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Ellis Marsalis Jr.
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. (November 14, 1934 – April 1, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and educator. Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of the Marsalis musical family, when sons Branford and Wynton became popular jazz musicians. Early life Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Marsalis was the son of Florence Marie (née Robertson) and Ellis Marsalis Sr., a businessman and social activist. Marsalis and his wife Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis had six sons: Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya, and Jason. Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason also became jazz musicians. Ellis III is a poet and photographer. Marsalis played tenor saxophone and piano during high school, and performed locally with a rhythm and blues band that included pianist Roger Dickerson. After high school, Marsalis served a year in the Marine Corps where he performed on piano for the majority of his duty. He subsequently attended D ...
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Jazz Fest
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (commonly called Jazz Fest or Jazzfest) is an annual celebration of local music and culture held at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana. Jazz Fest attracts thousands of visitors to New Orleans each year. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation Inc., as it is officially named, was established in 1970 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (NPO). The Foundation is the original organizer of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell Oil Company, a corporate financial sponsor. The Foundation was established primarily to redistribute the funds generated by Jazz Fest into the local community. As an NPO, its mission further states that the Foundation "promotes, preserves, perpetuates and encourages the music, culture and heritage of communities in Louisiana through festivals, programs and other cultural, educational, civic and economic activities". The founders of the organization in ...
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Dillard University
Dillard University is a private, historically black university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1930 and incorporating earlier institutions founded as early as 1869 after the American Civil War, it is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church. History The history of Dillard University dates to 1869 and its founding predecessor institutions— Straight University (later renamed Straight College) and Union Normal School (which developed into New Orleans University). Straight University Responding to the post-Civil War need to educate newly freed African Americans in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the surrounding region, the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church founded Straight University on June 12, 1868. Straight University also offered professional training, including a law department from 1874 to 1886. Its graduates participated in local and national Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction era civil rights st ...
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David Newman (jazz Musician)
David Newman may refer to: Entertainment *David "Fathead" Newman (1933–2009), American jazz saxophonist *David Newman (screenwriter) (1937–2003), American screenwriter *David Newman (composer) (born 1954), American composer *David Newman (singer) (born 1963), aka Durga Das, American singer/songwriter Sports *Dave Newman (footballer) (1923–1995), Australian footballer for Melbourne *Dave Newman (Canadian football) (born 1956), former Canadian Football League wide receiver Other *David Newman (politician) (born 1944), Canadian politician *David Newman (priest) (born 1954), Archdeacon of Loughborough since 2009 *David Newman (political geographer) (born 1956), British/Israeli political geographer *David Newman (physicist) David E. Newman is a professor in the physics department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has a Ph.D. in plasma physics Plasma () is a state of matter characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in an ..., physi ...
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Nicholas Payton
Nicholas Payton (born September 26, 1973) is an American trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. A Grammy Award winner, he is from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is also a writer who comments on subjects including music, race, politics, and life in America. Biography The son of bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton, he began playing the trumpet at the age of four and by age nine was sitting in with the Young Tuxedo Brass Band alongside his father. He began his professional career at ten years old as a member of James Andrews' All-Star Brass and was given his first steady gig by guitarist Danny Barker at The Famous Door on Bourbon Street. He enrolled at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and then at the University of New Orleans. After touring with Marcus Roberts and Elvin Jones in the early 1990s, Payton signed a contract with Verve Records; his first album, ''From This Moment'', appeared in 1995. In 1996 he performed on the soundtrack of the movie ''Kansas City'', and ...
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Marlon Jordan
Marlon Jordan (born August 21, 1970) is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Early life Born Marlon Jordan, one of six performers of a family of New Orleans musicians. He is the son of saxophonist Kidd Jordan, Edward "Kidd" Jordan and classical pianist Edvidge Jordan, and brother flutist Kent Jordan (musician), Kent, sisters violinist Rachel, and jazz singer Stephanie. While they have pursued separate careers, the family frequently collaborates. Marlon started playing trumpet in the fourth grade, and graduated from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. He knew Wynton Marsalis (a major influence) and Terence Blanchard when he was a child. Marlon recorded as a sideman with his brother Kent (1987) and Dennis González (1988). Career At age 18, recorded his debut album as a leader, ''For You Only'' (1988), Branford Marsalis makes four appearances on tenor; Marlon's brother, flautist Kent Jordan, is heard on the opening "Jepetto's Despair," and there are two due ...
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Donald Harrison
Donald Harrison Jr. (born June 23, 1960) is an American jazz saxophonist and the Big Chief of The Congo Square Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural Group from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Berklee College of Music in 2021. He is also an NEA Jazz Master. He is the uncle and former tutor of Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, also known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. Biography Harrison was born to Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr in 1960 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The foundation of Harrison's music comes from his lifelong participation in New Orleans culture. He started in New Orleans second-line culture and studied New Orleans secret tribal culture, under his father, Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. He began participating as a masked Mardi Gras Indian at the age of two years, with the title "Little Chief of the Creole Wild West." Whereas, Harrison Jr. is currently the Chief of Congo Square in Afro-New Orleans Culture. Harrison began playing alto saxop ...
