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Mike LeDonne
Michael Arthur LeDonne (born October 26, 1956) is a jazz pianist and organist known for post-bop and hard bop. He has worked with Benny Golson since 1996 and performs under his own name all over the world. Early life LeDonne was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on October 26, 1956. His parents ran a music store. His father was a jazz guitarist, and LeDonne started performing locally around the age of ten. He also had lessons with John Mehegan for four years. After graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with Jaki Byard in 1978, he moved to New York City and joined the Widespread Depression Jazz Orchestra. Later life and career LeDonne left the Widespread Depression Jazz Orchestra in 1981 and toured the UK with Panama Francis and the Savoy Sultans Back in New York, LeDonne became the house pianist at Jimmy Ryan's, where he played with some big names in jazz during 1981–83. He was also part of Benny Goodman's Sextet in 1982–83. LeDonne joined Mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Island Sound, it is from Manhattan and from The Bronx. It is bordered by the towns of Trumbull, Connecticut, Trumbull to the north, Fairfield, Connecticut, Fairfield to the west, and Stratford, Connecticut, Stratford to the east. Bridgeport and other towns in Fairfield County make up the Greater Bridgeport, Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolitan statistical area, the second largest Metropolitan statistical area, metropolitan area in Connecticut. The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolis forms part of the New York metropolitan area. Inhabited by the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation, Paugus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifford Jordan
Clifford Laconia Jordan (September 2, 1931 – March 27, 1993) was an American jazz tenor saxophone player. While in Chicago, he performed with Max Roach, Sonny Stitt, and some rhythm and blues groups. He moved to New York City in 1957, after which he recorded three albums for Blue Note. He recorded with Horace Silver, J.J. Johnson, and Kenny Dorham, among others. He was part of the Charles Mingus Sextet, with Eric Dolphy, during its 1964 European tour. Jordan toured Africa with Randy Weston, and performed in Paris while living in Belgium. In later years, he led his own groups, performed with Cedar Walton's quartet Eastern Rebellion, and led a big band. Jordan was married to Shirley Jordan, a designer and former owner of Clothing Manufacturing Corporation in New York. He later married Sandy Jordan (née Williams), a graphic artist and Honorary Founders Board member of the Jazz Foundation of America. Death Jordan died of lung cancer at the age of 61 in New York City. Disc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan (March 16, 1930 – November 16, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He grew up in Detroit, initially influenced by such pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole, and then by bebop musicians. Within months of moving to New York in 1956, he had recorded with Miles Davis and on Sonny Rollins' album ''Saxophone Colossus''. Recordings under various leaders, including ''Giant Steps'' of John Coltrane, continued well into 1962, when he became vocalist Ella Fitzgerald's full-time accompanist. He worked with Fitzgerald for three years until 1965, and then in 1968 returned to be her pianist and musical director, this time for a decade. After leaving Fitzgerald in 1978, Flanagan attracted praise for the elegance of his playing, which was principally in trio settings when under his own leadership. In his 45-year recording career, he recorded more than three dozen albums under his own name and more than 200 as a sideman. By the time of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hank Jones
Henry Jones Jr. (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award. He was also honored in 2003 with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award. In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On April 13, 2009, the University of Hartford presented Jones with an honorary Doctorate of Music for his musical accomplishments. Jones recorded more than 60 albums under his own name, and countless others as a sideman, including Cannonball Adderley's celebrated album '' Somethin' Else''. On May 19, 1962, he played piano as actress Marilyn Monroe sang her famous "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" song to then U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Biography Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Henry "Hank" Jones moved to Pontiac, Michiga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music. Earlier editions were published under the titles ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', and ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''; the work has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called ''Grove Music Online'', which is now an important part of ''Oxford Music Online''. ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' was first published in London by Macmillan and Co. in four volumes (1879, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by George Grove with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland in the fourth volume. An Index edited by Mrs. E. Wodehouse was issued as a separate volume in 1890. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David "Fathead" Newman
David "Fathead" Newman (February 24, 1933 – January 20, 2009) was an American jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophonist, who made numerous recordings as a session musician and leader, but is best known for his work as a sideman on seminal 1950s and early 1960s recordings by Ray Charles. The AllMusic Guide to Jazz wrote that "there have not been many saxophonists and flutists more naturally soulful than David 'Fathead' Newman." Newman was a leading exponent of the "Texas Tenor" saxophone style, a big-toned, bluesy approach popularized by jazz tenor players from that state. Early life Newman was born in Corsicana, Texas, United States, on February 24, 1933, but grew up in Dallas, where he studied first the piano and then the saxophone. According to one account, he got his nickname "Fathead" in school when "an outraged music instructor used it as an epithet after catching Mr. Newman playing a Sousa march from memory rather than from reading the sheet music, which rested upside down ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Coleman
