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Jazz At Santa Monica Civic '72
''Jazz at Santa Monica '72'' is a 1972 live album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, recorded at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium accompanied by a jazz trio led by the pianist Tommy Flanagan, and the Count Basie Orchestra. This concert recording was initially sold through mail order by the jazz producer and impresario, Norman Granz, as a three-LP set. The success of the album led to Granz founding Pablo Records, his first record label since Verve Records, which he had sold to MGM in 1960. The concert was originally announced as featuring only the Count Basie Orchestra and Ella Fitzgerald, but Granz had invited some surprise "guests", the trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Harry "Sweets" Edison, the tenor saxophonists, Stan Getz and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and the pianist Oscar Peterson and bassist Ray Brown. Track listing #Introductions by Norman Granz – 1:00 #"Basie Power" (Ernie Wilkins) – 3:07 #"The Spirit Is Willing" ( Sammy Nestico) – 4:37 #"The Meetin' Tim ...
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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, particul ...
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Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian virtuoso jazz pianist and composer. Considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing". Biography Early years Peterson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to immigrants from the West Indies (Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands); His mother, Kathleen, was a domestic worker and his father, Daniel, worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway and was an amateur musician who taught himself to play the organ, trumpet and piano. Peterson grew up in the neighbou ...
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Walter Donaldson
Walter Donaldson (February 15, 1893 – July 15, 1947) was an American prolific popular songwriter and publishing company founder, composing many hit songs of the 1910s to 1940s, that have become standards and form part of the Great American Songbook. History Walter Donaldson was born in Brooklyn, New York State, United States, the son of a piano teacher. While still in school he wrote original music for school productions, and had his first professional songs published in 1915. In 1918, he had his first major hit with "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady". During World War I, Donaldson entertained troops at Camp Upton, New York. His time there inspired him to write "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" After serving in the United States Army in World War I, Donaldson was hired as a songwriter by Irving Berlin Music Company. He stayed with Berlin until 1928, producing many hit songs, then in 1928 established his own publishing company. His company was ...
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Makin' Whoopee
"Makin' Whoopee" is a jazz/ blues song, first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical ''Whoopee!''. Gus Kahn wrote the lyrics and Walter Donaldson composed the music for the song as well as for the entire musical. The title refers to celebrating a marriage. Eventually "making whoopee" became a euphemism for intimate sexual relations. The song has been called a "dire warning", largely to men, about the "trap" of marriage. A review of a James Naughton cabaret performance. "Mr. Naughton pounces on the dire warning to men lurking beneath the song's playful surface: that once the honeymoon is over, marriage can become a trap from which there is no escape." "Makin' Whoopee" begins with the celebration of a wedding, honeymoon and marital bliss, but moves on to babies and responsibilities, and ultimately on to affairs and possible divorce, ending with a judge's advice. Other versions *1928 George Olsen and His Music. Released by Victor on November 12, 1928 as catalog number 21816 ...
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Sonny Stitt
Edward Hammond Boatner Jr. (February 2, 1924 – July 22, 1982), known professionally as Sonny Stitt, was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/ hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording more than 100 albums. He was nicknamed the "Lone Wolf" by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern because of his relentless touring and devotion to jazz yet rarely worked with the same musicians for long. Stitt was sometimes viewed as a Charlie Parker mimic, especially earlier in his career, but gradually came to develop his own sound and style, particularly when performing on tenor saxophone and even occasionally baritone saxophone. Early life Edward Hammond Boatner, Jr. was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He had a musical background: his father, Edward Boatner, was a baritone singer, composer, and college music professor; his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a ...
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Johnny Richards
Johnny Richards (born Juan Manuel Cascales, November 2, 1911 – October 7, 1968) was an American jazz arranger and composer. He was a pivotal arranger for some of the more adventurous performances by Stan Kenton's big band in the 1950s and early 1960, such as '' Cuban Fire!'' and ''Kenton's West Side Story''. Biography Richards was born in Toluca, Mexico, to a Spanish father (Juan Cascales y Valero) and a Mexican mother (Maria Celia Arrue aka Marie Cascales), whose parents were Spanish immigrants to Mexico. He entered the United States on August 4, 1919 at Laredo, Texas, along with his mother, three brothers (also professional musicians) and sister: Siblings: * Jose Luis Cascales (Joe) * Carlos Guillermo Cascales (known in the music world as Chuck Cabot) * Maria de los Angeles Cascales (Angeles/Anne Beaufait) * Juan Adolfo Cascales (Jack; 1918–1975), played double bass Richards' father, Juan Cascales y Valero, immigrated earlier, crossing the border at Laredo, Texas, on ...
