Yiddish
Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture.
Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate bifurcated into two versions of the language and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish.
Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
King Oliver
Joseph Nathan Oliver better known as King Oliver or Joe Oliver, was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wrote many tunes still played today, including Dippermouth Blues, Sweet Like This, Canal Street Blues and he was the mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong. His influence was such that Armstrong claimed, if it had not been for Joe Oliver, joseph Nathan Oliver was born in Aben, near Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish, and moved to New Orleans in his youth. He first studied the trombone, changed to cornet, from 1908 to 1917 Oliver played cornet in New Orleans brass bands and dance bands, and in the citys red-light district. A band he co-led with trombonist Kid Ory was considered to be New Orleans hottest and best in the late 1910s. Oliver achieved great popularity in New Orleans across economic and racial lines and this, coupled with the closure of The District caused Oliver to leave the Jim Crow South.
He, his wife, and their daughter Ruby left New Orleans for Chicago, Oliver found musical work in Chicago with colleagues from New Orleans such as clarinetist Lawrence Duhé, bassist Bill Johnson, trombonist Roy Palmer, and drummer Paul Barbarin. He became leader of Duhés band, playing at a number of Chicago clubs, in the summer of 1921 he took a group to the West Coast, playing engagements in San Francisco and Oakland, California. In 1922 Oliver and his band returned to Chicago, where they began performing as King Oliver, in the mid-1920s Oliver, following the popular trend of the time, enlarged his band to nine musicians, and began performing more written arrangements with jazz solos. In 1927 the band went to New York, but Oliver disbanded the group to do freelance jobs and he reformed the band in 1928, continuing with modest success until the continuing downturn of the economy made it more and more difficult to find bookings. This, coupled with his ability to play as a result of suffering from periodontitis.
As a player, Oliver took great interest in altering his horns sound and he pioneered the use of mutes, including the rubber plumbers plunger, derby hat and cups. His favorite mute was a small mute made by the C. G. Conn Instrument Company. His recording Wa Wa Wa with the Dixie Syncopators can be credited with giving the name wah-wah to such techniques. Oliver was a composer, and wrote many tunes that are still regularly played, including Dippermouth Blues, Sweet Like This, Canal Street Blues. Oliver performed mostly on cornet, but like many cornetists he switched to trumpet in the late 1920s, one of his protégés, Louis Panico, authored a book entitled The Novelty Cornetist, which is illustrated with photos showing some of the mute techniques he learned from Oliver. As mentor to Armstrong in New Orleans, Oliver taught young Louis, a few years Oliver summoned him to Chicago to play with his band
Race record
Race records were 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s. They primarily contained race music, comprising various African-American musical genres, including blues and gospel music and these records were, at the time, the majority of commercial recordings of African-American artists in the US. Few African-American artists were marketed to white audiences, Race records were marketed by Okeh Records, Emerson Records, Vocalion Records, Victor Talking Machine Company, Paramount Records, and several other companies. Such records were labeled race records in reference to their marketing to African Americans, in the 16 October 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper, an advertisement for Okeh records identified Mamie Smith as Our Race Artist. Most of the recording companies issued race series of records from the mid-1920s to the 1940s. Billboard published a Race Records chart between 1945 and 1949, initially covering juke box plays and from 1948 covering sales and this was a revised version of the Harlem Hit Parade chart, which it had introduced in 1942.
