1.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
2.
Houston
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Houston is the most populous city in the state of Texas and the fourth-most populous city in the United States. With a census-estimated 2014 population of 2.239 million within an area of 667 square miles, it also is the largest city in the southern United States and the seat of Harris County. Located in Southeast Texas near the Gulf of Mexico, it is the city of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land. Houston was founded on August 28,1836, near the banks of Buffalo Bayou and incorporated as a city on June 5,1837. The city was named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had commanded, the burgeoning port and railroad industry, combined with oil discovery in 1901, has induced continual surges in the citys population. Houstons economy has an industrial base in energy, manufacturing, aeronautics. Leading in health care sectors and building equipment, Houston has more Fortune 500 headquarters within its city limits than any city except for New York City. The Port of Houston ranks first in the United States in international waterborne tonnage handled, the city has a population from various ethnic and religious backgrounds and a large and growing international community. Houston is the most diverse city in Texas and has described as the most diverse in the United States. It is home to cultural institutions and exhibits, which attract more than 7 million visitors a year to the Museum District. Houston has a visual and performing arts scene in the Theater District. In August 1836, two real estate entrepreneurs from New York, Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen, purchased 6,642 acres of land along Buffalo Bayou with the intent of founding a city. The Allen brothers decided to name the city after Sam Houston, the general at the Battle of San Jacinto. The great majority of slaves in Texas came with their owners from the slave states. Sizable numbers, however, came through the slave trade. New Orleans was the center of trade in the Deep South. Thousands of enslaved African Americans lived near the city before the Civil War, many of them near the city worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those in the city limits had domestic and artisan jobs. Houston was granted incorporation on June 5,1837, with James S. Holman becoming its first mayor, in the same year, Houston became the county seat of Harrisburg County and the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas
3.
Jean-Michel Jarre
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Jean-Michel Jarre is a French composer, performer, and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient, and new-age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents, and trained on the piano. From an early age, he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including those of street performers, jazz musicians, and the artist Pierre Soulages. He played guitar in a band, but his style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer. His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène, recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 12 million copies. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events, as of 2004, Jarre had sold an estimated 80 million albums. He was the first Western musician officially invited to perform in the Peoples Republic of China, Jean-Michel Jarre was born in Lyon on 24 August 1948, to France Pejot, a French Resistance member and concentration camp survivor, and composer Maurice Jarre. When Jarre was five, his parents split up and his moved to America. He did not see his father again until reaching the age of 18, for the first eight years of his life, Jarre spent six months each year at his maternal grandparents flat on the Cours de Verdun, in the Perrache district of Lyon. Jarres grandfather was a player, engineer and inventor, designing an early audio mixer used at Radio Lyon. He also gave Jean-Michel his first record player, from his vantage point high above the pavement, the young French boy was able to watch street performers at work, an experience he later cited as proving influential on his art. Jarre struggled with classical studies, although he later changed teachers. A more general interest in musical instruments was sparked by his discovery at the Saint-Ouen flea market and these early jazz experiences suggested to him that music may be descriptive, without lyrics. He was also influenced by the work of French artist Pierre Soulages, Soulages paintings used multiple textured layers, and Jarre realised that for the first time in music, you could act as a painter with frequencies and sounds. I also saw the last concert by the great Arabic singer Om Khalsoum and she is the goddess, the Maria Callas of the Orient. Then I heard Georgia on My Mind by Ray Charles, and I realised that music can talk to your tummy, I was so impressed by the organic sensuality coming from Ray Charless music – there was no intellectual process and it was great. As a young man Jarre earned money by selling his paintings, exhibiting some of his works at the Lyon Gallery – LŒil écoute, and by playing in a band called Mystère IV
4.
