Palo Alto Records
Palo Alto Records was a jazz record company and label that released most of its discography in the 1980s. The label was founded in 1981 by Jim Benham, who lived in Palo Alto, California. He played trumpet in a big band and was chairman of the Benham Capital Management Group. Herb Wong, an educator and disc jockey in San Francisco, was artistic director until 1985. The Palo Alto office closed that year, but the label moved to Studio City. Palo Alto also operated a sublabel, TBA Records, which recorded Alvin Hayes, George Howard, and Rare Silk. Discography * 8001: Full Faith & Credit Big Band – ''Debut'' (1980) * 8002: Paul Robertson – ''The Song Is You'' (1980) * 8003: Full Faith & Credit Big Band – ''Jazz Faire'' (1981) * 8004: Barone Brothers – ''Blues and Other Happy Moments'' (1979) * 8005: Tee Carson – ''Basically Count'' (1981) * 8007: Lanny Morgan – ''It's About Time'' (1981) * 8008: Les Demerle – ''On Fire'' (1981) * 8009: Pepper Adams – '' Urban Dreams' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Mal Waldron
Malcolm Earl "Mal" Waldron (August 16, 1925 – December 2, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He started playing professionally in New York in 1950, after graduating from college. In the following dozen years or so Waldron led his own bands and played for those led by Charles Mingus, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy, among others. During Waldron's period as house pianist for Prestige Records in the late 1950s, he appeared on dozens of albums and composed for many of them, including writing his most famous song, "Soul Eyes", for Coltrane. Waldron was often an accompanist for vocalists, and was Billie Holiday's regular accompanist from April 1957 until her death in July 1959. A breakdown caused by a drug overdose in 1963 left Waldron unable to play or remember any music; he regained his skills gradually, while redeveloping his speed of thought. He left the U.S. permanently in the mid-1960s, settled in Europe, and continued touring internat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, utilizing a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, ''Head Hunters''. Hancock's best-known compositions include " Cantaloupe Island", " Watermelon Man", " Maiden Voyage", and " Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he enjoyed a hit single with the electronic instrumental " Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 200 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet (from 1960 to 1965) and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA Jazz Master and five-time Grammy award winner. Unlike many of the jazz keyboardists of his generation, Tyner very rarely incorporated Electronic keyboard, electric keyboards or synthesizers into his work. Tyner has been widely imitated, and is one of the most recognizable and influential pianists in jazz history. Early life and family Tyner was born on December 11, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the eldest of three children of Jarvis and Beatrice (Stevenson) Tyner. His younger brother Jarvis Tyner was the executive vice-chairman of the Communist Party USA. Tyner was encouraged to study piano by his mother, who had installed a piano at her beauty salon. He began piano lessons at age 13 at the Granoff School of Music where he had als ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jimmy Rowles
James George Hunter (August 19, 1918 – May 28, 1996), known professionally as Jimmy Rowles (sometimes spelled Jimmie Rowles), was an American jazz pianist, vocalist, and composer. As a bandleader and accompanist, he explored multiple styles including swing and cool jazz. Music career Rowles was born in Spokane, Washington, United States, and attended Gonzaga University in that city. After moving to Los Angeles, he joined Lester Young's group in 1942. He also worked with Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Tommy Dorsey, Tony Bennett, and as a studio musician. With female singers Rowles was praised as an accompanist by female singers. He recorded ''Sarah Vaughan with the Jimmy Rowles Quintet'' with Sarah Vaughan and accompanied Carmen McRae on her 1972 live album '' The Great American Songbook''. McRae described Rowles as "the guy every girl singer in her right mind would like to work with". In the 1950s and 1960s, he frequently played behind Billie Holiday and Peggy L ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dianne Reeves
Dianne Elizabeth Reeves (born October 23, 1956) is an American jazz singer. Biography Dianne Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a musical family. Her father sang, her mother played trumpet, her uncle is bassist Charles Burrell, and her cousin is George Duke. Her father died when she was two years old, and she was raised in Denver, Colorado, by her mother, Vada Swanson, and maternal family. She was raised Catholic and attended Cure D'Ars Catholic School in Denver for much of her early schooling. Career In 1971, she started singing and playing piano. She was a member of her high-school band, and while performing at a convention in Chicago was noticed by trumpeter Clark Terry, who invited her to sing with him. "He had these amazing all-star bands, but I had no idea who they all were! The thing I loved about it was the way they interacted with each other – the kind of intimate exchange that I wasn't part of. For a young singer, it was fertile soil." She studied cla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Free Flight (band)