In June 1949, at the suggestion of Billboard journalist Jerry Wexler, the magazine changed the name of the chart to Rhythm & Blues Records. Wexler wrote, Race was a term then, a self-referral used by blacks. On the other hand, Race Records didnt sit well. I came up with a handle I thought suited the music well – rhythm. A label more appropriate to more enlightened times, the chart has since undergone further name changes, becoming the Soul chart in August 1969, the Black chart in June 1982, the R&B chart in October 1990, and the R&B/Hip-Hop chart in December 1999. Race Music, Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop, Music of the African Diaspora,7. Berkeley and London, University of California Press, Illinois, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College. NPR, Mamie Smith and the Birth of the Blues Market St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Race music PBS, Race records NPR, Black and White, Crossing the Border, Closing the Gap
Parlophone
Parlophone Limited is a German-British record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the company was formed in 8 August 1923 as The Parlophone Co. Ltd. which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a jazz record label. In 5 October 1926, the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired Parlophones business, Columbia Graphophone merged with the Gramophone Company in 31 March 1931 to become Electric & Musical Industries Limited. George Martin joined EMI in 1950 as assistant label manager, taking over as manager in 1955, Martin produced and released a mix of product including comedy recordings of the Goons, the pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith. For a long time Parlophone claimed the best-selling UK single She Loves You, peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, both by The Beatles. The label achieved placement of seven singles at No.1 during 1964, Parlophone continued as a division of EMI until it was merged into the Gramophone Co. Ltd.
on 1 July 1965. On 1 July 1973, the Gramophone Co. Ltd. was renamed EMI Records Limited, on 28 September 2012, regulators officially approved Universal Music Group s planned acquisition of EMI, on condition that its EMI Records Ltd. group would be divested from the combined group. EMI Records Ltd. included Parlophone and other labels to be divested and were for a time operated in a single entity known as the Parlophone Label Group. Warner Music Group acquired Parlophone and PLG in 7 February 2013, making Parlophone their new third flagship label, alongside Warner Bros. Records, PLG was renamed as the Parlophone Records Limited group in May 2013. Parlophone is now the oldest of WMGs three flagship record labels, Parlophone was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The name Parlophon had been used for gramophones before the company began making records of their own. The labels ₤ trademark is a German L that stands for its original founder Lindström and it has coincidentally been said to resemble the British pound sign, which itself is derived from the letter L for the Ancient Roman unit of measurement Libra, which means pound in Latin.
During World War I, the Transoceanic Trading Company was set up in the Netherlands to look after its overseas assets, on 8 August 1923, the British branch of Parlophone was established, led by artists and repertoire manager Oscar Preuss. Parlophone established a leasing arrangement with the co-owned United States-based record label Okeh Records. The CLPGS has published a list of Parlophone titles issued between the years of 1923 and 1956, in 1927, the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired a controlling interest in the Carl Lindström Company and in Parlophone. In 31 March 1931, Columbia Graphophone merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd, under EMI, Parlophone initially maintained its status as a jazz label. In about 1929 or 1930, the Rhythm Style Series started, besides the Okeh recordings, Parlophone issued recordings from Columbia Records and Brunswick Records, as well as a few sessions produced at Decca Records. As time went on, the label released speciality recordings of word and comedy recordings, including the comedy recordings of the Goons and Flanders
Larry Williams
Lawrence Eugene Larry Williams was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana. John Lennon was a fan, and The Beatles and several other British Invasion groups covered several of his songs, Williams life mixed tremendous success with violence and drug addiction. He was a friend of Little Richard. Williams learned how to play piano at a young age, the family moved to Oakland, California when he was a teen, and there he joined the Lemon Drops, a R&B group. Williams returned to New Orleans in 1954 and began working for his cousin, singer Lloyd Price, as a valet and played in the bands of Price, Roy Brown, and Percy Mayfield. In 1955, Williams met and developed a friendship with Little Richard and Penniman were both recording for Specialty Records. Williams was introduced to Specialtys house producer, Robert Blackwell, and was signed to record, in 1957, Little Richard was Specialtys biggest star, but bolted from rock and roll to pursue the ministry.