Downtown Houston
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Downtown Houston is Houstons central business district, containing the headquarters of many prominent companies. There is a network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks connecting the buildings of the district. The tunnel system is home to restaurants, shops and services. What is now Downtown made up almost all of the City of Houston until expansions of the city limits in the early 20th century, Downtown Houston was the original founding point of the city. After the Texas Revolution, two New York real estate promoters, John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, purchased 6,642 acres of land from Thomas F. L, parrot and his wife, Elizabeth, for $9,428. The Allen brothers first landed in the area where the White Oak Bayou and Buffalo Bayou meet, gail Borden, Jr. a city planner, laid out wide streets for the town. The city was granted incorporation by the Texas legislature on June 5,1837, Houston was the temporary capital of Texas. In 1840, the town was divided into four wards, each with different functions in the community, by 1906 what is now Downtown was divided among six wards. The wards are no longer political divisions, but their names are used to refer to certain areas. Houston became a choice, as only the most powerful storms were able to reach the city. The second came a year later with the 1901 discovery of oil at spindletop, shipping and oil industries began flocking to east Texas, many settling in Houston. From that point forward the area grew substantially, as many skyscrapers were constructed, in the 1980s, however, economic recession canceled some projects and caused others to be scaled back, such as the Bank of the Southwest Tower. Ralph Bivins of the Houston Chronicle wrote that Fox said that area was a neighborhood of Victorian-era homes. Bivins said that the construction of Union Station, which occurred around 1910, hotels opened in the area to service travelers. Afterwards, according to Bivins, the area began a downward slide toward the skid row of the 1990s. Passenger trains stopped going to Union Station in 1974, the construction of Interstate 45 in the 1950s separated portions of the historic Third Ward from the rest of the Third Ward and brought those portions into Downtown. Beginning in the 1960s the development of the 610 Loop caused the focus of the Houston area to move away from Downtown Houston, in the mid-1980s, the bank savings and loan crisis forced many tenants in Downtown Houston buildings to retrench, and some tenants went out of business. Barna said that this development further caused Downtown Houston to decline, the Gulf Hotel fire occurred in 1943
5.
Rendez-Vous (Jean-Michel Jarre album)
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Rendez-vous is the eighth studio album by electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre released on Disques Dreyfus, licensed to Polydor, in April 1986. It sold some three million worldwide and remains Jarres longest-running chart album in both the U. S. and UK, with a 20-week run in the U. S. The album art of the album was created by long-time collaborator Michel Granger, the track was dedicated to McNair and the other astronauts on board Challenger. On the album the saxophone part is played by saxophonist Pierre Gossez, the album reached #9 in the UK charts and #52 in the U. S. charts. The album was nominated for Grammy Award for Best New Age Album in 1987, in April 1986, Jarre performed the large-scale outdoor concert Rendez-vous Houston in Houston, Texas, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of Texas. The show attracted a then-world-record live audience of 1.3 million people, the concert was originally to have included a video projection of Ron McNairs performance, recorded in space. Jean-Michel returned to the stage in October for another concert, the Rendez-Vous Lyon, early editions of the album from 1986 had the tracks for Second and Fifth Rendez-Vous split up into separate parts, and slightly different timings for Fourth and Last Rendez-Vous
6.
Guinness World Records
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The book itself holds a world record, as the best-selling copyrighted book of all time. As of the 2017 edition, it is now in its 63rd year of publication, the international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. On 10 November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the director of the Guinness Breweries, went on a shooting party in the North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford. After missing a shot at a golden plover, he involved in an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe. That evening at Castlebridge House, he realised that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europes fastest game bird. Beaver knew that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in pubs throughout Ireland and abroad and he realised then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove successful. Beavers idea became reality when Guinness employee Christopher Chataway recommended University friends Norris and Ross McWhirter, the twin brothers were commissioned to compile what became The Guinness Book of Records in August 1954. A thousand copies were printed and given away, after the founding of The Guinness Book of Records at 107 Fleet Street, the first 198-page edition was bound on 27 August 1955 and went to the top of the British best seller lists by Christmas. The following year, it launched in the US, and sold 70,000 copies, since then, Guinness World Records has become a household name and the global leader in world records. Because the book became a hit, many further editions were printed, eventually settling into a pattern of one revision a year, published in September/October. The McWhirters continued to compile it for many years, Ross McWhirter was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1975. Following Ross assassination, the feature in the show where questions about records posed by children were answered was called Norris on the Spot, Guinness Superlatives Limited was formed in 1954 to publish the first book. Sterling Publishing owned the rights to the Guinness book in the US for decades, and, under their management, the group was owned by Guinness PLC and subsequently Diageo until 2001, when it was purchased by Gullane Entertainment. Gullane was itself purchased by HIT Entertainment in 2002, with offices in New York City and Tokyo, Guinness World Records global headquarters remain in London, while its museum attractions are based at Ripley headquarters in Orlando, Florida, US. Recent editions have focused on record feats by person competitors, many records also relate to the youngest person who achieved something, such as the youngest person to visit all nations of the world, being Maurizio Giuliano. Each edition contains a selection of the records from the Guinness database, as well as new records. The majority of records are no longer listed in the book or on the website. For those unable to wait the 4–6 weeks for a reply, the Guinness Book of Records is the worlds most sold copyrighted book, earning it an entry within its own pages
7.
