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Onzy Matthews
Onzy Durrett Matthews, Jr. (January 15, 1930 – November 13, 1997) was an American jazz pianist, singer, arranger, composer, and television and movie actor. He is best known for the big band arrangements done for the Lou Rawls albums ''Black and Blue'' and ''Tobacco Road'', as well as arrangements for several of Ray Charles' 1960s releases. He had his own big band for many years and recorded numerous tracks for Capitol Records, including two albums released under his own name. He later had a close relationship with the Duke Ellington orchestra, working as a pianist, arranger and conductor through the late 1960s and 1970s. Biography Early days and move to Los Angeles Onzy Durrett Matthews, Jr. was born on January 15, 1930, to Onzy Matthews and Leola Jones in Fort Worth, Texas. He grew up in Dallas until his early teens when his mother moved to Los Angeles seeking better-paying work. His early exposure to music was through singing in a church gospel choir. Matthews knew ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Texas, Wise counties. Fort Worth's population was estimated to be 1,008,156 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 11th-most populous city in the United States. Fort Worth is the city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, after Dallas, Texas, Dallas, and the metropolitan area is the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the United States and the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous in Texas. The city of Fort Worth was established in 1849 as an army outpost on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River (Texas), Trinity River. Fort Worth has historically been a center of the Texas Longhorn cattle trade. It still embraces its Western heritage and traditional architec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercer Ellington
Mercer Kennedy Ellington (March 11, 1919 – February 8, 1996) was an American musician, composer, and arranger. His father was Duke Ellington, whose band Mercer led for 20 years after his father's death. Biography Early life and education Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., United States. He was the only child of the composer, pianist, and bandleader Duke Ellington and his high school sweetheart Edna Thompson (d. 1967), whom Duke married in 1918 and never divorced. Ellington grew up primarily in Harlem from the age of eight. By the age of eighteen, Ellington had written his first piece to be recorded by his father ("Pigeons and Peppers"). Ellington attended New College for the Education of Teachers at Columbia University, New York University and the Juilliard School. Career In 1939, 1959, and 1946 through 1949, Ellington led his own bands, many of whose members later performed with his father, or achieved a successful career in their own right (including Dizzy Gillespie, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballad (music), ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the Call and response (music), call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in Pitch (music), pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffle note, shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove (popular music), groove. Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, Bassline, bass lines, and Instrumentation (music), instrumen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtis Amy
Curtis Edward Amy (October 11, 1927 – June 5, 2002) was an American jazz saxophonist. Biography Amy was born in Houston, Texas, United States. He learned how to play clarinet before joining the Army, and during his time in service, picked up the tenor saxophone. After his discharge, he attended and graduated from Kentucky State College. He worked as an educator in Tennessee while playing in midwestern jazz clubs. In the mid-1950s, he relocated to Los Angeles and later signed with Pacific Jazz Records, often playing with organist Paul Bryant. In the mid-1960s, he spent three years as musical director of Ray Charles' orchestra, together with his wife, Merry Clayton, and Steve Huffsteter. As well as leading his own bands and recording albums under his own name, Amy did session work and played the solos on several recordings, including The Doors song "Touch Me", Carole King's ''Tapestry'', and Lou Rawls' first albums, ''Black and Blue'' and ''Tobacco Road'', coinciding with Dexte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians. Gordon's height was , so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" and "Sophisticated Giant". His studio and performance career spanned more than 40 years. Gordon's sound was commonly characterized as being "large" and spacious and he had a tendency to play behind the beat. He inserted musical quotes into his solos, with sources as diverse as "Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday" and well-known melodies from the operas of Richard Wagner, Wagner. Quoting from various musical sources is not unusual in jazz improvisation, but Gordon did it frequently enough to make it a hallmark of his style. One of his major influences was Lester Young. Gordon, in turn, was an early influence on John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Rollins and Coltrane then influenced Gordon's playing as he explored hard bop and modal playing d ... [...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 for over six decades (1938-2000) led his big band, later called Les Brown and His Band of Renown. Biography Brown was born in Reinerton-Orwin-Muir, Pennsylvania, 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 Duke Ambassadors, 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 Les Brown Orchestra. The band ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berklee School Of Music
Berklee College of Music () is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including rock, hip hop, reggae, salsa, heavy metal and bluegrass. Since 2012, Berklee College of Music has also operated a campus in Valencia, Spain. In December 2015, Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory agreed to a merger. The combined institution is known as Berklee, with the conservatory becoming The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Berklee alumni have won 310 Grammy Awards, more than any other college, and 108 Latin Grammy Awards. Other accolades for its alumni include 34 Emmy Awards, seven Tony Awards, eight Academy Awards, and three Saturn Awards. History Schillinger House (1945–1954) In 1945, pianist, composer, arranger and MIT graduate Lawrence Ber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hollywood, Los Angeles
Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a List of districts and neighborhoods in Los Angeles, neighborhood and district in the Central Los Angeles, central region of Los Angeles County, California, within the city of Los Angeles. Its name has become synonymous with the Cinema of the United States, U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios such as Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures are located in or near Hollywood. Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. The North Hollywood, Los Angeles, northern and East Hollywood, Los Angeles, eastern parts of the neighborhood were Merger (politics), consolidated with the City of Los Angeles in 1910. Soon thereafter, the prominent film industry migrated to the area. History Initial development H. J. Whitley, a real estate developer, arranged to buy the E.C. Hurd ranch. Whitley shared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gospel Music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music vary according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often performed in a call-and-response fashion, heavily influenced by ancestral African music. Most of the churches relied on hand–clapping and foot–stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done ''a cappella''.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "The changing nature of gospel music: A southern case study." ''African American Review'' 29.2 (1995): 185. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. October 5, 201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city limits , it is the List of United States cities by population, second-most populous in the United States, behind only New York City. Los Angeles has an Ethnic groups in Los Angeles, ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a Metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in Los Angeles Basin, a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing music, swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing the Lindy Hop. In contrast to the typical jazz emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements. They gave a greater role to bandleaders, arrangers, and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Instruments Big bands generally have four sections: trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section of guitar, piano, double bass, drums and sometimes vibraphone or other percussion. The division in early big bands, from the 1920s to 1930s, was typicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
