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Musicraft
Musicraft Records was a record company and label established in 1937 in New York City. Catalogue Musicraft's catalog encompassed many different musical styles, including classical music, folk, jazz, Latin, popular vocal, and calypso. Artists who recorded for Musicraft include singer Mel Torme, vocalist Sarah Vaughan, vocalist Mindy Carson, Duke Ellington, bebop comic Harry "the Hipster" Gibson, pianist Teddy Wilson, blues pioneer Lead Belly, poet Carl Sandburg, Dizzy Gillespie, Georgie Auld, Artie Shaw, Buddy Greco, Billie Rogers, and others. Jazz accordionist Art Van Damme made his first recordings for the label. According to the New York Public Library, the first original cast album, a set of songs recorded by the cast of ''The Cradle Will Rock'', by Marc Blitzstein, was released in 1938 on Musicraft. Composer/musician Walter Gross was an A&R executive and arranger for the label in the late 1940s. International music entrepreneur Peter Fritsch was an executive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer. Nicknamed "Sassy" and " The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". Early life Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services. She developed an early love for popular music on records and the radio. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Gibson
Harry "The Hipster" Gibson (June 27, 1915 – May 3, 1991), born Harry Raab, was an American jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. He played New York style stride piano and boogie woogie while singing in a wild, unrestrained style. His music career began in the late 1920s, when, under his real name, he played stride piano in Dixieland jazz bands in Harlem. He continued to perform there throughout the 1930s, adding the barrelhouse boogie of the time to his repertoire. Early life Gibson was Jewish. He came from a musical family that operated a player piano repair shop. He began playing piano in the 1920s as a child, in the Bronx and Harlem. His first professional piano gig was at age 13 with his uncle's orchestra. He began playing boogie woogie and talking in a jive style. He was invited into black speakeasies in Harlem to play piano while still a teenager. Career In the 1930s, after Prohibition ended, Gibson played regularly in Harlem nightclubs. He punctuated his piano styling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction. Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists", Shaw led one of the United States' most popular big bands in the late 1930s through the early 1940s. Though he had numerous hit records, he was perhaps best known for his 1938 recording of Cole Porter's " Begin the Beguine." Before the release of "Beguine," Shaw and his fledgling band had languished in relative obscurity for over two years and, after its release, he became a major pop artist within short order. The record eventually became one of the era's defining recordings. Musically restless, Shaw was also an early proponent of what became known much later as Third Stream music, which blended elements of classical and jazz forms and traditions. His music influenced other musicians, such as Monty Norman in England, with the vamp of the James ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines", " Goodnight, Irene", " Midnight Special", " Cotton Fields", and " Boll Weevil". Lead Belly usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he also played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and windjammer. In some of his recordings, he sang while clapping his hands or stomping his foot. Lead Belly's songs covered a wide range of genres, including gospel music, blues, and folk music, as well as a number of topics, including women, liquor, prison life, racism, cowboys, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, Jack Johnson, the Scottsboro Boys and Howard Hughes. Lead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billie Rogers
Billie Rogers (née Zelda Louise Smith) (May 31, 1917 – January 18, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer who was a member of Woody Herman's band from 1941 to 1943. She led her own band in 1943. At the end of that year, she joined Jerry Wald's band and remained a member until October 1945, when she left to form her own sextet. Rogers is credited as the first woman to hold a horn position in a major jazz orchestra. Woody Herman discovered Rogers in August 1941. After his band had finished for the evening at the Palladium Ballroom Cafe in Hollywood, Herman had gone to a small Los Angeles night club on the advice of his road manager where Rogers was singing and playing trumpet. Impressed, he asked for an introduction. Sammy Cahn, the songwriter, introduced them, and within a few minutes Herman hired her for his Blues on Parade band. She made her debut at the Panther Room of the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. Biography Growing up Rogers was born Zelda Louise Smith on May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discovery Records
Discovery Records was a United States-based record company and label known for its recordings of jazz music. Discovery was founded in 1948 by jazz fan and promoter Albert Marx. The record label eventually would record jazz notables such as Dizzy Gillespie, Georgie Auld, Red Norvo, Art Pepper, Joe Pass and Charles Mingus for issue on his Discovery label headquartered in Hollywood, California. Discovery later recorded such performers as singers Lorez Alexandria and Ernie Andrews, and Grammy winning composer-band leader Gerald Wilson. Marx had first become artistic for later Musicraft Records in 1944 before starting his own label. In the 1970s Musicraft Records was revived through Discovery/Trend by Albert Marx in Los Angeles. He also started the Trend AM-PM label in the 1980s to document and promote talented educational, college level jazz ensembles to include the Los Angeles Jazz Workshop, Nashville Jazz Machine and the Fullerton College Jazz Ensemble. His estate sold th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cradle Will Rock
''The Cradle Will Rock'' is a 1937 play in music by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman. A Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed, it includes a panoply of social figures. Set in "Steeltown, USA", it follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize the town's workers and combat wicked, greedy businessman Mr. Mister, who controls the town's factory, press, church, and social organization. The piece is almost entirely sung-through, giving it many operatic qualities, although Blitzstein included popular song styles of the time. The WPA temporarily shut down the project a few days before it was to open on Broadway. To avoid government and union restrictions, the show was performed on June 16, 1937 with Blitzstein playing piano onstage and the cast members singing their parts from the audience."Steel Strike Opera Is Put Off By WPA". ''The New York Times''. June 17, 1937, p. 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Gross (musician)
Walter Gross (July 14, 1909 – November 27, 1967) is best known for having composed the music for the popular 1946 song "Tenderly". In addition to composing dozens of other titles, he was also a pianist, arranger, orchestra leader, and record industry executive. Biography Born in New York City, Gross gave his first piano recital at age 10. In 1923, he had a 15-minute piano program on radio station WEAF in New York City. He began performing professionally in the early 1930s, and played piano in bands led by Paul Whiteman, Andre Kostelanetz, Tommy Dorsey, and Raymond Scott. He was also a staff pianist on CBS radio in the 1930s. In 1942, Gross led the orchestra for Frank Sinatra's CBS program, '' Reflections''. After serving in the military during World War II, Gross became an executive at Musicraft Records, where he served as conductor, arranger, and pianist for recording sessions. In 1946, he was approached by noted lyricist Jack Lawrence, who asked permission to add words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgie Auld
Georgie Auld (May 19, 1919 – January 8, 1990) was a jazz tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader. Early years Auld was born John Altwerger in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1929. Before the family left Canada, Auld's parents gave him a saxophone, which he taught himself to play. Career Auld worked with Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Porcino, Billy Eckstine, Tiny Kahn, and Frank Rosolino. Primarily a swing saxophonist, he was a member of big bands and led big bands, including Georgie Auld and His Orchestra and Georgie Auld and His Hollywood All Stars. He played rock and roll while working for Alan Freed in 1959. In 1949, Auld played Carl in ''The Rat Race'' in the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway. In 1952, he had a small part in the film ''The Marrying Kind''. In 1977 he played a bandleader in the motion picture ''New York, New York'', starring Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro and also acted as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality provided one of bebop's most prominent symbols. In the 1940s, Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione, and balladeer Johnny Hartman. He pioneered Afro-Cuban jazz and won several Grammy Awards. Scott Yanow wrot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw Wilson (November 24, 1912 – July 31, 1986) was an American jazz pianist. Described by critic Scott Yanow as "the definitive swing pianist", Wilson had a sophisticated, elegant style. His work was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. With Goodman, he was one of the first black musicians to appear prominently with white musicians. In addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the 1980s. Biography Wilson was born in Austin, Texas. He studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in Speed Webb's band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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