Les Elgart
Lester Elliott Elgart (August 3, 1917 – July 29, 1995) was an American swing jazz bandleader and trumpeter. Early Years Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Elgart grew up in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey with his brother Larry. They were exposed to musical influences early in their lives. Their mother, Bessie (Aisman) Elgart, was a concert pianist before her marriage to Arthur Elgart, a manufacturer's representative. She is said to have given a piano recital at Carnegie Hall, and at one time had her own music conservatory. At age 10, Les was attracted to bugling after joining the Cub Scouts. Later, he turned to the cornet, and then the trumpet. Both brothers attended Pompton Lakes High School, where Les was elected president of the school orchestra. He was playing professionally by the age of twenty. Career The First Band During the 1940s Les was a member of bands led by Raymond Scott, Charlie Spivak, and Harry James, occasionally finding himself alongside brother Larry. They f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bridgeport and Stamford, Connecticut, Stamford and the principal municipality of Greater New Haven, which had a total 2020 population of 864,835. New Haven was one of the first Planned community, planned cities in the U.S. A year after its founding by English Puritans in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four Grid plan, grid, creating the "Nine Square Plan". The central common block is New Haven Green, the New Haven Green, a square at the center of Downtown New Haven. The Green is now a National Historic Landmark, and the "Nine Square Plan" is recognized by the American Planning ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
V-Disc
V-Disc ( "V" for Victory) was a record label that was formed in 1943 to provide records for U.S. military personnel. Captain Robert Vincent supervised the label from the Special Services division. Many popular singers, big bands, and orchestras recorded V-discs. History Under the leadership of James Caesar Petrillo, the American Federation of Musicians ( AFM) was involved in the 1942–44 musicians' strike in which there was a recording ban on four companies. On October 27, 1943 George Robert Vincent convinced Petrillo to allow the union's musicians to make records for the military as long as the discs were not sold and the masters were disposed of. Musicians who had contracts with different record labels were now able to record together for this nonprofit enterprise. A group consisting of Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Art Tatum recorded concerts that were released as V-Discs. Captain Vincent ran the program from the Special Services Division. Artists and reperto ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
American Bandstand
''American Bandstand'', abbreviated ''AB'', is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the program's producer. It featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act—over the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run–D.M.C.—usually appeared in person to lip-sync one of their latest singles. Freddy Cannon holds the record for most appearances, at 110. The show's popularity helped Dick Clark become an American media mogul and inspired similar long-running music programs, such as '' Soul Train'' and British series ''Top of the Pops''. Clark eventually assumed ownership of the program through his Dick Clark Productions company. Background ''American Bandstand'' premiered locally in late March 1952 as ''Bandstand'' on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV Channel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Dick Clark
Richard Wagstaff Clark (November 30, 1929April 18, 2012) was an American radio and television personality, television producer and film actor, as well as a cultural icon who remains best known for hosting ''American Bandstand'' from 1956 to 1989. He also hosted five incarnations of the ''Pyramid'' game show from 1973 to 1988 and '' Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve'', which transmitted New Year's Eve celebrations in New York City's Times Square. As host of ''American Bandstand'', Clark introduced rock & roll to many Americans. The show gave many new music artists their first exposure to national audiences, including Ike & Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel, Iggy Pop, Prince, Talking Heads, and Madonna. Episodes he hosted were among the first in which black people and white people performed on the same stage, and they were among the first in which the live studio audience sat down together without racial segregation. Singer Pa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Bandstand Boogie
''American Bandstand'', abbreviated ''AB'', is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the program's producer. It featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act—over the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run–D.M.C.—usually appeared in person to lip-sync one of their latest singles. Freddy Cannon holds the record for most appearances, at 110. The show's popularity helped Dick Clark become an American media mogul and inspired similar long-running music programs, such as ''Soul Train'' and British series ''Top of the Pops''. Clark eventually assumed ownership of the program through his Dick Clark Productions company. Background ''American Bandstand'' premiered locally in late March 1952 as ''Bandstand'' on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV Channel 6 (now ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ray Anthony