George Edward Coleman (born March 8, 1935) is an American jazz saxophonist known for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s. In 2015, he was named an NEA Jazz Master. Early life Coleman was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was taught how to play the alto saxophone in his teens by his older brother Lucian Adams, inspired (like many jazz musicians of his generation) by Charlie Parker. Among his schoolmates were Harold Mabern, Booker Little, Frank Strozier, Hank Crawford, and Charles Lloyd. Later life and career After working with Ray Charles, Coleman started working with B.B. King in 1953, at which point he switched to tenor saxophone. In 1956 Coleman moved to Chicago, along with Booker Little, where he worked with Gene Ammons and Johnny Griffin before joining Max Roach's quintet (1958–1959). Coleman recorded with organist Jimmy Smith on his album ''House Party'' (1957), along with Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Kenny Burrell, and Donald Bailey. Moving to New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lou Donaldson
Lou Donaldson (born November 1, 1926) is an American retired jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist. He is best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to playing the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was, as many were of the bebop era, heavily influenced by Charlie Parker. Life and career Donaldson was born in Badin, North Carolina, United States. He attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro in the early 1940s. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was trained at the Great Lakes bases in Chicago where he was introduced to bop music in the lively club scene. At the war's conclusion, he returned to Greensboro, where he worked club dates with the Rhythm Vets, a combo composed of A and T students who had served in the U.S. Navy. The band recorded the soundtrack to a musical comedy featurette, ''Pitch a Boogie Woogie'', in Greenville, North Carolina, in the summer of 1947. The movie had a limited run at black audie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Stallings
Mary Stallings (born August 16, 1939) is an American jazz vocalist and mother of soul singer Adriana Evans. Biography One of eleven children, Mary Stallings was born in San Francisco, California. She grew up in the neighborhood of Laurel Heights, singing in the black gospel choir of the First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. By her teens, Stallings began singing in San Francisco night clubs such as the Hungry i, The Purple Onion, and El Matador. She performed with Ben Webster, Cal Tjader, Earl Hines, Red Mitchell, Teddy Edwards, and the Montgomery brothers ( Wes, Monk, and Buddy). Before graduating from high school, she joined R&B singer Louis Jordan's Tympani Five. In the early 1960s, she performed with Dizzy Gillespie at the Black Hawk nightclub in San Francisco and with Gillespie at the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival. She collaborated with vibraphonist Cal Tjader on the album ''Cal Tjader Plays, Mary Stallings Sings'' for Fantasy Records. Engagements in Tokyo, Mani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annie Ross
Annabelle McCauley Allan Short (25 July 193021 July 2020), known professionally as Annie Ross, was a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Early life Ross was born in Surrey, England, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians John "Jack" Short and Mary Dalziel Short (née Allan). Her brother was Scottish entertainer and theatre producer and director Jimmy Logan. She first appeared on stage at age three. At the age of four, she travelled to New York by ship with her family; she later recalled that they "got the cheapest ticket, which was right in the bowels of the ship". Shortly after arriving in the city, she won a token contract with MGM through a children's radio contest run by Paul Whiteman. She subsequently moved with her aunt, Scottish-American singer and actress Ella Logan, to Los Angeles, and her mother, father and brother returned to Scotland. She did not see her parents again until fourteen years lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernestine Anderson
Ernestine Anderson (November 11, 1928 – March 10, 2016) was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival (six times over a 33-year span), as well as at jazz festivals all over the world. In the early 1990s she joined Qwest Records, the label founded by fellow Garfield High School graduate Quincy Jones. Life and career Ernestine Irene Anderson (and her twin sister Josephine) were born in Houston, Texas,Gaar, Gillian G., "Ernestine Anderson", ''Seattle Metropolitan'', December 2008, p. 62. on November 11, 1928. Her mother, Erma, was a housewife, and her father, Joseph, a construction worker who sang bass in a gospel quartet.Vacher, Peter"Ernestine Anderson obituary" ''The Guardian'', March 20, 2016. By the age of three, Anderson showed a talent for singing along with her parents' old blues 78 rpm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including " St. Thomas", " Oleo", " Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser" and the "Saxophone Colossus". Early life Rollins was born in New York City to parents from the United States Virgin Islands. The youngest of three siblings, he grew up in central Harlem and on Sugar Hill, receiving his first alto saxophone at the age of seven or eight. He attended Edward W. Stitt Junior High School and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. Rollins started as a pianist, changed to alto saxophone, and finally switched to tenor in 1946. During his high school years, he played in a band with other future ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
