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Anita O'Day
Anita Belle Colton (October 18, 1919 – November 23, 2006), known professionally as Anita O'Day, was an American jazz singer and self proclaimed “song stylist” widely admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances that shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". Refusing to pander to any female stereotype, O'Day presented herself as a "hip" jazz musician, wearing a band jacket and skirt as opposed to an evening gown. She changed her surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough", slang for money. Early career Anita Belle Colton (who later took the surname "O'Day") was born to Irish parents, James and Gladys M. (née Gill) Colton in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, during the Great Depression. Colton took the first chance to leave her unhappy home when, at age 14, she became a contestant in the popular Walk-a-thons as a dancer. She toured with the Walk-a-thons circuits for two years, occasionally being ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas, with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about , making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out conce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Forrest
Helen Forrest (born Helen Fogel, April 12, 1917 – July 11, 1999) was an American singer of traditional pop and swing music. She served as the "girl singer" for three of the most popular big bands of the Swing Era (Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James), thereby earning a reputation as "the voice of the name bands." Childhood Forrest was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on April 12, 1917. Her parents, Louis and Rebecca Fogel, were Jewish. Her father died from influenza when Helen was an infant so she was raised by her mother, who often blamed her husband's death on Helen's birth. She believed God had taken her husband because she had wished so much for a baby girl. Helen had three older brothers: Harry, Ed, and Sam. In Helen's early teen years, the family relocated to Brooklyn. Her mother married a house painter, whom Helen disliked. Soon, Helen's mother and stepfather turned the family's home into a brothel. At 14, Helen was nearly raped by her stepfather; she defen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen O'Connell
Helen O'Connell (May 23, 1920 – September 9, 1993) was an American singer, actress, and hostess, described as "the quintessential big band singer of the 1940s". Early life Born in Lima, Ohio, O'Connell grew up in Toledo, Ohio. By the time she was 15, she and her older sister, Alice, were singing duets in clubs and hotels and on radio stations in Toledo. Career O'Connell launched her career as a big-band singer with Larry Funk and his Band of a Thousand Melodies. She was singing with Funk's band in Greenwich Village when Jimmy Dorsey's manager discovered her. O'Connell joined the Dorsey band in 1939 and achieved her best selling records in the early 1940s with " Green Eyes", " Amapola," "Tangerine" and " Yours". In each of these Latin-influenced numbers, Bob Eberly crooned the song which Helen then reprised in an up-tempo arrangement. O'Connell was selected by Down Beat readers as best female singer in 1940 and 1941 and won the 1940 ''Metronome'' magazine poll for best fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soundies
Soundies are three-minute American musical films, and each short displays a performance. The shorts were produced between 1940 and 1946 and have been referred to as "precursors to music videos" by UCLA. Soundies exhibited a variety of musical genres in an effort to draw a broad audience. The shorts were originally viewed in public places on "Panorams": coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines. Panorams were typically located in businesses like nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. Due to World War II, Soundies also featured patriotic messages and advertisements for war bonds. More adult shorts, such as burlesque and stripteases, were produced to appeal to soldiers on leave. Technology Produced professionally on 35 mm black-and-white film, like theatrical motion pictures, they were printed on the more portable and economical 16 mm film. The Panoram "movie jukebox" was manufactured by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Each Panoram housed a 16 mm RCA film projector, with ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DownBeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the " downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure. ''DownBeat'' publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers' and critics' poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue. Popular features of ''DownBeat'' magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Eldridge
David Roy Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed "Little Jazz", was an American jazz trumpeter. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from the dominant style of jazz trumpet innovator Louis Armstrong, and his strong impact on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most influential musicians of the swing era and a precursor of bebop. Biography Early life Eldridge was born on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 30, 1911, to parents Alexander, a wagon teamster, and Blanche, a gifted pianist with a talent for reproducing music by ear, a trait that Eldridge claimed to have inherited from her. Eldridge began playing the piano at the age of five; he claims to have been able to play coherent blues licks at even this young age. The young Eldridge looked up to his older brother, Joe Eldridge (born Joseph Eldridge, 1908, North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irene Daye
Irene Daye (January 17, 1918, Lawrence, Massachusetts – November 1, 1971, Greenville, South Carolina) was an American jazz singer. Daye began her career at age 17 by singing in Jan Murphy's big band while still in high school in 1935, continuing with Murphy through 1937. She then worked briefly with Mal Hallett before beginning work with Gene Krupa, with whose orchestra she sang from 1938 to 1941. Krupa and Daye recorded 63 titles together, with her biggest hit being "Drum Boogie", which was recorded in the last session she did with Krupa. After leaving Krupa, Daye retired from music at the age of 23, marrying Corky Cornelius. Anita O'Day took her spot in Krupa's orchestra. Daye had a daughter in 1943, but Cornelius (then in the Casa Loma Orchestra) died suddenly later that year, after which she returned to her singing career. Marriage and death From 1944 to 1950, she sang with Charlie Spivak, then married him in 1950 and retired from performance, working as her husband ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Krupa
Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973), known as Gene Krupa, was an American jazz drummer, bandleader and composer who performed with energy and showmanship. His drum solo on Benny Goodman's 1937 recording of "Sing, Sing, Sing" elevated the role of the drummer from an accompanist to an important solo voice in the band. In collaboration with the Slingerland drum and Zildjian cymbal manufacturers, he was a major force in defining the standard band drummer's kit. Krupa is considered "the founding father of the modern drumset" by ''Modern Drummer'' magazine. Early life The youngest of Anna (née Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa's nine children, Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland born in the village of Łęki Górne, southeastern Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, and was also of Polish descent. His parents were Roman Catholics who groomed him for the priesthood. He spent his grammar s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Miller (jazz Musician)
Edward Maxwell Miller (November 17, 1911 – November 13, 1985) was an American jazz pianist and vibraphone player. He had a forty year career that peaked in the 1940s and '50s. Many of his compositions use extended chord harmonies, polyphony, and polytonality and were influenced by Stravinsky, Bartók, and Hindemith. Early career Miller was born in East Chicago, Indiana. At an early age he learned banjo and played it in the high school band. At sixteen he joined the Musicians Union and began to play professionally. In 1927 he switched to guitar, performing mostly dixieland with bands in Indiana and Michigan. He moved to Chicago in the early 1930s and worked as a drummer and string bassist. At this time he started experimenting with the vibraphone. He worked with bands around Chicago, playing guitar, piano, and vibes, including with pianist Frank Melrose and drummer Dave Tough. He went on tour as a guitarist and vibraphonist for the Vincent Lopez Orchestra with Betty Hutton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Street (Chicago)
State Street is a large south-north street, also one of the main streets, in Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, United States, USA and its south suburbs. Its intersection with Madison Street (Chicago), Madison Street () has marked the base point for Streets and highways of Chicago, Chicago's address system since 1909. State begins in the north at Illinois Route 64, North Avenue, the south end of Lincoln Park, Chicago, Lincoln Park, runs south through the heart of the Chicago Loop, and ends at the southern city limits, intersecting 127th Street along the bank of the Little Calumet River. It resumes north of 137th Street in Riverdale, Illinois, Riverdale and runs south intermittently through Chicago's south suburbs until terminating at New Monee Road in Crete, Illinois. From north to south, State Street traverses the following community areas of Chicago: Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side to the Chicago River, Chicago Loop to Roosevelt Road, Near South Side, Chicago, Near S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
