Walter Murphy
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Walter Murphy
Walter Anthony Murphy Jr. (born December 19, 1952) is an American composer, keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for the instrumental "A Fifth of Beethoven", a disco adaptation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony which topped the charts in 1976 and was featured on the ''Saturday Night Fever'' soundtrack in 1977. Further classical–disco fusions followed, such as " Flight '76", "Rhapsody in Blue", " Toccata and Funk in 'D' Minor", "Bolero", and "Mostly Mozart", but were not as successful. In a career spanning over five decades, Murphy has written music for numerous films and TV shows, including ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', ''The Savage Bees'', '' Stingray'', '' Wiseguy'', ''The Commish'', '' Profit'', ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', ''Looney Tunes'', and ''How Murray Saved Christmas''. He has had a long-running partnership with Seth MacFarlane, composing music for his films and TV shows such as ''Family Guy'', ''The Cleveland Show'', '' Americ ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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Doc Severinsen
Carl Hilding "Doc" Severinsen (born July 7, 1927) is an American retired jazz trumpeter who led the NBC Orchestra on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson''. Early life Severinsen was born in Arlington, Oregon, to Minnie Mae (1897–1998) and Carl Severinsen (1898–1972). He was nicknamed Doc after his father, the only dentist in Arlington, who was born in Germany to a Danish father and a Swiss mother. Severinsen's father played violin and wanted him to play it as well, but Severinsen wanted to play trombone. Because his arms were not long enough for trombone, and the small Arlington music store had none available, he settled for the cornet. A neighbor gave him some help on how to play, while his father, tobacco in mouth, instructed him to spit out the notes like spitting tobacco. His mother threatened to spank him if he didn't practice. Severinsen proved to have a knack for the instrument, and was in a high school band when he was seven. At 9, he won a state trumpet conte ...
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Toccata And Fugue In D Minor, BWV 565
The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, BWV 565, is a piece of organ repertoire, organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda (music), coda. Scholars differ as to when it was composed. It could have been as early as . Alternatively, a date as late as the 1750s has been suggested. To a large extent, the piece conforms to the characteristics deemed typical of the north German organ school of the baroque music, Baroque era with divergent stylistic influences, such as south German characteristics. Despite a profusion of educated guesswork, there is not much that can be said with certainty about the first century of the composition's existence other than that it survived that period in a manuscript written by Johannes Ringk. The first publication of the piece, in the Bach Revival era, was in 1833, through the efforts of Felix Mendelss ...
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Rhapsody In Blue
''Rhapsody in Blue'' is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman's band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano. Whiteman's arranger Ferde Grofé orchestrated the rhapsody several times including the 1924 original scoring, the 1926 pit orchestra scoring, and the 1942 symphonic scoring. The rhapsody is one of Gershwin's most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin's piece inaugurated a new era in America's musical history, established Gershwin's reputation as an eminent composer, and eventually became one of the most popular of all concert works. The ''American Heritage'' magazine posits that the famous opening clarinet glissando has ...
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Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack)
''Saturday Night Fever'' is the soundtrack album from the 1977 film ''Saturday Night Fever'' starring John Travolta. The soundtrack was released on November 15, 1977. It is one of the best-selling albums in history, and remains the second-biggest-selling soundtrack of all time, after '' The Bodyguard,'' selling over 40 million copies worldwide. In the United States, the album was certified 16× Platinum for shipments of at least 16 million units. The album stayed atop the charts for 24 straight weeks from January to July 1978 and stayed on ''Billboard''s album charts for 120 weeks until March 1980. Three singles from the album contributed by the Bee Gees – " How Deep Is Your Love", "Stayin' Alive" and "Night Fever" – along with Yvonne Elliman's " If I Can't Have You", all reached No. 1 in the US. In the UK, the album spent 18 consecutive weeks at No. 1. The album epitomized the disco phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic and was an international sensation. The album has bee ...
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Symphony No
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Etymology and origins The word ''symphony'' is derived from the Greek word (), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of ...
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Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively tau ...
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A Fifth Of Beethoven
"A Fifth of Beethoven" is a disco instrumental recorded by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band, adapted from the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. The record was produced by production music and sound effects recording producer Thomas J. Valentino. The "Fifth" in the song's title is a pun, referencing a liquid measure approximately equal to one-fifth of a gallon, a popular size for bottles containing liquor, as well as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony from which the song was adapted. Released as a single by Private Stock Records in 1976, the song debuted at number 80 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and climbed to number 1 within 19 weeks, remaining there for one week. In 1977, it was licensed to RSO Records for inclusion on the best-selling ''Saturday Night Fever'' soundtrack. The song is one of Murphy's few Top 40 hits. Background and recording In college, Murphy's interests included rock music, particularly that which was adapted from classical music, suc ...
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Norah Jones
Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has won several awards for her music and as of 2012, has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. ''Billboard'' named her the top jazz artist of the 2000's decade. She has won nine Grammy Awards and was ranked 60th on ''Billboard'' magazine's artists of the 2000s decade chart. In 2002, Jones launched her solo music career with the release of ''Come Away with Me'', which was a fusion of jazz with country, blues, folk and pop. It was certified diamond, selling over 27 million copies. The record earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Her subsequent studio albums—'' Feels Like Home'' (2004), '' Not Too Late'' (2007), and '' The Fall'' (2009)—all gained platinum status, selling over a million copies each. They were also generally well received by critics. Jones's fifth studio album, ''Little Br ...
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Joel McNeely
Joel McNeely (born March 28, 1959) is an American composer, arranger, musician, lyricist, and record producer. A protégé of composer Jerry Goldsmith, he is best known for his film and television scores. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for his work on ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles''. He frequently collaborates with Seth MacFarlane and contributes to various projects by The Walt Disney Company. Biography Joel McNeely was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Both of his parents were involved in music and theater, and as a child he played the piano, saxophone, bass, and flute. He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, studied jazz at the University of Miami, and earned a master's degree as a composition major at the Eastman School of Music. LucasArts chose McNeely to compose the soundtrack to the 1996 ''Star Wars'' video game, ''Shadows of the Empire'', while incorporating the themes from the films by John Williams. This was ...
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Ron Jones (composer)
Ronald Jones (born July 7, 1954) is an American composer who has written music for several television shows, including ''Star Trek: The Next Generation,'' ''DuckTales, Duck Tales'', ''American Dad!'', and ''Family Guy''. He composed the theme song for Nickelodeon's ''The Fairly OddParents, The Fairly Odd Parents'' with series creator, Butch Hartman, as well as music for the show's pilots. He lives in Stanwood, Washington, where he opened SkyMuse studios, a recording facility designed for post-production and music recording. Early life and Career Jones was born in Kansas City, Kansas. After receiving a degree in music composition and music theory, he moved to Los Angeles, California, to enroll in the Dick Grove School of Music.Ron Jones; Internet Movie Database Accessed: 11 October 2009 He studied under Academy Award- and Emmy Award-nominated composer Lalo Schifrin after Schifrin asked Jones to copy a concerto for guitar and orchestra."Ron Jones Interview;" Reel Cool Published: 7 A ...
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