old town. Salaparuta is popularly known for its Salaparuta DOC wine production, also the main source for the town
16.
Papa Jack Laine
–
George Vital Papa Jack Laine was an American musician and a pioneering band leader in New Orleans in the years from the Spanish–American War to World War I. He was often credited for training many musicians which would become successful in jazz music. His Marching band was named Reliance Brass Band and it was the first to fuse European, African, the earliest jazz musicians can be traced back to playing within the Reliance Brass Band or being influenced from those who had. Laine was a drummer, but was noted for his skills at arranging and booking bands. Laines musicians included individuals from most of New Orleans many ethnic groups such as African American, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Latin American, Scottish and he started leading bands in 1885 before the Jim Crow laws went into effect in New Orleans. As such his band attracted a large and diverse group of such as Mexican clarinetist Lorenzo Tio. Laine believed music brought people together, Laine retired from the music booking business by 1920, but he was interviewed a number of times, providing first hand accounts of the early days of the development of New Orleans jazz. He had hired well over 100 musicians to play in his bands, including the following
17.
Frank Christian (trumpeter)
–
Frank Joseph Christian was an early jazz trumpeter. Frank Joseph Christian was born in the Bywater neighborhood of downtown New Orleans, in an interview for Tulanes Jazz Archives, he described his family ancestry as cayudle, a Creole French term for a mutt or mongrel. His brothers Charles and Emile Christian also worked as professional musicians, Frank showed musical versatility at a young age, and was playing trumpet, clarinet, violin, and tuba professionally by his teens. He started working with bandleader Papa Jack Laine about 1908 and became a mainstay in Laines bands and he also worked in the bands of Tom Brown, Johnny Fischer, and led his own band. In 1916 Frank Christian was the first choice of Alcide Nunez, Eddie Edwards, Christian was replaced by Nick LaRocca, and thus Frank Christian missed his chance to be in the Original Dixieland Jass Band which made the first jazz recordings in 1917. After hearing of the success of the O. D. J. B. and other New Orleans musicians who went north, Christian went to play in Chicago with Fischer. He then went to New York City in response to an offer to start a New Orleans style band to play at a Manhattan dance club called The Alamo and he formed the Original New Orleans Jazz Band with whom he recorded on cornet in 1918 and 1919. He was originally the leader of the band, but later it was agreed to turn leadership over to the bands extroverted pianist, after Durante broke up his band Frank Christian toured on Vaudeville with Gilda Gray and played in various theater and dance bands through the 1920s. He returned home to work his later years in New Orleans, New Orleans Jazz, a Family Album, Rose & Souchon,1984 Whos Who in Jazz, John Chilton,1978
18.
Chicago
–
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
19.
Alcide Nunez
–
Alcide Patrick Nunez, also known as Yellow Nunez and Al Nunez, was an early American jazz clarinetist. He was also one of the first musicians of New Orleans who made audio recordings. Alcide Patrick Nunez was born in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana and his parents were Victor Nunez and Elisa Nunez Chalaire and were of Isleño and Cajun descent respectively. The family moved to New Orleans when he was a child and he grew up amid the Marigny and Bywater districts of New Orleans. For a time, Nunez lived at 1340 Arts Street, in the St. Roch neighborhood of New Orleans and he initially played guitar, then switched to clarinet about 1902. He soon became one of the top hot clarinetists in the city, by 1905 he was a regular in Papa Jack Laines band, in addition to playing with Tom Brown and sometimes leading bands of his own. Nunez could play several instruments, but mainly played the clarinet, in addition, he was able to improvise variations on the songs he heard. Before he was able to make music a full-time profession, Nunez worked for a driving a mule-drawn wagon with fellow musician Chink Martin Abraham. Nick LaRocca and the band sued Nunez for $10,000, in the end the lawsuit was thrown out without decision, the judge denied that any musicians who could not read written music could be said to have written anything. After some time playing with Tom Browns band in Chicago, he went to New York City with Bert Kellys band, Pee Wee Russell announced in Chicago and New York that Nunez was the greatest jazz clarinetist of the world. Nunez became Bert Kellys band leader, after playing with Kelly through 1918, at the start of 1919 Nunez helped form the band the Louisiana Five, led by drummer Anton Lada. They quickly became one of the most popular bands in New York at the time, in early 1920 Nunez worked with the New York dance band of Harry Yerkes, but in the same year returned temporarily to the Louisiana Five, touring the United States. In 1922, after Bert Kelly replaced him with Johnny Dodds, he returned to Chicago to lead the band at Kellys Stables, one of the citys top nightclubs. Soon thereafter Nuñez began to lose his teeth, impairing his ability to play clarinet professionally and he returned to his family in New Orleans, but after getting dentures found he was still able to play. He obtained a job with the department, also playing with the police band. Nunez married three times, had one child with his wife and three children with his third. For a time in 1921, he settled in Baltimore, where he bought a large house and he died September 2,1934, of a heart attack. Robert Nunez is the grandson of Alcide Yellow Nunez and is also the principal tubist with the Louisiana Philharmonic of New Orleans
20.
