1.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
2.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
3.
Count Basie
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William James Count Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens, dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16 years old, he played jazz piano at parties, resorts. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his career expanded, he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis. In 1929 he joined Bennie Motens band in Kansas City, in 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. William Basie was born to Harvey Lee and Lillian Basie in Red Bank and his father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his became an groundskeeper and handyman for several wealthy families in the area. Both of his parents had some type of musical background and his father played the mellophone, and his mother played the piano, in fact, she gave Basie his first piano lessons. She took in laundry and baked cakes for sale for a living and she paid 25 cents a lesson for piano instruction for him. Not much of a student in school, Basie dreamed of a traveling life and he finished junior high school but spent much of his time at the Palace Theater in Red Bank, where doing occasional chores gained him free admission to performances. He quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to the acts and the silent movies, though a natural at the piano, Basie preferred drums. Discouraged by the talents of Sonny Greer, who also lived in Red Bank and became Duke Ellingtons drummer in 1919. Greer and Basie played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career, by then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, including Harry Richardsons Kings of Syncopation. When not playing a gig, he hung out at the pool hall with other musicians. He got some jobs in Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore, around 1920, Basie went to Harlem, a hotbed of jazz, where he lived down the block from the Alhambra Theater. Early after his arrival, he bumped into Sonny Greer, who was by then the drummer for the Washingtonians, soon, Basie met many of the Harlem musicians who were making the scene, including Willie the Lion Smith and James P. Johnson. His touring took him to Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, throughout his tours, Basie met many jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong. Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers and this provided an early training that was to prove significant in his later career
4.
Big band
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A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big Bands evolved with the times and continue to this day, a big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra and this does not, however, mean that each one of these names is technically correct for naming a big band specifically. The music is traditionally called charts, improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger. There are two periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then consisting of 10–25 pieces. At that time they played a form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins. A few bands also had violas and cellos, usually one or two along with them, the dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung, many of these artists changed styles or retired after the introduction of swing music. Although unashamedly commercial, these bands often featured front-rank jazz musicians - for example Paul Whiteman employed Bix Beiderbecke, there were also all-girl bands such as Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators. Towards the end of the 1920s, a new form of Big Band emerged which was more authentically jazz and this form of music never gained the popularity of the sweet dance form of jazz. The few recordings made in form of jazz were labelled race records and were intended for a limited urban audience. Few white musicians were familiar with music, Johnny Mercer. The three major centres in this development were New York City, Chicago and Kansas City, some big ensembles, like the Joe King Oliver outfit played a kind of half arranged, half improvised jazz, often relying on head arrangements. Other great bands, like the one of Luis Russell became a vehicle for star instrumentalists, there the whole arrangement had to promote all the possibilities of the star, although they often contained very good musicians, like Henry Red Allen, J. C. Earl Hines became the star of Chicago with his Grand Terrace Cafe band, meanwhile, in Kansas City and across the Southwest, an earthier, bluesier style was developed by such bandleaders as Benny Moten and, later, by Jay McShann and Jesse Stone. Radio was a factor in gaining notice and fame for Benny Goodman. Soon, others challenged him, and the battles of the bands became a staple at theater performances featuring many groups on one bill
5.
