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Eddie Beal
Eddie Beal (June 13, 1910, Redlands, California – December 15, 1984, Los Angeles) was an American jazz pianist. He was the brother of Charlie Beal. Beal started on drums but switched to piano in his teens. Early in the 1930s he worked in the orchestras of Earl Dancer and Charlie Echols. From 1933 to 1936 he toured China with Buck Clayton, then freelanced in California (with Maxine Sullivan, among others) until 1941. After military service from 1943–45, he accompanied Ivie Anderson, and led his own trio which accompanied Billie Holiday at one point. Beal composed the kiss sequence in the ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoon ''Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs''. He also worked in the Spirits of Rhythm. As a composer, he penned the tunes "Softly" (covered by Holliday) and "Bye and Bye", a hit for The Turbans. He plays on the soundtrack to the 1951 film ''The Strip''; he also makes an appearance in the film. Later recording credits include work with Jimmy Mundy, Herb Jeffries, Helen ...
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Redlands, California
Redlands ( ) is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 73,168, up from 68,747 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The city is located approximately northwest of Palm Springs, California, Palm Springs and east of Los Angeles. Redlands was founded in 1881 on land that encompassed native Serrano, Morongo and Cahuilla tribes. Redlands absorbed the communities of Terracina, Barton, Gladysta, and Lugonia along with portions of Mentone, California, Mentone, Crafton, California, Crafton and Bryn Mawr, California, Bryn Mawr when it incorporated in 1888. Redlands is home to the San Bernardino de Sena Estancia, Asistencia Mission founded in 1819 by early European settlers. By the early 20th century, it was a major focal point of California's citrus production, citrus industry and boosted the world's largest producer of naval oranges in the world. Throughout its past, Redlands has ...
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Herb Jeffries
Herb Jeffries (born Umberto Alexander Valentino; September 24, 1913 – May 25, 2014) was an American actor of film and television and popular music and jazz singer-songwriter, known for his baritone voice. He starred in several low-budget "race" Western feature films aimed at black audiences, '' Harlem on the Prairie'' (1937), '' Two-Gun Man from Harlem'' (1938), ''Rhythm Rodeo'' (1938), '' The Bronze Buckaroo'' (1939) and '' Harlem Rides the Range'' (1939). He also acted in several other films and television shows. During his acting career he was usually billed as Herbert Jeffrey (sometimes "Herbert Jeffries" or "Herbert Jeffries, Sensational Singing Cowboy"). In the 1940s and 1950s Jeffries recorded for a number of labels, including RCA Victor, Exclusive, Coral, Decca, Bethlehem, Columbia, Mercury and Trend. His album ''Jamaica'', recorded by RKO, is a concept album of self-composed calypso songs. Early life and ethnicity Jeffries was born Umberto Alexander Valentino in ...
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Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne (born January 4, 1954) is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic. Life and career Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was 11 or 12 years old, inspired by the Beatles and hoping to get the attention of girls. Although he was drawn to Jimi Hendrix and played in a garage band, he found rock and pop music too conventional. He gravitated to the avant-garde jazz of Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey (guitarist), Derek Bailey. Braxton persuaded Chadbourne to abandon his intention to enter journalism and instead pursue music. During the early 1970s, he lived in Canada to avoid military service in the Vietnam War. Returning to the United States, he moved to New York City in the mid-1970s and played free improvisation with Henry Kaiser (musician), Henry Kaiser and John Zorn. Around this time, he released his first album, ''Solo Acoustic Guitar''. In the early 1 ...
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Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington (; born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, one of the most popular black female recording artists of the 1950s. 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 also known as "Queen of the Jukeboxes". 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 ...
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Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. Though Kenton had several pop hits from the early 1940s into the 1960s, his music was always forward-looking. Kenton was also a pioneer in the field of jazz education, creating the Stan Kenton Band Clinics, Stan Kenton Jazz Camp in 1959 at Indiana University.Sparke, Michael. ''Stan Kenton: This is an Orchestra.'' UNT Press (2010). . Early life Stan Kenton was born on December 15, 1911, in Wichita, Kansas; he had two sisters (Beulah and Erma Mae) born three and eight years after him, respectively. His parents, Floyd and Stella Kenton, moved the family to Colorado, and in 1924, to the Greater Los Angeles Area, settling in suburban Bell, California. Kenton attended Bell High School (Bell, California), Bell High School; his high-school yearbook pict ...
