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Melodears
There were two independently created and independently operating groups known as the Melodears or Melo-Dears in the 1930s and 1940s, one a band, the other a vocal trio, with similar names only by coincidence. There is no known connection between the two groups. The Melodears, also known as Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears, was an American all-female band. The band was led by singer Ina Ray Hutton and featured several musicians during its existence. The band formed in 1934, originally as a 15-member band, and was disbanded in 1939 by Hutton, who soon afterwards formed an all-male orchestra. They were the first all-female band to be recorded, initially for Vocalion Records in 1934 and later for RCA Victor. The Melo-dears vocal trio was a female trio in the American Midwest. The trio was founded and managed by singer Arleen Gladys Reuse of Chicago, with several and various vocalists rounding out the trio, with support personnel from her friends at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ina Ray Hutton
Ina Ray Hutton (born Odessa Cowan; March 13, 1916 – February 19, 1984) was an American singer, bandleader, and the elder sister of June Hutton. She led one of the first all-female big bands. Biography A native of Chicago, Hutton began dancing and singing on stage at the age of eight. Her mother was a pianist in Chicago. At age 15, she starred in the Gus Edwards (vaudeville), Gus Edwards revue ''Future Stars Troupe'' at the Palace Theater and Lew Leslie's ''Clowns in Clover''. On Broadway she performed in George White (producer), George White's revues ''Melody'', ''Never Had an Education'' and ''Scandals'', then with the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. In 1934, she was approached by Irving Mills and vaudeville agent Alex Hyde to lead an all-girl orchestra, the Melodears, As part of the group's formation, Mills asked her to change her name. The group included trumpeter Frances Klein, Canadian pianist Ruth Lowe Sandler, saxophonist Jane Cullum, guitarist Marian Gange, trumpeter M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Klein
Frances Klein, also known as Frances Siskin (October 19, 1915 – December 22, 2012), was an American jazz musician who began her career in the early 1930s. She played trumpet in a number of jazz bands (most notably the all-female bands led by Irene Vermillion and Ina Ray Hutton). Biography Klein was a native of Cleveland, Ohio where she played trumpet in the Glenville High School Band. Around 1935 she was invited to play in Kermit Dart's All-Girl Band, which was led by Irene Vermillion. Klein traveled the country for two years with Vermillion's dance act/revue, "Rhapsody in Red." Upon returning to Cleveland, she was invited to tour with Ina Ray Hutton's Melodears; after which, she returned again to Cleveland where she performed in a variety of local venues as a part of the Cleveland Women's Orchestra. Around that time, she was also the sole female member of Freddie Shafer's band. Klein led a number of bands. On February 22, 1945, she married David Siskin and legally changed her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Lowe
Ruth Lowe (August 12, 1914 – January 4, 1981) was a Canadian pianist and songwriter. She composed the first ''Billboard'' top 80 song "I'll Never Smile Again". Early life Born in Toronto but raised in Glendale, California, Lowe returned to her birth country of Canada as a young woman and began working as a pianist. In 1936, Lowe was working in the 'Song Shop' in Toronto when Ina Ray Hutton brought her all-female band (the Melodears) to town. Her piano player had taken ill, and Hutton was frantically trying to locate a good-looking blonde lady replacement. Lowe auditioned, and became the regular pianist in Ina Ray's band. At age 23 in 1938, Lowe married Harold Cohen, a Chicago music publicist. It was a happy marriage that only lasted one year until Cohen's death during an operation in 1939. In her deep grief, Lowe returned to live in Toronto. In her apartment, she composed "I'll Never Smile Again". Songwriter The song "I'll Never Smile Again" was first heard on the Canadian Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All-female Band
An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop scenes, all-female bands are less common. 1920s–1950s In the Jazz Age and during the 1930s, "all-girl" bands such as the Blue Belles, the Parisian Redheads (later the Bricktops), Lil-Hardin's All-Girl Band, the Ingenues, the Harlem Playgirls led by the likes of Neliska Ann Briscoe and Eddie Crump, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Phil Spitalny's Musical Sweethearts, "Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators" as well as "Helen Lewis and her Rhythm Queens were popular. Dozens of early sound films were made of the vaudeville style all-girl groups, especially short subject promotional films for Paramount and Vitaphone. (In 1925, Lee de Forest filmed Lewis and her band in his sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Sweethearts Of Rhythm