American Broadcasting Company
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The network is headquartered on Columbus Avenue and West 66th Street in Manhattan, New York City. There are additional offices and production facilities elsewhere in New York City, as well as in Los Angeles and Burbank. Since 2007, when ABC Radio was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC originally launched on October 12,1943, as a radio network, separated from and serving as the successor to the NBC Blue Network, which had been purchased by Edward J. Noble. It extended its operations to television in 1948, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks CBS, in the mid-1950s, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres, a chain of movie theaters that formerly operated as a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Leonard Goldenson, who had been the head of UPT, made the new television network profitable by helping develop, in 1996, most of Capital Cities/ABCs assets were purchased by The Walt Disney Company. The television network has eight owned-and-operated and over 232 affiliated television stations throughout the United States, most Canadians have access to at least one U. S. ABC News provides news and features content for radio stations owned by Citadel Broadcasting. In the 1930s, radio in the United States was dominated by three companies, the Columbia Broadcasting System, the Mutual Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company. The last was owned by electronics manufacturer Radio Corporation of America, in 1938, the FCC began a series of investigations into the practices of radio networks and published its report on the broadcasting of network radio programs in 1940. The report recommended that RCA give up control of either NBC Red or NBC Blue, at that time, the NBC Red Network was the principal radio network in the United States and, according to the FCC, RCA was using NBC Blue to eliminate any hint of competition. Once Mutuals appeals against the FCC were rejected, RCA decided to sell NBC Blue in 1941, the newly separated NBC Red and NBC Blue divided their respective corporate assets. Investment firm Dillon, Read & Co. offered $7.5 million to purchase the network, Edward John Noble, the owner of Life Savers candy, drugstore chain Rexall and New York City radio station WMCA, purchased the network for $8 million. Due to FCC ownership rules, the transaction, which was to include the purchase of three RCA stations by Noble, would require him to resell his station with the FCCs approval, the Commission authorized the transaction on October 12,1943. Soon afterward, the Blue Network was purchased by the new company Noble founded, Noble subsequently acquired the rights to the American Broadcasting Company name from George B. Meanwhile, in August 1944, the West Coast division of the Blue Network, both stations were then managed by Don Searle, the vice-president of the Blue Networks West Coast division. The ABC Radio Network created its audience slowly, the network also became known for such suspenseful dramas as Sherlock Holmes, Gang Busters and Counterspy, as well as several mid-afternoon youth-oriented programs. S. From Nazi Germany after its conquest, to pre-record its programming, while its radio network was undergoing reconstruction, ABC found it difficult to avoid falling behind on the new medium of television. To ensure a space, in 1947, ABC submitted five applications for television station licenses, the ABC television network made its debut on April 19,1948, with WFIL-TV in Philadelphia becoming its first primary affiliate
6.
United States Air Force Band
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The United States Air Force Band is a U. S. military band consisting of 177 active-duty members of the United States Air Force. It is the Air Forces premier musical organization and is based at Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, within the band there are six performing ensembles, The Concert Band, Singing Sergeants, Airmen of Note, Air Force Strings, Ceremonial Brass, Max Impact. Collectively, these groups perform a wide spectrum of styles, including classical, jazz, popular, patriotic. The Band is part of the United States Air Force Bands Program, the United States Air Force Band is the youngest of the military bands based in Washington, D. C. Its military life began on 24 September 1941, with the formation of the Bolling Army Air Forces Band under the sponsorship of Lieutenant L. P, holcomb, commanding officer of the Air Base Group at Bolling Field. Alf Heiberg served as the Bands first commander and led the group from 1941 to 1944, the first ensemble consisted only of four players, but by the end of 1942 expanded to a total of 100 musicians. The group began to travel throughout the United States, performing at fairs, to identify band members in uniform, Heiberg designed a cap emblem using the pilots wings with a superimposed musical lyre. This symbol has remained the emblem of The United States Air Force Band throughout its history, in 1944, George S. Howard was named Commander and Conductor, a position he held for 20 years. Late in 1944, he took the Band on its first international tour and this was the first tour for The Army Air Forces Band that included sites outside continental North America. Following World War II, all but five of the members left for civilian life. However, because of the success during the war, Howard was asked to remain in command of the Band and was charged with reorganizing it to serve in peacetime functions. He immediately embarked on a program to return the group to its original size. The Symphony Orchestra was instituted during this reorganization and was the first group of its kind in any military band organization, the Symphony Orchestra ultimately supplied players not only for the Strolling Strings but for the Concert Band, which, under Howards direction, included cellists. The Band truly became The United States Air Force Band in 1947 when the Army Air Forces were officially designated as the United States Air Force, all units of the organization assumed the official Air Force title. In January 1951, Howard organized the 543rd Air Force Band made up of 19 female airmen from the Women in the Air Force program. Their official mission became to assist, within their capabilities, in promoting Air Force objectives and enhancing the prestige of the Air Force and this meant there were now two bands serving as ambassadors of the USAF, the all-male Air Force Band and the all-female WAF Band. The WAF Band was dissolved in 1961 following its commanders contravention of a directive from Howard restricting performances at civilian schools and county fairs. Over the years, The United States Air Force Band has performed live for over 100 million people and has been broadcast via television and it has embarked on 25 international concert tours, with performances in more than 50 countries and 42 world capitals
7.
