|
Now Or Never (Billie Holiday Song)
"Now or Never" is a jazz song written by singer Billie Holiday, and composer Curtis Reginald Lewis. Recording session Studio Session No. 63, New York City, September 30, 1949, Sy Oliver and His Orchestra (Decca), with Bernie Privin (trumpet), Sid Cooper, Johnny Mince (alto saxophone), Artie Drellinger, Pat Nizza (tenor saxophone), Billy Kyle (piano), Everett Barksdale (guitar), Joe Benjamin (bass), Jimmy Crawford (drums), and Billie Holiday (vocal). Notable cover versions * Nnenna Freelon Nnenna Freelon (born July 28, 1954) is an American jazz singer, composer, producer, and arranger. Early life and education Freelon was born Chinyere Nnenna Pierce to Charles and Frances Pierce in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was raised. ... (2005) References External links The Unofficial Billie Holiday Website {{Authority control 1949 songs Billie Holiday songs Songs written by Billie Holiday ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out conce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gimme A Pigfoot (And A Bottle Of Beer)
"Gimme a Pigfoot" is a 1933 song written by Wesley Wilson, probably with Coot Grant, his wife, though she is not usually credited on record labels. It was first recorded by Bessie Smith, and versions have been released by many other artists. It is sometimes listed as "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)". Bessie Smith recorded the song in New York on November 24, 1933, with a band led by pianist Buck Washington. The musicians were Washington (piano), Benny Goodman (clarinet), Frankie Newton (trumpet), Jack Teagarden (trombone), Chu Berry (tenor saxophone), Bobby Johnson (guitar), and Billy Taylor (bass). The recording was organised and produced by John Hammond, and it proved to be Smith's final recording session before her death in 1937. The recording was released by OKeh Records in early 1934. The song's lyrics contrast the aspirations of those partying "up in Harlem every Saturday night, when the highbrows get together", with simpler pleasures: "At the break of day/ You ... [...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] |
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi Germany, Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group. The U.S. Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG (Universal Music Group). Label name The name dates back to a portable phonograph, gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtis Reginald Lewis
Curtis Reginald Lewis (August 29, 1918 – May 23, 1969), American composer of popular songs, many of which have become jazz standards. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, grew up in Chicago, and came to New York City in the 1940s. Lewis subsequently became one of the first black composers and lyricists to own a music publishing company on Broadway in the early 1950s. He died in Kew Gardens, New York. Having served in the United States Army during World War II (from August 22, 1942, discharged as a Staff Sergeant December 2, 1945), his body was interred at the Long Island National Cemetery, Farmingdale, NY. Selected compositions *"All Night Long" ::Shirley Horn; Album: ''All Night Long'' (1981) ::Billie Holiday ::George Shearing Quintet with Nancy Wilson; Album: ''The Swingin's Mutual!'' ::Freddie Roach (organist), Freddie Roach; Album: ''Brown Sugar'' ::Aretha Franklin; Album: ''Sweet Bitter Love'' ::Sonny Criss; Album: ''Crisscraft'' (Muse, 1975) ::Sandy Graham; Album: ''Sandy Gr ... [...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] |
Sy Oliver
Melvin James "Sy" Oliver (December 17, 1910 – May 28, 1988) was an American jazz arranger, trumpeter, composer, singer and bandleader. Life Sy Oliver was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. His mother was a piano teacher, and his father was a multi-instrumentalist, who demonstrated saxophones at a time when instrument was seldom played other than by marching bands. Oliver left home at 17 to play with Zack Whyte and his Chocolate Beau Brummels and later with Alphonse Trent. He sang and played trumpet with these bands, becoming known for his "growling" horn playing. He also began arranging with them. He continued singing for the next 17 years, making many recordings when he was with Jimmie Lunceford and with his own band. With Lunceford, from 1933 to 1939, he recorded more than two dozen vocals. From 1949 to 1951, he recorded more than a dozen with his band. With Tommy Dorsey, he recorded very few vocals. In 1941, he sang with Jo Stafford, on his own compositions " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Kyle
William Osborne Kyle (July 14, 1914 – February 23, 1966) was an American jazz pianist. He is perhaps best known as an accompanist. Biography Kyle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He began playing the piano in school and by the early 1930s worked with Lucky Millinder, Tiny Bradshaw and later the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. In 1938, he joined John Kirby's sextet, but was drafted in 1942. After the war, he worked with Kirby's band briefly and also worked with Sy Oliver. He then spent thirteen years as a member of Louis Armstrong's All-Stars, and performed in the 1956 musical ''High Society''. A fluent pianist with a light touch, Kyle always worked steadily. He died in Youngstown, Ohio. Kyle had few opportunities to record as a leader and none during his Armstrong years, some octet and septet sides in 1937, two songs with a quartet in 1939, and outings in 1946 with a trio and an octet. He was the co-author of the song "Billy's Bounce", recorded by the Modern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Everett Barksdale
Everett Barksdale (April 28, 1910 – January 29, 1986) was an American jazz guitarist and session musician. He played bass and banjo before settling on guitar. In the 1930s, Barksdale moved to Chicago, where he was in Erskine Tate's band. He recorded for the first time with violinist Eddie South in 1931, and he remained with South until 1939. He moved to New York City and became a member of the Benny Carter big band. Around the same time, he recorded with Sidney Bechet. During the 1940s, he worked for CBS as a session musician. As a sideman, Barksdale played guitar in many genres. He worked with vocalists Dean Barlow, Maxine Sullivan, the Blenders, and the Clovers. He played on the hit "Love Is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia, and was music director for the Ink Spots. Beginning in 1949, he worked with pianist Art Tatum until Tatum died in 1956. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was a member of the house band at ABC. He played on recordings by Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Dinah Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Crawford (drummer)
Jimmy "Craw" Crawford (January 14, 1910 – January 28, 1980) was an American jazz drummer in the swing era. Biography Jimmy Crawford was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. He was the drummer of the Jimmie Lunceford big band for nearly 14 years from 1928 to 1942. According to ''Modern Drummer'', Crawford "played with a strong, solid pulsation — a classic trademark of the Lunceford sound — and was a key factor in establishing the unique Lunceford beat."Jimmy Crawford , Modern Drummer Later, in the 1950s, Crawford worked as a pit drummer on in such productions as ''Jamai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nnenna Freelon
Nnenna Freelon (born July 28, 1954) is an American jazz singer, composer, producer, and arranger. Early life and education Freelon was born Chinyere Nnenna Pierce to Charles and Frances Pierce in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was raised. She has a brother Melvin and a sister named Debbie. As a young woman, she sang extensively in her community and the Union Baptist Church and at St. Paul AME. She recalled, "I started singing in the church, like so many others...." Nnenna graduated from Simmons College in Boston with a degree in health care administration. For a while she worked for the Durham County Hospital Corporation, Durham, North Carolina. She suggests that her influences included several "not famous people" and well as Nina Simone and Billy Eckstine, whose records her parents played at home. "It's important to expose your children to a wide musical environment," she says. "I did something that my grandmother told me: 'Bloom where you're planted', 'don't get on a bus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
