Denver D. Ferguson
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Denver D. Ferguson
Denver Darious Ferguson (February 19, 1895 – May 11, 1957) was an American businessman and nightclub owner in Indianapolis, who had a leading role in establishing the " Chitlin' Circuit" of entertainment venues for black entertainers and audiences in the 1930s and 1940s. Earlier in his career he established a newspaper ''The Edmonson County Star'', in his home town of Brownsville, Kentucky, before moving to Indianapolis where he had a printing company. His younger brother Sea Ferguson helped in the print shop and with his other business ventures. After leaving the publishing business, Denver Ferguson became successful in illegal gambling and invested in property as well as a talent management and promotion business. Musician and record producer Sax Kari described him as "the man who ''invented'' the chitlin’ circuit". Early life and family Denver Ferguson was born in Brownsville, Kentucky, in 1895, the eldest son of Mattie (née Whitney) and Samuel Henry Ferguson. His ...
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Portrait Of Denver Ferguson
A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a Snapshot (photography), snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. History Prehistorical portraiture Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earlie ...
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Rhythm Club Fire
The Rhythm Club fire (or The Natchez Dance Hall Holocaust) was a fire in a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi on the night of April 23, 1940, which killed 209 people and severely injured many others. Hundreds of people were trapped inside the building. At the time, it was the second deadliest building fire in the history of the nation. It is now ranked as the fourth deadliest assembly and club fire in U.S. history. The Club The dance hall, a converted blacksmith shop once used as a church, was in a one-story steel-clad wood-frame building at 1 St. Catherine Street, blocks from the city's business district. The building was owned by the Byrnes family and was leased by a social group called the Money Wasters. The group hosted events and dances and brought in a live band to perform. The original band that was scheduled to perform was Tiny Bradshaw and his orchestra, but due to a scheduling conflict the band canceled and was replaced by Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians, a ...
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Claude Trenier
The Treniers (pronounced /trəˈniərz/) were an American R&B and jump blues musical group led by identical twins Cliff and Claude Trenier. They were originally billed as the Trenier Twins, who performed alongside the Gene Gilbeaux Quartet, but shortened their name to the Treniers when Gilbeaux and other musicians became integral members of the group. Besides the Trenier brothers, group members included Don Hill on saxophone, Shifty Henry and later James (Jimmy) Johnson on bass, Henry (Tucker) Green on drums and Gene Gilbeaux on piano. Later, additional Trenier brothers Milt and Buddy, and nephew Skip, joined the group on vocals, and there were many other musician and line-up changes over the years including Herman Washington and Mickey Baker on guitar. Career The band was based around twins Clifton L. "Cliff" Trenier (July 14, 1919 – March 2, 1983) and Claude Oliver Trenier (July 14, 1919 – November 17, 2003). They were born in Mobile, Alabama, and formed the A ...
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Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "the Honeydripper". Career Sykes was born the son of a musician in Elmar, Arkansas. "Just a little old sawmill town", Sykes said of his birthplace. The Sykes family was living in St. Louis by 1909. Sykes often visited his grandfather's farm near West Helena. He began playing the church organ around the age of ten. "Every summer I would go down to Helena to visit my grandfather on his farm," he told biographer Valerie Wilmer. "He was a preacher and he had an organ I used to practice on, trying to learn how to play. I always liked the sound of the blues, liked to hear people singing, and since I was singing first, I was trying to play like I sang." Sykes was baptized at 13 years old, his lifelong beliefs never conflicting with playing the blues. At age 15, he went on the road playing piano in a barrelhouse style of blues. Like many bluesmen of his time, he traveled around playing to all-mal ...
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King Kolax
King Kolax (born William Little, November 6, 1912 – December 18, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. Biography William Little was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1912; he misleadingly claimed he was born in 1918 in later years. While young his family moved to Chicago, where he studied music under Walter Dyett. He completed a degree at the Chicago Conservatory of Music in the early 1930s and played in dance bands in Chicago during the decade. Around 1938, he became bandleader of one of the groups; this ensemble toured the U.S. and continued playing regularly at venues such as the Savoy Theater and the 65 Club. In 1939, Charlie Parker played in his band. Kolax formed another band in 1943 and again toured the American south. He continued touring throughout the country and on military bases within the U.S. through 1946. In May 1946, his group broke up and Kolax joined Billy Eckstine's big band with which he made his first recordings. Eckstine's band ended befo ...
