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The Bright Mississippi
''The Bright Mississippi'' is an album by the New Orleans Jazz and R&B pianist Allen Toussaint, released on Nonesuch Records in 2009. The album reached No. 8 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart. Background The album was produced by Joe Henry and features various guest artists, including Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman and Nicholas Payton. The album title is taken from the 1963 Thelonious Monk song of the same name and features a new version of the song. The album is a unique juxtaposition of modern and traditional jazz tunes with stylistic cues drawn from both worlds. In an interview shortly after it was released, Nick Spitzer noted that "there's a parade beat to it, a bit of a strut and shuffle. Are you merging the worlds of Monk and Toussaint?” “Well, there's no way around that,” Toussaint replied. Though mostly known for R&B, this is Toussaint's second jazz album. The first was Allen Toussaint's ''Jazzity Project: Going Places'', released online through cdbaby in 2004. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen Toussaint
Allen Richard Toussaint (; January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) was an American musician, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was an influential figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues from the 1950s to the end of the century, described as "one of popular music's great backroom figures".Richard Williams"Allen Toussaint obituary" ''The Guardian'', November 11, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2015. Many musicians recorded Toussaint's compositions. He was a producer for hundreds of recordings, among the best known of which are " Right Place, Wrong Time", by his longtime friend Dr. John, and "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle. Biography Early life and career The youngest of three children, Toussaint was born in 1938 in New Orleans and grew up in a shotgun house in the Gert Town neighborhood, where his mother, Naomi Neville (whose name he later adopted pseudonymously for some of his works), welcomed and fed all manner of musicians as they practiced and recorded with her son. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater, visual arts, travel, and the Internet. History ''PopMatters'' was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had previously established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. ''PopMatters'' launched in late 1999 as a sister site providing original essays, reviews and criticism of various media products. Over time, the site went from a weekly publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features, and columns. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million. From 2006 onward, ''PopMatters'' produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. By 2009 there were four different pop culture related col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West End Blues
"West End Blues" is a multi-strain twelve-bar blues composition by Joe "King" Oliver. It is most commonly performed as an instrumental, although it has lyrics added by Clarence Williams. King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators made the first recording for Brunswick Records on June 11, 1928.Laird, Ross. ''Brunswick Records: A Discography of Recordings, 1916-1931'', Greenwood Press (2001), p. 592. Clarence Williams later added lyrics to the instrumental tune. He recorded the song several times in 1928, first with vocalist Ethel Waters, then with Irene Mims, aka Hazel Smith (with King Oliver playing trumpet), then again with Katherine Henderson. The " West End" of the title refers to the westernmost point of Lake Pontchartrain within Orleans Parish, Louisiana; it was the last stop on the trolley line in New Orleans to the lake. In its heyday, it was a thriving summer resort with live music, dance pavilions, seafood restaurants, and lake bathing. Louis Armstrong's recording By far ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre. Morton also wrote "King Porter Stomp", "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the last being a tribute to New Orleans musicians from the turn of the 20th century. Morton's claim to have invented jazz in 1902 was criticized. Music critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth...Morton's accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth." Gunther Schuller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Con Conrad
Con Conrad (born Conrad K. Dober, June 18, 1891 – September 28, 1938) was an American songwriter and producer. Biography Conrad was born in Manhattan, New York, and published his first song, "Down in Dear Old New Orleans", in 1912. Conrad produced the Broadway show ''The Honeymoon Express'', starring Al Jolson, in 1913. By 1918, Conrad was writing and publishing with Henry Waterson (1873–1933). He co-composed "Margie" in 1920 with J. Russel Robinson and lyricist Benny Davis, which became his first major hit. He went on to compose hits that became standards, including: * " Palesteena" with co-composer and co-lyricist J. Russel Robinson (1920) * "Singin' the Blues" with co-composer J. Russel Robinson and lyricists Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young (1920) * "You've Got to See Mama Ev'ry Night" with co-composer and co-lyricist Billy Rose (1923) * "Come on Spark Plug" with co-composer and co-lyricist Billy Rose (1923) * "Barney Google" with co-composer and co-lyricist Billy Rose ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Bloch
Raymond Arthur Bloch (August 3, 1902 – March 29, 1982) Career During the 1920s, he performed with small groups on piano and also conducted ballroom bands. Later in the decade he began appearing as a pianist on radio stations. He began working as an arranger and composer for the Four Eton Boys in the early 1930s, and followed that as a conductor for choral groups. In 1939 he joined the CBS radio variety show ''Johnny Presents'' as choral director and was promoted to orchestra conductor. This was the beginning of a long and successful career in "conducting, coaching, orchestrating, and choral directing" on radio, television, and albums. Radio Bloch and his orchestra were featured on numerous radio variety shows of the late-1930s and 1940s. These included: ''Johnny Presents'' (1939-1946), ''The Gay Nineties Revue'' (CBS, 1939–1944), ''Let Yourself Go'' (CBS, 1944–1945), ''The Continental Celebrity Club'' (1945-1946), ''The Milton Berle Show'' (NBC, 1948–1949), and '' The Mary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dear Old Southland
"Dear Old Southland" is a 1921 jazz standard. It was composed by Turner Layton, with lyrics by Henry Creamer. It uses basically the same melody as the song '' Deep River''. Popular recordings in 1922 were by Paul Whiteman and by Vernon Dalhart. Other recordings *Louis Armstrong recorded the song on April 5, 1930, for Okeh Records (catalog No. 41454). Armstrong recorded the song again in 1956 for the album ''Satchmo: A Musical Autobiography''. *Duke Ellington and His Orchestra – December 4, 1933 for Victor Records (catalog No. 24501). *Benny Goodman and His Orchestra – June 25, 1935 for Victor Records (catalog No. 25136). *Paul Robeson – September 26, 1939 for Victor Records (catalog No. 26741). *Sidney Bechet's Blue Note Quartet – March 27, 1940 for the Blue Note label (catalog No. 13). *Al Hirt released a version on his 1963 album, '' Our Man in New Orleans''. *Allen Toussaint released his own arrangement of Dear Old Southland (credited under Raymond Bloch), as a duet betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France. Biography Early life Bechet was born in New Orleans in 1897 to a middle-class Creole of color family. Bechet's father Omar was both a shoemaker and a flute player, and all four of his brothers were musicians as well. His older brother, Leonard Victor Bechet, was a full-time dentist and a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Bechet learned and mastered several musical instruments that were kept around the house (he began on the cornet), mostly by teaching himself; he decided to specialize in the clarinet (which he played almost exclusively until about 1919). At the age of six, he started to perform w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. Erlewine was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is a nephew of the former musician and AllMusic founder Michael Erlewine. He studied at the University of Michigan, where he majored in English, and was a music editor (1993–94) and then arts editor (1994–1995) of the school's paper ''The Michigan Daily'', and DJ'd at the campus radio station, WCBN. He has contributed to many books, including ''All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul'' and ''All Music Guide to Hip-Hop: The Definitive Guide to Rap & Hip-Hop''. References External linksErlewine's pageat Pitchfork.comContributionsto ''Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. History Origins The first issue, published on 4 December 1791 by W.S. Bourne, was the world's first Sunday newspaper. Believing that the paper would be a means of wealth, Bourne instead soon found himself facing debts of nearly £1,600. Though early editions purported editorial independence, Bourne attempted to cut his losses and sell the title to the government. When this failed, Bourne's brother (a wealthy businessman) made an offer to the government, which also refused to buy the paper but agreed to subsidise it in return for influence over its editorial content. As a result, the paper soon took a strong line against radicals such as Thomas Paine, Francis Burdett and Joseph Priestley. 19th century In 180 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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