Williams was quickly groomed by Blackwell to try to replicate his success, using the same raw, shouting vocals and piano-driven intensity, Williams scored with a number of hit singles. Dizzy Miss Lizzy charted at #69 on Billboard the following year, both Short Fat Fannie and Bony Moronie sold over one million copies, gaining gold discs. Several of his songs achieved success as revivals, by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. After 1957 Williams did not have much success selling records and he was convicted of dealing narcotics in 1960 and served a three-year jail term, setting back his career considerably. Williams made a comeback in the mid-1960s with a soul band that included Johnny Guitar Watson. He acted as the director for the Little Richards live performances at the Okeh Club. Bookings for Little Richard during this period skyrocketed, Williams recorded and released material of his own and with Watson, with some moderate chart success. This period may have garnered few hits but produced some of his best and most original work, Williams began acting in the 1960s, appearing on film in Just for the Hell of It, The Klansman, and Drum.
In the 1970s, there was a brief dalliance with disco, by the middle of the decade, the drug abuse and violence were taking their toll. In 1977, Williams pulled a gun on and threatened to kill his friend, Little Richard. They were both living in Los Angeles and addicted to cocaine and heroin, Little Richard had bought drugs from Williams, arranged to pay him later, but did not show up because he was high
Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um
Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um is a song, written by Curtis Mayfield. The first recording to be released was by Major Lance, as a single in December 1963, produced by Okeh label president Carl Davis. The song was Major Lances third release to make the Billboard Hot 100, in the UK it reached #40, Lances only UK chart appearance. The song would become a major UK hit in the autumn of 1964 via a rendition by Wayne Fontana, a French rendering entitled Hum, hum had been recorded by Frank Alamo and charted in France in early 1965 with a chart peak of #6. In the mid-1970s Major Lance remade Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um as a track, recorded in the UK. In Canada, Rivers reached number 33 with the song
Billy Murray (singer)
William Thomas Billy Murray was one of the most popular singers in the United States in the early decades of the 20th century. While he received star billing in Vaudeville, he was best known for his work in the recording studio. Billy Murray was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Patrick and Julia Murray, immigrants from County Kerry and his parents moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1882, where he grew up. He became fascinated with the theater and joined a vaudeville troupe in 1893. He performed in minstrel shows early in his career, in 1897 Murray made his first recordings for Peter Bacigalupi, the owner of a phonograph company in San Francisco. As of 2010 none of Murrays Bacigalupi cylinder records are known to have survived, in 1903 he started recording regularly in the New York City and New Jersey area, when the nations major record companies as well as the Tin Pan Alley music industry were concentrated there. In 1906 he recorded the first of his duets with Ada Jones. He performed with Aileen Stanley, the Haydn Quartet, the American Quartet, nicknamed The Denver Nightingale, Murray had a strong tenor voice with excellent enunciation and a more conversational delivery than common with bel canto singers of the era.
On comic songs he often deliberately sang slightly flat, which he helped the comic effect. Although he often performed romantic numbers and ballads which sold well, his comedy, Murray was a devoted baseball fan, and he is said to have played with the New York Highlanders in exhibition games. He supposedly sometimes called in sick to recording sessions in order to go to the ballpark, Murrays popularity faded as public taste changed and recording technology advanced, the rise of the electric microphone in the mid-1920s coincided with the era of the crooners. His hammering style, as he called it, essentially yelling the song into a recording horn, did not work in the electrical era. Though his singing style was less in demand, he continued to recording work. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the music from his days was considered nostalgic. He did voices for animated cartoons, especially the popular follow the bouncing ball sing-along cartoons, in 1929, Murray and Walter Scanlon provided the voices for the Fleischer short animation film Finding His Voice, produced by Western Electric.
Murray made his last recordings for Beacon Records on February 11,1943 with Jewish dialect comedian Monroe Silver and he retired the next year to Freeport, Long Island, New York, because of heart problems. He died at nearby Jones Beach of an attack in 1954 at the age of 77. Murray had married three times, the first two ending in divorce and he was survived by his third wife, and is buried in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, New York
Clarence Williams (musician)
Clarence Williams was an American jazz pianist, promoter, theatrical producer, and publisher. Williams was born in Plaquemine, ran away home at age 12 to join Billy Kersands Traveling Minstrel Show. At first Williams worked shining shoes and doing odd jobs, by the early 1910s he was a well regarded local entertainer playing piano, and was composing new tunes by 1913. Williams started a publishing business with violinist/bandleader Armand J. Piron in 1915. Handy, set up an office in Chicago, settled in New York in the early 1920s. In 1921, he married singer and stage actress Eva Taylor. He was one of the primary pianists on scores of blues records recorded in New York during the 1920s and he supervised African-American recordings for the New York offices of Okeh phonograph company in the 1920s in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square. He recruited many of the artists who performed on that label and he recorded extensively, leading studio bands frequently for OKeh and occasionally other record labels.
He mostly used Clarence Williams Jazz Kings for his hot band sides and he produced and participated in early recordings by Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith, Virginia Liston, Irene Scruggs, his niece Katherine Henderson, and many others. King Oliver played cornet on a number of Williamss late 1920s recordings and he was the recording director for the short-lived QRS Records label in 1928. Most of his recordings were songs from his house, which explains why he recorded tunes like Baby Wont You Please Come Home, Close Fit Blues. Among his own compositions was Shout, Shout, which was recorded by him, in 1933, he signed to the Vocalion label and recorded quite a number of popular recordings, mostly featuring washboard percussion, through 1935. He recorded for Bluebird in 1937, and again in 1941, in 1943, Williams sold his extensive back-catalogue of tunes to Decca Records for $50,000 and retired, but bought a bargain used-goods store. Williams died in Queens, New York City, in 1965, on her death in 1977, his wife, Eva Taylor, was interred next to him.
Clarence Williams is the grandfather of actor Clarence Williams III and his daughter Joy Williams was a singer-actress under stage name Irene Williams. Clarence Williams was credited as the author of Hank Williams 1949 hit My Buckets Got a Hole in It, a song that was recorded by Louis Armstrong
Eddie Lang
For the blues singer, see Eddie Lang Eddie Lang was an American musician regarded as the father of jazz guitar. He displaced the banjo with the guitar and made it a worthy solo, Lang was born Salvatore Massaro in Philadelphia, the son of an Italian-American instrument maker. He learned violin at the age of seven, soon adding guitar, within a year he was playing all three professionally and in public. In the early 1920s he played with Vic DIpplito, Bert Estlow, Charlie Kerr, Bill Lustins Scranton Sirens, Lang used the pseudonym Blind Willie Dunn to hide his race when he played at venues with Johnson, a black blues musician. In 1929, Lang joined Paul Whitemans Orchestra, the following year he recorded the song Georgia on My Mind with Hoagy Carmichael, Joe Venuti, and Bix Beiderbecke. He became a regular in Bing Crosbys orchestra in 1932 and he appeared briefly in two movies, King of Jazz and The Big Broadcast. In 1933, at the age of thirty, Lang died following a tonsillectomy, Bing Crosby had urged Lang to have the operation so he could have speaking parts in Crosbys movies.
The cause of his death is uncertain, author James Sallis claims that Lang developed an embolism while under anesthetic and never regained consciousness. While most bands of the time had a player, Lang was skilled enough to make his acoustic guitar heard in the mix. He was so influential that, according to George Van Eps, banjo players had no choice, Van Eps said, Its very fair to call Eddie Lang the father of jazz guitar. Barney Kessel, Eddie Lang first elevated the guitar and made it artistic in jazz, les Paul, Eddie Lang was the first and had a very modern technique. Joe Pass, in a 1976 interview, stated that Lang was one of the three main guitar innovators, with Wes Montgomery and Django Reinhardt, Lang played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, influencing guitarists such as Django Reinhardt. In 1977, Langs recording of Singin the Blues with Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, library of Congress National Recording Registry. He was inducted into the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame and the Big Band, on October 23,2016, Philadelphias Mural Arts organization dedicated the mural, Eddie Lang, The Father of Jazz Guitar, by artist Jared Bader.