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
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The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11,39 EST. Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its solid rocket booster failed at liftoff. The O-ring was not designed to fly under unusually cold conditions as in this launch and this led to the separation of the right-hand SRBs aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter, the crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown, the shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable. The Rogers Commission found NASAs organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident, NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton Thiokols design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. Approximately 17 percent of Americans witnessed the launch live because of the presence of Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe, media coverage of the accident was extensive, one study reported that 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident. The Challenger disaster has been used as a study in many discussions of engineering safety. Each of the Space Shuttles two Solid Rocket Boosters was constructed of seven sections, six of which were joined in pairs at the factory. For each flight, the four resulting segments were then assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, the factory joints were sealed with asbestos-silica insulation applied over the joint, while each field joint was sealed with two rubber O-rings. During the Space Shuttle design process, a McDonnell Douglas report in September 1971 discussed the safety record of solid rockets, while a safe abort was possible after most types of failures, one was especially dangerous, a burnthrough by hot gases of the rockets casing. The report stated that if burnthrough occurs adjacent to tank or orbiter, timely sensing may not be feasible and abort not possible, Morton Thiokol was the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttles SRBs. This phenomenon, known as joint rotation, caused a drop in air pressure. This made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings, in the event of widespread erosion, a flame path could develop, causing the joint to burst—which would have destroyed the booster and the shuttle. Evidence of serious O-ring erosion was present as early as the space shuttle mission, STS-2. Contrary to NASA regulations, the Marshall Center did not report this problem to senior management at NASA, by 1985, Marshall and Thiokol realized that they had a potentially catastrophic problem on their hands. They began the process of redesigning the joint with three inches of steel around the tang. This tang would grip the inner face of the joint and prevent it from rotating and they did not call for a halt to shuttle flights until the joints could be redesigned, but rather treated the problem as an acceptable flight risk
8.
Ronald McNair
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Ronald Erwin McNair was an American physicist and NASA astronaut. McNair died during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L and he is survived by his wife Cheryl and two children. Born October 21,1950, in Lake City, South Carolina, his parents were Pearl M. and he had two brothers, Carl S. and Eric A. McNair. In the summer of 1959, he refused to leave the segregated Lake City Public Library without being allowed to check out his books, after the police and his mother were called, he was allowed to borrow books from the library, which is now named after him. A childrens book, Rons Big Mission, offers an account of this event. McNair graduated as valedictorian of Carver High School in 1967, in 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics, magna cum laude, from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. McNair was a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and he received three honorary doctorates, a score of fellowships and commendations and achieved a black belt in karate. After graduation from MIT, he became a staff physicist at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, McNair was a member of the Baháí Faith. In 1978, McNair was selected as one of applicants from a pool of ten thousand for the NASA astronaut program. He flew on STS-41-B aboard Challenger from 3–11 February 1984, as a mission specialist becoming the second African American, before his last fateful space mission he had worked with the composer Jean Michel Jarre on a piece of music for Jarres then-upcoming album Rendez-Vous. It was intended that he would record his solo on board the Challenger. However, the recording was never made as the flight ended in disaster, the last of the Rendez-Vous pieces, had the additional name Rons Piece. Ron McNair was supposed to take part in the concert through a live feed, McNair was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004, along with all crew members lost in the Challenger and Columbia accidents. A variety of places, people and programs have been renamed in honor of McNair. The crater McNair on the Moon is named in his honor, the McNair Building at MIT, his alma mater, houses the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. High was renamed the R. McNair Jr, Ronald McNair Boulevard in Lake City, South Carolina, is named in his honor and lies near other streets named for astronauts who perished in the Challenger crash. On January 29,2011, the Lake City, South Carolina, when Ronald McNair was nine, the police and his mother were called because he wished to check out books from this library, which served only white patrons before he arrived. He said, Ill wait, to the lady and sat on the counter until the police and his mother arrived, which the lady behind the counter reluctantly did
9.
