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Spirit Of The Black Territory Bands
''Spirit of the Black Territory Bands'' is an album by the American musician Johnny Otis, credited as Johnny Otis and His Orchestra. It was released in 1992. The album is a tribute to the music of the territory bands of Otis's youth; Otis played with several such bands in the 1940s. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award, in the "Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance" category. Production The album was produced by Otis and Tom Morgan. Otis's son, Shuggie, played guitar and helped to arrange the songs. His other son, Nicky, played drums. Otis employed a 10-piece horn section. The album was largely made up of Count Basie and Duke Ellington songs. The album cover is a painting by Otis. Critical reception The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' wrote that "the arrangements lay curling, fine-point filigree behind blasting individual efforts with a prevailing robust spirit that simply smokes." AllMusic deemed the album "competent but hardly thrilling." ''The Penguin Guide to Blues Record ...
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Johnny Otis
Johnny Otis (born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes; December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012) was an American singer, musician, composer, bandleader, record producer, and talent scout. He was a seminal influence on American R&B and rock and roll. He discovered numerous artists early in their careers who went on to become highly successful in their own right, including Little Esther Phillips, Etta James, Alan O'Day, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Ace, Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John, Hank Ballard, and The Robins, among many others. Otis has been called the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues". Personal life Otis was born in Vallejo, California, to Greek immigrant parents, Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter. He had a younger sister, Dorothy, and a younger brother, Nicholas A. Veliotes, who became the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan (1978–1981) and Egypt (1984–1986). Johnny grew up in a predominantl ...
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San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and official launch November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate" as it was known at launch was the first large market newspaper website in ...
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Creole Love Call
"Creole Love Call" is a jazz standard, most associated with the Duke Ellington band and Adelaide Hall. It entered the '' Billboard'' USA song charts in 1928 at No. 29.USA song chart entry
for "Creole Love Call" (1928). In 1988, during a radio interview with the journalist and radio host Max Jones, Hall explained how she came up with the counter-melody in "Creole Love Call". An excerpt from the interview can be heard in the British Library article (published 17 December 2020) on the British Library blog title

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Sophisticated Lady
"Sophisticated Lady" is a jazz standard, composed as an instrumental in 1932 by Duke Ellington. Background Additional credit is given to publisher Irving Mills whose words were added to the song by Mitchell Parish. The words met with approval from Ellington, who described them as "wonderful—but not entirely fitted to my original conception". That original conception was inspired by three of Ellington's grade school teachers. "They taught all winter and toured Europe in the summer. To me that spelled sophistication." Lawrence Brown, the trombone player in Ellington's band at the time, claimed that he was responsible for the main hook in the A section of the tune. Ellington paid him $15 for his contribution, but he was never officially credited. Duke Ellington and His Orchestra introduced "Sophisticated Lady" in 1933 with an instrumental recording of the song that featured solos by Toby Hardwick on alto sax, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Lawrence Brown on trombone and Ellington o ...
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Jumpin' At The Woodside
"Jumpin' at the Woodside" is a song first recorded in 1938 by the Count Basie Orchestra, and considered one of the band's signature tunes. When first released it reached number 11 on the ''Billboard'' charts and remained on them for four weeks. Since then, it has become a frequently recorded jazz standard. Song details The song was recorded on August 22, 1938 for Decca and was released on December 17 of that year. It charted as high as #11 and was on the charts for four weeks. That original 1938 recording features solos by Earle Warren (alto sax), Buck Clayton (trumpet), Lester Young (tenor sax), and Herschel Evans (clarinet). The song is considered one of the Basie band's "signature" tunes, a "favorite", and even "a definition of swing." While many liner notes credit the tune only to Basie, historians and others also credit band member Eddie Durham. Like many Basie numbers of that era, it was a " head arrangement" collaboratively created by the band. Sullivan indicates Du ...
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Harlem Nocturne
"Harlem Nocturne" is a jazz standard written by Earle Hagen (music) and Dick Rogers (lyrics) in 1939 for the Ray Noble orchestra, of which they were members. The song was chosen by the big-band leader Randy Brooks the next year as his theme song. The version by the Viscounts has the distinction of being released twice and rising high on the ''Billboard'' charts each time: first in 1959, when it peaked at #53, and again in 1966, peaking at #39 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. "Harlem Nocturne", in a version with Bud Shank on alto sax, was the theme song of the television series '' Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer'' and ''The New Mike Hammer''. Harold Faltermeyer recorded a version for the soundtrack to the film '' Tango & Cash''. In 1990, the pianist Kofi Wilmot gained popularity in the instrumental world for his cover version from the album of the same name, ''Harlem Nocturne''. Danny Gatton released a version in 1993 on his album ''Cruisin' Deuces'' (Elektra/Rhino). The So ...
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The Mooche
"The Mooche" is an American jazz song, composed in 1928 by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills, with scat singing by vocalist Gertrude "Baby" Cox. The song is considered to be one of Ellington's signature pieces and "he performed it frequently and recorded it many times over 45 years." Among the jazz musicians who recorded the original version of the song was James "Bubber" Miley whom Ellington described as "the epitome of soul and a master of the plunger mute." However, Miley's alcoholism and his consequent unreliability would lead to his parting with Ellington's band. Four years later, on May 20, 1932, Miley expired from tuberculosis. He was 29 years old. Despite his early death, "no one, apart from Duke himself, did more than Miley to shape the early Ellington sound." Ellington composed the song "for a high reed trio, playing one of the most eerie and haunting themes he had created up to that time. The theme, a sixteen-bar blues with interpolations by Miley, is followed by an e ...
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The Penguin Guide To Blues Recordings
''The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings'' is an encyclopedia of blues music albums released on CD. Content The book was released on 31 October 2006 and was written by Tony Russell and Chris Smith with contributions by Neil Slaven, Ricky Russell and Joe Faulkner. Russell in particular is known as a musical historian, working closely with programs presented on BBC Radio, as well as documentaries on the blues. In the book, artists are set up alphabetically and include short (usually one paragraph) biographies A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ... before showing a complete listing of their discography. Each album includes title, a rating out of four stars, label, musicians on the album, month and year of recording, and finally a review of varying length. See also ...
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The Essential Album Guide
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun '' thee'') when followed by a ...
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Arhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was founded by Strachwitz in 1960 as a way for him to record and produce music by previously obscure "down-home blues" artists such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin, and Bill Gaither. Arhoolie still publishes blues and folk music, Tejano music including Lydia Mendoza, Los Alegres de Terán, Flaco Jiménez, regional Mexican music, cajun, zydeco, and bluegrass. History Chris Strachwitz immigrated with his family from Silesia in 1947, and became enamored with American regional music after seeing the film ''New Orleans''. He eventually settled in the San Francisco bay area, and in 1960 he headed to Texas to record bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins, but it turned out that Hopkins was in Berkeley for a performance engagement. He met up with historian Ma ...
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The Encyclopedia Of Popular Music
''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Knowledge'', Christmas edition, 22 December 2007- 4 January 2008. It was described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". History of the encyclopedia Larkin believed that rock music and popular music were at least as significant historically as classical music, and as such, should be given definitive treatment and properly documented. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is the result. In 1989, Larkin sold his half of the publishing company Scorpion Books to finance his ambition to publish an encyclopedia of popular music. Aided by a team of initially 70 contributors, he set about compiling the data in a pre-internet age, "relying instead on information gleaned from music magazines, individual expertise ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, 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 Compact disc, CDs replaced LP record, 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 musi ...
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