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Li'l Darlin'
"Lil Darlin" (copyrighted in 1958 as "Lil' Darlin") is a jazz standard, composed and arranged in 1957 by Neal Hefti for the Count Basie Orchestra and first recorded on the 1958 album, '' The Atomic Mr. Basie'' (Roulette Records). Style The composition, in the words of jazz writer, Donald Clarke, is "an object lesson in how to swing at a slow tempo." Gary Giddins expands on the importance of tempo in the performance of 'Lil' Darlin,' saying that "in the enduring 'Lil Darlin', eftitested the band's temporal mastery with a slow and simple theme that dies if it isn't played at exactly the right tempo. Basie never flinched." Hefti envisioned the piece to be played at a medium swing tempo, not as a ballad. History ''The Jazz Discography'' (online), as of June 24, 2019, lists 324 recordings of the work. With lyrics added Around 1958, Jon Hendricks wrote and arranged lyrics to "Li'l Darlin'" and his vocal trio, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, performed it with Basie on May 26, 1958, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neal Hefti
Neal Paul Hefti (October 29, 1922 – October 11, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger. He wrote music for '' The Odd Couple'' movie and TV series and for the ''Batman'' TV series. He began arranging professionally in his teens, when he wrote charts for Nat Towles. He composed and arranged while working as a trumpeter for Woody Herman providing the bandleader with versions of " Woodchopper's Ball" and "Blowin' Up a Storm" and composing "The Good Earth" and "Wild Root". He left Herman's band in 1946. Now concentrating on writing music only, he began an association with Count Basie in 1950. Hefti occasionally led his own bands. Beginnings Neal Paul Hefti was born October 29, 1922, to an impoverished family in Hastings, Nebraska, United States. As a young child, he remembered his family relying on charity during the holidays. He started playing the trumpet in school at the age of eleven, and by high school was spending his summer vacations playing in local t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling (born November 2, 1967) is an American jazz singer and songwriter. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church. He sang in choirs and played musical instruments. He encountered jazz while a student at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. After college, he enrolled in the University of Chicago Divinity School, but he left one credit short of a degree to pursue a career as a jazz vocalist. Elling began to perform around Chicago, scat singing and improvising his lyrics. He recorded a demo in the early 1990s and was signed by Blue Note. He has been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, winning Best Vocal Jazz Album for '' Dedicated to You'' (2009) and '' Secrets Are the Best Stories ''(2021). Elling often leads the ''Down Beat'' magazine Critics' Poll. He had a longtime collaboration with pianist Laurence Hobgood, leading a quartet that toured throughout the world. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, 1992. Ed McMahon served as Carson's sidekick and the show's announcer. For its first decade, Johnny Carson's ''The Tonight Show'' was based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, with some episodes recorded at NBC Studios in Burbank, California; on May 1, 1972, the show moved to Burbank as its main venue and remained there exclusively after May 1973 until Carson's retirement. The show's house band, the NBC Orchestra, was led by Skitch Henderson, until 1966 when Milton Delugg took over, who was succeeded by Doc Severinsen less than a year later. The series has been ranked as one of the greatest TV shows of all time in polls from both 2002 and 2013. Format Johnny Carson's ''Tonight Show'' established the modern format of the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar Techniques
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the fiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Taylor (guitarist)
Martin Taylor, MBE (born 20 October 1956) is a British jazz guitarist who has performed in groups, guitar ensembles, and as an accompanist. Biography Early life Taylor was born in Harlow, Essex, into a family with a musical heritage and a Gypsy tradition. At the age of four, he received his first guitar from his father, jazz bassist William 'Buck' Taylor who only took up music at 30. Buck frequently played the music of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, so the young Martin Taylor became inspired by guitarist Django Reinhardt. At age eight, he was already playing in his father's band and at 15 he quit school to become a professional musician. The band Martin joined at 15 called the ''Oo-yah Band'' was led by Lennie Hastings, a jazz drummer who spent many years with the Alex Welsh band. The band included Nick Stevenson (trumpet), Peter Skivington (bass guitar), Ron Brown (trombone), Jamie Evans (piano), Malcolm Everson (clarinet and baritone saxophone). Over the next few y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual jazz festival in the world after Canada's Montreal International Jazz Festival. History The Montreux Jazz Festival opened on 18 June 1967 and was founded by Claude Nobs, Géo Voumard and René Langel with considerable help from Ahmet Ertegun, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun of Atlantic Records. The festival was first held at Montreux Casino. The driving force is the tourism office under the direction oRaymond Jaussi It lasted for three days and featured almost exclusively jazz artists. The highlights of this era were Charles Lloyd (jazz musician), Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Soft Machine, Weather Report, The Fourth Way (band), The Fourth Way, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, and Ella Fitzgerald. Originally ... [...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 years Roberts was born in Phoenix, Arizona to Damon and Vesta Roberts, and began playing guitar at the age of 8 - a 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, Howard Roberts, Jim Hall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Van Eps