Raymond Antonini (born January 20, 1922), known as Ray Anthony, is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter, and actor. He is the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Biography Anthony was born to an Italian family in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, but moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, where he studied the trumpet. He played in Glenn Miller's band from 1940 to 1941 and appeared in the Glenn Miller movie '' Sun Valley Serenade'' before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he formed his own group. The Ray Anthony Orchestra became popular in the early 1950s with " The Bunny Hop", " Hokey Pokey", and the theme from '' Dragnet''.Wynn, RonRay Anthony Biography, Allmusic, retrieved 2011-06-17 He had a No. 2 chart hit with a recording of the tune "At Last" in 1952; it was the highest charting pop version of the song in the U.S. His 1962 recording 'Worried Mind' received considerable radio airplay. In 1953, Anthony and his orchestra were ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Les Brown (bandleader)
Lester Raymond Brown (March 14, 1912 – January 4, 2001) was an American jazz musician who led the big band Les Brown and His Band of Renown for nearly seven decades from 1938 to 2000. Biography Brown was born in Reinerton, Pennsylvania. He enrolled in the Conway Military Band School (later part of Ithaca College) in 1926, studying with famous bandleader Patrick Conway for three years before receiving a music scholarship to the New York Military Academy, where he graduated in 1932. Brown attended college at Duke University from 1932 to 1936. There he led the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils, who performed regularly on Duke's campus and up and down the east coast. Brown took the band on an extensive summer tour in 1936. At the end of the tour, while some of the band members returned to Duke to continue their education, others stayed on with Brown and continued to tour, becoming in 1938 the Band of Renown. The band's original drummer, Don Kramer, became the acting manager ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
DownBeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the "downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure. ''DownBeat'' publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers' and critics' poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue. Popular features of ''DownBeat'' magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
George Avakian
George Mesrop Avakian (; russian: Геворк Авакян; March 15, 1919 – November 22, 2017) was an American record producer, artist manager, writer, educator and executive. Best known for his work from 1939 to the early 1960s at Decca Records, Columbia Records, World Pacific Records, Warner Bros. Records, and RCA Records, he was a major force in the expansion and development of the U.S. recording industry. Avakian functioned as an independent producer and manager from the 1960s to the early 2000s and worked with artists such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, Eddie Condon, Keith Jarrett, Erroll Garner, Buck Clayton, Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond, Edith Piaf, Bob Newhart, Johnny Mathis, John Cage, Alan Hovhaness, Ravi Shankar, and many other notable jazz musicians and composers. Biography Early life and career Avakian was born in Armavir, Russia, to Armenian parents, Mesrop and Manoushak Avakian; the family moved to the Unite ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Artists And Repertoire
Artists and repertoire (colloquially abbreviated to A&R) is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists (singers, instrumentalists, bands, and so on) and songwriters. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label or publishing company; every activity involving artists to the point of album release is generally considered under the purview, and responsibility, of A&R. Responsibilities Finding talent The A&R division of a record label is responsible for finding new recording artists and bringing those artists to the record company. A&R staff may go to hear emerging bands play at nightclubs and festivals to scout for talent. Personnel in the A&R division are expected to understand the current tastes of the market and to be able to find artists that will be commercially successful. For this reason, A&R people are often young and many are musicians, mu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Demo (music)
A demo (shortened from "demonstration") is a song or group of songs typically recorded for limited circulation or for reference use, rather than for general public release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas in a fixed format, such as cassette tape, compact disc, or digital audio files, and to thereby pass along those ideas to record labels, producers, or other artists. Musicians often use demos as quick sketches to share with bandmates or arrangers, or simply for personal reference during the songwriting process; in other cases, a songwriter might make a demo to send to artists in hopes of having the song professionally recorded, or a publisher may need a simple recording for publishing or copyright purposes. Background Demos are typically recorded on relatively crude equipment such as "boom box" cassette recorders, small four- or eight-track machines, or on personal computers with audio recording software. Songwriters' and publishers' demos are rec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Top Banana (musical)
''Top Banana'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer and book by Hy Kraft which premiered on Broadway in 1951. The show was written as a star vehicle for comedian Phil Silvers, who played the host of a television variety show program. Silvers won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical in 1952. Production The musical opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on November 1, 1951, and closed on October 4, 1952, after 350 performances. The original cast co-starred Rose Marie, Lindy Doherty, Jack Albertson, Bob Scheerer and Ted "Sport" Morgan. Produced by Paula Stone and Mike Sloane, the musical was directed by Jack Donohue and choreographed by Ron Fletcher,Hischak, Thomas "'Top Banana' Stage and Film"''Through the Screen Door: What Happened to the Broadway Musical When It Went to Hollywood'' (2004), Scarecrow Press, , p. 258 with vocal arrangements and direction by Hugh Martin, musical direction by Harold Hasting, and orchestrations ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |