HOME





Joe Porcaro
Joseph Thomas Porcaro (April 29, 1930 – July 6, 2020) was an American jazz drummer. Biography Personal life The Porcaro family is, on the paternal side, originally from San Luca, an Aspromonte village in the province of Reggio Calabria. Joe Porcaro, a well-known jazz drummer and percussionist, born in Hartford, Connecticut to Mike, an Italian immigrant from San Luca, Calabria, and a mother from Caserta, Campania. The couple had moved to the US in the early twentieth century. Grandfather Mike was himself a percussionist who played with numerous Italian bands based in the U.S., and it is with him that the family musical tradition began, passed on to his son Joe and then to his three famous grandchildren. Joe's three sons were in the rock band Toto: drummer Jeff (1954–1992); bassist Mike (1955–2015); and keyboardist Steve (b. 1957), who still is a session musician and programmer. Joe also has a daughter, Joleen Porcaro Duddy (actress and designer), whose children, Chase an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

New Britain, Connecticut
New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately southwest of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The city is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. According to the 2020 Census, the population of the city is 74,135. Among the southernmost of the communities encompassed within the Hartford-Springfield Knowledge Corridor metropolitan region, New Britain is home to Central Connecticut State University and Charter Oak State College. The city was noted for its industry during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and notable sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places include Walnut Hill Park, developed by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and Downtown New Britain. The city's official nickname is the "Hardware City" because of its history as a manufacturing center and as the headquarters of Stanley Black & Decker. Because of its large Polish Americ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting and visual presentation. Madonna's works, which incorporate social, political, sexual, and religious themes, have generated both controversy and critical acclaim. A cultural icon spanning both the 20th and 21st centuries, Madonna has become the subject of various scholarly, literary and artistic works, as well as a mini academic sub-discipline called Madonna studies. Madonna moved to New York City in 1978 to pursue a career in dance. After performing as a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist in the rock bands Breakfast Club and Emmy & the Emmys, she rose to solo stardom with her 1983 eponymous debut album. Madonna has earned a total of 18 multi-platinum albums, including '' Like a Virgin'' (1984), '' True Blue'' (1986), ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Danny Elfman
Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his first studio film in 1985, Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall. Elfman has frequently worked with directors Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, and Gus Van Sant, contributing music to nearly 20 Burton projects, including '' Pee-Wee's Big Adventure'', ''Beetlejuice'', ''Batman'', '' Edward Scissorhands'', '' Batman Returns'', '' Mars Attacks!'', '' Sleepy Hollow'', '' Big Fish'' and '' Alice in Wonderland'', as well as scoring Raimi's '' Darkman'', '' A Simple Plan'', ''Spider-Man'', '' Spider-Man 2'', '' Oz the Great and Powerful'', and '' Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'', and Van Sant's Academy Award-winn ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Alan Silvestri
Alan Anthony Silvestri (born March 26, 1950) is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and music producer of film scores. He has received two Grammy Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for nearly all of his feature films, including the ''Back to the Future'' film series (1985–1990), ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' (1988), ''Death Becomes Her'' (1992), ''Forrest Gump'' (1994), '' Contact'' (1997), '' What Lies Beneath'' (2000), '' Cast Away'' (2000), '' The Polar Express'' (2004), ''Beowulf'' (2007), ''Flight'' (2012) and '' The Walk'' (2015). Silvestri also scored many other popular movies, including ''Predator'' (1987), '' The Abyss'' (1989), '' Father of the Bride'' (1991), '' The Bodyguard'' (1992), '' Eraser'' (1996), '' The Parent Trap'' (1998), '' Stuart Little'' (1999), '' The Mummy Returns'' (2001), '' Lilo & S ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


