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Max Miller (jazz Musician)
Edward Maxwell Miller (November 17, 1911 – November 13, 1985) was an American jazz pianist and vibraphone player. He had a forty year career that peaked in the 1940s and '50s. Many of his compositions use extended chord harmonies, polyphony, and polytonality and were influenced by Stravinsky, Bartók, and Hindemith. Early career Miller was born in East Chicago, Indiana. At an early age he learned banjo and played it in the high school band. At sixteen he joined the Musicians Union and began to play professionally. In 1927 he switched to guitar, performing mostly dixieland with bands in Indiana and Michigan. He moved to Chicago in the early 1930s and worked as a drummer and string bassist. At this time he started experimenting with the vibraphone. He worked with bands around Chicago, playing guitar, piano, and vibes, including with pianist Frank Melrose and drummer Dave Tough. He went on tour as a guitarist and vibraphonist for the Vincent Lopez Orchestra with Betty Hutton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France. Biography Early life Bechet was born in New Orleans in 1897 to a middle-class Creole of color family. Bechet's father Omar was both a shoemaker and a flute player, and all four of his brothers were musicians as well. His older brother, Leonard Victor Bechet, was a full-time dentist and a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Bechet learned and mastered several musical instruments that were kept around the house (he began on the cornet), mostly by teaching himself; he decided to specialize in the clarinet (which he played almost exclusively until about 1919). At the age of six, he started to perform w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chubby Jackson
Greig Stewart "Chubby" Jackson (October 25, 1918 – October 1, 2003) was an American jazz double-bassist and band leader. Biography Born in New York City, Jackson began at the age of seventeen as a clarinetist, but quickly changed to bass in the mid-1930s. Jackson performed and/or recorded with Louis Armstrong, Raymond Scott, Jan Savitt, Henry Busse, Charlie Barnet, Oscar Pettiford, Charlie Ventura, Lionel Hampton, Bill Harris, Woody Herman, Gerry Mulligan, Lennie Tristano and others. He is perhaps best known for his spirited work both with the Herman bands, and as a leader of his own bands, big and small. In the 1950s, Jackson worked as a studio musician, freelanced, and hosted some local children's TV shows: ''Chubby Jackson's Little Rascals'', which was seen weekday mornings on WABC TV Ch. 7 in New York from March 23, 1959, to July 14, 1961, and ''The Chubby Jackson Show'', Saturday afternoons also on WABC TV Ch.7, from July 22, 1961, to August 5, 1961. Jackson hosted his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DownBeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the " downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure. ''DownBeat'' publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers' and critics' poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue. Popular features of ''DownBeat'' magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sid Catlett
Sidney "Big Sid" Catlett (January 17, 1910 – March 25, 1951) was an American jazz drummer. Catlett was one of the most versatile drummers of his era, adapting with the changing music scene as bebop emerged. Early life Catlett was born in Evansville, Indiana, United States, and at an early age he was instructed in the rudiments of piano and drums, under the tutelage of a music teacher hired by his mother. When he and his family relocated to Chicago, Catlett received his first drum kit, and immersed himself in the diverse styles and techniques of Zutty Singleton, Warren "Baby" Dodds, and Jimmy Bertrand, among others. Later life and career In 1928, Catlett began playing with violinist and clarinet player Darnell Howard, before joining pianist Sammy Stewart's Orchestra in New York City, and making appearances at the Savoy Ballroom. After performing for several lesser established musical acts, Catlett began recording and performing with multiple musicians including Benny Carter, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Harris (musician)
Willard Palmer Harris (October 28, 1916 – August 21, 1973) was an American jazz trombonist. Biography Harris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Early in his career, Harris performed with Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, and Eddie Condon. He is remembered for his broad, thick tone and quick vibrato, that remained for the duration of each tone. He joined Woody Herman's First Herd in 1944. He was also in the Four Brothers Second Herd during the late 1940s, and he worked with Herman again in the 1950s. He then teamed up with Charlie Ventura and later with Chubby Jackson. Together with Flip Phillips, he became a stalwart of Benny Goodman's group in 1959, although it has been said that Goodman was frequently irritated at Harris because of Harris' indifferent approach to "sight-reading," the skill of playing previously unseen written music with fluency, an ability which Goodman and trumpeter Harry James both possessed. As an improviser, Harris seemed comfortabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later became part of Universal Music Group. Pre-history MCA Inc., a powerful talent agency and a television production company, entered the recorded music business in 1962 with the purchase of the New York-based US Decca Records (established in 1934), including Coral Records and Brunswick Records. MCA was forced to exit the talent agency business in order to complete the merger. As American Decca owned Universal Pictures, MCA assumed full ownership of Universal and made it into a top film studio, producing several hits. In 1966, MCA formed Uni Records and in 1967, purchased Kapp Records which was placed under Uni Records management. History The early years In 1937, the owner of Decca, E. R. Lewis, chose to split off the UK Decca company from the US company (keeping his US Decca holdings), fearing the financial damage that would arise for UK Companies if the emerging hostilities of Nazi Germany should lead t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