United States Marine Band
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The United States Marine Band is the premier band of the United States Marine Corps. Established by act of Congress on July 11,1798, it is the oldest of the United States military bands, today, the Marine Band also includes the Marine Chamber Orchestra and Marine Chamber Ensembles. The Marine Band is entirely separate from its military band, the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. The Marine Band has been known as The Presidents Own since 1801 because of its historic connection to the President of the United States. The relationship between the Marine Band and the White House began on New Years Day 1801, when President John Adams invited the band to perform at the Executive Mansion. Later that year, Thomas Jefferson initiated the tradition of Marine Band performances by requesting that it perform at his inauguration, the Marine Band has played at every United States presidential inauguration since. President Thomas Jefferson gave the title The Presidents Own in 1801, today, the Marine Band performs in approximately 500 events every year including state funerals, state arrival ceremonies, state dinners, parades, concerts, and other social events. The Marine Band also travels across the country each October and November during its concert tour. The Marine Band recruits experienced musicians, members are selected through a rigorous procedure and must satisfy additional security. Selected band members serve under a contract as active duty enlisted Marines and are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They are the members of the United States Armed Forces not required to undergo recruit training. Also, they are not assigned to any other than the Marine Band. The band members start at the rank of Staff Sergeant, as of 2010, the USMC spends about $10 million annually to support the band. The full band has a complement of about 130 members, a 42-piece Marine Band is used for all Pentagon and formal military arrivals and patriotic openers for large events. Patriotic openers are 15 minutes of music, including the presentation and retirement of the colors, the The Star-Spangled Banner. Patriotic openers are performed throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area at a variety of events for organizations, federal agencies. Events that the Marine Band participates in include, United States presidential inaugurations, the Marine Band has participated in every presidential inauguration since Thomas Jeffersons in 1801. The Marine Band is positioned at the United States Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony, the band also performs for celebrations following the official ceremony and parade
8.
Gene Krupa
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Eugene Bertram Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer, band leader, actor, and composer. Known for his energetic, flamboyant style and for his showmanship, Krupa is considered one of the most influential drummers of all time. He is also known for defining the standard drum kit used today in collaboration with brands Slingerland, Krupa is considered the founding father of modern drumset by Modern Drummer magazine. Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna, Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, also of Polish descent and his parents were very religious Roman Catholics and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his school days at various parochial schools. Upon graduation he attended Saint Josephs College for a year, Krupa studied with Sanford A. Moeller and began playing drums professionally in the mid-1920s with bands in Wisconsin. The Playboys were the band at The Golden Pumpkin nightclub in Chicago. Krupa made his first recordings in 1927, with a band under the leadership of Red McKenzie, along with other recordings by musicians from the Chicago jazz scene such as Bix Beiderbecke, these recordings are examples of Chicago style jazz. The numbers recorded at that session were China Boy, Sugar, Nobodys Sweetheart, the McKenzie-Condon recordings are notable for being early examples of the use of a bass drum and snare drum/cymbals on recordings, at least for the studio where these recordings were made. Some of Krupas big influences during this time were Father Ildefonse Rapp, later, there were cylinder recordings of African drumming that Gene intensely studied. Drummers such as Tubby Hall, Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds contributed to Genes developing his own sound, Gene absorbed every bit of what he heard and formulated his own style very early in his career, pulling from hundreds of different sources. There were many other drummers whose work influenced Genes approach to drumming and other instrumentalists, Krupa also appeared on six recordings made by the Thelma Terry band in 1928. In December 1934, he joined Benny Goodmans band, where his featured drum work made him a national celebrity and his tom-tom interludes on their hit Sing, Sing, Sing were the first extended drum solos to be recorded commercially. However, artistic and personal disputes with Goodman prompted Krupa to leave the group and form his own orchestra, shortly after the famous Carnegie Hall concert in January 1938. He appeared in the 1941 film Ball of Fire, in which he and his band perform a version of the hit Drum Boogie, sung by Barbara Stanwyck. As an encore to this piece, he plays a version of the same song using matchsticks as drumsticks and a matchbox as a drum, while Stanwyck. In 1943, his arrest for possession of marijuana forced the breakup of his own orchestra, as the 1940s ended, large orchestras fell by the wayside, Count Basie closed his large band and Woody Herman reduced his to an octet
9.
