Last-Becker Ensemble
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Last-Becker Ensemble
Last-Becker Ensemble was a German jazz group that was popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The band was formed in 1948 by James Last James Last (, ; born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of ... (bass) and included his brothers Werner Last (trombone and accordion) and Robert Last (drums). The six piece band was also included Karl-Heinz Becker (saxophone), Heinz Schultze (guitar) and Helmut Zacharias (violin). In 1950, James was voted as the best jazz bassist in Germany an award he won again in 1951 and 1952. The band, which was an offshoot of the Radio Bremen dance orchestra conducted by Hans-Gunther Oesterreich, broke up in 1956. The group is now known more for the later successes of its members after the group's break-up. James Last became a bandleader, selling millions of records. ...
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Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ...
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James Last
James Last (, ; born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of the years 1950–1952), his trademark "happy music" made his numerous albums best-sellers in Germany and the United Kingdom, with 65 of his albums reaching the charts in the UK alone. His composition "Happy Heart" became an international success in interpretations by Andy Williams and Petula Clark. Last is reported to have sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide in his lifetime (figures vary widely, for example ''British Hit Singles & Albums'' (2006) reports 100 million at that time), of which 80 million were sold by 1973 - and won numerous awards including 200 gold and 14 platinum discs in Germany, the International MIDEM Prize at MIDEM in 1969, and West Germany's highest civilian award, the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Or ...
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Kai Warner
Kai Warner was the stage name of Werner Last (27 October 1926 – 9 July 1982), a German bandleader and musician, and the brother of James Last and Robert Last. Biography Born in Bremen, Warner took piano lessons from Ernst Weelen and received theory instruction from the Max Reger and Engelbert Humperdinck student Richard Bulling. After the war, Werner Last appeared as a trombonist along with his brothers Hans (bassist, later known as James Last) and Robert Last (drummer) in Bremen music halls and in the American clubs in the vicinity of Bremerhaven. At this point, he was discovered by the composer and manager Friedrich Meyer and hired for the newly formed dance orchestra of Radio Bremen. The Last brothers became well known as members of the Last-Becker Ensemble. Warner Last found his first success as an arranger. After the disbandment of the Bremen dance orchestra in 1948, he played for a time in a 12-man band, then went to seek his fortune in the USA. Before this, he ...
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Robert Last (drummer)
Robert Last (born in Bremen, 1923; died in Hamburg, 1986) was a German drummer and bandleader. The oldest brother of Werner Last (known as Kai Warner) and Hans Last (known as James Last) played together with his brothers in the dance and entertainment orchestra of Radio Bremen, went to the USA in 1954 and studied drumming with Sonny Igoe, the drummer for Woody Herman. Played, among other places, at the mirrored room of the Metropole Café on Broadway. He returned to Germany in 1960. Here he became the first drummer for the James Last Band and the Kai Warner Orchestra. He also played with Helmut Zacharias, Günther Fuhlisch and Bert Kaempfert. To this day, many rank him as the best drummer ever to work with James Last and his brother Werner. In the early 1970s he started his own studio orchestra and put out a series of ''Happy Dancing'' albums on the Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record ...
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The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ...
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ...
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Karl-Heinz Becker (musician)
Karl-Heinz Becker may refer to: * Karl-Heinz Becker (athlete) * Karl-Heinz Becker (pilot) This list of German World War II jet aces has a sortable table of notable German jet ace pilots during World War II. Background A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during a ...
{{hndis, Becker, Karl-Heinz ...
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Heinz Schultze
The H. J. Heinz Company is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. Heinz manufactures thousands of food products in plants on six continents, and markets these products in more than 200 countries and territories. The company claims to have 150 number-one or number-two brands worldwide. Heinz ranked first in ketchup in the US with a market share in excess of 50%; the Ore-Ida label held 46% of the frozen potato sector in 2003. Since 1896, the company has used its " 57 Varieties" slogan; it was inspired by a sign advertising 21 styles of shoes, and Henry Heinz chose the number 57 even though the company manufactured more than 60 products at the time, because "5" was his lucky number and "7" was his wife's. In February 2013, Heinz agreed to be purchased by Berkshire Hathaway and the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital for $23billion. On March 25, 2015, Kraft announced its ...
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Helmut Zacharias
Helmut Zacharias (27 January 192028 February 2002) was a German violinist and composer who created over 400 works and sold 14 million records. He also appeared in a number of films, usually playing musicians. Early life Helmut Zacharias was born in Berlin. His father Karl was a violinist and conductor, and his mother was a singer. He started having lessons from his father at the age of 2 and a half and at 6 he played at the Faun club, a cabaret venue on the Friedrichstraße in Berlin. At the age of 8, Zacharias became the youngest student in Gustav Havemann's masterclass at the Berlin Academy of Music. Aged 11, he played on radio for the first time with a performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major and began touring in 1934 at the age of 14. At this time, in the 1930s, the records of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli's all-string jazz band were available in Germany and they heavily influenced Zacharias's musical style. Musical career In 1940, Zacharias wa ...
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Jazz In Germany
An overview of the evolution of Jazz music in Germany reveals that the development of jazz in Germany and its public notice differ from the "motherland" of jazz, the US, in several respects. The 1920s One of the first books with the word "jazz" in the title originates from Germany. In his book ''Jazz - Eine Musikalische Zeitfrage'' (Jazz - A Musical Issue) of 1927, Paul Bernhard relates the term Jazz to a specific dance. When dancer Josephine Baker visited Berlin in 1925, she found it dazzling. "The city had a jewel-like sparkle," she said, "the vast cafés reminded me of ocean liners powered by the rhythms of their orchestras. There was music everywhere." Eager to look ahead after the crushing defeat of World War I, Weimar Germany embraced the modernism that swept through Europe and was crazy about jazz. In the ''dancing mania'' of the post-war period, there were not only modern dances such as the tango and foxtrot, but in 1920 also the Shimmy and in 1922 the Two-step. In 1925 t ...
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