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Jay McShann
James Columbus "Jay" McShann (January 12, 1916 – December 7, 2006) was an American jazz pianist, vocalist, composer, and bandleader. He led bands in Kansas City, Missouri, that included Charlie Parker, Bernard Anderson (trumpeter), Bernard Anderson, Walter Brown (singer), Walter Brown, and Ben Webster. Early life and education McShann was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Muskogee, Oklahoma, and was nicknamed Hootie. During his youth he taught himself how to play the piano through observing his sister's piano lessons and trying to practicing tunes he heard off the radio. He was also heavily influenced by late-night broadcasts of pianist Earl Hines from Chicago's Grand Terrace Cafe: "When 'Fatha' (''Hines'') went off the air, I went to bed". He began working as a professional musician in 1931 at the age of 15, performing around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and neighboring Arkansas. Career 1936–44 McShann moved to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1936, and set up his own big band which variously fea ...
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Talent Agency
Talent has two principal meanings: * Talent (measurement), an ancient unit of mass and value * Talent (skill), a group of aptitudes useful for some activities; talents may refer to aptitudes themselves or to possessors of those talents Talent may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Talent'' (play), a 1978 play by Victoria Wood * ''Talent'', the first novel in The Talent Series by Zoey Dean Television * ''Got Talent'', a series of television shows, in several national versions * ''Young Talent Time'' (1971-1989; 2012), an Australian television variety program on Network Ten Other arts, entertainment, and media * ''Talent'' (artwork), a seminal work of art by David Robbins, 1986 * ''Talent'' (comics), a comic book series written by Christopher Golden and Tom Sngoski and drawn by Paul Azaceta, 2006 * Billy Talent, a Canadian rock group from Toronto, who formed in 1993 * Talents universe, a setting in Anne McCaffrey's science fiction, where Talents a ...
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Reginald H
Reginald is a masculine given name in the English language. Etymology and history The meaning of Reginald is “King". The name is derived from the Latin ''Reginaldus'', which has been influenced by the Latin word ''regina'', meaning "queen". This Latin name is a Latinisation of a Germanic language name. This Germanic name is composed of two elements: the first ''ragin'', meaning "advice", "counsel", "decision"; the second element is ''wald'', meaning "rule", "ruler". The Old German form of the name is ''Raginald''; Old French forms are ''Reinald'' and ''Reynaud''. Forms of this Germanic name were first brought to the British Isles by Scandinavians, in the form of the Old Norse ''Rögnvaldr''. This name was later reinforced by the arrival of the Normans in the 11th century, in the Norman forms ''Reinald'' and ''Reynaud''. which cited: for the surname "Reynold". The Latin ''Reginaldus'' was used as a Latin form of cognate names, such as the Old Norse ''Rögnvaldr'', and the Gae ...
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Indianapolis Recorder
The ''Indianapolis Recorder'' is an American weekly newspaper based in Indianapolis, Indiana. First published in 1895, the ''Recorder'' is the longest-running African-American newspaper in Indiana and fourth in the U.S. History The newspaper was first established by George P. Stewart and William H. Porter as a two-page church bulletin. Although they began the ''Recorder'' together, Porter sold his share of the newspaper to Stewart in 1899. By 1916, the two-page church bulletin had become a four-page newspaper. During this time, the ''Recorder'' urged African-Americans to be moral, proud of their heritage, and combat stereotypes. Popular sermons were excerpted, and biographical sketches were also published with a moral focus. In the 1920s and 1930s, the paper encouraged economic growth in its readership. The weekly also pressed for the end of racial discrimination in employment practices, spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan, and publicly endorsed anti-Klan politicians. During Wo ...
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Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. After a tumultuous adolescence, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the Chick Webb Orchestra, performing across the country but most often associated with the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start her solo career. Her manager was Moe Gale, co-founder of the Savoy, until she turned the rest of her career over to Norman Granz, who founded Verve Records to produce new records by Fitzgerald. With Verve she recorded some of her more widely noted works, particularly he ...
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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 ...
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Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz". The trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (a member of Hines's big band, along with Charlie Parker) wrote, The piano is the basis of modern harmony. This little guy came out of Chicago, Earl Hines. He changed the style of the piano. You can find the roots of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, all the guys who came after that. If it hadn't been for Earl Hines blazing the path for the next generation to come, it's no telling where or how they would be playing now. There were individual variations but the style of … the modern piano came from Earl Hines. The pianist Lennie Tristano said, "Earl Hines is the ''only'' one of us capable of creating real jazz and real swing when play ...
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