For Ellington
''For Ellington'' is a tribute album by American jazz group the Modern Jazz Quartet featuring performances of compositions associated with Duke Ellington recorded in 1988 and released on the East West label.Modern Jazz Quartet discography accessed June 1, 2012 Reception The review stated "This is a tribute album that works quite well... The ballads sometimes get a little sleepy but on a whole this is a very enjoyable release".Yanow, SAllmusic Review accessed June 1, 2 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) was a jazz combo established in 1952 that played music influenced by classical, cool jazz, blues and bebop. For most of its history the Quartet consisted of John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass), and Connie Kay (drums). The group grew out of the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band from 1946 to 1948, which consisted of Lewis and Jackson along with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Kenny Clarke. They recorded as the Milt Jackson Quartet in 1951 and Brown left the group, being replaced on bass by Heath. During the early-to-mid-1950s they became the Modern Jazz Quartet, Lewis became the group's musical director, and they made several recordings with Prestige Records, including the original versions of their two best-known compositions, Lewis's " Django" and Jackson's " Bags' Groove". Clarke left the group in 1955 and was replaced as drummer by Connie Kay, and in 1956 they moved to Atlantic Records and made ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
"It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" is a 1931 composition by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Irving Mills. It is now accepted as a jazz standard, and jazz historian Gunther Schuller characterized it as "now legendary" and "a prophetic piece and a prophetic title". In 2008, Ellington's 1932 recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Background The music was composed and arranged by Ellington in August 1931 during intermissions at the Lincoln Tavern in Chicago; the lyrics were contributed by Irving Mills. According to Ellington, the song's title was the credo of trumpeter Bubber Miley, who was dying of tuberculosis at the time; Miley died the year the song was released. The song was first recorded by Ellington and his orchestra for Brunswick Records on February 2, 1932. Ivie Anderson sang the vocal and trombonist Joe Nanton and alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges played the solos. The song became famous, Ellington wrote, "as the expression of a se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modern Jazz Quartet Albums
Modern may refer to: History * Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy and sociology * Modernity, a loosely defined concept delineating a number of societal, economic and ideological features that contrast with "pre-modern" times or societies ** Late modernity Art * Modernism ** Modernist poetry * Modern art, a form of art * Modern dance, a dance form developed in the early 20th century * Modern architecture, a broad movement and period in architectural history * Modern music (other) Geography * Modra, a Slovak city, referred to in the German language as "Modern" Typography * Modern (typeface), a raster font packaged with Windows XP * Another name for the typeface classification known as Didone (typography) * Modern, a generic font family name for fixed-pitch serif and sans serif fonts (for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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East West Records Albums
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that east is the direction where the Sun rises: ''east'' comes from Middle English ''est'', from Old English ''ēast'', which itself comes from the Proto-Germanic *''aus-to-'' or *''austra-'' "east, toward the sunrise", from Proto-Indo-European *aus- "to shine," or "dawn", cognate with Old High German ''*ōstar'' "to the east", Latin ''aurora'' 'dawn', and Greek ''ēōs'' 'dawn, east'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin oriens 'east, sunrise' from orior 'to rise, to originate', Greek ανατολή anatolé 'east' from ἀνατέλλω 'to rise' and Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine'. ''Ēostre'', a Germanic goddess of dawn, might have been a personification ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments.'' The Oxford Companion to Music'', 10th edition, p.775, In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, belonging to the membranophones, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Drum Kit
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks, one in each hand, and uses their feet to operate a foot-controlled hi-hat and bass drum pedal. A standard kit may contain: * A snare drum, mounted on a stand * A bass drum, played with a beater moved by a foot-operated pedal * One or more tom-toms, including rack toms and/or floor toms * One or more cymbals, including a ride cymbal and crash cymbal * Hi-hat cymbals, a pair of cymbals that can be manipulated by a foot-operated pedal The drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section and is used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock and pop to blues and jazz. __TOC__ History Early development Before the development of the drum set, drums and cymbals used in military and orchestral mu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Connie Kay
Conrad Henry Kirnon (April 27, 1927 – November 30, 1994) known professionally as Connie Kay, was an American jazz and R&B drummer, who was a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Self-taught on drums, he began performing in Los Angeles in the mid-1940s. His drumming is recorded in ''The Hunt'', the recording of a famous Los Angeles jam session featuring the dueling tenors of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray on July 6, 1947. He recorded with Lester Young's quintet from 1949 to 1955 and with Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. Kay did R&B sessions for Atlantic Records in the early to mid-1950s, and he was featured on hit records such as ''Shake, Rattle and Roll'' by Big Joe Turner and Ruth Brown's ''(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean''. Kay joined the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1955, replacing original drummer Kenny Clarke. He remained through the group's dissolution in 1974 and occasional reunions into the 1990s. In addition to his MJQ compatriots, he had ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Percy Heath
Percy Heath (April 30, 1923 – April 28, 2005) was an American jazz bassist, brother of saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975. Heath played with the Modern Jazz Quartet throughout their long history and also worked with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, and Thelonious Monk. Biography Heath was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, and spent his childhood in Philadelphia. His father played the clarinet and his mother sang in the church choir. He started playing violin at the age of eight and also sang locally. He was drafted into the Army in 1944, but saw no combat. Deciding after the war to go into music, he bought a stand-up bass and enrolled in the Granoff School of Music in Philadelphia. Soon he was playing in the city's jazz clubs with leading artists. In Chicago in 1948, he recorded with his brother on a Milt Jackson album, as members of the Howard McGhee Sextet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musical keyboard, keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Lewis (pianist)
John Aaron Lewis (May 3, 1920 – March 29, 2001) was an American jazz pianist, composer and arranger, best known as the founder and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Early life John Lewis was born in La Grange, Illinois, and after his parents' divorce moved with his mother, a trained singer, to Albuquerque, New Mexico when he was two months old. She died from peritonitis when he was four and he was raised by his grandmother and great-grandmother. He began learning classical music and piano at the age of seven. His family was musical and had a family band that allowed him to play frequently and he also played in a Boy Scout music group. Lyons, p. 77. Even though he learned piano by playing the classics, he was exposed to jazz from an early age because his aunt loved to dance and he would listen to the music she played. He attended the University of New Mexico, where he led a small dance band that he formed Giddins, p. 378. and double majored in Anthropology and Music ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,'' or ''vibist''. The vibraphone resembles the steel marimba, which it superseded. One of the main differences between the vibraphone and other keyboard percussion instruments is that each bar suspends over a resonator tube containing a flat metal disc. These discs are attached together by a common axle and spin when the motor is turned on. This causes the instrument to produce its namesake tremolo or vibrato effect. The vibraphone also has a sustain pedal similar to a piano. When the pedal is up, the bars produce a muted sound; when the pedal is down, the bars sustain for several seconds or until again muted with the pedal. The vibraphone is commonly used in jazz music, in which it often plays a featured role, and was a defining eleme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |