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You Better Believe It!
''You Better Believe It!'' is an album by Jazz musician and bandleader Gerald Wilson. Recorded in 1961 for the Pacific Jazz label,Pacific Jazz Records Catalog: 10000/20000 series
accessed January 12, 2016 it featuring a 17 piece orchestra, the music is arranged, directed and mainly composed by Wilson. The orchestra is made up of west coast-based musicians such as , , and

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Gerald Wilson
Gerald Stanley Wilson (September 4, 1918 – September 8, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. Born in Mississippi, he was based in Los Angeles from the early 1940s. In addition to being a band leader, Wilson wrote arrangements for Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Nancy Wilson. Early life Wilson was born in Shelby, Mississippi, and at the age of 16 moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he graduated from Cass Technical High School (one of his classmates was saxophonist Wardell Gray).Peter Vacher"Gerald Wilson obituary" ''The Guardian'', 15 September 2014. He joined the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra in 1939, replacing its trumpeter and arranger, Sy Oliver. While with Lunceford, Wilson contributed songs to the band, including "Hi Spook" and "Yard-dog Mazurka", the first influenced by Ellington's recording o ...
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Alto Saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor but larger than the B soprano. It is the most common saxophone and is used in popular music, concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, military bands, marching bands, pep bands, and jazz (such as big bands, jazz combos, swing music). The alto saxophone had a prominent role in the development of jazz. Influential jazz musicians who made significant contributions include Don Redman, Jimmy Dorsey, Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Lee Konitz, Jackie McLean, Phil Woods, Art Pepper, Paul Desmond, and Cannonball Adderley. Although the role of the alto saxophone in classical music has been limited, influential performers include Marcel Mule, Sigurd Raschèr, Jean-Marie Londeix, Eugene Rousseau, and Frederick ...
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Mel Lewis
Melvin Sokoloff (May 10, 1929 – February 2, 1990), known professionally as Mel Lewis, was an American jazz drummer, session musician, professor, and author. He received fourteen Grammy Award nominations. Biography Early years Lewis was born in Buffalo, New York, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents Samuel and Mildred Sokoloff. He started playing professionally as a teen, eventually joining Stan Kenton in 1954. His musical career brought him to Los Angeles in 1957 and New York City in 1963.''All Music Guide to Jazz''. Yanow, Scott (1996). Miller Freeman Books. Career In 1966 in New York, he teamed up with Thad Jones to lead the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. The group started as informal jam sessions with the top studio and jazz musicians of the city, but eventually began performing regularly on Monday nights at the famed venue, the Village Vanguard. In 1979, the band won a Grammy for their album '' Live in Munich''. Like all of the musicians in the band, it was only a ...
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Double Bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar in structure to the cello, it has four, although occasionally five, strings. The bass is a standard member of the orchestra's string section, along with violins, viola, and cello, ''The Orchestra: A User's Manual''
, Andrew Hugill with the Philharmonia Orchestra
as well as the concert band, and is featured in Double bass concerto, concertos, solo, and chamber music in European classical music, Western classical music.Alfred Planyavsky

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Jimmy Bond (musician)
James Edward Bond Jr. (January 27, 1933 – April 26, 2012), known as Jimmy Bond, was an American double bass player, arranger and composer who performed and recorded with many leading jazz, blues, folk and rock musicians between the 1950s and 1980s. Biography Bond was born in Philadelphia, and learned the double bass and tuba as well as studying orchestration and composition. He attended the Juilliard School between 1950 and 1955. He played bass in clubs in Philadelphia, with musicians such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Gene Ammons. After his formal studies ended, he performed regularly with Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sonny Rollins, and in 1958 began touring with George Shearing Sir George Albert Shearing, (13 August 1919 14 February 2011) was a British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. Shearing was the composer of over 300 t ....
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Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four- course Renaissance guitar, and the ...
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Hammond Organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier to drive a speaker cabinet. The organ is commonly used with the Leslie speaker. Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured. The organ was originally marketed by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians in organ trios—small groups centered on the Hammond organ. Jazz club owners found that organ trios were cheaper than hiring a big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a g ...
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Baritone Saxophone
The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones are relatively uncommon. Like all saxophones, it is a single-reed instrument. It is commonly used in concert bands, chamber music, military bands, big bands, and jazz combos. It can also be found in other ensembles such as rock bands and marching bands. Modern baritone saxophones are pitched in E. History The baritone saxophone was created in 1846 by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax as one of a family of 14 instruments. Sax believed these instruments would provide a useful tonal link between the woodwinds and brasses. The family was divided into two groups of seven saxophones each, from the soprano to the contrabass. Though a design for an F baritone saxophone is included in the C and F family ...
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Don Raffell
Don Raffell (born Donald Howard Raffell; Apr 26, 1919 – Mar 24, 2003) was an American saxophonist, woodwind doubler (multireedist), studio musician and educator. Raffell recorded on hundreds of records, movies, and T.V shows dating from the 1940s all the way through the 1990s. His career as a studio musician was long and stylistically diverse having started in the big band era and playing all the way up through rock n' roll and other modern pop era acts. He had a long time close professional association with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle.Nelson Riddle. ''Arranged By Nelson Riddle'' Warner Bros Pubns. 1985. page 196. Early life Don Raffell was born and raised in a musical family in Washington D.C. where both he and his brother took up musical instruments. He learned the clarinet and then moved onto the saxophone and flute, he learned to play trumpet and flugelhorn also. Early on his greatest influence on the saxophone was Lester Young and then later Stan Getz. Pr ...
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Jack Nimitz
Jack Nimitz (January 11, 1930 – June 10, 2009) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist. He was nicknamed "The Admiral". Career A native of Washington, D.C., Nimitz started on clarinet in his early teens before playing alto saxophone. During the 1950s he played baritone saxophone with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, and Herbie Mann. He continued to play in big bands in the 1960s with Terry Gibbs and Gerald Wilson in addition to working in film and leading a quintet. He was a founding member of Supersax in the early 1970s and remained with the band into the 1990s. During the 1980s and 1990s he was a member of big bands led by Oliver Nelson and Bill Berry. He performed in the sextet of Frank Strazzeri and the sextet of Bud Shank in the 1990s. In 1997 he worked with Buddy Childers at the PizzaExpress Jazz Club in London. A studio musician for much of his life, Nimitz recorded his first album as leader in the 1990s. The Jack Nimitz Quintet played its final performance on May 10, ...
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Tenor Saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while the alto is pitched in the key of E), and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef, sounding an octave and a major second lower than the written pitch. Modern tenor saxophones which have a high F key have a range from A2 to E5 (concert) and are therefore pitched one octave below the soprano saxophone. People who play the tenor saxophone are known as "tenor saxophonists", "tenor sax players", or "saxophonists". The tenor saxophone uses a larger mouthpiece, reed and ligature than the alto and soprano saxophones. Visually, it is easily distinguished by the curve in its neck, or its crook, near the mouthpiece. The alto saxophone lacks this and its neck goes straight to the mouthpiece. The tenor saxophone is most recognized for it ...
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Teddy Edwards
Theodore Marcus Edwards (April 26, 1924 – April 20, 2003) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Biography Edwards was born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. He learned to play at a very early age, first on alto saxophone and then clarinet. His uncle sent for him to come to Detroit to live because he felt opportunities were better. Due to illness in the family, he went back to Jackson and ventured to Alexandria, Louisiana. He was persuaded by Ernie Fields to join his band after going to Tampa, Florida. Edwards had planned to go to New York City, but Fields convinced him he could get there by way of Washington, D.C., if he worked with his band. Edwards ended up at the "Club Alabam" on Central Avenue in Los Angeles, which later became his city of residence. Edwards played with many jazz musicians, including his personal friend Charlie Parker, Roy Milton, Wynonie Harris, Vince Guaraldi, Joe Castro and Ernie Andrews. A 1947 recording with Dexter Gordon, '' The Duel' ...
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