Saxophone
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The saxophone is a family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet, the saxophone family was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1840. He patented the saxophone on June 28,1846, in two groups of seven instruments each, each series consisted of instruments of various sizes in alternating transposition. The series pitched in B♭ and E♭, designed for bands, have proved extremely popular. The saxophone is used in music, military bands, marching bands. The saxophone was developed in 1846 by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker, flautist, born in Dinant and originally based in Brussels, he moved to Paris in 1842 to establish his musical instrument business. Prior to his work on the saxophone, he had several improvements to the bass clarinet by improving its keywork and acoustics. Sax was also a maker of the ophicleide, a large conical brass instrument in the bass register with keys similar to a woodwind instrument. His experience with two instruments allowed him to develop the skills and technologies needed to make the first saxophones. As an outgrowth of his work improving the bass clarinet, Sax began developing an instrument with the projection of a brass instrument and he wanted it to overblow at the octave, unlike the clarinet, which rises in pitch by a twelfth when overblown. An instrument that overblows at the octave has identical fingering for both registers, Sax created an instrument with a single-reed mouthpiece like a clarinet, conical brass body like an ophicleide, and some acoustic properties of both the horn and the clarinet. Having constructed saxophones in several sizes in the early 1840s, Sax applied for, and received, the patent encompassed 14 versions of the fundamental design, split into two categories of seven instruments each, and ranging from sopranino to contrabass. Although the instruments transposed at either F or C have been considered orchestral, the C soprano saxophone was the only instrument to sound at concert pitch. Saxs patent expired in 1866, thereafter, numerous saxophonists and instrument manufacturers implemented their own improvements to the design, the first substantial modification was by a French manufacturer who extended the bell slightly and added an extra key to extend the range downwards by one semitone to B♭. It is suspected that Sax himself may have attempted this modification and this extension is now commonplace in almost all modern designs, along with other minor changes such as added keys for alternate fingerings. Using alternate fingerings allows a player to play faster and more easily, a player may also use alternate fingerings to bend the pitch. Some of the alternate fingerings are good for trilling, scales, a substantial advancement in saxophone keywork was the development of a method by which the left thumb operates both tone holes with a single octave key, which is now universal on modern saxophones. This enables a chromatic scale to be played two octaves simply by playing the diatonic scale combined with alternately raising and lowering this one digit
10.
Kirk Whalum
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Kirk Whalum is an American smooth jazz saxophonist and songwriter. He toured with Whitney Houston for more than seven years and soloed in her single I Will Always Love You, the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. He was also featured on many Luther Vandross albums, most often playing on the covers of older pop and R&B standards like Anyone Who Had a Heart, I. Whalum has recorded a series of well received albums and film soundtracks. Kirk’s musical accomplishments have brought him a total of 12 Grammy nominations and he won his first Grammy award in 2011 for Best Gospel Song alongside lifelong friend and gifted writer, Jerry Peters. Kirk Whalum was born in Memphis, Tennessee and he attended Melrose High School and Texas Southern University where he was a member of the World Famous Ocean of Soul Marching Band. He told John H. Johnsons magazine Ebony Man in a 1994 profile, The music I like to play and write encompasses the four elements I grew up with, Memphis R&B, gospel, rock, the emphasis, though, is on melody, period. In 1986, he performed at Jean Michel Jarres giant concerts Rendez-Vous Houston, Whalum has worked on a number of film scores, including those for The Prince of Tides, Boyz n the Hood, The Bodyguard, Grand Canyon, and Cousins. In 2005 Whalum recorded the Babyface Songbook with R&B icon Babyfaces best songs of the past 15 years, including Exhale, Ill Make Love to You, When Can I See You, Whalum also contributed to the 2008 documentary film Miss HIV. On June 20,2014, Whalum was the inaugural Jazz Legend honoree of the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee
