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Cha Cha! Billy May
''Cha Cha! Billy May'' is a studio album released by Billy May in 1960 on Capitol LP record T1329 (monophonic) and ST1329 (stereophonic). The album features instrumental Latin renderings of big band standards and theme songs of many top musical outfits. Many of the arrangements are done tonge-in-cheek, even Capitol's own publicity described "Twelfth Street Rag-Cha-Cha" as "unforgivable". Further playfulness is revealed in the song " Good-Bye" in which May's arrangement references the Benny Goodman bandmembers' habit of singing "go to hell, go to hell" over the repeating riff. The album was recorded on October 1, 1959, at Capitol Studios in Hollywood. May's experience arranging and performing this album subsequently influenced his arrangements for the Frank Sinatra album ''Sinatra Swings''. Track listing Side one #"In a Mellow Tone-Cha-Cha" (Duke Ellington) – associated with Duke Ellington/Count Basie #"Twelfth Street Rag-Cha-Cha" (Euday L. Bowman) – associated with Pee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy May
Edward William May Jr. (November 10, 1916 – January 22, 2004) was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music for ''The Green Hornet'' (1966), ''The Mod Squad'' (1968), ''Batman'' (with '' Batgirl'' theme, 1967), and '' Naked City'' (1960). He collaborated on films such as '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1981), and orchestrated '' Cocoon'', and '' Cocoon: The Return'', among others. May wrote arrangements for many top singers, including Frank Sinatra, Yma Sumac, Nat King Cole, Anita O'Day, Peggy Lee, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, Johnny Mercer, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Jack Jones, Bing Crosby, Sandler and Young, Nancy Wilson, Rosemary Clooney, The Andrews Sisters and Ella Mae Morse. He also collaborated with satirist Stan Freberg on several classic 1950s and 1960s comedy music albums. As a trumpet player in the 1940s Big Band era, May recorded such songs as "Measure for Measure", "Long Tall Mama", and "Boom Shot", with Glenn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snowfall (song)
Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout its life cycle, starting when, under suitable conditions, the ice crystals form in the atmosphere, increase to millimeter size, precipitate and accumulate on surfaces, then metamorphose in place, and ultimately melt, slide or sublimate away. Snowstorms organize and develop by feeding on sources of atmospheric moisture and cold air. Snowflakes nucleate around particles in the atmosphere by attracting supercooled water droplets, which freeze in hexagonal-shaped crystals. Snowflakes take on a variety of shapes, basic among these are platelets, needles, columns and rime. As snow accumulates into a snowpack, it may blow into drifts. Over time, accumulated snow metamorphoses, by sintering, sublimation and freeze-thaw. Where the climate is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996. Biography Early life Lionel Hampton was born in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised by his mother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1916. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, which was off-limits because of racial segregation. During the 1920s, while still a teenager, Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and began to play drums. Hampton was raised ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying Home
"Flying Home" is a jazz and jump blues composition written by Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton with lyrics by Sid Robin. Background It was reportedly developed while Hampton was in the Benny Goodman band. A gig in 1939 required the band to fly from Los Angeles to Atlantic City, the first time Hampton had flown. He began whistling a tune while waiting for the plane to taxi. Goodman asked him what it was, and Hampton said, "I don't know. We can call it 'Flying Home,' I guess." Hampton later confessed that the tune was a way for him to keep his mind off of the impending flight. The Goodman Quartet played the tune for the first time that night; later that year Goodman recorded the first version of the song, featuring a memorable solo from pioneering guitarist Charlie Christian. Hampton liked the song so much that it became his theme once he left Goodman. Recordings *It was first recorded by the Benny Goodman Sextet on November 6, 1939, featuring solos by Hampton and Charlie Christian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Brown (bandleader)
Lester Raymond Brown (March 14, 1912 – January 4, 2001) was an American jazz musician who led the big band Les Brown and His Band of Renown for nearly seven decades from 1938 to 2000. Biography Brown was born in Reinerton, Pennsylvania. He enrolled in the Conway Military Band School (later part of Ithaca College) in 1926, studying with famous bandleader Patrick Conway for three years before receiving a music scholarship to the New York Military Academy, where he graduated in 1932. Brown attended college at Duke University from 1932 to 1936. There he led the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils, who performed regularly on Duke's campus and up and down the east coast. Brown took the band on an extensive summer tour in 1936. At the end of the tour, while some of the band members returned to Duke to continue their education, others stayed on with Brown and continued to tour, becoming in 1938 the Band of Renown. The band's original drummer, Don Kramer, became the acting manager and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Garland
Joseph Copeland Garland (August 15, 1903, Norfolk, Virginia – April 21, 1977, Teaneck, New Jersey) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger, best known for writing "In the Mood". Garland studied music at Shaw University and the Aeolian Conservatory. He started by playing classical music but joined a jazz band, Graham Jackson's Seminole Syncopators, in 1924, where he first recorded. He had a long run of associations as a sideman on saxophone and clarinet, with Elmer Snowden (1925), Joe Steele, Henri Saparo, Leon Abbey (including a tour of South America), Charlie Skeete and Jelly Roll Morton in the 1920s. The 1930s saw him playing with Bobby Neal (1931) and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band; he was both a performer and an arranger for the Blue Rhythm Band from 1932 to 1936, when Lucky Millinder replaced him. Following this he played with Edgar Hayes (1937), Don Redman (1938), and Louis Armstrong (1939–42). In the 1940s, he played with Claude Hopkins and others, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leap Frog
James Joseph "Buster" Bennett (March 19, 1914 – July 3, 1980) was an American blues saxophonist and blues shouter. His nickname was "Leap Frog". At various times in his career, he played the soprano saxophone, the alto, and the tenor. He was known for his gutbucket style on the saxophone. He also played the piano and the string bass professionally. Biography Bennett was born in Pensacola, Florida. By 1930 or so, he was working in Texas, but he spent most of his active career (1938 to 1954) in Chicago. He was employed as a session musician by Lester Melrose from 1938 to 1942; he played on recordings with Big Bill Broonzy, the Yas Yas Girl, Monkey Joe, and Washboard Sam. Concomitantly he played on sessions with Jimmie Gordon under the direction of Sammy Price. In 1944, the Buster Bennett Trio featured Arrington Thornton on piano and Duke Groner on bass. Other lineups led by Bennett included Wild Bill Davis, Israel Crosby, and Pee Wee Jackson. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Hill Jenkins (May 12, 1910 – May 1, 1984) was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenkins worked with The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, The Weavers, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Biography Career Gordon Jenkins was born in Webster Groves, Missouri. He began his career writing arrangements for a radio Station in St. Louis. He was hired by Isham Jones, the director of a dance band known for its ensemble playing, which gave Jenkins the opportunity to develop his skills in melodic scoring. He also conducted ''The Show Is On'' on Broadway. After the Jones band broke up in 1936, Jenkins worked as a freelance arranger and songwriter, contributing to sessions by Isham Jones, Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Andre Kostelanetz, Lennie Hayton, and others. In 1938, Jenkins moved to Hollywood and worked for Paramount Picture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Baxter
Leslie Thompson "Les" Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was a best-selling American musician and composer. After working as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, known as exotica and scored over 100 motion pictures. Early life Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. From 1943 on he played tenor and baritone saxophone for the Freddie Slack big band. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as "What Is This Thing Called Love?" Career Baxter then turned to arranging and conducting for Capitol Records in 1950, and conducted the orchestra in two early Nat King Cole hits, "Mona Lisa" and " Too Young". He also recorded Yma Sumac's first album: "Voice of the Xtabay", which can be considered one of the first recordi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marguerite Monnot
Marguerite Monnot (28 May 1903 – 12 October 1961) was a French songwriter and composer best known for having written many of the songs performed by Édith Piaf ("Milord", "Hymne à l'amour") and for the music in the stage musical ''Irma La Douce''. As successful female composer As a female composer of popular music in the first half of the twentieth century, Monnot was a pioneer in her field. Classically trained by her father and at the Paris Conservatory (her teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Vincent d’Indy, and Alfred Cortot), Monnot made the unusual switch to composing popular music after poor health ended her career as a concert pianist when she was eighteen. Soon after writing her first commercially successful song, "L'Étranger", in 1935, she met Édith Piaf, and in 1940 they became the first female songwriting team in France, remaining friends and collaborators throughout most of their lives. Monnot worked with such lyricists as Raymond Asso, Henri Contet, and G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Poor People Of Paris
"The Poor People of Paris" is a US pop song that became a number-one instrumental hit in 1956. It is based on the French language song "La goualante du pauvre Jean" ("The Ballad of Poor John"), with music by Marguerite Monnot and words by René Rouzaud. Edith Piaf had one of her biggest hits with the original French version. The song was adapted in 1954 by American songwriter Jack Lawrence, who wrote English lyrics that are considerably different from the original French ones. The English language title arises in part from a misinterpretation of the French title, as "pauvre Jean" was taken for the same-sounding "pauvres gens", which translates as "poor people." Lawrence's lyrics, which pronounce "Paris" as "PaREE" in the French style, are seldom heard, as most of the popular recordings of the song in the English-speaking world have been instrumentals. Les Baxter version A recording of the tune by Les Baxter's orchestra ( Capitol Records catalog number 3336, with the flip side ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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