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Why Was I Born
"Why Was I Born?" is a 1929 song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was written for the show '' Sweet Adeline'' (1929) and introduced by Helen Morgan. Popular recordings in 1930 were by Helen Morgan and by Libby Holman. Notable recordings *Billie Holiday - recorded the song for Brunswick Records (catalog No. 7859) on January 25, 1937 with Teddy Wilson and His Orchestra. *Lena Horne in the film '' Till the Clouds Roll By'' (1946) *Frank Sinatra recorded the song for Columbia Records on December 28, 1947. * Vic Damone reached No. 20 in the Billboard charts in 1949 with the song. * Dorothy Lamour - ''The Road to Romance...For Bing, Bob and You!'' (1957). *Judy Garland - ''The London Sessions'' (1960) *Margaret Whiting - ''Margaret Whiting Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook'' (1960) * Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane - ''Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane'' (1963) *Ella Fitzgerald - ''Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook'' (1963) *Dinah Was ...
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Helen Morgan (singer)
Helen Morgan (née Riggins; August 2, 1900 – October 9, 1941) was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical ''Show Boat'' in 1927, as well as in the 1932 Broadway revival of the musical, and appeared in two film adaptations, a part-talkie made in 1929 (prologue only) and a full-sound version made in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Kern's Broadway musical, '' Sweet Adeline'' (1929), her stage career was relatively short. Helen Morgan died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed by Polly Bergen in the ''Playhouse 90'' drama ''The Helen Morgan Story'' and by Ann Blyth in the 1957 biopic based on the televisi ...
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Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). She attained international stardom as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Renowned for her versatility, she received an Academy Juvenile Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Special Tony Award. Garland was the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which she won for her 1961 live recording titled ''Judy at Carnegie Hall''. Garland began performing as a child with her two older sisters, in a vaudeville group " The Gumm Sisters" and was later signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She appeared in more than two dozen films for MGM. Garland was a frequent on-screen partner of both Mickey Rooney and Gene Kelly and regularly collaborated w ...
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Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including " St. Thomas", " Oleo", " Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser" and the "Saxophone Colossus". Early life Rollins was born in New York City to parents from the United States Virgin Islands. The youngest of three siblings, he grew up in central Harlem and on Sugar Hill, receiving his first alto saxophone at the age of seven or eight. He attended Edward W. Stitt Junior High School and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. Rollins started as a pianist, changed to alto saxophone, and finally switched to tenor in 1946. During his high school years, he played in a band with other future ...
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Bittersweet White Light
''Bittersweet White Light'' is the ninth studio album by American singer Cher. The album was released in April 1973 by MCA. It was the last solo Cher album to be produced by then-performing partner and husband Sonny Bono. While many fans consider the album to be her best vocal performance, ''Bittersweet White Light'', composed mostly of covers of American pop standards, was Cher's first commercial failure of the 1970s. It was Cher's first record released only by MCA, both in the UK and the US. Production and release Due to the success of Cher's solo torch spots on ''The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour'' like "My Funny Valentine" and "What a Difference a Day Makes", Bono decided she should record an album featuring modern arrangements of standards from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. ''Bittersweet White Light'' was a collection of fully orchestrated, lushly-arranged classics. Bono had started in the music business working with "Wall of Sound" producer Phil Spector and the album clearly ...
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Cher
Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the Honorific nicknames in popular music, "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. Cher is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances throughout her six-decade-long career. Cher gained popularity in 1965 as one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher after their song "I Got You Babe" peaked at number one on the US and UK charts. Together they sold 40 million records worldwide. Her solo career was established during the same time, with the top-ten singles "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" and "You Better Sit Down Kids". She became a television personality in the 1970s with her CBS shows; first ''The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour'', watched by over 30&n ...
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Georgia Brown (English Singer)
Georgia Brown (21 October 1933 – 5 July 1992) was an English singer and actress. Early life Georgia Brown, born Lilian Claire Klot,Barron, James"Georgia Brown, An Actress, 57; Was in 'Oliver!'"''The New York Times'', 6 July 1992 was born and raised in the East End of London. The daughter of Mark and Annie (née Kirshenbaum) Klot, Brown grew up in a large, extended Jewish family of Russian descent. Her father worked in a textile factory and as a bookmaker. Brown attended the Central Foundation Grammar School. During the London Blitz, she was evacuated to the mining village of Six Bells, Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales. Career During an initial performing career as a nightclub singer, she adopted the professional name Georgia Brown with reference to two of her favourite repertoire items: "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Georgia on My Mind". At the age of 17, she appeared at the Embassy Club in London in April 1951 to mixed reviews and she then went into a number of stage present ...
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Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the 1950s songs". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Early life Ruth Lee Jones was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Alice and Ollie Jones, and moved to Chicago as a child. She became deeply involved in gospel music and played piano for the choir in St. Luke's Baptist Church while still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choir in her teens and was a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. When she joined the Sallie Martin group, she dropped out of Wendell Phillips High Sch ...
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Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Jerome Kern Songbook
''Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Song Book'' is a 1963 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by an orchestra arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle. The album focuses on the songs of the composer Jerome Kern. This was the second of Fitzgerald's Song Book series to have been orchestrated by Riddle; their previous collaboration was her '' George and Ira Gershwin Song Book'' in 1959. Fitzgerald and Riddle also recorded two albums of standards, '' Ella Swings Brightly with Nelson'' and '' Ella Swings Gently with Nelson'', in 1962. This was the seventh and penultimate album in Fitzgerald's Song Book series of songs written by musical theater composers; it was preceded by 1961's '' Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book'' and followed by ''Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book'' in 1964. Awarded four and a half stars by ''Down Beat'' magazine in 1963. Track listing For the 1963 Verve LP release; Verve V6-4060; Re-issued i ...
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Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. After a tumultuous adolescence, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the Chick Webb Orchestra, performing across the country but most often associated with the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start her solo career. Her manager was Moe Gale, co-founder of the Savoy, until she turned the rest of her career over to Norman Granz, who founded Verve Records to produce new records by Fitzgerald. With Verve she recorded some of her more widely noted works, particularly he ...
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Kenny Burrell And John Coltrane
''Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane'' is a studio album of music performed by jazz musicians Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane. It was released on the New Jazz Records, New Jazz label in April 1963. The recording was made on March 7, 1958. It was reissued in 1967 on New Jazz's parent label Prestige Records, Prestige, with a different cover and retitled ''The Kenny Burrell Quintet With John Coltrane''. Reception Lindsay Planer of AllMusic gave it 4 stars, stating: "While not one of Coltrane's most assured performances, he chases the groove right into the hands of Burrell. The guitarist spins sonic gold and seems to inspire similar contributions from Chambers' bowed bass and Coltrane alike." Track listing # "Freight Trane" (Tommy Flanagan) – 7:18 # "I Never Knew" (Ted Fio Rito, Gus Kahn) – 7:04 # "Lyresto" (Kenny Burrell) – 5:41 # "Why Was I Born?" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern) – 3:12 # "Big Paul" (Tommy Flanagan) – 14:05 Personnel * Kenny Burrell – guitar * John Coltr ...
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John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pro ..., bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, 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 Modal jazz, 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 t ...
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Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl Burrell (born July 31, 1931) is an American jazz guitarist known for his work on numerous top jazz labels: Prestige, Blue Note, Verve, CTI, Muse, and Concord. His collaborations with Jimmy Smith were notable, and produced the 1965 ''Billboard'' Top Twenty hit Verve album '' Organ Grinder Swing''. He has cited jazz guitarists Charlie Christian, Oscar Moore, and Django Reinhardt as influences, along with blues guitarists T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.Cohassey, John. "Kenny Burrell: Guitarist, Educator." ''Contemporary Musicians. Profiles of the People in Music.'' Ed. Julia M. Rubiner. Vol. 11. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1994. 29–31. PrintNash, Sunny. "Kenny Burrell Biography." ''PRLog,'' May 13, 2009. Burrell is a professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Early life Burrell was born in Detroit. Both his parents played instruments,Sallis, James. "Middle Ground: Herb Ellis, Howard Roberts, Jim Hall, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass, Ta ...
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