Tom Brown (trombonist)
–
Tom Brown, sometimes known by the nickname Red Brown, was an early New Orleans dixieland jazz trombonist. He also played string bass professionally, tom P. Brown was born in Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. His younger brother Steve Brown also became a prominent professional musician and he played trombone with the bands of Papa Jack Laine and Frank Christian, by 1910 usually worked leading bands under his own name. The band played in a style then known as hot ragtime or ratty music. In early 1915, his band was heard by Vaudeville dancer Joe Frisco who then arranged a job for Browns band in Chicago, in Chicago Gussie Mueller was hired by bandleader Bert Kelly, and his place was taken by young New Orleans clarinetist Larry Shields. This band seems to be the first to be referred to as playing Jazz, or, as it was spelled early on. According to Brown, once his band started enjoying popularity the local Chicago musicians union began picketing his band of non-union out-of-towners, the term jass at that time had a sexual connotation. The signs had the opposite of the effect, more people came to hear the band out of curiosity as to what Jass Music might be. Brown realized the publicity potential and started calling his group Browns Jass Band, years later, Brown would frequently brag that he led the first white jazz band to go up north. Browns careful wording implies that he was aware that the Original Creole Orchestra preceded him, tom Browns Band enjoyed over four months of success in Chicago before moving to New York City, where it played for four months more before returning to New Orleans in February 1916. Upon arriving home Brown immediately started rounding up another band to go back to Chicago with him, the group again included Larry Shields, at the end of October, Brown agreed to switch clarinetists with the Original Dixieland Jass Band bringing Alcide Nunez into his band. Brown started doing freelance recording work with New York dance and novelty bands, at the start of 1920 he was joined in the Yerkes Band by Alcide Nunez. Tom Brown also played on Vaudeville in the acts of Joe Frisco, about late 1921 Brown returned to Chicago and joined Ray Millers Black & White Melody Boys, with whom he made more recordings. During this period he also co-lead a dance band with his brother Steve, in the mid-1920s he returned home to New Orleans where he played with Johnny Bayersdorffer and Norman Brownlees bands, making a few excellent recordings. During the Great Depression he supplemented his income from music by repairing radios and he opened up a music shop and a junk shop on Magazine Street. He played string bass in local swing and dance bands, with the revival of interest in traditional jazz he played in various Dixieland bands in the 1950s, notably that of Johnny Wiggs. Tom Brown made his last recording just weeks before his death, tom Brown in His Own Words, a short 1957 interview, mostly about his early recordings
21.
Ragbaby Stephens
–
Joe Stephens, generally known as Ragbaby or Rag Baby Stephens, was an early New Orleans dixieland and jazz drummer. He was the 13th and last child of Philip Stephens and his wife Catherine Kolb, a number of the Stephens family descendants were professional musicians or band members. Ragbaby was of the best regarded hot drummers with Papa Jack Laines Reliance band in New Orleans in the years of the 20th century. He left town to get away from problems, and became one of the first New Orleans jazz musicians established in Chicago. His telegrams home were responsible for bringing Paul Mares and George Brunies up north, for some years he worked with banjoist/ bandleader Bert Kelly. In 1918 Kelly brought his Jass Band, including Ragbaby, Alcide Nunez, the Kelly band enjoyed success, and was hired to continue playing, alternating with the Original Dixieland, after that bands return to New York. After the Kelly Jazz Band won greater approval from the crowds at a Battle of the Bands Ragbaby found his drum heads slashed, and he took the next train back to Chicago and never again headed east. Stephens was a regular on the Chicago jazz scene into the 1920s, eddie Edwards recalled Rag Baby was a magnificent drummer. His son Joseph Jr. played jazz at Romas Cafe in New Orleans, both are buried in New Orleans, Joe Jr. at St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery No.2 and Joe E. at Jefferson Memorial Gardens
22.
The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street
–
The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street is a musical variety radio program which began on the Blue Network in 1940. The magazine Radio Life described it as one of radios strangest offsprings, a wacky, strictly hep tongue-in-cheek burlesque of opera and symphony. The series made a regular vocalist named Dinah Shore a national recording. It was a weekly half-hour of jazz, played by leading practitioners of the day, the format was a dry satire of the stuffy symphonic and operatic broadcasts announced by the dignified Milton Cross. The Basin Street opening, intoned by announcer Jack McCarthy, usually went along these lines, Greetings, music lovers, to those critics we must say, Kindly step outside with us a moment and Is there a doctor in the house. These off-center comments were actually scripted by Welbourn Kelley, but Hamiltons deadpan deliveries often made the musicians laugh out loud. The program then delivered 30 minutes of blues and hot jazz, a New Yorker looks like hes found it. Two resident bands provided the music, Henry Levine and His Dixieland Octet offered traditional readings of jazz standards such as Farewell Blues, St. Louis Blues, and When My Sugar Walks Down the Street. Trumpeter Levine, a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, was quite familiar with these arrangements. In 1943 maestro Laval changed his surname to Lavalle to avoid association with then-notorious war criminal Pierre Laval, each week Dr. Gino Hamilton would feature a notable guest from the jazz world, either a musicologist or a performer. Such celebrated soloists as Sidney Bechet, Bobby Hackett, Jelly Roll Morton, on one occasion Hamilton introduced a W. C. Handy tune, adding that if Mr. Handy was listening from his home in New York, Handy was indeed listening, and the delighted Hamilton invited him to appear on the following weeks broadcast. On another occasion, probably at the urging of Hackett, comedian Jackie Gleason showed up with a monologue about jazz musicians, Gleason was paid $350 for this appearance, which was so well received by listeners that he was invited back to the program. Each show featured a girl singer, Dinah Shore and then Lena Horne received recording contracts at RCA Victor records from their exposure on multiple Lower Basin Street appearances. Linda Keene replaced Horne in 1941, the job was taken in turn by Dixie Mason, Dodie ONeill, Diane Courtney, and Kay Lorraine. The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street made its debut on February 11,1940, during its first months on NBC it was a sustaining feature in a late-Sunday-afternoon time slot. McCarthy was replaced by the man the scripts were burlesquing, Milton Cross, the final broadcast was aired on October 8,1944. NBC returned the Society to its schedule on June 8,1950, each Saturday half-hour was presented before an enthusiastic studio audience
23.
Swing music
–
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
24.