James Horner
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music. Horner won two Academy Awards for his musical composition to James Cameron's '' Titanic'' (1997), which became the best-selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time. He also wrote the score for the highest-grossing film of all time, Cameron's '' Avatar'' (2009). Horner's other Oscar-nominated scores were for '' Aliens'' (1986), '' An American Tail'' (1986), '' Field of Dreams'' (1989), '' Apollo 13'' (1995), ''Braveheart'' (1995), '' A Beautiful Mind'' (2001), and '' House of Sand and Fog'' (2003). Horner's other notable scores include '' Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'' (1982), '' Willow'' (1988), '' The Land Before Time'' (1988), '' Glory'' (1989), '' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929July 21, 2004) was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator with a career in film and television scoring that spanned nearly 50 years and over 200 productions, between 1954 and 2003. He was considered one of film music's most innovative and influential composers. He was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards (winning in 1977 for ''The Omen''), six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, and four British Academy Film Awards. He composed scores for five films in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and three in the Rambo (franchise), ''Rambo'' franchise, as well as for films including ''Logan's Run (film), Logan's Run'', ''Planet of the Apes (1968 film), Planet of the Apes'', ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'', ''Patton (film), Patton'', Papillon (1973 film), ''Papillon'', ''Chinatown (1974 film), Chinatown'', ''The Omen'', ''Alien (film), Alien'', ''Poltergeist (1982 film), Poltergeist'', ''The Secret of NIMH'', ''Medicine Man ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who was born on February 8, 1932.")(April 23, 2022)From Jaws to Star Wars, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra celebrates John Williams, CTV News is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in History of film, cinema history. He has a distinct sound that mixes Romantic music, romanticism, Impressionism in music, impressionism and Atonality, atonal music with complex orchestration. He is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has received List of awards and nominations received by John Williams, numerous accolades including 26 Grammy Awards, Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven Brit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American film composer, orchestrator and music producer. He has scored over 100 films and is the recipient of a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and nine nominations for Academy Awards. His film scores include ''Pretty Woman'' (1990), '' The Prince of Tides'' (1991), '' The Fugitive'' (1993), ''Dinosaur'' (2000), '' The Village'' (2004), ''King Kong'' (2005), ''Batman Begins'' (2005) and its sequel ''The Dark Knight'' (2008) (both composed with Hans Zimmer), '' Michael Clayton'' (2007) and the ''Fantastic Beasts'' trilogy (2016–2022). He has collaborated extensively with directors M. Night Shyamalan and Francis Lawrence, having scored eight of Shyamalan's films since ''The Sixth Sense'' (1999) and all of Lawrence's films since '' I Am Legend'' (2007). He has also worked with other directors such as Edward Zwick, Michael Hoffman, P. J. Hogan, Andrew Davis, Lawrence Kasdan, Joe Johnston, Taylor Hackford, Ivan Reitman, Joel Schumacher ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (, March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Sassy" and "List of nicknames of jazz musicians, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". Early life Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services. Sarah and her family were a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sandra Sinatra (born June 8, 1940) is an American singer, actress, film producer and author. She is the elder daughter of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra ( Barbato) and is known for her 1965 signature hit " These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. Nancy Sinatra began her career as a singer in November 1957 with an appearance on her father's ABC television variety series '' The Frank Sinatra Show'' but initially achieved success only in Europe and Japan. In early 1966 she had a transatlantic number-one hit with "These Boots Are Made for Walkin. A TV promo clip from the era features Sinatra in high boots, accompanied by colorfully dressed go-go dancers, in what is now considered an iconic Swinging Sixties look. The song was written by Lee Hazlewood, who wrote and produced most of her hits and sang with her on several duets. As with all of Sinatra's 1960s hits, "Boots" featured Billy Strange as arranger and conductor. Between early 1966 and early 1968, Sinatra charted on ''B ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, most popular entertainers of the 20th century. Sinatra is among the List of best-selling music artists, world's best-selling music artists, with an estimated 150 million record sales globally. Born to Italian Americans, Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era and was influenced by the easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby. He joined the Harry James band as the vocalist in 1939 before finding success as a solo artist after signing with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "Bobby-soxer, bobby soxers". In 1946, Sinatra released his debut album, ''The Voice of Frank Sinatra''. He then signed with Capitol Records and released several albums wi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Howard Roberts
Howard Mancel Roberts (October 2, 1929 – June 28, 1992) was an American jazz guitarist, educator, and session musician. Early life Roberts was born in Phoenix, Arizona to Damon and Vesta Roberts, and began playing guitar at the age of 8 — a Gibson (guitar company), Gibson manufactured $18 Kalamazoo student model acoustic given to him by his parents at Christmas. He took lessons from Horace Hatchett, who commented to Roberts' father that Roberts, at the age of 15, "... has his own style of playing and there's nothing else I can show him. He plays better than I do." By the time he was 15, he was playing professionally locally, predominantly blues-based music, where he learned from a number of black musicians, trumpeter Art Farmer being among that group. In 1992 Roberts was quoted in ''The Independent Newsletter'' by Steve Voce saying he considered that early experience to be "the most valuable" to him in his development as a player.Sallis, James. "Middle Ground: Herb Ellis, How ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]