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Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz. Born into an upper-middle-class family in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis started on the trumpet in his early teens. He left to study at Juilliard School, Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the ''Birth of the Cool'' sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, while addicted to heroin, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music under Prestige Records. After a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alton, Illinois
Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend (Illinois), River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It is well known for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city. It's the former location of an historical state penitentiary, and played a significant role preceding and during the American Civil War. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war. History Although Alton once was growing faster than the nearby city of St. Louis, a coalition of St. Louis businessmen planned to build a competing town to stop Alton's expansion and bring business to St. Louis. The resulting town was Grafton, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Betty Davis
Betty Davis (born Betty Gray Mabry; July 26, 1944 – February 9, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter, and model. She was known for her controversial sexually oriented lyrics and performance style, and was the second wife of trumpeter Miles Davis. Her AllMusic profile describes her as "a wildly flamboyant funk diva with few equals ... hocombined the gritty emotional realism of Tina Turner, the futurist fashion sense of David Bowie, and the trendsetting flair of Miles Davis". Early life Betty Gray Mabry was born in Durham, North Carolina, on July 26, 1944. She developed an interest in music when she was about ten, and was introduced to various blues musicians by her grandmother, Beulah Blackwell, while staying at her farm in Reidsville, North Carolina. At 12, she wrote one of her first songs, "I'm Going to Bake That Cake of Love". The family relocated to Homestead, Pennsylvania, so her father, Henry Mabry, could work at a Pennsylvania steel mill. Davis attended and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Chambers
Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was an American jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, he has become one of the most widely-known jazz bassists of the hard bop era. He was also known for his bowed solos. Chambers recorded about a dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, and more than 100 as a sideman, especially as the anchor of trumpeter Miles Davis's " first great quintet" (1955–63) and with pianist Wynton Kelly (1963–68). Biography Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 22, 1935, to Paul Lawrence Chambers and Margaret Echos, he was brought up in Detroit, Michigan, following the death of his mother. He began playing music with several of his schoolmates on the baritone horn. Later he took up the tuba. "I got along pretty well, but it's quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn't like the instrument that much". Bass playing Chambers switched to the double bass arou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century music. Born and raised in North Carolina, after graduating from high school Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, where he studied music. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of Modal jazz, modes and was one of the players at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, as exemplified on his most acclaimed album ''A Love Supreme'' (1965) and others. Decades after his death, Coltrane remains influential, and he has received numerous posthumous awards, including a Pulitzer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
'Round About Midnight
''Round About Midnight'' is a studio album by the jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis with his quintet. It was released through Columbia Records in March 1957, and is Davis's first record on the label. The recording took place at Columbia's New York studio in three sessions between October 1955 and September 1956. Background At the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, Davis performed the song " 'Round Midnight" as part of an all-star jam session, with the song's composer Thelonious Monk, along with Connie Kay and Percy Heath of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Zoot Sims, and Gerry Mulligan. Davis's solo received a positive reception from many jazz fans and critics. His response to this performance was typically laconic: "What are they talking about? I just played the way I always play." George Avakian of Columbia Records was in the audience, and his brother Aram persuaded him that he ought to sign Davis to the label. Davis signed with Columbia and formed his " first great quintet" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hired George Wein to organize the first festival and bring jazz to Rhode Island. Most of the early festivals were broadcast on Voice of America radio, and many performances were recorded and released as albums. In 1972, the Newport Jazz Festival was moved to New York City. In 1981, it became a two-site festival when it was returned to Newport while continuing in New York. From 1984 to 2008, the festival was known as the JVC Jazz Festival; in the economic downturn of 2009, JVC ceased its support of the festival and was replaced by CareFusion. The festival is hosted in Newport at Fort Adams State Park. It is often held in the same month as the Newport Folk Festival. Festival's establishment at Newport 1950s In 1954, the first Newport Jazz Fes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Bop
Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing. David H. Rosenthal contends in his book ''Hard Bop'' that the genre is, to a large degree, the natural creation of a generation of African-American musicians who grew up at a time when bop and rhythm and blues were the dominant forms of black American music. Prominent hard bop musicians included Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino and others. Characteristics Hard bop is sometimes referred to as "funky hard bop". The "funky" label refers to the rollicking, rhythmic feeling associated with the style. The descriptor is also used to de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cool Jazz
Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music inspired by bebop and big band that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and a lighter tone than that used in the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that of contemporaneous jazz idioms. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill suggest, "the tonal sonorities of these conservative players could be compared to pastel colors, while the solos of izzyGillespie and his followers could be compared to fiery red colors." The term ''cool'' started being applied to this music around 1953, when Capitol Records released the album ''Classics in Jazz: Cool and Quiet''. Mark C. Gridley, writing in the ''All Music Guide to Jazz'', identifies four overlapping sub-categories of cool jazz: # "Soft variants of bebop," in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birth Of The Cool
''Birth of the Cool'' is a compilation album by the American jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis. It was released in February or March 1957 through Capitol Records. It compiles eleven tracks recorded by Davis's nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950. Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consisted of innovative arrangements influenced by Afro-American music and classical music techniques, and marked a major development in post-bebop jazz. As the title suggests, these recordings are considered seminal in the history of cool jazz. Most of them were originally released in the 10-inch 78-rpm format and are all approximately three minutes long. Background From 1944 to 1948, Miles Davis played in Charlie Parker's quintet. Davis recorded several sides with Parker during this period, most released for the Savoy and Dial labels. Davis's first records released under his own name were recorded with Parker's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous Modulation (music), changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and Jazz improvisation, improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales, and occasional references to the melody. Bebop developed as the younger generation of jazz musicians expanded the creative possibilities of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented swing music-style to a new "musician's music" that was not as danceable and demanded close listening.Lott, Eric. Double V, Double-Time: Bebop's Politics of Style. Callaloo, No. 36 (Summer, 1988), pp. 597–605 As bebop was not intended for dancing, it enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, cho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz Saxophone, saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, Virtuoso, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. He was a virtuoso and introduced revolutionary rhythmic and harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid Passing chord, passing chords, new variants of Altered chord, altered chords, and Chord substitution, chord substitutions. Parker was primarily a player of the alto saxophone. Parker was an icon for the hipster (1940s subculture), hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer. Early life Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, to Charles Parker Sr. and Adelaide "Addie" Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African-A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East St
East 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 Sunrise, 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 language, Proto-Germanic *''aus-to-'' or *''austra-'' "east, toward the sunrise", from Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European *aus- "to shine," or "dawn", cognate with Old High German ''*ōstar'' "to the east", Latin ''aurora'' 'dawn', and Greek language, Greek ''ēōs'' 'dawn, east'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin Orient, oriens 'east, sunrise' from orior 'to rise, to originate', Greek language, Greek ανατολή Anatolia, anatolé 'east' from ἀνατέλλω 'to rise' and Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