The March of Time
–
The March of Time is an American short film series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The voice of series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Produced and written by Louis de Rochemont and his brother Richard de Rochemont, the March of Time organization also produced four feature films for theatrical release, and created documentary series for early television. Its first TV series, Crusade in Europe, received a Peabody Award, the March of Time was based on a news documentary and dramatization series, also called The March of Time, that was first broadcast on CBS Radio. Usually called a series, The March of Time was actually a monthly series of short feature films twice the length of standard newsreels. The films were didactic, with a point of view. The editors of Time described it as pictorial journalism, like its radio namesake, The March of Time included reporting, on-location shots, and dramatic reenactments. The March of Times relationship to the newsreel was compared to the weekly news magazines relationship to the daily newspaper. The March of Time was launched February 1,1935, in over 500 theaters, each entry in the series was either a two- or three-reel film. Westbrook Van Voorhis, who hosted the program, served as narrator of the film series. The series, which finally totalled close to 200 segments, was a success with audiences. Because of its high production costs—estimated at $50,000 per episode, however, it remained in production for six years beyond the cancellation of the radio show on which it was based. At its peak The March of Time was seen by 25 million U. S. moviegoers a month, for them, fascism, communism, and native demagogues seemed foreign to the American ethic, and they exposed and attacked them accordingly. … A cinematic agent provocateur, the March of Time turned over a lot of rocks, the demagogues and quacks whom they attacked in the 1930s may seem like obvious targets now, but they didnt seem so then. They were popular, powerful, frightening people, and the March of Time stood entirely alone in theatrical motion picture circles as a muckraker. In late 1936, producer Roy E. Larsen reluctantly left The March of Time to serve as publisher of Life, Larsen proposed that the new magazine be named The March of Time, but the name Life was purchased from the owners of a declining periodical. Life magazine was a success and notable influence on photojournalism throughout its 36-year history
25.
Tulane University
–
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is generally considered the top university and the most selective institution of education in the state of Louisiana. From a nationwide perspective, U. S. News & World Report categorizes Tulane as most selective, the school is known to attract a geographically diverse student body, with 85% of undergraduate students coming from over 300 miles away. The school was founded as a medical college in 1834. The institution was privatized under the endowments of Paul Tulane and Josephine Louise Newcomb in 1884, Tulane is the 9th oldest private university in the Association of American Universities, which consists of major research universities in the United States and Canada. The Tulane University Law School and Tulane University Medical School are considered the 12th oldest and 15th oldest law and medical schools, respectively, members of Congress, heads of Federal agencies, two Surgeon Generals of the United States, U. S. At least two Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the University, the university was founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 partly as a response to the fears of smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera in the United States. The university became only the medical school in the South. In 1847, the legislature established the school as the University of Louisiana, a public university. Subsequently, in 1851, the university established its first academic department, the first president chosen for the new university was Francis Lister Hawks, an Episcopalian priest and prominent citizen of New Orleans at the time. The university was closed from 1861 to 1865 during the American Civil War, after reopening, it went through a period of financial challenges because of an extended agricultural depression in the South which affected the nations economy. Paul Tulane, owner of a dry goods and clothing business. This donation led to the establishment of a Tulane Educational Fund and this act created the Tulane University of Louisiana. The university was privatized, and is one of only a few American universities to be converted from a public institution to a private one. In 1884, William Preston Johnston became the first president of Tulane and he had succeeded Robert E. Lee as president of Washington and Lee University after Lees death. He had moved to Louisiana and become president of Louisiana State University, in 1885, the university established its graduate division, later becoming the Graduate School. One year later, gifts from Josephine Louise Newcomb totaling over $3.6 million, Newcomb was the first coordinate college for women in the United States and became a model for such institutions as Pembroke College and Barnard College. In 1894 the College of Technology formed, which would become the School of Engineering
26.
Larry Shields
–
Lawrence James Larry Shields was an early American dixieland jazz clarinetist. He was a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record commercially, Shields was born into an Irish-American family in Uptown New Orleans, on the same block where jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden lived. Shields family were musical, his brothers Harry, Pat, Shields started playing clarinet when he was 14 and played with Papa Jack Laines bands. The following year that made the first jazz phonograph records. Around this time, he played occasionally with King Watzkes band. In the 1930s, Shields returned to Chicago and joined the reformed ODJB and he then worked for a while at Nicks in New York before returning to play in New Orleans and, later, in California. His playing, especially on phonograph records, was an important influence on later jazz clarinetists, Larry Shields inspired Dink Johnson to begin playing the clarinet, in a 1950 interview with Floyd Levin he stated, I was actually a drummer, you know. I had always wanted to play the clarinet since hearing Larry Shields with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and he co-wrote the ODJB classics Clarinet Marmalade with Henry Ragas and At the Jazz Band Ball, Ostrich Walk, and Fidgety Feet with Nick LaRocca. These compositions became jazz classics and standards that were re-recorded by later jazz bands, in 2006, his 1917 recording of Darktown Strutters Ball with the Original Dixieland Jass Band was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
27.
