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Max Gordon (Village Vanguard Founder)
Max Gordon (1903 – May 11, 1989) was a jazz promoter and founder of the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City. Life and career Born in Svir, Russian Empire (now in Belarus), Gordon emigrated to the United States in 1908 at age five. The family settled in Portland, Oregon, where he later attended Reed College. As a young man, he was interested in Russian and French novels and saw himself as a romantic type. Pursuing his parents' wish that he become a lawyer, he moved to New York in 1926 to attend Columbia Law School, but began working in nightclubs and dropped out: "I learned to take my education where I could find it." In 1932 Gordon opened his first venue, Village Fair, in the tradition of Viennese coffee houses as a place for artists and writers. He relocated the venue once in 1934 and opened the Village Vanguard in 1935. The Vanguard initially offered poetry and was frequented by poets Maxwell Bodenheim and Harry Kemp. Over time, the club segued into cabaret acts, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania shares land borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Russia to the southwest. It has a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Sweden to the west on the Baltic Sea. Lithuania covers an area of , with a population of 2.8 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities are Kaunas and Klaipėda. Lithuanians belong to the ethno-linguistic group of the Balts and speak Lithuanian language, Lithuanian, one of only a few living Baltic languages. For millennia the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Balts, Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, Monarchy of Lithuania, becoming king and founding the Kingdom of Lithuania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz. Born in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the ''Birth of the Cool'' sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, he signed a long-term contract wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irwin Corey
"Professor" Irwin Corey (July 29, 1914 – February 6, 2017) was an American stand-up comic, film actor and activist, often billed as "The World's Foremost Authority". He introduced his unscripted, improvisational style of stand-up comedy at the San Francisco club the hungry i. Lenny Bruce described Corey as "one of the most brilliant comedians of all time." Biography Corey was born Irwin Eli Cohen to a Jewish family on , in Brooklyn, New York. Poverty-stricken after his father deserted the family, his mother was forced to place him and his five siblings in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York, where Corey remained until his early teens. He then rode in boxcars out to California, and enrolled himself at Belmont High School in Los Angeles. During the Great Depression he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps and, while working his way back East, became a featherweight Golden Gloves boxing champion. Corey supported Communist/Socialist left-wing politics." He appeared in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which contained satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a Posthumous recognition, posthumous pardon in 2003. Bruce paved the way for counterculture-era comedians. His trial for obscenity was a landmark of freedom of speech in the United States. In 2017, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him third (behind Richard Pryor and George Carlin) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time. Early life Bruce was Jewish, born Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola, New York, Mineola, New York (state), New York. He grew up in nearby Bellmore, New York, Bellmore, and attended Wellington C. Mepham High School. According to his biography, during part of his high school years, he lived at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Gregory
Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, civil rights leader, business owner and entrepreneur, and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the African-American communities in the southern United States with his "no-holds-barred" sets, poking fun at the bigotry and racism in the United States. In 1961 he became a staple in the comedy clubs, appeared on television, and released comedy record albums. Gregory was at the forefront of political activism in the 1960s, when he protested the Vietnam War and racial injustice. He was arrested multiple times and went on many hunger strikes. He later became a speaker and author, primarily promoting spirituality. Gregory died of heart failure, aged 84, at a Washington, D.C., hospital in August 2017. Early life Gregory was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Lucille, a housemaid, and Presley Gregory. At Sumner High School, he was aided by te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, mainly ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954) working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also published several books featuring short stories and wrote humor pieces for ''The New Yorker''. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village alongside Lenny Bruce, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and Joan Rivers. There he developed a monologue style (rather than traditional jokes) and the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish. He released three comedy albums during the mid to late 1960s, earning a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nomination for his 1964 comedy album entitled simply '' Woody Allen''. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress, singer and author. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in '' St. Louis Woman'' in 1946. She received a Special Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of '' Hello, Dolly!'' in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special ''Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale''. Her rendition of " Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. In 1976, she became the first African-American to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988. Early life Bailey was born in Newport News, Virginia to the Reverend Joseph James and Ella Mae Ricks Bailey. She was raised in the Bloodfields neighborhood of Newport News and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in nearby Norfolk, the first city in the region to offer higher education ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List of people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards, awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Streisand began her career by performing in nightclubs and Broadway theaters in the early 1960s. Following her guest appearances on various television shows, she signed to Columbia Records, insisting that she retain full artistic control, and accepting lower pay in exchange, an arrangement that continued throughout her career, and released her debut ''The Barbra Streisand Album'' (1963), which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Throughout her recording career, Streisand has topped the US Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200 chart with 11 albums—a record for a woman—including ''People (Barbra Streisand album), People'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolph Green
Adolph Green (December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002) was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved film musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, during the genre's heyday. Many people thought the pair were married, but in fact they were not a romantic couple at all. Nevertheless, they shared a unique comic genius and sophisticated wit that enabled them to forge a six-decade-long partnership that produced some of Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood and Broadway theatre, Broadway's greatest hits. Biography Green was born in the Bronx to Hungary, Hungarian Jewish immigrants Helen (née Weiss) and Daniel Green. He was the youngest of three sons and had two older brothers, Louis (circa 1907-?) and William (circa 1910-?). After high school, he worked as a runner on Wall Street while he tried to make it as an actor. He met Comden throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Betty Comden
Betty Comden (May 3, 1917 - November 23, 2006) was an American lyricist, playwright, and screenwriter who contributed to numerous Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century. Her writing partnership with Adolph Green spanned six decades: "the longest running creative partnership in theatre history." The musical-comedy duo of Comden and Green collaborated most notably with composers Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein, as well enjoyed success with ''Singin' in the Rain'', as part of the famed " Freed unit" at MGM. Early life Betty Comden was born Basya Cohen in Brooklyn, New York in 1917, the younger child of Leo Cohen (originally Astershinsky), a lawyer, and Rebecca ( Sadvoransky) Cohen, an English teacher. Both were Russian immigrants and observant Jews. She had an older brother, Nathaniel ("Nat"), born . Basya "attended Erasmus Hall High School and studied drama at New York University, graduating in 1938," according to ''The New York Times''. In 1938, mutual f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday (born Judith Tuvim, June 21, 1921 – June 7, 1965) was an American actress, comedian and singer.Obituary ''Variety'', June 9, 1965, p. 71. She began her career as part of a nightclub act before working in Broadway plays and musicals. Her success as Billie Dawn in the 1946 stage production of '' Born Yesterday'' led to her being cast in the 1950 film version for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. She was known for her performance on Broadway in the musical '' Bells Are Ringing,'' winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and reprising her role in the 1960 film adaptation. In 1952, Holliday was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to answer claims she was associated with communism. Early life Holliday was born Judith Tuvim (she took her stage name from ''yom tovim'', which is Hebrew for "holidays") in New Yor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorraine Gordon
Lorraine Gordon (née Stein; October 15, 1922 – June 9, 2018) was an American jazz music advocate, the owner of the Village Vanguard jazz club in Greenwich Village, New York City, and the author of a memoir on jazz music. Life and career Gordon grew up in Newark, New Jersey and attended Newark Arts High School before transferring to Weequahic High School, from which she graduated in 1937. As a teenager, she was an ardent fan of jazz music. In 1942, she married Alfred Lion, co-founder of Blue Note Records. In the 1940s, Gordon and Lion recorded the works of jazz artists such as the clarinetist Sidney Bechet and pianist Thelonious Monk. In 1949, she married Max Gordon, owner of the Village Vanguard club in New York. Established in 1935, the club gained a reputation among jazz musicians in the late 1950s and became a popular place to record live performances. The club's artistic direction was in part guided by her. In the 1960s, as a member of the peace activist group Women Strik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