University of Georgia
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Its primary location is a 762-acre campus adjacent to the college town of Athens, Georgia, approximately an hours drive from the global city of Atlanta. The university has been labeled one of the Public Ivies, a publicly funded university considered to provide a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League. The university was founded in 1785 as the United States first state-chartered university and its historic North Campus is on the U. S. National Register of Historic Places as a designated historic district. The contiguous campus areas include rolling hills, gardens, and extensive green space including nature walks, fields, shrubbery, and large and varied arboreta. Close to the campus is the universitys 58-acre Health Sciences Campus that also has an extensive landscaped green space, more than 400 trees. The university offers over 140 degree programs in an array of disciplines. Consisting of thirteen separate libraries, the UGA Libraries rank among the nation’s largest and best research libraries containing 5.7 million volumes, the University of Georgia is one of 126 member institutions that comprise the Association of Research Libraries. The university is organized into seventeen schools and colleges, the university has three primary campuses. The largest one is the campus in Athens that has 460 buildings. The university has two campuses located in Atlanta and Lawrenceville, Georgia. The university operates several service and outreach stations spread across the state, the total acreage of the university in 30 Georgia counties is 41,539 acres. Varsity and intramural student athletics are a part of student life. UGA served as a member of the SEC in 1932. In their 121-year history, the varsity sports teams have won 39 national championships and 130 conference championships. The Georgia Redcoat Marching Band, the marching band of the university, plays at sports. The Senatus Academicus was composed of the Board of Visitors and the Board of Trustees with the Georgia Senate presiding over those two boards, the first meeting of the universitys board of trustees was held in Augusta, Georgia on February 13,1786. The meeting installed its first president, Abraham Baldwin, a native of Connecticut, Baldwin was a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and one of two Georgia delegates to sign the final document. Many features on the University of Georgia campus resemble the campus of Yale, on July 2,1799, the Senatus Academicus met again in Louisville, Georgia and decided that the time was right to open the university
10.
Los Angeles Pierce College
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The college began with 70 students and 18 faculty members on September 15,1947. Originally known as the Clarence W. Pierce School of Agriculture, nine years later, in 1956, the school was renamed to Los Angeles Pierce Junior College, retaining the name of its founder, Dr. Pierce, as well as his commitment to agricultural and veterinary study. Pierce College offers courses on more than 100 subjects in 92 academic disciplines, Students at the school successfully transfer to UC and CSU schools. Students can pursue any of the 44 associate’s degrees or 78 Certificates of Achievement the school offers directly, Pierce College comprises 426 acres amidst a dense metropolis, an area larger than many university campuses, including that of UCLA. The grounds are landscaped with more than 2,200 trees, thousands of roses, the Pierce College farm houses small herds of cattle, sheep, goats, a small poultry flock, as well as a llama and an alpaca for its students to learn from. The Associated Students Organization is the official Student Government of the 23,000 students at Los Angeles Pierce College and it has been in existence since the mid-1950s and has two branches, Senate and Club Council. Club Council is the organization that addresses and improves student life through the actions of the numerous clubs on campus. The Senate is the student government that conducts their meetings in accordance to the Brown Act. ASO is governed under the LACCD Academic Senate policy, Senators are voting members, which have the ability to vote on certain actions taken at Pierce to improve life for the student. Under the actions of shared governance, ASO Senators sit on committees in school including the Diversity. Besides hosting the Brahmas football and womens teams, John Shepard Stadium also has hosted many outdoor professional sporting events in San Fernando Valley history. From 1976 to 1979, the San Fernando Valleys first professional sports team, the Los Angeles Express of the USFL played their last home game here on June 15,1985. The stadium was expanded to 16, 000-person capacity for the game, Shepard Stadium hosts Nuts for Mutts, an annual dog show and pet fair that raises funds for the New Leash on Life Animal Rescue. The stadium is also the home stadium of the San Fernando Valley Quakes mens soccer team. Since the approval of Los Angeles County Propositions A and AA, other key improvements are increased parking, new infrastructure and roadways, and renovations to existing facilities. The 2-acre S. Mark Taper Foundation Life Science Botanic Garden and it features one of the finest collections of drought-resistant plants in the region. The college also has a retention pond beneath its soccer field. The Los Angeles River is nearby to the north, the campus is home to Old Trappers Lodge, California Historical Landmark No