Red Nichols
–
Ernest Loring Red Nichols was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader. Nichols was born on May 8,1905 in Ogden, Utah and his father was a college music professor, and Nichols was a child prodigy, because by twelve he was already playing difficult set pieces for his fathers brass band. Young Nichols heard the recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and later those of Bix Beiderbecke. His style became polished, clean and incisive, in the early 1920s, Nichols moved to the Midwest and joined a band called The Syncopating Seven. When that band broke up he joined the Johnny Johnson Orchestra, New York would remain his base for years thereafter. In New York he met and teamed up with trombonist Miff Mole, prior to signing with Brunswick, Nichols and Mole recorded a series of records for Pathé-Perfect under the name The Red Heads. Nichols had good technique, could read music, and easily gained session, in 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording with a variety of bands, most of them known as Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. Very few of these groups were actually quintets, the name was simply a pun on Nickel and that was only a number we tied in with my name, Nichols once explained. Wed generally have eight or nine, depending on who was around for the session, Nichols recorded over 100 sides for the Brunswick label under that band name. Some weeks, Nichols and his bands were making 10–12 records a week and his recordings of the late 1920s are regarded as the most progressive jazz of the period in both concept and execution, with wide-ranging harmonies and a balanced ensemble. However, they were small-band Dixieland groups, emphasizing collective improvisation and they were different from Louis Armstrongs Hot Fives of that period. Nichols band started out with Mole on trombone and Jimmy Dorsey on alto sax and clarinet. Other musicians who played for a time in his bands in the decade were Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang. The Five Pennies version of Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider was a hit record. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. Other labels Nichols recorded for included Edison 1926, Victor 1927,1928,1930,1931, Bluebird 1934,1939, back to Brunswick for a session in 1934, Variety 1937, in the next decade, swing eclipsed the Dixieland Nichols loved to play. He tried to follow the changes, and formed a band of his own. Michael Brooks writes, What went wrong, part of it was too much, too soon
28.
Bix Beiderbecke
–
Leon Bismark Bix Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer. With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s and his turns on Singin the Blues and Im Coming, Virginia, in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz style and hinted at what, in the 1950s. In a Mist, one of a handful of his piano compositions, a native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering some critics have connected to his original sound. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer joined Goldkette in 1926, the band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in October 1926. He made his greatest recordings in 1927, in 1928, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known dance orchestra in the country, the New-York-based Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Beiderbeckes most influential recordings date from his time with Goldkette and Whiteman, a few stints in rehabilitation centers, as well as the support of Whiteman and the Beiderbecke family in Davenport, did not check Beiderbeckes decline in health. He left the Whiteman band in 1930 and the following summer died in his Queens apartment at the age of 28 and his death, in turn, gave rise to one of the original legends of jazz. In magazine articles, musicians memoirs, novels, and Hollywood films, Beiderbecke has been reincarnated as a Romantic hero, the Young Man with a Horn. His life has been portrayed as a battle against such common obstacles to art as family and commerce, the musician-critic Benny Green sarcastically called Beiderbecke jazzs Number One Saint, while Ralph Berton compared him to Jesus. Beiderbecke remains the subject of controversy regarding his true name, the cause of his death. Beiderbecke was born on March 10,1903, in Davenport, Iowa, there is disagreement over whether Beiderbecke was christened Leon Bismark or Leon Bix. His father was nicknamed Bix, as, for a time, was his older brother, Burnie Beiderbecke claimed that the boy was named Leon Bix and subsequent biographers have reproduced birth certificates to that effect. However, more recent research—which takes into account church and school records in addition to the will of a relative—has suggested that he was originally named Leon Bismark, regardless, his parents called him Bix, which seems to have been his preference. In a letter to his mother when he was nine years old, Beiderbecke signed off, Beiderbeckes father, the son of German immigrants, was a well-to-do coal and lumber merchant, named after the Iron Chancellor of his native Germany. Beiderbeckes mother was the daughter of a Mississippi riverboat captain and she played the organ at Davenports First Presbyterian Church, and encouraged young Bixs interest in the piano. Beiderbecke was the youngest of three children and his brother, Burnie, was born in 1895, and his sister, Mary Louise, in 1898. He began playing piano at age two or three and his sister recalls that he stood on the floor and played it with his hands over his head
29.
Phil Napoleon
–
Phil Napoleon, born Filippo Napoli, was an early jazz trumpeter and bandleader born in Boston, Massachusetts. Ron Wynn notes that Napoleon was a competent, though unimaginative trumpeter whose greatest value was the recording sessions he led that helped increase jazzs popularity in the mid-20s. Richard Cook and Brian Morton, writing for The Penguin Guide to Jazz, refer to Napoleon as a pioneer whose playing was profoundly influential on men such as Red Nichols. Napoleon began with training, and was performing publicly by age 5. In the 1910s, he was one of the first musicians in the northeastern United States to embrace the new style brought to that part of the country by musicians from New Orleans. With pianist Frank Signorelli he formed the group The Original Memphis Five in 1917 and he became one of the most sought after trumpeters of the 1920s. The group were very prolific, one of the most prolific in New York City at the time, Napoleons 1927 version of Clarinet Marmalade was a particular success. The Original Memphis Five split in 1928, during the 1930s Napoleon mainly worked as a session trumpeter, working in the RCA Radio Orchestra in the early 1930s, and in 1937 unsuccessfully tried to form his own orchestra. He recorded with the Cotton Pickers and the Charleton Chasers and also worked with blues singers Leona Williams, Napoleon joined Jimmy Dorseys then Los Angeles-based group in the mid 1940s, and he appeared with the band in the film Four Jills in a Jeep. Parting with Dorsey in 1947, he moved back to New York, during the early 1950s the group became noted for their performances at Nicks in New York City. Phil also worked frequently with his nephew Marty Napoleon, a jazz pianist, on July 3,1959, Napoleon and The Five performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, later released as an album. In 1966 opened up his own club named Napoleons Retreat in Miami, Florida where he lived until his death, Phil Napoleon Discography at Discogs Phil Napoleon at The Red Hot Jazz Archive Phil Napoleon Biography at Solid
30.
Louis Armstrong
–
Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo or Satch, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s and he was also skilled at scat singing. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to cross over and he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were restricted for black men of his era. Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4,1900, although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date, August 4,1901, was discovered by the researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He spent his youth in poverty, in a neighborhood known as the Battlefield. His father, William Armstrong, abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and his mother, Mary Mayann Albert, then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins, in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times his uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother, her relatives and he attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille, after dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble, Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong to play by ear at Dago Tonys Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. It has given me something to live for and he also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk-hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family, knowing he lived without a father and he later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La. the Year of 1907. Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them, how to live—real life, professor Peter Davis instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader, the home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new stepmother, Gertrude, Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponces, where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night, later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as going to the University, in 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Orys band, Armstrong replaced him
31.
