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Black, Brown And Beige (1946 Album)
''Black, Brown, and Beige'', subtitled ''A Duke Ellington Tone Parallel to the American Negro'', is a live album of phonograph records by Duke Ellington featuring the suite of the same name in live performance in 1943. Released under the ''Victor Showpiece'' designation, the album was the first release of the suite, which has primarily been perceived in retrospect as a botched attempt by Ellington to capture his feelings on race in the United States through music. Consequently, it has been studied as an interesting work highlighting Ellington's complex relationship with race relations. Background and reception Ellington's agency, William Morris, promoted the concert heavily, and articles appeared in ''Time'' magazine, '' Newsweek'' and '' The New York Times'' preceding the event. When performed at Carnegie Hall in January 1943, the suite opened to both positive and negative reviews – Some critics, whether approaching the piece from a Jazz or Classical music background, c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century, and had many notable editors-in-chief. The magazine was acquired by The Washington Post Company in 1961, and remained under its ownership until 2010. Revenue declines prompted The Washington Post Company to sell it, in August 2010, to the audio pioneer Sidney Harman for a purchase price of one dollar and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities. Later that year, ''Newsweek'' merged with the news and opinion website ''The Daily Beast'', forming The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. ''Newsweek'' was jointly owned by the estate of Harman and the diversified American media and Internet company IAC (company), IAC. ''Newsweek'' continued to experience financial difficulties, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Nance
Ray Willis Nance (December 10, 1913 – January 28, 1976) was an American jazz trumpeter, violinist and singer. He is best remembered for his long association with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. Early years Nance was the leader of his own band in Chicago from 1932 to 1937. Then, he worked with Earl Hines from 1937 to 1939; and from 1939 to 1940 he worked with Horace Henderson. Ellington tenure Ellington hired Nance to replace trumpeter Cootie Williams, who had joined Benny Goodman, in 1940. Nance's first recorded performance with Ellington was at the Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live, Fargo, North Dakota ballroom dance. Shortly after joining the band, Nance was given the trumpet solo on the earliest recorded version of "Take the "A" Train", which became the Ellington theme. Nance's "A Train" solo is one of the most copied and admired trumpet solos in jazz history. Indeed, when Cootie Williams returned to the band more than twenty years later, he would play Nance's sol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallace Jones (musician)
Wallace Leon Jones (November 16, 1906, Baltimore - March 23, 1983, New York City) was an American jazz trumpeter. Jones played in local Maryland bands such as Ike Dixon's Harmony Birds and Percy Glascoe's Kit Kat Orchestra early in his career. He moved to New York City around 1935, where he worked with Chick Webb, who was his cousin. He joined Willie Bryant's ensemble and recorded with Putney Dandridge and Duke Ellington, and the latter where he was credited on clarinet, trombone and trumpet. He was a trumpeter in Ellington's Orchestra from 1938 to 1944 and 3 of the tripled instrumentations happening in this timeframe, replacing Arthur Whetsel, and appeared in several sound films with them, including '' Cabin in the Sky'' (1943). After this association, he recorded with Ellington again in 1947, and also worked with Benny Carter, Snub Mosley, and John Kirby, but had left music by the end of the 1940s."Wallace Jones". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. 2nd edition, ed. Barry Ke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shorty Baker
Harold "Shorty" Baker (May 26, 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, US – November 8, 1966) was an American jazz trumpeter. Baker began on drums, but switched to trumpet during his teens. He started his career on riverboats and played with Don Redman in the mid-1930s. He also worked with Teddy Wilson and Andy Kirk before joining Duke Ellington. He married Kirk's pianist Mary Lou Williams and though the two separated shortly thereafter, they never officially divorced. Baker worked on and off in Duke Ellington's Orchestra from 1942 to 1962. He also worked with Johnny Hodges's group in the early 1950s, during the period when Hodges was not a member of Ellington's orchestra. He died of throat cancer in New York at the age of 52.Owsley, D. (2006). ''City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973''. United States: Reedy Press, p. 57 Discography As leader/co-leader *''The Broadway Beat'' (King, 1959) *'' The Bud Freeman All-Stars featuring Shorty Baker'' (Swingville, 1960) wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornet
The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a soprano cornet in E and cornets in A and C. All are unrelated to the Renaissance and early Baroque cornett. History The cornet was derived from the posthorn by applying rotary valves to it in the 1820s, in France. However, by the 1830s, Parisian makers were using piston valves. Cornets first appeared as separate instrumental parts in 19th-century French compositions.''Encyclopædia Britannica'', Micropedia, Volume III, William Benton, Chicago Illinois, 1974, p. 156 The instrument could not have been developed without the improvement of piston valves by Silesian horn players Friedrich Blühmel (or Blümel) and Heinrich Stölzel, in the early 19th century. These two instrument makers almost simultaneously invented valves, though it is likely th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Stewart
Rex William Stewart Jr. (February 22, 1907 – September 7, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist who was a member of the Duke Ellington orchestra. Career As a boy he studied piano and violin; most of his career was spent on cornet. Stewart dropped out of high school to become a member of the Ragtime Clowns led by Ollie Blackwell. He was with the Musical Spillers led by Willie Lewis in the early 1920s, then with Elmer Snowden, Horace Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Fess Williams, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers. In 1933 he led a big band at the Empire Ballroom in New York City. Beginning in 1934, he spent eleven years with the Duke Ellington band. Stewart co-wrote "Boy Meets Horn" and "Morning Glory" and supervised recording sessions by members of the Ellington band. He left Ellington to lead "little swing bands that were a perfect setting for his solo playing." He toured in Europe and Australia with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1947 to 1951. Beginning in the early 1950s, he wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Come Sunday
"Come Sunday" is a piece by Duke Ellington, which became a jazz standard. It was written in 1942 as a part of the first movement of a suite entitled '' Black, Brown and Beige''. Ellington was engaged for a performance at Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943, for which he wrote the entire composition (that whole concert was released in 1977 as '' The Carnegie Hall Concerts: January 1943''). In 1958 he revised the piece and recorded it in its entirety for the 1958 album of the same name. "Come Sunday" was originally a centerpiece for alto saxophone player Johnny Hodges; the 1958 album, which contained a vocal version of the piece with new lyrics by Ellington featuring gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, greatly increased its popularity. Notable recordings *Duke Ellington – '' Black, Brown and Beige'' (rel. 1946), recording of 1943 Carnegie Hall concert *Duke Ellington – '' Black, Brown and Beige'' (1958, with Mahalia Jackson) * Abbey Lincoln – '' Abbey is Blue'' (1959) *Dizzy Gill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making several trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with his first novel ''The Sheltering Sky'' (1949), set in French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. In 1947, Bowles settled in Tangier, at that time in the Tangier International Zone, and his wife Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Ceylon during the early 1950s, Tangier was Bowles's home for the remainder of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hammond (record Producer)
John Henry Hammond II (December 15, 1910 – July 10, 1987) was an American record producer, civil rights activist, and music critic active from the 1930s to the early 1980s. In his service as a talent scout, Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th-century popular music. He is the father of blues musician John P. Hammond. Hammond was instrumental in sparking or furthering numerous musical careers, including those of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Big Joe Turner, Pete Seeger, Babatunde Olatunji, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Freddie Green, Leonard Cohen, Arthur Russell, Jim Copp, Asha Puthli, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Mike Bloomfield. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues artist Robert Johnson's music. Early years and family Hammond was born in New York, christened John Henry Hammond Jr., although both his father and grandfather shared the same name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
