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Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert Ellis (August 4, 1921 – March 28, 2010) was an American jazz guitarist. During the 1950s, he was in a trio with pianist Oscar Peterson. Biography Born in Farmersville, Texas, Ellis grew up on a farm. He was first exposed to guitar music when he heard the Light Crust Doughboys on the radio. At the age of three, Ellis was playing harmonica, and banjo by six. Although his brother owned a guitar, he tuned it wrong. Ellis wanted to play better than his brother, so he bought a book to learn how to tune guitar properly, and his interest in guitar grew from there. He was ultimately inspired to pick up jazz guitar after hearing George Barnes on a radio program. Ellis was proficient on the instrument by the time he entered North Texas State University. He majored in music, but because the university did not have a guitar program, he studied the bass. He dropped out of college and toured for six months with a band from the University of Kansas. From 1943–45 he ...
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Farmersville, Texas
Farmersville is a city located in Collin County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,612 at the 2020 census, with the larger Census County Division (CCD) having a population of 12,344. History Farmersville originated in 1849 as a settlement on the Jefferson-McKinney Road, and near Republic of Texas National Road - now known as US Highway 380 and Texas State Highway 78, respectively. The settlement was named by two of the original settlers - William Pickney Chapman & John Hendrex - after the chief occupation of many of the residents. After 1854, additional settling families including the Yearys and several families of Sugar Hill (approximately 2 miles northeast) began relocating to Farmersville. H.M. Markham, practicing here by 1855, is said to have been Collin County's earliest physician. The First United Methodist Church was organized in 1856. On March 4, 1859, William Gotcher donated land for the public town square, now the anchor of Farmersville’s commercial di ...
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Glen Gray
Glenn Gray Knoblauch (June 7, 1900 – August 23, 1963), known professionally as Glen Gray, was an American jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra.'' The Mississippi Rag'', "Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra," George A. Borgman, October 2006, page 1 Early years Gray was born to Lurdie P. and Agnes (Gray) Knoblauch in Roanoke, Illinois, United States. His father was a saloon keeper and railroad worker who died when Glen was two years of age. He had an older sister. His widowed mother married George H. DeWilde, a coal miner, and moved her family to Roanoke. Gray graduated from Roanoke High School, in 1917 where he played basketball and acquired his nickname, "Spike". Career Gray attended the American Conservatory of Music in 1921 but left during his first year to go to Peoria, Illinois, to play with George Haschert's orchestra. From 1924 to 1929, he played with several orchestras in Detroit, Michigan. Gray served as leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra ...
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Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973) was an American jazz tenor Saxophone, saxophonist. He performed in the United States and Europe and made many recordings with Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Johnny Hodges, and others. Career Early life and career A native of Kansas City, Missouri, he studied violin, learned how to play blues on the piano from Pete Johnson (musician), Pete Johnson, and received saxophone lessons from Budd Johnson. He played with Lester Young in the Young Family Band. He recorded with Blanche Calloway and became a member of the Bennie Moten Orchestra with Count Basie, Hot Lips Page, and Walter Page. During the 1930s, he played in bands led by Willie Bryant, Benny Carter, Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson, Andy Kirk (musician), Andy Kirk, and Teddy Wilson. With Ellington Webster was a soloist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra starting in 1940, appearing on "Cotton Tail". He considered Johnny Hodges, an alto saxophonist in ...
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Norman Granz
Norman Granz (August 6, 1918 – November 22, 2001) was an American jazz record producer and concert promoter. He founded the record labels Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve, and Pablo and the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. Granz was acknowledged as "the most successful impresario in the history of jazz"."Norman Granz" (obituary)
'' The Telegraph'', November 26, 2001
He was also a champion of racial equality, insisting, for example, on integrating audiences at concerts he promoted.


Biography

Born in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, Granz was the son of