Duke Ellington
–
Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years. Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, in the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Some of the musicians who were members of Ellingtons orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz, Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades, a master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington often composed specifically to feature the style and skills of his individual musicians. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizols Caravan, and Perdido, after 1941, Ellington collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major career revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in films, scoring several. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999, Ellington was born on April 29,1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Ellington in Washington, D. C. Daisy primarily played parlor songs and James preferred operatic arias and they lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place, NW, in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D. C. Dukes father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15,1879, Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D. C. on January 4,1879, the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy, when Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D. C. worked to protect their children from the eras Jim Crow laws, at the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners, Ellingtons childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited his chum Edgar McEntree for the nickname, I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was interested in baseball. President Roosevelt would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play, Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D. C. He gained his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games, in the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, Soda Fountain Rag. He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read, I would play the Soda Fountain Rag as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot, Ellington recalled
32.
Art Tatum
–
Arthur Art Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist. Tatum is widely acknowledged as the greatest jazz pianist of all time and he was hailed for the technical proficiency of his performances, which set a new standard for jazz piano virtuosity. Critic Scott Yanow wrote, Tatums quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries. For a musician of such stature, there is little published information available about Tatums life, only one full-length biography has been published, Too Marvelous for Words, by James Lester. Lester interviewed many of Tatums contemporaries for the book and drew from many articles published about him, Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Arthur Tatum, Sr. was a guitarist and an elder at Grace Presbyterian Church and he had two siblings, Karl and Arlene. From infancy he suffered from cataracts which left him blind in one eye, a number of surgical procedures improved his eye condition to a degree but some of the benefits were reversed when he was assaulted in 1930. A child with perfect pitch, Tatum learned to play by ear, in a Voice of America interview, he denied the widespread rumor that he learned to play by copying piano roll recordings made by two pianists. He developed a very fast playing style, without losing accuracy, as a child he was also very sensitive to the pianos intonation and insisted it be tuned often. While playing piano was the most obvious application of his mental and physical skills, in 1925, Tatum moved to the Columbus School for the Blind, where he studied music and learned braille. He subsequently studied piano with Overton G. Rainey at either the Jefferson School or the Toledo School of Music, Rainey, who was also visually impaired, probably taught Tatum in the classical tradition, as Rainey did not improvise and discouraged his students from playing jazz. In 1927, Tatum began playing on Toledo radio station WSPD as Arthur Tatum, Toledos Blind Pianist, during interludes in Ellen Kays shopping chat program, by the age of 19, Tatum was playing at the local Waiters and Bellmens Club. In 1931, vocalist Adelaide Hall commenced a tour that lasted almost two years, during which she discovered Tatum in Toledo and employed him as one of her stage pianists. In 1932, Hall returned to New York with Tatum and introduced him to Harlem on stage at the Lafayette Theatre, in August 1932, she made four recordings using Tatum as one of her pianists including the songs Strange As It Seems and You Gave Me Everything But Love. Tatum drew inspiration from the pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, who exemplified the stride piano style, Tatum identified Waller as his main influence, but according to pianist Teddy Wilson and saxophonist Eddie Barefield, Art Tatums favorite jazz piano player was Earl Hines. He used to buy all of Earls records and would improvise on them, hed play the record but hed improvise over what Earl was doing. Course, when you heard Art play you didnt hear nothing of anybody, but he got his ideas from Earls style of playing – but Earl never knew that. A major event in his rise to success was his appearance at a cutting contest in 1933 at Morgans bar in New York City that included Waller, Johnson
33.
The Mills Brothers
–
The Mills Brothers were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Their parents were John Hutchinson and Eathel Mills, John Sr. owned a barber shop and founded a barbershop quartet, called the Four Kings of Harmony. John Hutchinson Mills Sr. was the son of William Hutchinson Mills and Cecilia Simms who lived in Bellefonte, as the boys grew older, they began singing in the choir of the Cyrene African Methodist Episcopal Church and in the Park Avenue Baptist Church in Piqua. They entered an amateur contest at Piquas Mays Opera House, but while on stage and he cupped his hands to his mouth and imitated a trumpet. The success of his led to all the brothers taking on instruments to imitate. John Jr. accompanied the four-part harmony first with a ukulele and they practiced imitating orchestras they heard on the radio. John, as the bass, would imitate the tuba, Harry, a baritone, imitated the trumpet, Herbert became the second trumpet and Donald the trombone. In 1928, after playing Mays Opera House in Piqua between Rin Tin Tin features, the brothers accompanied the Harold Greenameyer Band to Cincinnati for an audition with radio station WLW, the band was not hired, but the Mills brothers were. When the youngsters sang for Duke, he called Tommy Rockwell at Okeh Records, in September 1930, Ralph Wonders urged broadcasting executive William S. Paley, at CBS Radio in New York, to turn on his office speaker and listen to an audition of four young men. For the audition they were The Mills Brothers, but they had been known by other names. They were billed as The Steamboat Four when they sang for Sohio and they had been called the Four Boys and a Guitar on their Sunday shows. When Paley heard their performance, he went downstairs and put them on the air. The next day, the Mills Brothers signed a three-year contract and it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. Other hits followed – Goodbye Blues, their song, Nobodys Sweetheart, Ole Rockin Chair, Lazy River, Howm I Doin. They remained on Brunswick until late 1934, when signed with Decca. They had their own radio series in 1932–1933, one of the earliest built around a black act, billed as the Four Boys. The Mills Brothers were sponsored by some of the largest advertisers in early radio, Standard Oil, Procter & Gamble, Crisco and their first, The Big Broadcast was an all-star radio revue that included Bing Crosby, Cab Calloway, and the Boswell Sisters. They also made three bouncing ball cartoon shorts for the Fleischer Brothers, between 1933 and 1935, the Brothers starred with Crosby for Woodbury Soap in Bing Crosby Entertains, making 27 appearances in all on the CBS radio show
34.
Charlie Parker
–
Charles Charlie Parker, Jr. also known as Yardbird and Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Parker was an influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso, and he introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords and his tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Parker acquired the nickname Yardbird early in his career, Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer. Charles Parker, Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the child of Charles Parker and Adelaide Addie. He attended Lincoln High School in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his schools band using a rented school instrument. His father, Charles, was absent but provided some musical influence, he was a pianist. He later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways, Parkers mother Addie worked nights at the local Western Union office. His biggest influence at that time was a trombone player who taught him the basics of improvisation. In the late 1930s Parker began to practice diligently, during this period he mastered improvisation and developed some of the ideas that led to bebop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, he said that he spent three to four years practicing up to 15 hours a day, bands led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten certainly influenced Parker. In 1937, Parker played at a jam session at the Reno Club in Kansas City and his attempt to improvise failed when he lost track of the chord changes. This prompted Jo Jones, the drummer for Count Basies Orchestra, in 1938 Parker joined pianist Jay McShanns territory band. The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago, Parker made his professional recording debut with McShanns band. As a teenager, Parker developed a morphine addiction while hospitalized after an automobile accident and he continued using heroin throughout his life, and it ultimately contributed to his death. In 1939 Parker moved to New York City, to pursue a career in music and he held several other jobs as well. He worked for nine dollars a week as a dishwasher at Jimmies Chicken Shack, in 1942 Parker left McShanns band and played for one year with Earl Hines, whose band included Dizzy Gillespie, who later played with Parker as a duo. This period is virtually undocumented, due to the strike of 1942–1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, Parker joined a group of young musicians, and played in after-hours clubs in Harlem, such as [[Clark Monroes Uptown House
35.
Benny Goodman
–
Benjamin David Benny Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as the King of Swing. In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular groups in America. Goodmans bands launched the careers of many jazz artists. During an era of segregation, he led one of the first well-known integrated jazz groups. Goodman performed nearly to the end of his life while exploring an interest in classical music, Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father, David Goodman, came to America in 1892 from Warsaw in partitioned Poland and his mother, Dora, came from Kaunas, Lithuania. His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born, hundreds of houses are unconnected with the street sewer. Money was a constant problem in the family, Bennys father earned at most $20 per week. On Sundays, his father took the children to free concerts in Douglas Park. The following year Benny joined the club band at Jane Addamss Hull House. By joining the band, he was entitled to two weeks at a summer camp about fifty miles from Chicago. It was the time he was able to get away from the bleak environment of his urban neighborhood. He also received two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp and his early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo and Jimmie Noone. Goodman learned quickly, becoming a player at an early age. Goodman made his debut in 1921 at the Central Park Theater on Chicagos West Side. He entered Harrison High School in Chicago in 1922 and he joined the musicians’ union in 1923 and by the age of 14 was in a band featuring Bix Beiderbecke. Goodman attended Lewis Institute in 1924 as a sophomore, while also playing the clarinet in a dance hall band. When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicagos top bands, when he was 17, his father was killed by a passing car after stepping off a streetcar
36.
Frank Sinatra
–
Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the music artists of all time. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943 and he released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatras professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas and his career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice n Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own label, Reprise Records. It was followed by 1968s collaboration with Duke Ellington, using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm and he appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he associated with playing detectives. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B, on television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a natural, intuitive understanding of it, a perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname Ol Blue Eyes, Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976, Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him the greatest singer of the 20th century, Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12,1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was the child of Italian immigrants Antonino Martino Marty Sinatra
37.
Kid Ory
–
Edward Kid Ory was a Louisiana French-speaking jazz trombonist and bandleader. He was born in Woodland Plantation, near La Place, Louisiana, Ory started playing music with homemade instruments in his childhood, and by his teens was leading a well-regarded band in southeast Louisiana. He kept La Place, Louisiana, as his base of operations because of family obligations until his twenty-first birthday and he was one of the most influential trombonists of early jazz. When Ory was living on Jackson Avenue, he was discovered by Buddy Bolden, playing his first new trombone, Orys sister said he was too young to play with Bolden. Garland and Carey were longtime associates who would still be playing with Ory during his 1940s comeback, while in Los Angeles, Ory and his band recorded two instrumentals, Orys Creole Trombone and Society Blues, as well as a number of songs. They were the first jazz recordings made on the West Coast by an African-American jazz band from New Orleans. His band recorded with Nordskog Records, Ory paid them Nordskog for the pressings and then sold them with his own label, Kid Orys Sunshine Orchestra, at Spikes Brothers Music Store in Los Angeles. In 1925, Ory moved to Chicago, where he was active, working and recording with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey. He mentored Benny Goodman and, later, Charles Mingus, during the Great Depression Ory retired from music and did not play again until 1943. From 1944 to about 1961 he led one of the top New Orleans–style bands of the period, all but Buckner, Probert, and Ewell were originally from New Orleans. The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, in 1944–45 the group made a series of recordings for Crescent Records, which was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Orys band. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ory and his group appeared at the Beverly Cavern in Los Angeles, Ory retired from music in 1966 and spent his last years in Hawaii, with the assistance of Trummy Young. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California,1956 The Legendary Kid 1956 Favorites. Musical Metropolis, Los Angeles and the Creation of Music Culture 1880-1940 Kid Ory on redhotjazz
38.