The mural stands by Langs childhood home and the James Campbell School that stood at 8th, the mural was championed by area guitarist Richard Barnes, who started Eddie Lang Day in Philadelphia in 2010, an annual charity event. Midnight Call Blues, Four String Joe, Goin Home, the Classic Columbia and Okeh Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Sessions. Notes by Mike Peters, Marty Grosz, Richard M. Sudhalter, seven Original Compositions for the Guitar by the Great Eddie Lang and Arranged for Plectrum Guitar Solos with Guitar Accompaniment. Photo of Lang with Bing Crosby
Eva Taylor
Eva Taylor was an American blues singer and stage actress. Born Irene Joy Gibbons in St. Louis, Missouri, on stage from the age of three, Taylor toured New Zealand and Europe before she was in her teens and she toured extensively with Josephine Gassman and Her Pickaninnies, a vaudeville act. She settled in New York City by 1920, there she established herself as a performer in Harlem nightspots. Within a year she wed Clarence Williams, a producer, the newlyweds worked together on radio and recordings. In 1922 Taylor made her first record for the African-American-owned Black Swan Records and she recorded dozens of blues and popular sides for Okeh and Columbia throughout the 1920s and 1930s. She adopted the stage name Eva Taylor, but she worked under her birth name in Irene Gibbons. She was part of the Charleston Chasers, the given to a few all-star studio ensembles who recorded between 1925 and 1930. In 1927, Taylor appeared on Broadway in Bottomland, a written and produced by her husband. In 1929 she had her own show on NBCs Cavalcade.
She worked for years on radio station WOR, in New York. Taylor stopped performing during the 1940s and she returned to performing in the mid-1960s, after her husbands death, and toured in Europe. Taylor died from cancer in 1977 in Mineola, New York and she was interred next to her husband, Clarence Williams, under the name Irene Joy Williams in Saint Charles Cemetery, in Farmingdale, New York. Their son, Clarence Williams, Jr. was the father of the actor Clarence Williams III and their daughter Joy Williams was a singer and actress, performing under the stage name Irene Williams
OK
OK is an English word denoting approval, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment. OK has frequently turned up as a loanword in other languages and has been described as the worlds most widely understood word. As an adjective, OK principally means adequate or acceptable as a contrast to bad and it fulfills a similar role as an adverb. As an interjection, it can denote compliance, or agreement and it can mean assent when it is used as a noun or, more colloquially, as a verb. OK, as an adjective, can express acknowledgment without approval, as a versatile discourse marker or back-channeling item, it can be used with appropriate voice tone to show doubt or to seek confirmation. Numerous explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, the following proposals have found mainstream recognition. He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents and he documented controversy surrounding OK and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself.
Many of the expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, oll wright, the general fad is speculated to have existed in spoken or informal written U. S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers, OKs original presentation as all correct was varied with spellings such as Oll Korrect or even Ole Kurreck. Vote for OK was snappier than using his Dutch name, in response, Whig opponents attributed OK, in the sense of Oll Korrect, to Andrew Jacksons bad spelling. The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been an event in OKs history. Read proposed an etymology of OK in Old Kinderhook in 1941, the evidence presented in that article was somewhat sparse, and the connection to Oll Korrect not fully elucidated. Various challenges to the etymology were presented, e. g. Heflins 1962 article, Reads landmark 1963–1964 papers silenced most of the skepticism. Reads etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is now offered without reservation in most dictionaries, Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations, Some believe that the Boston newspapers reference to OK may not be the earliest.
Some are attracted to the claim that it is of American-Indian origin, there is an Indian word, used as an affirmative reply to a question. Mr Read treated such doubting calmly, “Nothing is absolute, ” he once wrote, “nothing is forever. ”The folk singer Pete Seeger sang that OK was of Choctaw Indian origin, as the dictionaries of the time tended to agree. Three major American reference works cited the Choctaw etymology as the origin until as late as 1961