George Abel Van Eps (August 7, 1913 – November 29, 1998) was an American swing and mainstream jazz guitarist. Biography George Van Eps was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, into a family of musicians. His three brothers – Fred Abel Van Eps, Jr. (1907–1980), Robert B. Van Eps (1909–1986), and John A. Van Eps (1912–1945) – were musicians. His mother, Louise Abel, was a classical pianist and his father, Fred Van Eps, was a ragtime banjoist and sound engineer. George Van Eps began playing banjo when he was eleven years old. After hearing Eddie Lang on the radio, he put down the banjo and devoted himself to guitar. By the age of thirteen, in 1926, he was performing on the radio. Through the middle of the 1930s, he played with Harry Reser, Smith Ballew, Freddy Martin, Benny Goodman, and Ray Noble. Van Eps moved to California and spent most of his remaining career as a studio musician, playing on many commercials and movie soundtracks. In the 1930s, he inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Alden
Howard Vincent Alden (born October 17, 1958) is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. Alden has recorded many albums for Concord Records, including four with seven-string guitar innovator George Van Eps. Early life Howard Vincent Alden was born in Newport Beach, California, on October 17, 1958. He grew up in Huntington Beach, playing piano, harmonica, the four-string tenor guitar, and then four-string banjo at age ten. After hearing recordings of Barney Kessel, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, and other jazz guitar greats, he got a six-string guitar and started teaching himself to play. As a teenager he played both instruments at venues in the Los Angeles area. He studied guitar with Jimmy Wyble when he was 16. In 1977–78 he studied jazz guitar at the Guitar Institute of Technology ( GIT) in Hollywood with Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, and Howard Roberts. At GIT he assisted Roberts in organizing and preparing curriculum materials. Alden then c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl Burrell (born July 31, 1931) is an American jazz guitarist known for his work on numerous top jazz labels: Prestige, Blue Note, Verve, CTI, Muse, and Concord. His collaborations with Jimmy Smith were notable, and produced the 1965 ''Billboard'' Top Twenty hit Verve album ''Organ Grinder Swing''. He has cited jazz guitarists Charlie Christian, Oscar Moore, and Django Reinhardt as influences, along with blues guitarists T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.Cohassey, John. "Kenny Burrell: Guitarist, Educator." ''Contemporary Musicians. Profiles of the People in Music.'' Ed. Julia M. Rubiner. Vol. 11. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1994. 29–31. PrintNash, Sunny. "Kenny Burrell Biography." ''PRLog,'' May 13, 2009. Burrell is a professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Early life Burrell was born in Detroit. Both his parents played instruments,Sallis, James. "Middle Ground: Herb Ellis, Howard Roberts, Jim Hall, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel (October 17, 1923 – May 6, 2004) was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. 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. Biography Kessel was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1923. Kessel's father was an immigrant from Hungary who owned a shoe shop. His only formal musical study was three months of guitar lessons at the age of 12. He began his career as a teenager touring with local dance 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 up to 16 hours a day. Kessel gained attention because of his youth and being the only white musician playing in all African American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tal Farlow
Talmage Holt Farlow (June 7, 1921 – July 25, 1998) was an American jazz guitarist. He was nicknamed "Octopus" because of how his large, quick hands spread over the fretboard. As Steve Rochinski notes, "Of all the guitarists to emerge in the first generation after Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, more than any other, has been able to move beyond the rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic vocabulary associated with the early electric guitar master. Tal's incredible speed, long, weaving lines, rhythmic excitement, highly developed harmonic sense, and enormous reach (both physical and musical) have enabled him to create a style that clearly stands apart from the rest." Where guitarists of his day combined rhythmic chords with linear melodies, Farlow placed single notes together in clusters, varying between harmonically enriched tones. As music critic Stuart Nicholson put it, "In terms of guitar prowess, it was the equivalent of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile."Stuart Nicho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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