Les Paul
–
Lester William Polsfuss, known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the electric guitar. Paul taught himself how to play guitar and while he is known for jazz and popular music. He is credited with many recording innovations and he recorded with his wife Mary Ford in the 1950s, and they sold millions of records. Among his many honors, Paul is one of a handful of artists with a permanent, stand-alone exhibit in the Rock and he is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an architect and a key inductee with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed. Les Paul is the person to be included in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Les Paul was born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to George and his family was of German ancestry. Pauls mother was related to the founders of Milwaukees Valentin Blatz Brewing Company and his parents divorced when he was a child. His mother simplified their Prussian family name first to Polfuss, then to Polfus, before taking the stage name Les Paul, he also performed as Red Hot Red and Rhubarb Red. At the age of eight, Paul began playing the harmonica, after trying to learn the piano, he switched to the guitar. It was during this time that he invented a neck-worn harmonica holder and it is still manufactured using his basic design. By age thirteen, Paul was performing semi-professionally as a singer, guitarist. While playing at the Waukesha area drive-ins and roadhouses, Paul began his first experiment with sound. Wanting to make himself heard by people at the local venues, he wired a phonograph needle to his guitar and connected it to a radio speaker. As a teen Paul created his first solid body electric guitar using a 2-foot piece of rail from a train line. At age seventeen, Paul played with Rube Tronsons Texas Cowboys, Paul moved to Chicago in 1934, where he continued to perform on radio stations WBBM and WLS. He met pianist Art Tatum, whose playing influenced him to stick with the rather than original plans of taking on the piano. His first two records were released in 1936, credited to Rhubarb Red, Pauls hillbilly alter ego and he also served as an accompanist for a few other bands signed to Decca
39.
Bob Crosby
–
George Robert Bob Crosby was an American jazz singer and bandleader, known for his group the Bob-Cats. Crosby was born in Spokane, Washington, the seven Crosby children were brothers Larry, Everett, Ted, and Harry, sisters Catherine and Mary Rose, and Bob. His parents were English-American bookkeeper Harry Lowe Crosby and Irish-American Catherine Harrigan, Crosby attended Gonzaga College, but he dropped out to seek a career in music. During World War II, he served in the U. S. Marines, Bob Crosby began singing in the early 1930s with the Rhythm Boys, which included vocalist Ray Hendricks and guitarist Bill Pollard, and with Anson Weeks and the Dorsey Brothers. He led his first band in 1935 when the members of Ben Pollacks band elected him their titular leader. In 1935 he recorded with the Clark Randall Orchestra led by Gil Rodin and featuring singer Frank Tennille, father of Toni formerly of Captain, Glenn Miller was a member of that orchestra, which recorded the Glenn Miller novelty composition When Icky Morgan Plays the Organ in 1935. Crosbys singing voice was similar to that of his brother Bing. A much later account from 1943 mentions a young trumpeter by the name of Gilbert Portmore who occasionally played with the band. The orchestra was one of the few bands of its time established as a corporation of its members. The band was formed out of the ruins of the Ben Pollack Orchestra. Needing a vocalist, they chose Crosby simply for his personality, looks and he was made the front man of the band, and his name became the bands public identity. In the spring of 1940, during a performance in Chicago, a novelty bass-and-drums duet between Haggart and Bauduc, Big Noise from Winnetka, became a hit in 1938-39. The enduring popularity of the Bob-Cats led by Bob Crosby, whose biography was written by British jazz historian John Chilton, was evident during the frequent reunions in the 1950s and 1960s. Bob Haggart and Yank Lawson organized a band that kept the spirit alive, combining Dixieland, from the late 1960s until the mid 1970s, the group was known as the Worlds Greatest Jazzband. Since neither leader was happy with that name, they reverted to the Lawson-Haggart Jazzband. The Lawson-Haggart group was consistent in keeping the Bob Crosby tradition alive, three of his songs were featured in three hit video games, Fallout 3, Fallout, New Vegas, and Fallout 4, published by Bethesda Softworks. Crosby has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for television and radio, both were dedicated February 8,1960. During World War II, Bob Crosby spent 18 months in the Marines touring with bands in the Pacific and his radio variety series, The Bob Crosby Show, aired on NBC and CBS in different runs from July 18,1943, to July 16,1950
40.
Darktown Strutters' Ball
–
Darktown Strutters Ball is a popular song by Shelton Brooks, published in 1917. The song has recorded many times and is considered a popular. There are many variations of the title, including At the Darktown Strutters Ball, The Darktown Strutters Ball, the ODJB recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2006. American Republic Band Phil Brito Brown & Terry Jazzola Boys Castle Jazz Band Larry Clinton, harlan Chick Webb recorded a version on January 15,1934 in New York but was only issued in England on Columbia CB-754. Boswell Sisters recorded a version on May 23,1934 in New York but was issued in Australia on Columbia DO-1255. Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra Arthur Fields Paul Frees recording is featured in the film The Abominable Dr. Phibes, ted Mulry Gang had a hit in Australia with a rock n roll version of Darktown Strutters Ball in 1976. Lou Monte recorded Darktown Strutters Ball in 1954, the RCA release was a major hit, reaching #12 retail. He parodies the lyrics, including Ill be down to get you in a wheelbarrow honey, ray Anthony in Australia on Capitol CP-139, flip side Deep Night and in the US as the flip side to the single Count Every Star. Joe Brown on Decca F11207,1960, flip side Swagger, howard Armstrong adds some explicit lyrics in the movie Louie Bluie. James Gelfand made a version for the Canadian movie Jack Paradise, alberta Hunter recorded the song on her 1978 comeback album Amtrak Blues. Allen Broome & His Dixieland All-Stars released a version on his solo album BucketMouth in June,2013. Jaudas Society Orchestra issued a version in 1918 on Edison Records, mary Tyler Moore Show, as the answer to a knock-knock joke, Knock-knock / Whos there. / Anna Maria Alberghetti / Anna Maria Alberghetti Who, / Anna Maria Alberghetti in a taxi, Honey. Robert Redford is singing it as he gets ill by the piano in the 1984 movie The Natural, kristin Scott Thomas sings a portion of it to Ralph Fiennes as they are driving through the desert in 1996 film The English Patient. Abe Simpson sings it while getting ready for his date with Beatrice in the Old Money episode of The Simpsons, the opening lines of the song are quoted on the rear cover of The Bands eponymous 1969 album. In the premiere episode of the TV series M*A*S*H* it is background music during a party scene
41.
