|
Juan Tizol
Juan Tizol Martínez (22 January 1900 – 23 April 1984) was a Puerto Rican jazz trombonist and composer. He is best known as a member of Duke Ellington's big band, and as the writer of the jazz standards " Caravan", "Pyramid", and " Perdido". Biography Tizol was born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. Music was a large part of his life from an early age. His first instrument was the violin, but he soon switched to valve trombone, the instrument he played throughout his career. His musical training came mostly from his uncle Manuel Tizol, who was the director of the municipal band and the symphony in San Juan. Throughout his youth, Tizol played in his uncle's band and also gained experience by playing in local operas, ballets and dance bands. In 1920, Tizol joined a band that was traveling to the United States to work in Washington, D.C. The group eventually made it to Washington (traveling as stowaways) and established residence at the Howard Theater, where they played for tour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
Vega Baja (, ) is a Vega Baja barrio-pueblo, town and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality located on the coast of north central Puerto Rico. It is north of Morovis, Puerto Rico, Morovis, east of Manatí, Puerto Rico, Manatí, and west of Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, Vega Alta. Vega Baja is spread over 13 barrios. The population of the municipality was 54,414 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is part of the San Juan–Caguas–Guaynabo metropolitan area, San Juan–Caguas–Guaynabo metropolitan statistical area. History The name Vega Baja in Spanish language, Spanish means 'lower valley' (Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, Vega Alta meaning 'upper valley'). Historians believe that the name Vega Baja comes from ''La Vega''. Vega is a surname of one of the families involved in the foundation of Vega Baja. It is also believed that the name comes from the region of Spain ''La Vega Baja del Segura''. Additionally, in Caribbean Spanish, a ''vega'' is also a tobacco plantation. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valve Trombone
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings, but are usually discussed as a separate category. In an open valve, fluid flows in a direction from higher pressure to lower pressure. The word is derived from the Latin ''valva'', the moving part of a door, in turn from ''volvere'', to turn, roll. The simplest, and very ancient, valve is simply a freely hinged flap which swings down to obstruct fluid (gas or liquid) flow in one direction, but is pushed up by the flow itself when the flow is moving in the opposite direction. This is called a check valve, as it prevents or "checks" the flow in one direction. Modern control valves may regulate pressure or flow downstream and operate on sophisticated automation systems. Valves have many uses, including controlling water for irrigation, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued for the remainder of his life. He found great popular success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series. He was the father of singer Natalie Cole (1950–2015). Biography Early life Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1919. He had three brothers: Eddie (1910–1970), Ike (1927–2001), and Freddy (1931–2020), and a half-sister, Joyce Coles. Each of the Coles brothers pursued careers in music. When Nat King Cole was four years old, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Bellson
Louie Bellson (born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, July 6, 1924 – February 14, 2009), often seen in sources as Louis Bellson, although he himself preferred the spelling Louie, was an American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums.National Endowment for the Arts biography of Louis Bellson , January 1994; accessed January 2009. Bellson performed in most of the major capitals around the world. Bellson and his wife, actress and singer Pearl Bailey (married from 1952 until Bailey's death in 1990), had the second highest number of appearances at the |
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle Jr. (June 1, 1921 – October 6, 1985) was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. He worked with many world-famous vocalists at Capitol Records, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney and Keely Smith. He scored and arranged music for many films and television shows, earning an Academy Award and three Grammy Awards. He found commercial and critical success with a new generation in the 1980s, in a trio of Platinum albums with Linda Ronstadt. Early years Riddle was born in Oradell, New Jersey, the only child to survive to birth, and after, of Marie Albertine Riddle (a native of Mulhouse, France, whose father was Spanish) and Nelson Smock Riddle, who was of English-Irish and Dutch descent. His mother had suffered six miscarriages and one stillbirth in her lifetime. It was his mother's secon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry James
Harry Haag James (March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983) was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947 but shortly after he reorganized and was active again with his band from then until his death in 1983. He was especially known among musicians for his technical proficiency as well as his Tone (musical instrument), tone, and was influential on new trumpet players from the late 1930s into the 1940s. He was also an actor in a number of films that usually featured his band. Early life Harry James was born in Albany, Georgia, United States, the son of Everett Robert James, a bandleader in a traveling circus, the Mighty Haag Circus, and Myrtle Maybelle (Stewart), an acrobat and horseback rider. He started performing with the circus at an early age, first as a contortionist at age of four, then playing the snare drum in the band from about the age of six. It was at this age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valide Trombone
The valide trombone is a hybrid valve trombone invented in the 1940s by jazz musician Brad Gowans. It features both a set of three piston valves and a slide to vary the pitch. The slide on the valide is positioned within the valve section and is shorter than a regular trombone slide, only covering four slide positions instead of the usual seven. The slide does not lock, requiring the player to hold the slide at all times, and encouraging the player to use both the valves and the slide together. The only known built instrument now resides at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. The last noted player of the valide trombone was Juan Tizol of the Duke Ellington and Harry James Orchestras. The similar superbone The superbone (sometimes known as the double trombone) is a hybrid tenor trombone in B that has both a slide like a regular trombone and a set of valves like a valve trombone. History Trombones that combine both a slide with a set of valves ..., as re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercer Ellington
Mercer Kennedy Ellington (March 11, 1919 – February 8, 1996) was an American musician, composer, and arranger. His father was Duke Ellington, whose band Mercer led for 20 years after his father's death. Biography Early life and education Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., United States. He was the only child of the composer, pianist, and bandleader Duke Ellington and his high school sweetheart Edna Thompson (d. 1967). Ellington grew up primarily in Harlem from the age of eight. By the age of eighteen, Ellington had written his first piece to be recorded by his father ("Pigeons and Peppers"). Ellington attended New College for the Education of Teachers at Columbia University, New York University and the Juilliard School. Career In 1939, 1959, and 1946 through 1949, Ellington led his own bands, many of whose members later performed with his father, or achieved a successful career in their own right (including Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Dorham, Idrees Sulieman, Chico Hamilto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caravan (1937 Song)
"Caravan" is an American jazz standard that was composed by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington and first performed by Ellington in 1936. Irving Mills wrote lyrics, but they are rarely sung. The sad sound of "Caravan" interested exotica musicians; Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Gordon Jenkins all covered it. Woody Allen used the song in two of his films, '' Alice'' and ''Sweet and Lowdown''. Steven Soderbergh used the Lyman version in his 2001 film ''Ocean's Eleven''. The song appears often in the 2014 film ''Whiplash'' as an important plot element. The Mills Brothers recorded an a cappella version in which they imitated instruments with their voices. Johnny Mathis recorded the song in 1956. More than 350 versions have been recorded. Original recording The first version of the song was recorded in Hollywood in 1936 and performed as an instrumental by Barney Bigard and His Jazzopators. Two takes were recorded, of which the first (Variety VA-515-1) was published. The band members were: * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tricky Sam Nanton
Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton (February 1, 1904 – July 20, 1946) was an American trombonist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Early life Joe Nanton was born Joseph Irish Nanton in New York City, United States. His parents were John Barzly Nanton and Emily Irish, both immigrants from the British West Indies. Nanton began playing professionally in Washington, D.C., with bands led by Cliff Jackson and banjoist Elmer Snowden. From 1923 to 1924, Nanton worked with Frazier's Harmony Five. A year later, he performed with Snowden. At the age of 22, Nanton found his niche in Duke Ellington's Orchestra, when he reluctantly took the place of his friend Charlie Irvis in 1926, and remained with Ellington until his early death in 1946. Nanton, along with Lawrence Brown, anchored the trombone section. The wah-wah Nanton was one of the great pioneers of the plunger mute. In 1921, he heard Johnny Dunn playing the trumpet with a plunger, which Nanton realized could be used to similar effect on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Whetsel
Arthur Parker Whetsel (February 22, 1905 – May 1, 1940) was an early "sweet" trumpeter for Duke Ellington's Washingtonians. Biography Arthur Whetsel was born in Punta Gorda, Florida, one of two children of the Reverend Oscar N. Whetsel, an elder in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, originally of Piqua, Ohio, and Lucy W. Parker, a schoolteacher originally from Marion County, Alabama. After Oscar Whetsel's death in 1906, his widow married the Reverend Lewis Charles Sheafe (1859–1938), who was the leading African American minister in the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the early twentieth century. Arthur Whetsel grew up in Los Angeles, California, where he started playing the cornet at the age of eight. In his teens, his family moved to Washington, D.C., where, after playing in a number of bands and stage shows, he became one of the members of Duke Ellington's first band, The Washingtonians; and was present, on July 26, 1923, in New York City when The Washingtonians, bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