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Georgia Carr
Georgia Carr (born Mary Louise Thomas, June 20, 1925 – July 4, 1971) was an American singer and actress who performed and recorded between the 1940s and 1960s. Early life and education She was born in Los Angeles and worked as a secretary with the Los Angeles Housing Authority while studying nursing at the University of California, Los Angeles, and establishing herself as a singer. In 1946, after winning a talent contest, she began a residency in the Club Royal in San Francisco where, in 1952, she was heard by bandleader Stan Kenton. He suggested that she change her name to Georgia Carr, and won her a recording contract with Capitol Records. She appeared in top clubs in New York City, Chicago and elsewhere, and released several singles on Capitol, with arrangements by Nelson Riddle, including "Softly" and "I Dream of You" (both 1952), "Is That Bad" and "Lonely" (both 1953). At the end of 1953, she began working as a disc jockey on radio station WOV in New York. Career She con ...
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The Blossoms
The Blossoms were an American girl group that originated from California. During their height of success in the 1960s, the group's lineup consisted of Darlene Love, Fanita James, and Jean King. Although the group had a recording career in their own right, they were most famous for being the group to actually record the No.1 hit " He's a Rebel" (which producer Phil Spector credited to The Crystals), and for providing backing vocals for many of the biggest hits of the 1960s. History Early Years Their career began in Los Angeles, California, United States, at John C. Fremont High School in 1954. Originally the group was a sextet of young girls singing for fun. Calling themselves The Dreamers, the group originally sang spirituals, since two of the members had parents who were against their daughters singing secular rhythm and blues music, which was popular on the radio during the early 1950s. Fanita Barrett (later known as Fanita James; August 13, 1938 – November 23, 2023), G ...
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Ken Hanna
Kenneth Lucien Hanna (July 8, 1921 - December 10, 1982) was an American jazz trumpeter, arranger, composer, and bandleader, best known for his work with Stan Kenton. Hired in 1942 by Kenton to add commercial arrangements to the library, he also played trumpet in the band before taking a break for military service. He returned to the trumpet section after the war and continued to contribute compositions and arrangements until 1951. He wrote almost 40 forward thinking compositions and arrangements between 1942 and 1951. He returned to the Kenton writing staff in the late 1960s, contributing over 70 more titles between 1968 and 1977. Hanna was born in Baltimore. He married Margaret Lee Voorhess (1919–1968), with whom he had a son, Donald Voorhess Hanna (1942–2019), and Stephen Charles Hanna (1947–2020), in 1942. Discography As leader * 1955 ''Jazz for Dancers'' As sideman With Stan Kenton * ''Stan Kenton's Milestones'' ( Capitol, 1943–47 950 * '' Stan Kenton Classics'' (Cap ...
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Toni Harper
Toni Harper (June 8, 1937 – February 10, 2023), also known as Toni Dunlap, was an American former child singer who retired from performing at the age of 29. After learning dance under Maceo Anderson, Harper was cast by the choreographer Nick Castle in ''Christmas Follies'', at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in 1945. She later went on to perform on stage with Herb Jeffries and Cab Calloway. Harper performed at the third annual Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. on September 7, 1947. Woody Herman, The Valdez Orchestra, The Blenders, T-Bone Walker, Slim Gaillard, The Honeydrippers, Sarah Vaughan and the Three Blazers also performed that same day. She came back to perform for the eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert on June 1, 1952. Also featured that day were Roy Brown and His Mighty Men, Anna Mae Winburn and Her Sweethearts, Jerry Wallace, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Josephine Baker. Harper recorded "Candy Store ...
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Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield (August 12, 1920August 11, 1984) was an American rhythm and blues singer with a smooth vocal style. He was also a songwriter, known for the songs "Please Send Me Someone to Love" and "Hit the Road Jack", the latter being a song first recorded by Ray Charles. Career Mayfield was born in Minden, Louisiana, the seat of Webster Parish, in the northwestern part of the state. As a youth, he had a talent for poetry, which led him to songwriting and singing. He began his performing career in Texas and then moved to Los Angeles in 1942, but without success as a singer until 1947, when a small record label, Swing Time Records, signed him to record his song "Two Years of Torture," with a band that included the saxophonist Maxwell Davis, the guitarist Chuck Norris, and the pianist Willard McDaniel. The record sold steadily over the next few years, prompting Art Rupe to sign Mayfield to his label, Specialty Records, in 1950. Mayfield's vocal style was influenced by such sty ...
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Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombone, trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. His theme song was "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You". His technical skill on the trombone gave him renown among other musicians. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s. He is best remembered for standards such as "Opus No. 1, Opus One", "This Love of Mine" (no. 3 in 1941) featuring Frank Sinatra on vocals, "Song of India (song), Song of India", "Marie", "On Treasure Island", and his biggest hit single, "I'll Never Smile Again" (no. 1 for 12 weeks in 1940). Early life Born in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. was the second of four children born to Thomas Fra ...
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Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the ninth-least densely populated U.S. state. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's population live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); due to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the Union benefited immensely from the support of newly awarded statehood by the infusion of t ...
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