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Hollywood Jazz Beat
''Hollywood Jazz Beat'' is an album by pianist Ray Bryant, performing orchestral versions of motion picture themes. It was released by Columbia Records in 1962. accessed April 26, 2017 Track listing # " On Green Dolphin Street" ( Bronisław Kaper, Ned Washington) – 2:16 # " Ruby" ( |
Ray Bryant
Raphael Homer "Ray" Bryant (December 24, 1931 – June 2, 2011) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Early life Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1931. His mother was an ordained minister who had taught herself to play the piano; his father also played the piano and sang. His brothers were the bass player Tommy, drummer and singer Len, and Lynwood. Ray began playing the piano around the age of six or seven, following the example of his mother and his sister, Vera. Gospel influences in his playing came from being part of the church at this stage in his early life. He had switched from classical music to jazz by his early teens and played the double bass at junior high school. He was first paid to play when he was 12: "I would play for dances, and they'd sneak me into bars. I'd get four or five bucks a night, which was good money then." He turned professional aged 14, and immediately joined a local band led by Mickey Collins. Later life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Fain
Sammy Fain (born Samuel E. Feinberg; June 17, 1902 – December 6, 1989) was an American composer of popular music. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he contributed numerous songs that form part of The Great American Songbook, and to Broadway theatre. Fain was also a popular musician and vocalist. Biography Sammy Fain was born in New York City, New York, United States, the son of a cantor. In 1923, Fain appeared in the short sound film, "Sammy Fain and Artie Dunn" directed by Lee De Forest filmed in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. In 1925, Fain left the Fain-Dunn act to devote himself to music. Fain was a self-taught pianist who played by ear. He began working as a staff pianist and composer for music publisher Jack Mills. In 1932 he appeared in the short film "The Crooning Composer." Later, Fain worked extensively in collaboration with Irving Kahal. Together they wrote classics such as "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella" and "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me," (co-writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jule Styne
Jule Styne (; born Julius Kerwin Stein; December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was an English-American songwriter and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: ''Gypsy,'' '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'' and '' Funny Girl.'' Early life Styne was born to a Jewish family in London, England. His parents, Anna Kertman and Isadore Stein, were emigrants from Ukraine, the Russian Empire, and ran a small grocery. Even before his family left Britain, he did impressions on the stage of well-known singers, including Harry Lauder, who saw him perform and advised him to take up the piano. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he began taking piano lessons. He proved to be a prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies before he was ten years old. Career Before Styne attended Chicago Musical College, he had already attracted the attention o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three Coins In The Fountain (song)
"Three Coins in the Fountain" is a popular song which received the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1955. The song was first recorded by Frank Sinatra. Background The melody was written by Jule Styne with lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It was written for the romance film, '' Three Coins in the Fountain'' and refers to the act of throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome while making a wish. Each of the film's three stars (Clifton Webb, Dorothy McGuire, and Jean Peters) performs this act. Cahn and Styne were asked to write the song to fit the movie, but were unable to either see the film or read the script. They completed the song in an hour and had produced a demonstration record with Frank Sinatra by the following day. The song was subsequently used in the film soundtrack, but in the rush, 20th Century-Fox neglected to sign a contract with the composers, allowing them to claim complete rights over the royalties. The Sinatra recording topped the UK Singles Chart for three week ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music, and was a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as songs written by others from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including " Moon River", " Days of Wine and Roses", " Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Oscar nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. Early life Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia, where one of his first jobs, aged 10, was sweeping floors at the original 1919 location of Leopold's Ice Cream. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Raksin
David Raksin (August 4, 1912 – August 9, 2004) was an American composer who was noted for his work in film and television. With more than 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." Biography David Raksin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, to Jewish parents (of Russian heritage). His father was an orchestra conductor. Raksin played professionally in dance bands while attending Central High School of Philadelphia. He went on to study composition with Harl McDonald at the University of Pennsylvania, and later with Isadore Freed in New York and Arnold Schoenberg in Los Angeles. In New York, Raksin worked as an arranger for Harms/Chappell. One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score to '' Modern Times'' (1936). He is perhaps best remembered for his score for the film '' Laura'' (1944). The theme music for the film, " Laura", with the ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laura (1945 Song)
"Laura" is a 1945 popular song. The music, composed by David Raksin for the 1944 movie '' Laura,'' which starred Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, is heard frequently in the movie. The film's director, Otto Preminger, had originally wanted to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" as the theme, but Raksin was not convinced that it was suitable. Angered, Preminger gave Raksin one weekend to compose an alternative melody. Raksin later said, and maintained for the rest of his days, that when, over that weekend, his wife sent him a "Dear John" letter, the haunting theme seemed to write itself. The lyrics were written by Johnny Mercer after the film made the tune popular, so he had to title the song "Laura". According to Mercer, he had not yet seen the movie when he wrote the lyrics but was aware that it was a romantic, somewhat haunting story. :''Laura is the face in the misty light, footsteps that you hear down the hall'' :''The laugh that floats on the summer night that you can never ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Gold (composer)
Ernst Sigmund Goldner (July 13, 1921 – March 17, 1999), known professionally as Ernest Gold, was an Austrian-born American composer. He is most noted for his work on the film ''Exodus'' produced in 1960. Early life Gold was born in 1921 in Vienna, the son of Elisabeth (Stransky) and Gustav Goldner. Gold came from a musical family. His father played the violin, and his mother sang. His father also studied under Richard Heuberger. Gold said that he learned to read music before he had learned to read words. He studied the violin and the piano when he was six years old and began composing music at eight. By age 13, he had written an entire opera. As a child, he said he wanted to go to Hollywood and be a composer. Gold would go to movie theaters as a teenager not only to watch the films but also to listen to the musical score. Among prominent film composers of the time he admired Max Steiner. In 1938, Gold attended the Viennese Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst, but he mov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exodus (soundtrack)
''Exodus'' is a soundtrack album by Ernest Gold with the Sinfonia of London from the 1960 film ''Exodus'' directed by Otto Preminger. The main theme from the film (" Theme of ''Exodus''") has been widely remixed and covered by many artists. The most popular version was an instrumental by Ferrante and Teicher, which reached number two on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1960. It was kept of out the number one spot by Wonderland by Night by Bert Kaempfert. This version became a gold record. Cover Versions Versions of "Theme of ''Exodus''" were recorded by Eddie Harris, Edith Piaf, Mantovani, Peter Nero, Connie Francis, Tova Porat, the 1960s British instrumental band The Eagles, and The Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone. Hard rock guitarist Leslie West performed the song with his earliest band The Vagrants and also in subsequent bands. The band The Skatalites recorded a ska-version of the theme, which was covered by Bad Manners on the 1982 album Forging Ah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (, ; May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979) was a Russian-born American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in St. Petersburg, Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, stock market crash, he moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, where he became best known for his scores for Western (genre), Western films, including ''Duel in the Sun (film), Duel in the Sun'', ''Red River (1948 film), Red River'', ''High Noon'', ''The Big Sky (film), The Big Sky'', ''Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'', and ''Last Train from Gun Hill''. Tiomkin received 22 Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars, three for Academy Award for Best Original Score, Best Original Score for ''High Noon'', ''The High and the Mighty (film), The High and the Mighty'', and ''The Old Man and the Sea (1958 film), The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The High And The Mighty (1954 Song)
"The High and the Mighty" is a song by Ned Washington and Dimitri Tiomkin from the film of the same name. At the start of the film's production late in 1953, veteran film composer and musician Dimitri Tiomkin was commissioned to write the film's score. The studio also urged Tiomkin to come up with a theme song for the film, to be released to radio and as a vinyl record. Tiomkin formed the basic melody to the song and enlisted songwriter Ned Washington to write the song's lyrics. What resulted was a gentle ballad. Warner Bros. presented the song to Les Baxter and his orchestra, who recorded and released the song to coincide with the release of the film. When released in 1954, "The High and the Mighty" peaked at number 4 on the ''Billboard'' Pop chart. Both the film score and the song were nominated for Academy Awards in 1955. The song, which ultimately did not win an award, was sung by Johnny Desmond, accompanied by Muzzy Marcellino at the awards show. Dimitri Tiomkin's score won ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo McCarey
Thomas Leo McCarey (October 3, 1898 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was involved in nearly 200 films, the most well known today being ''Duck Soup (1933 film), Duck Soup'', ''Make Way for Tomorrow'', ''The Awful Truth'', ''Going My Way'', ''The Bells of St. Mary's'', ''My Son John'' and ''An Affair To Remember''. While focusing mainly on screwball comedies during the 1930s, McCarey turned towards producing more socially conscious and overtly religious films during the 1940s, ultimately finding success and acclaim in both genres. McCarey was one of the most popular and established comedy directors of the pre-World War II era. Life and career Born in Los Angeles, California, McCarey attended St. Joseph's Catholic School and Los Angeles High School. His father was Thomas J. McCarey, whom the Los Angeles Times called "the greatest fight promoter in the world." Leo McCarey would later make a boxing comedy with Harold Lloyd called ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
