Gemini (Les Spann Album)
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Gemini (Les Spann Album)
''Gemini'' is an album by American jazz guitarist and flutist Les Spann released in 1961. It is Spann's only studio album as a leader, recorded when he was playing as a sideman with Dizzy Gillespie's quintet and Quincy Jones' big band. The title of the album corresponds to Spann's zodiac sign, born on May 23, 1932.Orrin Keepnews and Chris Albertson (1961). Gemini (liner notes LP). Jazzland Records JLP935S For this work Spann led a quintet formed by Julius Watkins (French horn), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Sam Jones (double bass) and two drummers sharing the two recording dates, Albert "Tootie" Heath and Louis Hayes. The eight tracks of this album were taped in two recording sessions in which Spann demonstrated his playing skills on both instruments: with flute on the tracks on Dec. 8, with Tootie Heath on drums, and with guitar on Dec. 16, with Louis Hayes on drums. In 1961 Jazzland Records, a subsidiary of Riverside Records, released the first edition on vinyl LP and in 2001 the ...
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Les Spann
Leslie Spann Jr. (May 23, 1932 – January 24, 1989) was an American jazz guitarist and flautist. As a sideman he recorded with Nat Adderley, Benny Bailey, Bill Coleman, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Curtis Fuller, Red Garland, Benny Goodman, Sam Jones, Abbey Lincoln, Charles Mingus, Duke Pearson, Jerome Richardson, Charlie Shavers, Sonny Stitt, Billy Taylor, Randy Weston, and Ben Webster. As a leader he recorded only once, the album ''Gemini'' in 1961. Career Les Spann was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, United States. From 1950 to 1957, he studied music at Tennessee State University. At the end of that time he worked with Phineas Newborn Jr. and in 1958 with Ronnell Bright. The following year, he joined a quintet in New York City led by Dizzy Gillespie, performing solos on flute and guitar and appearing on two of Gillespie's albums for Verve Records. After a year with Gillespie, he went to Europe as a member of Quincy Jones's big band. Two more albums followed, this time with Spann jo ...
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Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan (March 16, 1930 – November 16, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He grew up in Detroit, initially influenced by such pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole, and then by bebop musicians. Within months of moving to New York in 1956, he had recorded with Miles Davis and on Sonny Rollins' album ''Saxophone Colossus''. Recordings under various leaders, including ''Giant Steps'' of John Coltrane, continued well into 1962, when he became vocalist Ella Fitzgerald's full-time accompanist. He worked with Fitzgerald for three years until 1965, and then in 1968 returned to be her pianist and musical director, this time for a decade. After leaving Fitzgerald in 1978, Flanagan attracted praise for the elegance of his playing, which was principally in trio settings when under his own leadership. In his 45-year recording career, he recorded more than three dozen albums under his own name and more than 200 as a sideman. By the time of h ...
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The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The ''Journal'' has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The ''Journal'' is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 38 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2019. ''The Wall Street Journal'' is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.834million copies (including nearly 1,829,000 digital sales) compared with ''USA Today''s 1.7million. The ''Journal'' publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine ' ...
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Marc Myers
Marc Myers (born September 4, 1956) is an American journalist, author of five books and a regular contributor to ''The Wall Street Journal'', where he writes on music, the arts and celebrities. In 2007, he founded ''JazzWax'', a leading daily jazz blog that has won three Jazz Journalists Association "Blog of the Year" awards. Early life Myers was born in Manhattan and grew up in New York City and Cortlandt Manor, New York. He studied journalism at Northeastern University (undergraduate) and U.S. history at Columbia University (graduate). Career ''New York Times'' He began his writing career at ''The New York Times'' in the late 1970s as a college intern, joining the newspaper full-time in 1980 in the sports department. In 1985, he left to become an associate editor at ''Adweek'', where he wrote about advertising and marketing, helping to launch ''Brandweek''. For a time, he was business editor at ''Working Woman'' magazine, where his responsibilities included editing cover ...
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Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ...
