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Pearl Theatre (Philadelphia)
The Pearl Theatre was a theatre in Philadelphia. Opened in 1927 with 1400 seats, it was a notable jazz and dance venue and had a glamorous reputation among the rich and famous. In 1931, the Nicholas Brothers played here. Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and many other prominent jazz ensembles of the period performed here. Bennie Moten and the Kansas City Stompers's featuring Count Basie on piano performed at the club in November 1931, and in December 1932 the audience raved all week about their "Moten Swing"; the doors of the theatre were let open to the public who came crammed into the theatre to hear the new sound, demanding seven encores on one night. Pearl Bailey was discovered at the theatre, where she entered and won the theatre's amateur song and dance contest and was to be paid $35 a week to perform there for two weeks, however, the theatre closed during her engagement and she was never paid. The Pearl Theatre closed in 1963 and was demolished after 1970. Modern cinema Ano ...
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Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Act of Consolidation, 1854, Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, the List of counties in Pennsylvania, most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the Metropolitan statistical area, nation's seventh-largest and one of List of largest cities, world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, ...
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Nicholas Brothers
The Nicholas Brothers were an entertainment act composed of biological brothers, Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000), who excelled in a variety of dance techniques, primarily between the 1930s and 1950s. Best known for their unique interpretation of a highly acrobatic technique known as " flash dancing", they were also considered by many to be the greatest tap dancers of their day, if not all time. Their virtuoso performance in the musical number "Jumpin' Jive" (with Cab Calloway and his orchestra) featured in the 1943 movie '' Stormy Weather'' has been praised as one of the greatest dance routines ever captured on film. Growing up surrounded by vaudeville acts as children, they became stars of the jazz circuit during the Harlem Renaissance and performed on stage, film, and television well into the 1990s. Diminutive in size, they were appreciated for their artistry, innovation, and soaring leaps. Early lives Fayard Antonio Nicholas was born October 20, 1914, ...
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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 ...
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John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Born and raised in North Carolina, Coltrane moved to Philadelphia after graduating high school, where he studied music. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was one of the players at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, as exemplified on his most acclaimed album ''A Love Supreme'' (1965) and others. Decades after his death, Coltrane remains influential, and he has received numerous posthumous awards, including a special Pulitzer Prize, and was canoniz ...
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Bennie Moten
Benjamin Moten (November 13, 1893 – April 2, 1935) was an American jazz pianist and band leader born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. He led his Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the regional, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of the 1930s big bands. The jazz standard "Moten Swing" bears his name. Career Moten started making music from an early age and developed as a pianist, pulling together other musicians in a band. His first recordings were made (for OKeh Records) on September 23, 1923, and were rather typical interpretations of the New Orleans style of King Oliver and others. They also showed the influence of the ragtime that was still popular in the area, as well as the stomping beat for which his band was famous. These OKeh sides (recorded 1923–1925) are some of the more valuable acoustic jazz 78s of the era; they are treasured records in man ...
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Count Basie
William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams. Biography Early life and education William Basie was born to Lillian and Harvey Lee Basie in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles re ...
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Moten Swing
Moten is a surname. Notable people with the name include: *Bennie Moten (1894–1935), American jazz pianist and band leader born in Kansas City, Missouri *Benny Moten (1916–1977), American jazz bassist *Eddie Moten (born 1981), American football cornerback for the Dallas Vigilantes of Arena Football 1 *Eric Moten (born 1968), former offensive guard in the NFL *Etta Moten Barnett (1901–2004), American actress and contralto vocalist *Fred Moten (born 1962), American poet and scholar * Lawrence Moten (born 1972), retired American professional basketball player *Mariyah Moten a Pakistani Model * Patrick Moten (born 1957), musician and songwriter *Wendy Moten Wendy Moten (born November 22, 1964) is an American jazz singer from Tennessee. Born in Memphis and based in Nashville, Moten has had a successful career in music, including several major-label solo records, some international hit songs, and a ...
(born 1965), American singer {{surname, Moten ...
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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 fo ...
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Broad Street (Philadelphia)
upright=1.2, The Northern terminus of Broad Street on the border of Philadelphia and Cheltenham Township Broad Street is a major arterial street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The street runs for approximately , beginning at the intersection of Cheltenham Avenue on the border of Cheltenham Township and the West/ East Oak Lane neighborhoods of North Philadelphia to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. It is Pennsylvania Route 611 along its entire length with the exception of its northernmost part between Old York Road and Pennsylvania Route 309 (Cheltenham Avenue) and the southernmost part south of Interstate 95. Broad Street runs along a north–south axis between 13th Street and 15th Street, containing what would otherwise be known as 14th Street in the Philadelphia grid plan. It is interrupted by Philadelphia City Hall, which stands where Broad and Market Street would intersect in the center of the city. The streets of Penn Square, Juniper Stree ...
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Theatres In Philadelphia
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe"). Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patric ...
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Jazz Clubs In Philadelphia
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 ...
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Templetown, Philadelphia
Cecil B. Moore is a neighborhood in the North Philadelphia section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States named after the late Philadelphia-based civil rights attorney and politician Cecil B. Moore. The district is loosely arranged around the main campus of Temple University. The neighborhood has gentrified due to an influx of Temple students during the past several years. The controversial term “Templetown” was coined by former Temple president Peter J. Liacouras, but has only recently come into wide use after a real estate development company adopted the name. Cecil B. Moore Avenue is the street running parallel to Oxford and Montgomery, intersecting with N. Broad Street in the neighborhood. Demographics The neighborhood consists of 17,012 males and 20,277 females. The median age is 25.49. The population has increased 6.7% from 2000 to 2014 and 1.1% from 2010 to 2014 to reach a total population of 37,289 in 2014. Boundaries and population The Cecil B. M ...
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