One man who was successful in Duke Ellington's band was Jimmy Blanton. Jimmy Blanton was an American jazz double bassist. He joined Duke Ellington's band in 1939. He was credited for starting more complex pizzicato and arco bass solos in a jazz context than previous bassists. Blanton created some of the first essential bass solos in jazz like some compositions from Ellington like "Ko Ko," "Jack the Bear," and "Concerto for Cootie." Also, he recorded a cycle of duets with his bandleader, Duke Ellington on piano, the one that sounded the best was "Pitter Panther Patter." Jimmy Blanton was beginning to play the bass professionally in city groups which was led by his mother and she was a pianist. After a short time at Tennessee State College, he moved to St. Louis where he joined a band named the “Jeter-Pillars Orchestra” and bands of the Fate Marable's riverboat, where Duke Ellington heard him and then he put him in his band. He was in Ellington’s band for two years because he was diagnosed with congenital tuberculosis. So he was forced to retire and then a few months later he had died.
Another man who became famous from playing with Duke Ellington was William “Cat” Anderson. Cat Anderson was an American jazz trumpet player. He was known for his high notes when he is playing trumpet. He joined Duke Ellington’s band in 1944. Cat’s solo on “Satin Doll” from Duke Ellington’s 70th Birthday Concert is a chorus that contained notes that are so high that it is unsure if any jazz player in history could play like him. Anderson was first discovered by Duke Ellington after he was fired by Lionel Hampton because of jealousy. Anderson working with Ellington was the perfect place for him to play music. Cat was with Ellington during 1944-194...
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...nd for three years. June left the band because she wanted to become a solo act.
A man who became famous in Jimmie Lunceford’s band was Eddie Durham. Eddie was an American jazz guitarist, trombonist, composer and musical arranger. He joined Jimmie’s band in 1935. Durham was best known for the song “Blue Bone.” He was introduced to Jimmie when he moved to New York in 1934. Eddie played with Jimmie for two years. He left to join another band.
Another man who became famous in Jimmie Lunceford’s band is Gerald Wilson. Gerald is an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer/arranger, and an educator. He played with Jimmie’s band in 1939. He was best known for the song “Theme for Monterey.” Gerald met Jimmie after he finished high school. Wilson played with that group for three years. He left Jimmie’s band because he wanted to organize his own big band.
The “king of Western swing,” Bob Wills, was a prominent figure from the 1930s through 1950s. At at a young age he learned to play the fiddle and he and his father performed at dances and other social gatherings. He was exposed to other genres of music as a young boy such a blues, conjunto and mariachi, but it was the new sounds of jazz that inspired him to experiment with traditional country music. In 1929 Wills moved to Fort Worth, Texas, were he formed a band, the Wills Fiddle Band, which would soon change to Light Crust Doughboys. Their music was played was played on the Fort Worth radio station, KFJZ radio, and their unique sound quickly spread which is what the radio advertisers needed during the economic downfall. However, in 1933 Wills left the band and formed a new one called Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and they toured together over the next forty years. In 1945 Wills appeared at the Grand Ole Opry and insisted that there be a horn and drum section on stage. The audience was surprisingly pleased with this unwanted change by the directors. Despite his somewhat strained relationship with Nashville, the local country music establishment formally recognized Wills and his important overall impact on country music when the Country Music Association Hall of Fame inducted him in 1968 (Hartman, 146). Bob Wills died in 1975, but was still a major influence in up and coming young country artists like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Strait and Lee Ann Womack.
He also was known to influences experimental new music and electronic music. Although he spent a good part of his life in the recording studio, he also performed live. In addition to being one of the greatest vocalists in the 1950s, Holly played guitar, a variety of percussion instruments, and electric bass. Although Holly’s music career was short lived, the amount of music he produced is very impressive. As a songwriter, he is famous for developing his own material. It is in his songs and his band, The Crickets, that we truly see Buddy Holly’s unique musical personality. Holly also appeared to be a vocalist and instrumentalist, playing bass and guitar on almost all his songs. “Buddy Holly played rock and roll for only a few short years, but the wea...
Not only that, he played for great stars like Ike and Tina Turner as well as Sam Cooke. The year 1965 was when things really started to take flight for Hendrix’s music career. He played for more bands and artists such as Joey Dee. Hendrix played for the Starlighters at the time as well. During the next three years, Hendrix played for many major music artists and decided to make his own band he named Jimmy James And The Blue Flames. One day, while performing, former bassist of the band The Animals, Chas Chandler watched him and offered to be his manager in mid 1966 (Rockhall).
John Birks was born in Cheraw, South Carolina on October 21, 1917. The young prodigy was first introduced to music by his father, a weekend bandleader. Gillespie's father was not as talented as John was to become, he relied on a more stable income as mason around their home ~own. Four years after his fathers death, when Birks was 14, he began learning the trombone and trumpet without any formal instruction. Recognized by the staff at Laurinberg Institute, in North Carolina, as a prodigy, he was given a scholarship to be a member of the band in 1932. Throughout his stay at the Laurinberg Institute he studied vigorously both the trumpet and piano, building him self a long road that would constantly pave the way to something valuable, new, and historic (Kerfeld, 428). Gillespie did not know that he would become a pioneer in a new style called Beb...
Recognized as one of the greatest all time jazz figures Duke Ellington, whose career reached over a span of fifty years was mostly known for composing thousands of influential songs. As well as constituting into jazz an ensemble of western sounds which was referred to as “American Music”. This iconic figure has left a mark in the world of jazz for centuries to come.
The first instrument Robert played was the harmonica. Robert quit school as a teen and started working in the cotton fields. Robert left that life to travel and play his music. He began to play the guitar around the age of fifteen. Famous blues men; Charlie Patton and Willie Brown influenced Johnson when he was young. At age 17, Robert married Virginia Travis. She and their first baby died during childbirth. Johnson then went on the road. Robert traveled all over the Midwest and all the way down to Mississippi and Arkansas. He married Calletta Craft during his travels. She died only a few years later while Robert was on the road.
With his new big band, Gillespie attempted to popularize bebop and make himself the signature figure of the style. Dizzy was the soloist and showman of his own big band which performed from 1946 to 1950. In 1953, someone accidently sat on his trumpet. Due to this, the bell on the instrument now titled upward at a 45-degree angle. Dizzy discovered that this new shape to his beloved instrument created an improved sound quality. From then on, he always incorporated this shape into his new trumpets. With his own big band, Gillespie was best known for his songs “Oop Bob Sh’Bam” and “Leap Frog.” In 1956, Gillespie traveled to the Middle East on a cultural mission sponsored by the United States State Department. While there he wrote and recorded his famous piece titled “Tunisia.” In 1959 Dizzy Gillespie released an album titled A portrait of Duke Ellington dedicated to the famous musician. In 1964 Dizzy Gillespie ran for the U.S.
The history of Jazz music is one that is tied to enslavement, and prejudices. It Is impossible to separate the development of Jazz music from the racial oppression that occurred in the United States as they are inextricably connected. Slavery was a part of our country’s development that is shameful and yet, lead to some of the greatest musical advances of the twentieth century.
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington D.C. His mother Daisy, surrounded Edward with her very polite friends which taught him to have respect and manners for people. After a while his friends started beginning to notice his politeness and his dapper style and gave him the nickname “duke.” When Ellington was seven years old he started taking piano lessons and found his love for music, although his love for baseball was more potent at the time. Ellington recalls President Roosevelt coming by on his horse at times and watching the boys play baseball. Ellington wound up getting his first job selling peanuts at baseball games. While working at the Soda Jerk in the Poodle Café in the summer of 1914, Ellington wrote his first composition and called the piece “Soda Fountain Rag”, he created it by ear because he had not yet learned how to write or read the music. Ellington recalls playing the “Soda Fountain Rag” as a one-step, two-step, waltz tango and fox trait, he said, “listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was established as having my own repertoire.” In Ellington’s autobiography, Music is my Mistress (1973), Ellington wrote about missing more piano lessons than he had attended because he felt that at the time playing piano wasn’t his talent and that he wasn’t very good at it. At the age of fourteen Ellington started sneaking into Frank Holiday's Poolroom. After hearing the poolro...
John Coltrane was a jazz saxophonist from 1955 to 1967. He was born in Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926. A few years later he moved to Highpoint, North Carolina.(D) As a child he was surrounded by a musical family. When he turned thirteen he started to play the alto saxophone. 1939 was a life changing year for Coltrane because his father, uncle, and grandparents died.(C) In the middle of that same year he graduated from grammar school.(D) Sadly when his family started to split and go to different states Coltrane moved to Philadelphia in 1943.(C)
The first true virtuoso soloist of jazz was Louis Armstrong. He was a dazzling improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually. He changed the format of jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and in his recording groups, the "Hot Five" and the "Hot Seven" (Porter 2), demonstrated that jazz improvisation could go far beyond simply ornamenting the melody. He became the first well known male jazz singer, and also set standards for all later jazz singers, by creating scat singing: singing meaningless syllables instead of words, not unlike instrumental improvisation.
Johnny cash, the man in black is a country legend, him and the Tennessee two, made a name for themselves in the mid 50's. There orignal songs where gospil, but when trying to get a record deal was turned down for the gospil ,but then played a song Johnny cash wrote. The first hit was "Cry,Cry,Cry", other hits were " i walk the line","folsom Prison blues" , and others such as " man in black"" Hey Porter", and " get rhythm". Johnny cash marride his early wife Vivian Liberto in 1954, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee.His band The Tennessee two consited of Luther Perkins and bass player Marshall Grant. They were known for there sound, people say they had a "boom-chik-a-Boom" sound like a train. Johnny wore dark clothing which got him the name "man in black", and hestarted his performanced with the simple entrance "Hello im Johnny Cash". {wikipedia}
Louis Armstrong was an African American musician whose fame skyrocketed during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1912, Armstrong started to sing on the streets of New Orleans, for a living. However, Louis Armstrong fully came into contact with the musical world after being sent to the New Orleans Colored Waifs Home for Boys. He had ended up there after firing a pistol into the air one New Year’s Eve. The musical instructor of the school, Joe “King” Oliver, had seen potential talent in young Louis Armstrong, so he soon became his mentor. Oliver eventually taught Armstrong how to play the cornet. Louis Armstrong started out with small gigs; he often played with bands in lesser known clubs, and performed at funerals all around New Orleans. Eventually, after leaving the Colored Waifs Home for Boys, he took on a night job performing in a dance hall at Henry Ponce’s. After forming a band that was known as the “Hot Five,” Louis Armstrong cut his first record in ...
What does music mean to you? Music is something that has been around for many years. It started out as just some drums and a few instruments, but has changed a lot over time. The dictionary defines music as “an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.” When I think of music I think of it has a story combined with instrumental sounds. Over the years, it has changed so much, some for the good and the bad. There are many different types of music and different emotions it will bring.
The history of jazz has many innovative and outstanding musicians that it is difficult to find somebody with as much influence on the genre as Louis Armstrong had on jazz. His legacy is much more than just his phenomenal trumpet playing, but also for his amazing innovations he contributed to the genre of music. Armstrong committed countless hours to putting on jaw dropping performances that will always be remembered and has made Armstrong into a jazz icon. Armstrong’s contributions to the jazz genre has created and entire culture of the 20th century