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all-women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day. They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that included the Apollo Theater in New York City, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. After a performance in Chicago in 1943, the ''Chicago Defender'' announced the band was "one of the hottest stage shows that ever raised the roof of the theater!" They have been labeled "the most prominent and probably best female aggregation of the Big Band era". During feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s in America, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm became popular with feminist writers and musicologists who made it their goal to change the discourse on the history of jazz to include both men and women musicians. Flutist Antoinette Handy was one scholar who documented the story of these female musicians of color. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All-female Bands
An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop scenes, all-female bands are less common. 1920s–1950s In the Jazz Age and during the 1930s, "all-girl" bands such as the Blue Belles, the Parisian Redheads (later the Bricktops), Lil-Hardin's All-Girl Band, the Ingenues, the Harlem Playgirls led by the likes of Neliska Ann Briscoe and Eddie Crump, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Phil Spitalny's Musical Sweethearts, "Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators" as well as "Helen Lewis and her Rhythm Queens were popular. Dozens of early sound films were made of the vaudeville style all-girl groups, especially short subject promotional films for Paramount and Vitaphone. (In 1925, Lee de Forest filmed Lewis and her band in his sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Mills
Irving Harold Mills (born Isadore Minsky; January 16, 1894 – April 21, 1985) was an American music publisher, musician, lyricist, and jazz artist promoter. He sometimes used the pseudonyms Goody Goodwin and Joe Primrose. Personal Mills was born to a Jewish family in Odessa, Russian Empire, although some biographies state that he was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His father, Hyman Minsky (1868–1905), was a hat maker who had immigrated from Odessa to the United States with his wife Sofia ''(née'' Sophia Dudis; born 1870). Hyman died in 1905, forcing Irving and his brother, Jacob ''(aka'' "Jack"; 1891–1979), to work odd jobs including bussing at restaurants, selling wallpaper, and working in the garment industry. By 1910, Mills was listed as a telephone operator. Mills married Beatrice ("Bessie") Wilensky (1896–1976) in 1911 and they subsequently moved to Philadelphia. By 1918, Mills was working for publisher Leo Feist. His brother, Jack, was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darlings Of Rhythm
The Darlings of Rhythm was an African American, all-female swing band from the 1940s. The Darlings were often compared with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, another African American all-girl swing band. The Darlings were darker skinned than the Sweethearts. Toby Butler, a white member of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, was rumored to have left the band and joined the Darlings in the mid-1940s, when racial segregation made playing in mixed bands illegal. This rumor was confirmed in 1946 when she was arrested while performing in Georgia. Band members Members of the Darlings changed over time, and included the following: History The Darlings were formed in 1943 in Harlem by African American tenor and baritone saxophonist Lorraine Brown. Several of the band members joined the Darlings after leaving other bands. Cooper, Gaddison and Vi Wilson joined the Darlings after leaving the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Wilson joined the group to be with her cousin, reed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vocalion Records Artists
Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was later dropped from the label's name. In late 1924, the label was acquired by Brunswick Records. During the 1920s, Vocalion also began the 1000 race series, records recorded by and marketed to African Americans. Jim Jackson recorded "Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues" for Vocalion in 1927. It sold exceptionally well, and the song became a blues standard for musicians from Memphis and Mississippi. The label issued Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" The name Vocalion was resurrected in the late 1950s by American Decca as a budget label for back-catalog reissues. This incarnation of Vocalion ceased operations in 1973; however, its replacement as MCA's budget imprint, Coral Records Coral Records was a subsidiary of Decca Records that was fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Jazz
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Bands
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing. In contrast to the typical jazz emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements. They gave a greater role to bandleaders, arrangers, and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Instruments Big bands generally have four sections: trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section of guitar, piano, double bass, and drums. The division in early big bands, from the 1920s to 1930s, was typically two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, three or four saxoph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