Free Flight is an American jazz ensemble led by flutist Jim Walker. History Members have included Peter Erskine, Milcho Leviev, Ralph Humphrey, Brian Pezzone and Jimmy Lacefield. The ensemble has consisted of piano, flute, bass, and drums. Currently, Jim Walker and Mike Garson are the only permanent members of the group that was formed in 1980. The bassist and drummer positions are now filled by college students or recent graduates that tour and perform as Free Flight. Discography * ''The Jazz/Classical Union'' (1982) * ''Soaring'' (Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ..., 1983) * ''Beyond the Clouds'' (Palo Alto, 1984) * ''Illumination'' ( Columbia, 1986) * ''Slice of Life'' (Columbia, 1989) References External links * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Free Flight (Ban ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richie Cole (musician)
Richie Cole (February 29, 1948 – May 2, 2020) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger. Early life Cole was born in Trenton, New Jersey. He began to play alto saxophone when he was ten years old, encouraged by his father, who owned a jazz club in New Jersey. He was a graduate of Ewing High School, in Ewing Township, New Jersey. Cole won a scholarship from ''DownBeat'' magazine to attend the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Career In 1969, he joined drummer Buddy Rich's Big Band. After working with Lionel Hampton's Big Band and Doc Severinsen's Big Band, he formed his own quintet and toured worldwide, developing his own "alto madness" bebop style in the 1970s and early 1980s. He formed the Alto Madness Orchestra in the 1990s. Cole performed and recorded with Eddie Jefferson, Nancy Wilson, Tom Waits, The Manhattan Transfer, Hank Crawford, Freddie Hubbard, Eric Kloss, Bobby Enriquez, Phil Woods, Sonny Stitt, Art Pepper, and Boots Randolph. He recorded ove ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marvin Stamm
Marvin Louis Stamm (born May 23, 1939) is an American jazz trumpeter. Career Stamm was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Stamm began on trumpet at age twelve. He attended North Texas State University, where he was a member of the One O'Clock Lab Band. He was a member of Stan Kenton's Mellophonium Orchestra from 1961 to 1963, then worked with Woody Herman from 1965 to 1966. Following this he was with The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra from 1966 to 1972 and with Benny Goodman from 1974 to 1975. In the 1970s, he began a decades-long career as a prolific studio and session musician. In the studio he has recorded with Paul McCartney, Average White Band, Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Donald Fagen, Oliver Nelson, Duke Pearson, Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Grover Washington, Jr., Patrick Williams, Michel Legrand, Lena Horne, Frank Foster, Paul Desmond, Frankie Valli, Deodato, Les DeMerle, and George Benson. He played the flugelhorn solo on "Uncle Alber ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jimmy Forrest (musician)
James Robert Forrest Jr. (January 24, 1920 – August 26, 1980) was an American jazz musician, who played tenor saxophone throughout his career. Forrest is known for his first solo recording of " Night Train". It reached No. 1 on the '' Billboard'' R&B chart in March 1952, and stayed at the top for seven weeks. "Hey Mrs. Jones" (No. 3 R&B) and "Bolo Blues" were his other hits. All were made for United Records, for which he recorded between 1951 and 1953; he recorded frequently as both a sideman and a bandleader. Biography Born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, Forrest played alongside Fate Marable as a young man. He was with Jay McShann in 1940-42 and with Andy Kirk from 1942 until 1948 when he joined Duke Ellington. During the early 1950s, Forrest led his own combos. He also played with Miles Davis, in early 1952 at The Barrel Club. After his solo career, he played in small combos with Harry "Sweets" Edison and Al Grey, as well as appearing with Count Basie. La ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tom Harrell
Tom Harrell (born June 16, 1946) is an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and arranger. Voted Trumpeter of the Year of 2018 by ''Jazz Journalists Association'', Harrell has won awards and grants throughout his career, including multiple Trumpeter of the Year awards from ''Down Beat'' magazine, SESAC Jazz Award, BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) Composers Award, and Prix Oscar du Jazz. He received a Grammy Award nomination for his big band album, '' Time's Mirror''. Biography Tom Harrell was born in Urbana, Illinois, United States, but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at the age of five. He started playing trumpet at eight, and within five years he was playing gigs with local bands. In 1969 he graduated from Stanford University with a music composition degree and joined Stan Kenton's orchestra, touring and recording with them throughout 1969. Harrell pursued his musical career despite experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia since he was an adolescent. After le ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |