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Dick Fontaine
Dick Fontaine (1939 – 28 October 2023) was an English documentary filmmaker. He was Head of Documentary Department at the National Film and Television School from 1995 to 2012 (UK). Biography Born in Hampstead, London, England, in 1939, Fontaine graduated with an MA degree in Moral Sciences from Cambridge University, and in 1962 he joined Granada Television as a researcher, going on to become one of the founders of Granada's ''World in Action'' series. Fontaine became one of the first filmmakers to make films about the Beatles; having seen the band perform in Stockport he reccy'd the Cavern Club on 1 August 1962, and filmed the band at the Cavern at their 22 August lunchtime show – Ringo Starr's fourth show as a member of the band – for the '' Know the North'' programme. It would have been the band's first TV appearance. The footage was deemed too grainy, but as the band became more successful, so did the historic value of the film, eventually being aired on Granada's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of Government of the United Kingdom, the national government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. London grew rapidly 19th-century London, in the 19th century, becoming the world's List of largest cities throughout history, largest city at the time. Since the 19th cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation''. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud." Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman taught himself to play the saxophone when he was a teenager. He began his musical career playing in local R&B and bebop groups, and eventually fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathleen Battle
Kathleen Deanna Battle (born August 13, 1948) is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016, and again in May 2024. Life and career Early years and musical education Battle was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, the youngest of seven children. Her father was a steelworker, and her mother was an active participant in the gospel music of the family's African Methodist Episcopal church. Battle attend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Jackson (activist)
George Lester Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was an American author, prisoner, and revolutionary. While serving an indeterminate sentence for stealing $71 at gunpoint from a gas station in 1960, Jackson became involved in the Black power movement and inspired the creation of an ultra-leftist prison gang, the Black Guerrilla Family. In 1970, he was one of three prisoners dubbed the Soledad Brothers. They were charged with the murder at Soledad Prison of corrections officer John V. Mills, allegedly in retaliation for the shooting deaths of three black inmates by a white prison guard several days prior. Also in 1970, Jackson published '' Soledad Brother'', a collection of his letters that comprised a combination autobiography and manifesto addressed primarily to an African-American audience, but which was embraced by radicals around the world. The book was a bestseller and earned Jackson international fame. In August 1971, Jackson was killed by prison guards du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California. The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia. They were also active in many prisons and had international chapters in the United Kingdom and Algeria. Upon its inception, the party's core practice was its Open carry in the United States, open carry patrols ("copwatching") designed to challenge the police brutality in the United States, excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department. From 1969 onward, the party created social programs, including the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, education programs, and community health clinics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Shrimpton
Jean Rosemary Shrimpton (born 7 November 1942) is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels. She appeared on numerous magazine covers including '' Vogue,'' ''Harper's Bazaar,'' '' Vanity Fair,'' '' Glamour,'' ''Elle,'' ''Ladies' Home Journal,'' ''Newsweek,'' and ''Time''. In 2009, ''Harper's Bazaar'' named Shrimpton one of the 26 best models of all time, and in 2012, ''Time'' named her one of the 100 most influential fashion icons since 1923. She starred alongside Paul Jones in the film '' Privilege'' (1967). Early life Shrimpton was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and educated at St Bernard's Convent School, Slough. She enrolled at Langham Secretarial College in London at age 17. A chance meeting with director Cy Endfield led to an unsuccessful meeting with the producer of his film '' Mysterious Island'' (1961). Endfield then suggested she attend the Lucie Clayton Charm Academy's mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Mailer
Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least one in each of the seven decades after World War II. His novel ''The Naked and the Dead'' was published in 1948 and brought him early renown. His 1968 nonfiction novel ''The Armies of the Night'' won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction as well as the National Book Award. Among his other well-known works are ''An American Dream (novel), An American Dream'' (1965), ''The Fight (book), The Fight'' (1975) and ''The Executioner's Song'' (1979), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Mailer is considered an innovator of "creative nonfiction" or "New Journalism", along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, a genre that uses the style and devices of literary fiction in factual journalism. He was a promin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'' has been ranked by ''Time'' magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. His 1955 essay collection '' Notes of a Native Son'' helped establish his reputation as a voice for human equality. Baldwin was an influential public figure and orator, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States. Baldwin's fiction posed fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures. Themes of masculinity, sexuality, race, and class intertwine to create intricate narratives that influenced both the civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement in mid-twentieth century America. His protagonists are often but not exclusively African-American; gay and bisexual men feature prominently in his work (as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, distribution, and education. It is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949. Activities Purpose The BFI was established in 1933 to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history, heritage and culture of the United Kingdom. Archive The BFI maintain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Hip-Hop History
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, '' a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest known ancestor of A is ''aleph''—the first letter of the Phoenician ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black people, Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to Atlantic slave trade, European slave traders and Middle Passage, transported across the Atlantic to Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, the Western He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