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Herb Ellis 1953 Gibson ES-175
Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. ''Herbs'' generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while ''spices'' are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits. Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, aromatic and in some cases, spiritual. General usage of the term "herb" differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs; in medicinal or spiritual use, any parts of the plant might be considered "herbs", including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (and cambium), resin and pericarp. The word "herb" is pronounced in Commonwealth English, but is standard among American English speakers as well as those from regions whe ...
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Ray Brown (musician)
Raymond Matthews Brown (October 13, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American jazz double bassist, known for his extensive work with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a founding member of the group that would later develop into the Modern Jazz Quartet. Early life Ray Brown was born on October 13, 1926, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and took piano lessons as a child. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but his father was unable to afford one. With a vacancy in the high school jazz orchestra, he took up the upright bass instead. A major early influence on Brown's bass playing was Jimmy Blanton, the bassist in the Duke Ellington band. Brown's high school music teacher believed that he was a diligent student, as he took the bass home with him on weekends. Brown, however, was already using the school bass in gigs; when this was discovered, the bass had to be returned and Brown's father bought him one. B ...
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Scott Yanow
Scott Yanow (born 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Life and career Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Beginning in 1974, Yanow was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles and was the jazz editor for ''Record Review.'' In September 2002, Yanow was interviewed on-camera by CNN about the Monterey Jazz Festival and wrote an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He authored 12 books on jazz (including 2022's ''Life Through the Eyes of a Jazz Journalist''), more than 900 liner notes for CDs, and more than 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow contributed to the third edition of the '' All Music Guide to Jazz,'' serving as co-editor. He has written for ''Downbeat,'' ''Jazziz'', the ''Los Angeles Jazz Scene,'' ''Syncopated Times,'' ''Jazz Artistry Now'', the ''Jazz Rag,'' and ''New York City Jazz Record''. Yanow has produced a number of records under the Allegro record label. He also hosted a regular radio sh ...
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Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel (October 17, 1923 – May 6, 2004) was an American jazz guitarist. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups as well as a "first call" guitarist for studio, film, and television recording sessions. Kessel was a member of the group of session musicians informally known as the Wrecking Crew. Early life Kessel was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1923 to a Jewish family. Kessel's father was an immigrant from Hungary who owned and operated a shoe shop. A self-taught guitarist, his only formal musical study was three months of guitar lessons at the age of 12. Career He began his career as a teenager, touring with local swing bands. When he was 16, he started playing with the Oklahoma A&M band, Hal Price & the Varsitonians. The band members nicknamed him "Fruitcake" because he practiced in excess of 16 hours per day. Kessel gained recognition due in part to his youth, and in p ...
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Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, alternatively billed as Nat "King" Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and Traditional pop, pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. Cole started his career as a jazz pianist in the late 1930s, when he formed the King Cole Trio, which became the top-selling group (and the only black act) on Capitol Records in the 1940s. Cole's trio was the model for small jazz band, jazz ensembles that followed. Starting in 1950, he transitioned to become a solo singer billed as Nat King Cole. Despite achieving mainstream success, Cole faced intense racial discrimination during his career. While not a major vocal public figure in the civil rights movement, Cole was a member of his local NAACP branch and participated in the 1963 March ...
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I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out
"I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out" is a popular song composed by Herb Ellis, Lou Carter, and John Frigo. The three men were members of Jimmy Dorsey's big band, but left in 1946 to form the jazz trio "The Soft Winds." While in the group, they composed another jazz standard, " Detour Ahead". The lyric is addressed to a lover who has worn out their welcome with the singer: "Baby, please leave me be / You want a puppet and there's no strings on me!" The song was originally recorded on October 19, 1947 by Woody Herman and His Orchestra, and released in 1948. In subsequent years, it was recorded by numerous artists, including Anita O'Day, June Christy and Stan Kenton, and Mose Allison. Popular culture The song was performed by Cybill Shepherd in a 1985 episode of the TV series '' Moonlighting'', "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice." It was Shepherd's own suggestion to sing the song, after a discussion she had with jazz critic Leonard Feather Leonard Geoffrey Feather (13 Septem ...
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Detour Ahead
"Detour Ahead" is a jazz standard with words and music credited to Herb Ellis, Johnny Frigo, and Lou Carter. Background The song was written in 1948 while Carter, Ellis and Frigo were part of The Soft Winds, a group they created after leaving Jimmy Dorsey James Francis Dorsey (February 29, 1904 – June 12, 1957) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer and big band leader. He recorded and composed the jazz and pop standards " I'm Glad There Is You (In This World of Ordinary Peopl ...'s orchestra. The lyrics compare love's progress to a motor trip. Credit for music and lyrics is to Carter, Frigo, and Ellis, based on their mutual agreement when the Soft Winds trio was formed that the three would share credit for any music composed by any of them during the existence of the band. Later in life, Frigo would state at public performances that he had written by himself the music and lyrics for "Detour Ahead". See also * List of 1940s jazz standards References {{ ...
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Johnny Frigo
Johnny Frigo (December 27, 1916 – July 4, 2007) was an American jazz violinist, bassist and songwriter. He appeared in the 1940s as a violinist before working as a bassist. He returned to the violin in the 1980s and enjoyed a comeback, recording several albums as a leader. Biography Frigo was born in Chicago and studied violin for three years beginning at age seven. In high school he started to play double bass in dance orchestras. In 1942 he played with Chico Marx's orchestra and performed a comedy routine on violin with Marx on piano. He entered the United States Coast Guard during World War II and played in a band on Ellis Island with Al Haig and Kai Winding. After a brief turn at active service near the end of the war he moved to New Jersey. He toured with Jimmy Dorsey's band from 1945 to 1947, later forming the Soft Winds trio with Dorsey's guitarist Herb Ellis and pianist Lou Carter. During this time he wrote the music and lyrics to " Detour Ahead", which has been reco ...
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