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Soft Lights (album)
''Soft Lights'' is an album by the saxophonist Houston Person, recorded in 1999 and released on the HighNote label. accessed March 12, 2018 Reception In his review on , Stewart Mason states: "As always with Person, the standards win. This isn't a bad place to start for those wondering which album from this era to get".Track listing # "" ( |
Houston Person
Houston Person (born November 10, 1934) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and record producer. Although he has performed in the hard bop and swing genres, he is most experienced in and best known for his work in soul jazz. He received the ‘Eubie Blake Jazz Award’ in 1982. Biography Person grew up in Florence, South Carolina, and first played piano before switching to tenor saxophone. He studied at South Carolina State College where he was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1999. In the United States Air Force, he joined a service band stationed in West Germany, and played with Don Ellis, Eddie Harris, Cedar Walton, and Leo Wright. He later continued his studies at Hartt College of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. He first became known for a series of albums for Prestige in the 1960s. Contrary to popular belief, he was never married to the vocalist Etta Jones, but did spend many years as her musical partner, recording, performing and touring, and for much of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music. Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including ''Pal Joey (musical), Pal Joey'', ''A Connecticut Yankee (musical), A Connecticut Yankee'', ''On Your Toes'' and ''Babes in Arms.'' With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as ''Oklahoma!'', ''Flower Drum Song'', ''Carousel (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music''. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for brin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alec Wilder
Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980) was an American composer. Biography Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, to a prominent family; the Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four Corners") bears the family's name and his maternal grandfather, and namesake, was prominent banker Alexander Lafayette Chew. As a young boy, he traveled to New York City with his mother and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel. It would later be his home for the last 40 or so years of his life. He attended several prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager. Around this time, he hired a lawyer and essentially "divorced" himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune. He was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes and never received his degree. While there, he edited a humor m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I'll Be Around (1942 Song)
"I'll Be Around" is a popular song written by Alec Wilder and published in 1942. It was first recorded by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra in 1942 and the first hit version was by The Mills Brothers in 1943 when it reached No. 17 in the Billboard pop charts. The song has become a well-known standard, recorded by many artists. Background Wilder said, in an interview with Jay Nordlinger, that the song came to him in a taxi cab in Baltimore. Just the title. "I spotted he titleas I was crumpling up the envelope some days later. Since I was near a piano, I wrote a tune, using the title as the first phrase of the melody. I remember it only took about 20 minutes. The lyric took much longer to write." Recorded versions *Mildred Bailey (1942) *Tony Bennett *Brook Benton (1960) *Eve Boswell (1951) *Ruby Braff * Les Brown and his Band of Renown (1959) * Cab Calloway and his orchestra (1942) * Diahann Carroll *Don Cherry (1956) * Rosemary Clooney (1951) *Randy Crawford (1995) *Vic Damon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Hodges
Cornelius "Johnny" Hodges (July 25, 1907 – May 11, 1970) was an American alto saxophonist, best known for solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years. Hodges was also featured on soprano saxophone, but refused to play soprano after 1946. Along with Benny Carter, Hodges is considered to be one of the definitive alto saxophone players of the big band era. After beginning his career as a teenager in Boston, Hodges began to travel to New York and played with Lloyd Scott, Sidney Bechet, Luckey Roberts and Chick Webb. When Ellington wanted to expand his band in 1928, Ellington's clarinet player Barney Bigard recommended Hodges. His playing became one of the identifying voices of the Ellington orchestra. From 1951 to 1955, Hodges left the Duke to lead his own band, but returned shortly before Ellington's triumphant return to prominence – the orchestra's performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Biography Early life Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don George
Don R. George (August 27, 1909 – 1987) was an American lyricist of popular music. His songs include " The Yellow Rose of Texas" " I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues" (1937), "I'm Beginning to See the Light" (1944) and " Everything but You" (1945). George has also written lyrics for film songs. He was a personal friend and occasional lyricist of jazz composer 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 ..., whom he followed closely from 1943 until Ellington's death in 1974. It was with Ellington that he wrote many of hist best-known songs. George wrote a 1981 biography of Ellington titled ''Sweet Man: The Real Duke Ellington''. Notes External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:George, Don American lyricists 1909 births 1987 deaths ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Adair
Thomas Montgomery Adair (June 15, 1913 – May 24, 1988) was an American songwriter, composer, and screenwriter. Biography Adair was born on 15 June 1913, in Newton, Kansas, where his father owned a clothing store: he was the only child of William Adair and Madge Cochran. Around 1923 the family moved to Los Angeles, where Tom Adair attended Los Angeles Junior College (now Los Angeles City College). In his early career he worked as a complaints clerk at the local power company, while writing poetry and song lyrics in his spare time. In 1941, Adair met Matt Dennis in a club and the duo began writing songs together. Adair's song-writing career took him to New York during the 1940s where he penned several Broadway hits, and worked with Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra. He later returned to Los Angeles and worked with writer James B. Allardice on scripts for sit-coms. In 1949, Adair married Frances Adelle Jeffords; in later life, they worked together on songs and teleplays for Disney. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matt Dennis
Matthew Loveland Dennis (February 11, 1914 – June 21, 2002) was an American singer, pianist, band leader, arranger, and writer of music for popular songs. Biography Dennis was born in Seattle, Washington, United States. His mother was a violinist and his father a singer, and the family was in vaudeville, so he was exposed to music early. In 1933 he joined Horace Heidt's orchestra as a vocalist and pianist. Later on, he formed his own band, with Dick Haymes as vocalist. He became vocal coach, arranger, and accompanist for Martha Tilton, and worked with a new vocal group, The Stafford Sisters. Jo Stafford, one of the sisters, joined the Tommy Dorsey band in 1940 and persuaded Dorsey to hire Dennis as arranger and composer. Dennis wrote prolifically, with 14 of his songs recorded by the Dorsey band in one year alone, including " Everything Happens to Me", an early hit for Frank Sinatra. After four years in the United States Air Force in World War II, Dennis returned to music writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Night We Called It A Day (song)
"The Night We Called It a Day" is a popular song and jazz standard. The music was written by Matt Dennis, the lyrics by Tom Adair. The song was published in 1941. One early recording of the song is notable in that it was Frank Sinatra's first solo recording (Bluebird 11463 in 1942). A review in Billboard called the recording "a sparkling example of song" with Sinatra's singing and Axel Stordahl's musical direction. Sinatra also made studio recordings of the song for Columbia records in 1947 and Capitol Records in 1957. On May 19, 2015, Bob Dylan sang it on the second-to-last episode of ''The Late Show with David Letterman''. Recorded versions * June Christy - ''Something Cool'' (various 1954-2001) * Frank Sinatra - '' Where Are You?'' (1957), ''The Best of the Columbia Years (1943-1952)'' ox Set(1995, includes 1947 Columbia recording), ''The Essential Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra'' -Disc(2005, includes 1942 RCA recording) * Chet Baker - ''Embraceable You'' (Pac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mack Gordon
Mack Gordon (born Morris Gittler; June 21, 1904 – February 28, 1959) was an American composer and lyricist for the stage and film. He was nominated for the best original song Oscar nine times in 11 years, including five consecutive years between 1940 and 1944, and won the award once, for "You'll Never Know". That song has proved among his most enduring, and remains popular in films and television commercials to this day. "At Last" is another of his best-known songs. Biography Gordon was born in Grodno, then part of the Russian Empire. He emigrated with his mother and older brother to New York City in May 1907; the ship they sailed on was the S/S ''Bremen''; their destination was to his father in Guttenberg, New Jersey. Gordon appeared in vaudeville as an actor and singer in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but his songwriting talents were always paramount. He formed a partnership with English pianist Harry Revel, that lasted throughout the 1930s. In the 1940s he worked with a str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
At Last
"At Last" is a song written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren for the musical film '' Sun Valley Serenade'' (1941). Glenn Miller and his orchestra recorded the tune several times, with a 1942 version reaching number two on the US '' Billboard'' pop music chart. In 1960, rhythm and blues singer Etta James recorded an arrangement by Riley Hampton that improvised on Warren's original melody. Etta James' rendition was the title track on her debut album '' At Last!'' (1960) and was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Most recently, Celine Dion and Beyoncé have also had chart successes with the song. Glenn Miller original renditions Prior to release of ''Sun Valley Serenade'', "At Last" was performed in the film by Glenn Miller and his orchestra, with vocals by John Payne and Lynn Bari, dubbed by Pat Friday. Studio head Darryl Zanuck reportedly said: "There are too many big ones in this. Let's save one for the next." The "At Last" vocal by Payne and Bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Russell (songwriter)
Bob Russell (April 25, 1914 – February 18, 1970) was an American songwriter (mainly lyricist) born Sidney Keith Rosenthal in Passaic, New Jersey. Career Russell attended Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He worked as an advertising copywriter in New York; for a time, his roommate there was Sidney Sheldon, later a novelist. He turned to writing material for vaudeville acts, and then for film studios, ultimately writing complete scores for two movies: ''Jack and the Beanstalk (1952 film), Jack and the Beanstalk'' and ''Reach for Glory''. The latter film received the Locarno International Film Festival prize in 1962. A number of other movies featured compositions by Russell, including ''Affair in Trinidad'' (1952), ''The Blue Gardenia, Blue Gardenia'' (1953), ''The Girl Can't Help It'' (1956), ''The Girl Most Likely'' (1957), ''A Matter of WHO'' (1961), ''Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd'' (1952), ''Sound Off (film), Sound Off'' (1952), ''That Midnight Kiss'' (1949 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