Italians in New Orleans
–
Italians have had a presence in the area since the explorations of the Europeans. Many Sicilians immigrated to New Orleans in the 19th century, traveling on the Palermo-New Orleans route by ship, almost all of the 19th-century immigrants to the city originated from Sicily. Overall most Italian immigration occurred during the late 19th century, with those immigrating from that century outnumbering Italians who had immigrated prior to the American Civil War, the March 14,1891 lynchings occurred after the 1890 assassination of the chief of police, David Hennessy. It was the largest ever mass lynching in Louisiana history, the use of the term mafia by local media in relation to the murder is the first known usage of the word in print. Little Palermo was established by recent immigrants in the lower French Quarter causing some to suggest that the area should be renamed The Sicilian Quarter in the early 20th century, as time passed, many Italian-Americans moved out of New Orleans and to the suburbs. Historically many corner stores in New Orleans were owned by Italians, progresso Foods originated as a New Orleans Italian-American business. The business established by the Vaccaro brothers later became Standard Fruit, after they first arrived, Italian immigrants took low wage jobs. They worked on docks, in Macaroni factories, and in sugar plantations. Some went to the French Market to sell fruit, Italian workers became a significant presence in the French Market. In 1843 the Società Italiana di Mutua Beneficenza was established, the San Bartolomeo Society, established by immigrants from Ustica, was established in 1879. As of 2004 it is the oldest Italian-American society in New Orleans, Joseph Maselli, an ethnic Italian from New Orleans, founded the first pan-U. S. The American Italian Cultural Center honors and celebrates the areas Italian-American heritage, the AICC houses the American Italian Museum, with exhibits about the history and contributions of Italians-Americans to the region. The Piazza dItalia is a monument dedicated to the Italian-American community of New Orleans. On St. Josephs Day ethnic Sicilians in the New Orleans area establish altars, on that day marches organized by the Italian-American Marching Club occur. The club, which anyone of Italian origins, started in 1971. Italian Americans established the Krewe of Virgilians because they were unable to join other Krewes, in 1936 the krewes crowned their first queen, Marguerite Piazza, who worked in the New Orleans Metropolitan Opera. Italian-American features of New Orleans cuisine include the muffuletta and the tomato sauce-based red gravy, sam Butera Dukes of Dixieland Nick LaRocca Carlos Marcello Louis Prima Vaccaro brothers, who established Standard Fruit Joe & Sal Impastato Cosimo Matassa Maselli, Joseph and Dominic Candeloro. Rimanelli, Marco and Sheryl Lynn Postman, the 1891 New Orleans Lynchings and U. S. -Italian Relations, A Look Back
42.
Wayback Machine
–
The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
43.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
44.
AllMusic
–
AllMusic is an online music guide service website. It was launched in 1991 by All Media Guide which later became All Media Network, AllMusic was launched in 1991 by Michael Erlewine of All Media Guide. The aim was to discographic information on every artist whos made a record since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost and its first reference book was published the following year. When first released onto the Internet, AMG predated the World Wide Web and was first available as a Gopher site, the AMG consumer web properties AllMusic. com, AllMovie. com and AllGame. com were sold by Rovi in July 2013 to All Media Network, LLC. All Media Network, LLC. was formed by the founders of SideReel. com. The following are contributors to AllMusic, as of this date, All Media Network also produced the AllMusic guide series that includes the AllMusic Guide to Rock, the All Music Guide to Jazz and the All Music Guide to the Blues. Vladimir Bogdanov is the president of the series, in August 2007, PC Magazine included AllMusic in its Top 100 Classic Websites list. All Media Network AllGame AllMovie SideReel All Music Guide to the Blues All Music Guide to Jazz Stephen Thomas Erlewine Official website
45.
Emile Christian
–
Emile Joseph Christian was an early jazz trombonist, he also played cornet and string bass. He also wrote a number of tunes, including Meet Me At the Green Goose, Satanic Blues, Christian was born into a musical family in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans, most prominently his older brother Frank Christian was a noted cornetist and bandleader. Emile Christian played both cornet and trombone with the Papa Jack Laine bands and he went to Chicago, Illinois in late 1917 to play trombone with the Bert Kelly Jass Band. After a brief time in the Original Memphis Five, he returned to Europe, there, from 1924 into the 1930s, he played bass and trombone with various jazz bands in European cities including Berlin, Paris, Stockholm. In Paris he played with Tom Walthams Ad-Libs, in 1935 he played with Benny Peyton’s Jazz Kings in Switzerland. Christian played in both Black and White bands in Europe and India before returning to the United States after the outbreak of World War II. In the 1950s he moved back to New Orleans, where he played with the bands of Leon Prima, Santo Pecora, in 1957 he toured with the Louis Prima Band. He continued playing in New Orleans into 1969, in his later years mostly playing string bass and he died in New Orleans, aged 78. Emile Christian and His New Orleans Jazz Band,1958