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Harry Connick Jr
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. (born September 11, 1967) is an American singer, pianist, composer, actor, and former television host. As of 2019, he has sold over 30 million records worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top60 List of best-selling music artists in the United States, best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 16million in RIAA certification, certified sales. He has had seven top20 U.S. albums, and ten number-one U.S. jazz albums, earning more number-one albums than any other artist in U.S. jazz chart history as of 2009. Connick's best-selling album in the United States is his Christmas album ''When My Heart Finds Christmas'' (1993). His highest-charting album is ''Only You (Harry Connick Jr. album), Only You'' (2004), which reached No.5 in the U.S. and No.6 in England, Britain. He has won three Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards. He played Leo Markus, the husband of Grace Adler (played by Debra Messing) o ...
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Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He has also written two operas and more than 80 film and television scores. Blanchard has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Original Score for ''BlacKkKlansman'' (2018) and '' Da 5 Bloods'' (2020), both directed by Spike Lee, a frequent collaborator. Blanchard started his career in 1980 playing in the Lionel Hampton Orchestra while studying jazz at Rutgers University. In 1982, just before he turned 20, he dropped out of Rutgers to join The Jazz Messengers, launching a professional career now in its fifth decade. The Metropolitan Opera in New York staged Blanchard's opera '' Fire Shut Up in My Bones'' in its 2021–2022 season, the first opera by an African American composer in the organization's history. Blanchard is also a passionate educational mentor. From 2000 to 2011, Blanchard served as artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. In 2011, he was named artis ...
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Al Hirt
Alois Maxwell "Al" Hirt (November 7, 1922 – April 27, 1999) was an American trumpeter and bandleader. He is best remembered for his million-selling recordings of "Java (instrumental), Java" and the accompanying album ''Honey in the Horn (album), Honey in the Horn'' (1963), and for the theme music to ''The Green Hornet (TV series), The Green Hornet''. His nicknames included "Jumbo" and "The Round Mound of Sound". Colin Escott, an author of musician biographies, wrote that RCA Victor, for which Hirt had recorded most of his best-selling recordings and for which he had spent most of his professional recording career, had simply dubbed him "The King." Hirt was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in November 2009. He received eight Grammy Awards, Grammy nominations during his lifetime, including winning the Grammy award in 1964 for his version of "Java". Biography Hirt was born in New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of a police officer. At the age of six, he was ...
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Nat Adderley
Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ... trumpeter and composer. He was the younger brother of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, with whom he played for many years. Adderley's composition "Work Song (Adderley song), Work Song" (1960) is a jazz standard, and also became a success on the pop charts after singer Oscar Brown Jr. wrote lyrics for it. Early life Nat Adderley was born in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, but moved to Tallahassee, Florida, Tallahassee when his parents were hired to teach at Florida A&M University. His father played trumpet professionally in his younger years, and he passed down his trumpet to Cannonball. When Cannonball picked up ...
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Cannonball Adderley
Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is perhaps best remembered by the general public for the 1966 soul jazz single "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", which was written for him by his keyboardist Joe Zawinul and became a major crossover hit on the Billboard Hot 100, pop and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, R&B charts. A cover version by the Buckinghams, who added lyrics, also reached No. 5 on the charts. Adderley worked with Miles Davis, first as a member of the Davis sextet, appearing on the seminal records ''Milestones (Miles Davis album), Milestones'' (1958) and ''Kind of Blue'' (1959), and then on his own 1958 album ''Somethin' Else (Cannonball Adderley album), Somethin' Else''. He was the elder brother of jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley, who was a longtime member of his band. Early life and career Julian Edwin Adderley was born on September 15, 1928, in Tampa, ...
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Ed Blackwell
Edward Joseph Blackwell (October 10, 1929 – October 7, 1992) was an American jazz drummer, best known known for his work with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Biography Blackwell was born in New Orleans on October 10, 1929. His career began there in the 1950s, where he played in a bebop quintet with pianist Ellis Marsalis and clarinetist Alvin Batiste and briefly toured with Ray Charles. The second line brass band music of New Orleans greatly influenced Blackwell's drumming style. He has also credited his inspiration for playing the drums to his time growing up trying to mimic and match the sounds of his older sisters tap dancing. He would use pots and pans, and old trash cans until he finally received his first drum. Blackwell first came to national attention as a member of Ornette Coleman's quartet around 1960, when he took over for Billy Higgins during Coleman's residency at the Five Spot Café in Manhattan. Blackwell became a pioneering free jazz drummer, fusing New Orlean ...
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