|
Red Norvo
Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville; March 31, 1908 – April 6, 1999) was an American musician, one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His recordings included "Dance of the Octopus", "Bughouse", "Knockin' on Wood", "Congo Blues", and "Hole in the Wall". Career Red Norvo was born in Beardstown, Illinois, United States. His career began in Chicago with a band called "The Collegians" in 1925. He played with many other bands, including an all-marimba band on the vaudeville circuit, and the bands of Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, and Woody Herman. He recorded with Mildred Bailey (his wife from 1933 to 1942), Billie Holiday, Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra. Norvo and his wife were known as "Mr. and Mrs. Swing." He appeared as himself in the film ''Screaming Mimi (film), Screaming Mimi'' (1958) and in ''Ocean's 11 (1960 film), Ocean's 11'', accompanying Dean Martin while h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William P
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the given name ''Wilhelm'' (cf. Proto-Germanic ᚹᛁᛚᛃᚨᚺᛖᛚᛗᚨᛉ, ''*Wiljahelmaz'' > German '' Wilhelm'' and Old Norse ᚢᛁᛚᛋᛅᚼᛅᛚᛘᛅᛋ, ''Vilhjálmr''). By regular sound changes, the native, inherited English form of the name shoul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick McDonough
Richard Tobin McDonough (July 30, 1904 – May 25, 1938) was an American jazz guitarist and banjoist. Perhaps best remembered for his duets with fellow guitarist Carl Kress, McDonough appeared on numerous record sessions and radio broadcasts throughout the 1920s and 1930s. McDonough began playing banjo and mandolin in high school. An athlete, he initially played left-handed because, according to McDonough, that was how he held his hockey stick. At Georgetown University, he performed professionally at weekend dances and two years later started a band. He attended Columbia Law School after college and while there played with bands in New York City. McDonough played with Red Nichols in 1927 as a banjoist, and soon after played with Paul Whiteman. He began studying the guitar and eventually was in demand for session work, recording with The Dorsey Brothers, Red Nichols, and Miff Mole. In the 1930s, he performed in a duo with jazz guitarist Carl Kress and cut several sessions with ... [...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 Gui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bix Beiderbecke
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer. Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical approach and purity of tone, with such clarity of sound that one contemporary famously described it like "shooting bullets at a bell. His solos on seminal recordings such as "Singin' the Blues" and " I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927) demonstrate a gift for extended improvisation that heralded the jazz ballad style, in which jazz solos are an integral part of the composition. Moreover, his use of extended chords and an ability to improvise freely along harmonic as well as melodic lines are echoed in post-WWII developments in jazz. " In a Mist" (1927) is the best known of Beiderbecke's published piano compositions and the only one that he recorded. His piano style reflects both jazz and classical (mainly impressionist) influences. All five of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Jazz
Chamber jazz is a genre of jazz involving small, acoustic-based ensembles where group interplay is important. It is influenced aesthetically by the small ensembles of chamber music in musical neoclassicism and is often influenced by classical forms of Western music as well as non-Western music or culture. That stated, in many cases the influence is traditional Celtic music, Central European folk music, or Latin American music instead. American bassist John Kirby (1908-1952) is arguably the first chamber jazz musician with a sextet he led in the 1930s and '40s. However, many other early exponents originated in Europe so significant neoclassical composers of Europe, like Igor Stravinsky, are important. The German ECM Records also played a role in it beginning in the late 1960s. It is also noted for using instruments not normally associated with jazz. For example, chamber jazz will make use of the oboe, mandolin, cymbalum, or the tabla. The non-Western influences or instrumentati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Kapp
Jack Kapp (born Jacob Kaplitzky; June 15, 1901 – March 25, 1949) was a record company executive with Brunswick Records who founded the American Decca Records in 1934 along with British Decca founder Edward Lewis and later American Decca head Milton Rackmil. He oversaw Bing Crosby's rise to success as a recording artist in the early 1930s, and, four decades later, Crosby still gave appreciation to Kapp for diversifying his song catalogue into various styles and genres, saying, "I thought he was crazy, but I just did what he told me." Kapp could not read or sing music, but to his talent he stressed the credo, "Where's the melody?" Biography He was born in Chicago, Illinois to a Jewish family of immigrants from Russia. His father, Myer Kaplitzky, was a distributor for Columbia Records in 1905 and the founder of the Imperial Talking Machine Shop in Chicago. Kapp worked at the store after high school, and was known for having memorized the catalog numbers of every record in the inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916. History From 1916 Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing products ranging from pianos to sporting equipment since 1845. The company first began producing phonographs in 1916, then began marketing their own line of records as an afterthought. These first Brunswick records used the vertical cut system like Edison Disc Records, and were not sold in large numbers. They were recorded in the United States but sold only in Canada. 1920s In January 1920, a new line of Brunswick Records was introduced in the U.S. and Canada that employed the lateral cut system which was becoming the default cut for 78 discs. Brunswick started its standard popular series at 2000 and ended up in 1940 at 8517. However, when the series reached 4999, they skipped over the previous allocated 5000s and continued at 6000. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ain't That A Kick In The Head?
"Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" is a pop song written in 1960 with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It was first recorded that year on May 10 by Dean Martin in a swinging big band jazz arrangement conducted by Nelson Riddle. Martin performed the song in the 1960 heist film ''Ocean's 11'' in an alternate arrangement featuring vibraphonist Red Norvo and his quartet. The song was covered in 2004 by Irish boy band Westlife on their sixth studio album, '' ...Allow Us to Be Frank''. Despite not charting in Ireland and failing to appear on the UK Singles Chart, their cover of the song reached No. 4 on the UK Download Chart, peaked at No. 5 in Denmark, and charted within the top 50 in Flanders, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Background Van Heusen and Cahn wrote the song specifically for the 1960 film ''Ocean's 11'', though it was initially referred to press as "Ain't That a Kick in the Seat". Dean Martin's single was released before the film, which premiered on Aug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dean Martin
Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed "The King of Cool". Martin gained his career breakthrough together with comedian Jerry Lewis, billed as Martin and Lewis, in 1946. They performed in nightclubs and later had numerous appearances on radio, television and in films. Following an acrimonious ending of the partnership in 1956, Martin pursued a solo career as a performer and actor. Martin established himself as a singer, recording numerous contemporary songs as well as standards from the Great American Songbook. He became one of the most popular acts in Las Vegas and was known for his friendship with fellow artists Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., who together with several others formed the Rat Pack. Starting in 1965, Martin was the host of the television variety program '' The Dean Martin Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ocean's 11 (1960 Film)
''Ocean's 11'' is a 1960 American heist film directed and produced by Lewis Milestone from a screenplay by Harry Brown and Charles Lederer, based on a story by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell. The film stars five of the Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.'' Variety'' film review; August 10, 1960, page 6. Centered on a series of Las Vegas casino robberies, the film also stars Angie Dickinson, Richard Conte, Cesar Romero, Patrice Wymore, Akim Tamiroff, and Henry Silva. It includes cameo appearances by Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, and George Raft. ''Ocean's 11'' premiered in Las Vegas on August 3, 1960, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 10, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics. It originated the ''Ocean's'' film series. Plot World War II veterans Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster recruit nine comrades from their unit in the 82nd Airborne Divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screaming Mimi (film)
''Screaming Mimi'' is a 1958 American film noir directed by Gerd Oswald and starring Anita Ekberg, Philip Carey and Gypsy Rose Lee. The story originated as a 1949 novel of the same name by Fredric Brown. Plot In Southern California, while Virginia Wilson is taking an outside beach shower, an escaped madman from a sanitarium arrives. He stabs her dog, attacks her and is shot to death by her stepbrother, Charlie, with a rifle. After the attack, Virginia is committed to a sanitarium. The psychiatrist falls in love with her. He fakes her death, and they go on the lam. Virginia ends up dancing at El Madhouse night club run by Gypsy Rose Lee. Lee performs "Put the Blame on Mame," the classic ''noir'' theme from the 1946 film '' Gilda''. All the while, Virginia is being stalked by a serial killer. Cast * Anita Ekberg as Virginia Wilson / Yolanda Lange * Philip Carey as Bill Sweeney * Gypsy Rose Lee as Joann 'Gypsy' Mapes * Harry Townes as Dr. Greenwood / Bill Green * Linda Cherney as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