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Milt Gabler
Milton Gabler (May 20, 1911 – July 20, 2001) was an American record producer, responsible for many innovations in the recording industry of the 20th century. These included being the first person to deal in record reissues, the first to sell records by mail order, and the first to credit all the musicians on the recordings. He was also a successful songwriter, writing the lyrics for a number of standards, including " In a Mellow Tone," " Danke Schoen," and " L-O-V-E." Early life Gabler was born to a Jewish family in Harlem, New York, the son of Susie (née Kasindorf) and Julius Gabler. His father was an Austrian Jewish immigrant from Vienna, and his mother's family were Jewish immigrants from Russia, including Rostov. At 15, he began working in his father's business, the Commodore Radio Corporation, a radio shop located on East 42nd Street in New York City. Career 1930s By the mid-1930s, Gabler renamed the business the Commodore Music Shop, and it became a focal point f ...
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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 mu ...
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In A Mellow Tone
"In a Mellow Tone", also known as "In a Mellotone", is a 1939 jazz standard composed by Duke Ellington, with lyrics written by Milt Gabler. The song was based on the 1917 standard "Rose Room" by Art Hickman and Harry Williams, which Ellington himself had recorded in 1932. Howard Stern used a recording of this song (from Ellington's ''Blues in Orbit'' album) as the opening theme to ''The Howard Stern Show'' from 1987 to 1994. Notable recordings *Red Norvo (1943) *Erroll Garner - '' Contrasts'' (1954) *Clark Terry - ''Duke with a Difference'' (1957) *Chico Hamilton with Eric Dolphy - '' The Original Ellington Suite'' (1958) *Ella Fitzgerald - ''Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook'' (1958) *Ben Webster (with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge) - '' Ben Webster and Associates'' (1959) *Count Basie - ''Breakfast Dance and Barbecue'' (1959) * Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross - '' The Hottest New Group in Jazz'' (1960) *Billy May - '' Cha Cha! Billy May'' (1960) *Coleman Hawkins with ...
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Frank Foster (jazz Musician)
Frank Benjamin Foster III (September 23, 1928 – July 26, 2011) was an American tenor and soprano saxophonist, flautist, arranger, and composer. Foster collaborated frequently with Count Basie and worked as a bandleader from the early 1950s. Profile AllMusic; accessed June 21, 2017. In 1998, Howard University awarded Frank Foster with the Benny Golson Jazz Master Award. Early life and education Foster was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, and educated at Wilberforce University. In 1949, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he joined the local jazz scene, playing with musicians such as Wardell Gray. Career Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951, Foster served in Korea with the 7th Infantry Division where he fought alongside (although unknowingly) future collaborator Shawn ‘Thunder’ Wallace. Upon finishing his military service in 1953 he joined Count Basie's big band. Foster contributed both arrangements and original compositions to Count Basie's band including th ...
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Count Basie
William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams. Biography Early life and education William Basie was born to Lillian and Harvey Lee Basie in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobile ...
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Oliver Nelson
Oliver Edward Nelson (June 4, 1932 – October 28, 1975) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. His 1961 Impulse! album '' The Blues and the Abstract Truth'' (1961) is regarded as one of the most significant recordings of its era. The centerpiece of the album is the definitive version of Nelson's composition, " Stolen Moments". Other important recordings from the early 1960s are ''More Blues and the Abstract Truth'' and '' Sound Pieces'', both also on Impulse!. Biography Early life and career Oliver Nelson was born into a musical family in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. His brother was a saxophonist who played with Cootie Williams in the 1940s, and his sister sang and played piano. Nelson began learning to play the piano when he was six and started on the saxophone at eleven. Beginning in 1947 he played in "territory" bands in and around Saint Louis before joining the Louis Jordan band where he stayed from 1950 to 1951, playing ...
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