1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
Herb Alpert
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Herb Alpert is an American musician most associated with the group variously known as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Herb Alperts Tijuana Brass, or TJB. Alpert is also an industry executive, the A of A&M Records. Alpert also has created abstract expressionist paintings and sculpture over two decades, which are displayed on occasion. Alpert and wife, Lani Hall, are substantial philanthropists through the operation of the Herb Alpert Foundation, Alperts musical accomplishments include five No.1 albums and 28 albums total on the Billboard Album chart, nine Grammy Awards, fourteen platinum albums, and fifteen gold albums. Alpert has sold 72 million records worldwide, Alpert is the only recording artist to hit No.1 on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart as both a vocalist, and an instrumentalist. Herb Alpert was born and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Eastside Los Angeles, California and his family was Jewish, and had come to the U. S. from Radomyshl and Romania. His father, although a tailor by trade, was also a mandolin player. His mother taught violin at a young age and his older brother David was a talented young drummer. Alpert himself began trumpet lessons at the age of eight and played at dances as a teenager, acquiring an early wire recorder in high school, he experimented on this crude equipment. After graduating from Fairfax High School in 1952, he joined the United States Army, after his service in the Army, Alpert tried his hand at acting, but eventually settled on pursuing a career in music. While attending the University of Southern California in the 1950s, he was a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band for two years, in 1956, he appeared in the uncredited role Drummer on Mt. Sinai in the film The Ten Commandments. In 1962, he had a part in a scene in the film Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation where he played in a dance band. In 1957 Alpert teamed up with Rob Weerts, another burgeoning lyricist, a number of songs written or co-written by Alpert during the following two years became Top 20 hits, including Baby Talk by Jan and Dean and Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. In 1960, Alpert began his career as a vocalist at Dot Records under the name of Dore Alpert. Tell It to the Birds was recorded as the first release on the Alpert & Moss label Carnival Records, when Alpert and Moss found that there was prior usage of the Carnival name, they renamed the label A&M Records. Alpert set up a recording studio in his garage and had been overdubbing a tune called Twinkle Star, written by Sol Lake. During a visit to Tijuana, Mexico, Alpert happened to hear a band while attending a bullfight. Alpert adapted the style to the tune, mixed in crowd cheers and other noises for ambience
3.
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
4.
Instrumental music
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An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics, or singing, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a Big Band setting. The music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments, if the instrumental section highlights the skill, musicality, and often the virtuosity of a particular performer, the section may be called a solo. If the instruments are percussion instruments, the interlude can be called a percussion interlude or percussion break and these interludes are a form of break in the song. One example of a genre in which both vocal/instrumental and solely instrumental songs are produced is blues, another example of a genre in popular culture is Hip Hop, Pop, and R&B. Many upcoming or rising artists in Hip Hop, Pop, and R&B will find an instrumental online on a website, like www. beatsbytoon. com, an instrumental version of a song which otherwise features vocals is also known as a -1. The opposite of instrumental music, that is, music for voices alone, without any accompaniment instruments, is a cappella, an Italian phrase that means in the chapel. In early music, instruments such as trumpet and drums were considered outdoor instruments, a capella music exists in both Classical music choir pieces and in popular music styles such as doo wop groups and Barbershop quartets. Some recordings which include brief examples of the voice are typically considered instrumentals. An ominous statement at the end Inclusion of field recordings which may or may not contain non-lyrical words, a few songs categorized as instrumentals may even include actual vocals, if they appear only as a short part of an extended piece. Falling just outside that definition is Theme From Shaft by Isaac Hayes. com with a sample of each
5.
A&M Records
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A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent label by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989. Today, A&Ms catalog releases are managed by Verve Records, Universal Music Enterprises, A&M Records was formed in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. Their first choice for a name was Carnival Records, under which they released two singles before discovering another label had already taken the Carnival name, the company was subsequently renamed A&M, after Alperts and Mosss initials. From 1966 to 1999, the headquarters were on the grounds of the historic Charlie Chaplin Studios at 1416 North La Brea Avenue. Marc Benno, Liza Minnelli, Rita Coolidge, Wes Montgomery, Paul Desmond, Bobby Tench, Hummingbird, Toni Basil, folk artists Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Gene Clark also recorded for the label during the 1970s. Billy Preston joined the label in 1971, followed by Andre Popp, in the 1970s, under its manufacturing and distribution agreement with Ode Records, A&M released albums by Carole King and the comedy duo Cheech & Chong. On March 10,1977, A&M signed the Sex Pistols after the band had dropped by EMI. However, A&M dropped the band within a week, within a decade of its inception, A&M became the worlds largest independent record company. A&M releases were issued in the United Kingdom by EMIs Stateside Records label. From 1969, A&M set up their own UK base appointing John Deacon as General Manager - a post he held until 1979, A&M releases were also issued in Australia through Festival Records until 1989. A&M Records Ltd. was established in 1970, with distribution handled by other labels with a presence in Europe, A&M Records of Canada Ltd. was also formed in 1970, and A&M Records of Europe in 1977. In 1979, A&M entered an agreement with RCA Records in the USA. A&M was bought by PolyGram in 1989, Alpert and Moss continued to manage the label until 1993. In 1998, Alpert and Moss sued PolyGram for breach of the integrity clause, in 1991, A&M launched Perspective Records as a joint venture with producing team Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Jam and Lewis stepped down as CEOs of the imprint in 1997, in 1999, the label was absorbed into A&M. In the mid-1990s, A&M began distributing its PolyGram sister label Polydor Records in the USA, ceCe Peniston, Intelligent Hoodlum, Dred Scott, Ridel High and the Gin Blossoms. The company released the soundtracks Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, The Three Musketeers, Sabrina, The Living Sea, Demolition Man, and Lethal Weapon 3
6.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