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Fantasy Studios
Fantasy Studios was a music recording studio in Berkeley, California, at the Zaentz Media Center, known for its recording of award-winning albums including Journey's ''Escape'' and Green Day's ''Dookie''. Built as a private recording studio for artists on the Fantasy Records label in 1971, it was opened to the public in 1980 for recording, mixing and mastering. It was permanently closed on September 15, 2018. History Fantasy Records Fantasy Records and its subsidiary, Galaxy, were established in San Francisco, California, in 1949 by Max and Sol Weiss. The first artist on the label was Dave Brubeck.Johnson 2006, p. 37 With help from profits earned from his records the label went on to record Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Cal Tjader and Vince Guaraldi.Gilbert, Andrew"Fantasy is No Mirage."The Monthly. April 2009 In addition to musical acts, the label recorded beat poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg and comic Lenny Bruce. Creedence Clearwater Revival and expansion Sa ...
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Compact Disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as ''Compact Disc Digital Audio, Digital Audio Compact Disc''. The format was later adapted (as CD-ROM) for general-purpose data storage. Several other formats were further derived, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i) and Enhanced Music CD. Standard CDs have a diameter of and are designed to hold up to 74 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650 mebibyte, MiB of data. Capacity is routinely extended to 80 minutes and 700 mebibyte, MiB by arranging data more closely on the same sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from ; t ...
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Original Jazz Classics
Original Jazz Classics (or OJC) is a record label that founded in 1983 as an imprint of Fantasy Records. Under this name original editions of jazz LPs have been reissued on CD and LP, and formerly on cassette as well. The recordings in the series were originally released on Riverside, Prestige, Contemporary, and other labels that were later purchased or absorbed by Fantasy. A limited edition series was begun in the late 1980s. In 2010, Concord Music Group began the series Original Jazz Classics Remasters to release remastered versions of albums with new liner notes and previously unreleased songs. Original Blues Classics, a sister series, is organised on similar principles and dedicated to albums by blues performers. See also * List of record labels File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg File:Bingola1011b.jpg Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organiz ...
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LP Record
The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of  rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a vinyl (a copolymer of vinyl chloride acetate) composition disk. Introduced by Columbia in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry. Apart from a few relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound, it remained the standard format for record albums (during a period in popular music known as the album era) until its gradual replacement from the 1980s to the early 2000s, first by cassettes, then by compact discs, and finally by digital music distribution. Beginning in the late 2000s, the LP has experienced a resurgence in popularity. Format advantages At the time the LP was introduced, nearly all phonograph records for home use were made of an abrasive shellac compound ...
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Riverside Records
Riverside Records was an American jazz record company and label. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, Jr, under his firm Bill Grauer Productions in 1953, the label played an important role in the jazz record industry for a decade. Riverside headquarters were located in New York City, at 553 West 51st Street. History Initially the company was dedicated to reissuing early jazz material drawn from the issues of the Paramount and Gennett and Hot Record Society (H.R.S.), labels among others. Reissued artists included Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Ma Rainey, and James P. Johnson, but the label began issuing its own contemporary jazz recordings in April 1954, beginning with pianist Randy Weston. In 1955 the Prestige Records contract of Thelonious Monk was bought out and Monk was signed by Riverside, where he remained for the next five years. During the next few years, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Charlie Byrd, Johnny Griffin, and Wes Montgomery made substantial contributio ...
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Jazz Guitar
Jazz guitar may refer to either a type of electric guitar or a guitar playing style in jazz, using electric amplification to increase the volume of acoustic guitars. In the early 1930s, jazz musicians sought to amplify their sound to be heard over loud big bands. When guitarists in big bands switched from acoustic to semi-acoustic guitar and began using amplifiers, it enabled them to play solos. Jazz guitar had an important influence on jazz in the beginning of the twentieth century. Although the earliest guitars used in jazz were acoustic and acoustic guitars are still sometimes used in jazz, most jazz guitarists since the 1940s have performed on an electrically amplified guitar or electric guitar. Traditionally, jazz electric guitarists use an archtop with a relatively broad hollow sound-box, violin-style f-holes, a " floating bridge", and a magnetic pickup. Solid body guitars, mass-produced since the early 1950s, are also used. Jazz guitar playing styles include '' c ...
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Western Concert Flute
The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in American English), or simply a flute player. This type of flute is used in many ensembles, including concert bands, military bands, marching bands, orchestras, flute ensembles, and occasionally jazz bands and big bands. Other flutes in this family include the piccolo, the alto flute, and the bass flute. A large repertory of works has been composed for flute. Predecessors The flute is one of the oldest and most widely used wind instruments. The precursors of the modern concert flute were keyless wooden transverse flutes similar to modern fifes. These were later modified to include between one and eight keys for chromatic notes. "Six-finger" D is the most common pitch for keyless wooden transverse flutes, which continue to be used to ...
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