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Peggy O'Keefe
Peggy O'Keefe (7 April 1928 – 31 March 2019) was an Australian-Scottish pianist, bandleader, and television and radio presenter. Life Margaret Patricia O'Keefe was born in Fernlea Private Hospital, Preston (a suburb of Melbourne, Australia), and raised on a farm in Wangoom, near the city of Warrnambool, approximately 150 miles (250 kilometers) from Melbourne. After a good academic and musical education at a convent boarding school ( St Ann's College), she attended the Melbourne University Music Conservatorium, where she studied violin, piano, singing and harp. Whilst there she was a classmate of Douglas Gamley. Career On graduating from the Conservatorium in 1949, she had brief spells working in the Post Office, teaching music in a private girls’ school, and working in the piano department of Myer, the famous Melbourne department store, where she would play the latest hits of the day on the department’s pianos in the hope - if not of selling the piano - of selli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victoria (state), Victoria, and the second most-populous city in Australia, after Sydney. The city's name generally refers to a metropolitan area also known as Greater Melbourne, comprising an urban agglomeration of Local Government Areas of Victoria#Municipalities of Greater Melbourne, 31 local government areas. The name is also used to specifically refer to the local government area named City of Melbourne, whose area is centred on the Melbourne central business district and some immediate surrounds. The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into the Mornington Peninsula, part of West Gippsland, as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong Ranges, and the Macedon R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myer
Myer (stylised MYER) is an Australian mid-range to upscale department store. It trades in all Australian states and one of Australia's two self-governing territories. Myer retails a broad range of products across women's, men's, and children's clothing, as well as footwear and accessories, cosmetics and fragrance, homewares, electrical, connected home, furniture, toys, books and stationery, food and confectionery, and travel goods. Myer's primary department store rival is David Jones (department store), David Jones. The Myer Group also comprises the fashion brands Sass & Bide, Marcs, David Lawrence, Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Portmans and Dotti (retailer), Dotti. Australian model, and Miss Universe 2004, Jennifer Hawkins was the long-serving 'face of Myer' for 12 years, until her departure from the role in 2018. History Early history The Myer retail group was founded by Sidney Myer, who migrated from Belarus to Melbourne in 1899 after the height of Victorian gold ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reo Stakis
Sir Reo Stakis (born Argyros Anastasis; 13 March 1913 – 28 August 2001) was a Cypriot hotel magnate, longtime head of Stakis Hotels. Biography He was born in Kato Drys, Cyprus, 13 March 1913 and left for Scotland in 1928, aged 14. He started selling his mother's handmade lace door-to-door and gradually headed north, settling in Glasgow. By the 1940s, Stakis was involved in his first restaurant, the Victory in Glasgow, whose affordable prices began to change the way Scottish people dined out. By the 1960s, he had a chain of thirty restaurants and hotels throughout Scotland. In 1962, he bought the Dunblane Hydro Hotel, which was run-down yet within six months he had returned it to profit. Stakis was to make his home in the grounds of that hotel. Stakis opened Scotland's first casino, the Chevalier, in 1964 and gradually added several other casinos to the Stakis group. However, his flagship hotel, The Grosvenor, was destroyed by fire in 1978. He was knighted in 1988. By t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronnie Scott's
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club that has operated in Soho, London, since 1959. History The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was set up and managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street. The original venue continued in operation as the "Old Place" until the lease ran out in 1967, and was used for performances by the up-and-coming generation of musicians. Zoot Sims was the club's first transatlantic visitor in 1962, and was succeeded by many others (often saxophonists whom Scott and King, tenor saxophonists themselves, admired, such as Johnny Griffin, Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt) in the years that followed. Many UK jazz musicians were also regularly featured, including Tubby Hayes and Dick Morrissey who would both drop in for jam sessions with the visiting stars. In the mid-1960s, Ernest Ranglin was the house guitarist. The club' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Merrill
Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic; July 21, 1929) is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording ''Helen Merrill (album), Helen Merrill'' (with Clifford Brown on EmArcy), was an immediate success and associated her with the first generation of bebop jazz musicians. After an active 1950s and 1960s, Merrill spent time recording and touring in Europe and Japan, falling into obscurity in the United States. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was recorded by EmArcy, JVC and Verve Records, Verve, and her performances in America revived her profile. Early life and career Jelena Ana Milcetic was born in New York City, New York to Croats, Croatian immigrant parents. She began singing in jazz clubs in the Bronx in 1944 when she was fourteen. She had three sisters and a brother who died before she was born. By the time she was sixteen, Merrill had taken up music full-time. In 1952, Merrill made her recording debut when she was asked to sing "A Cigarette for Comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the The Recording Academy, Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community, "the King of inside swing". Peterson worked in duos with Samuel Jones (musician), Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby, Count Basie, and Herbie Hancock. He considered the trio with Ray Brown (musician), Ray Brown and Herb Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings. In the early 1950 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of Harmony, harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality have made him an enduring icon. In the 1940s, Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione, and balladeer Johnny Hartman. He pioneered Afro-Cuban jazz and won several Grammy Awards. Scott Yanow wrote: "Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Bennett
Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Bennett was named a NEA Jazz Masters, National Endowments for the Arts Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honors, Kennedy Center Honoree. He founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York, along with Exploring the Arts, a non-profit arts education program. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as a United States Army, U.S. Army infantryman in the European theatre of World War II, European Theater. Afterward, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Davis Jr
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, actor, comedian, dancer, and musician. At age two, Davis began his career in Vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became a sensation following key nightclub performances at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) in 1951, including one after the 23rd Academy Awards, Academy Awards ceremony. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced both by black Americans and Jewish communities.Sammy Davis Jr. Biography Biography.com. Retrieve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. He first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writer-performers in the comedy revue '' Beyond the Fringe'' from 1960 that created a boom in satirical comedy. With a member of that team, Peter Cook, Moore collaborated on the BBC television series '' Not Only... But Also''. In their popular double act, Moore's buffoonery contrasted with Cook's deadpan monologues. They jointly received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance and worked together on other projects until the mid-1970s, by which time Moore had settled in Los Angeles, California, to concentrate on his film acting. Moore's career as a comedy film actor was marked by hit films, particularly '' Bedazzled'' (1967), set in Swinging Sixties London (in which he co-starred with Cook) and Hollywood productio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Juanita Hall
Juanita Hall (née Long, November 6, 1901 – February 29, 1968) was an American musical theatre and film actress. She is remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals '' South Pacific'' as Bloody Mary – a role that garnered her the Tony Award – and ''Flower Drum Song'' as Madame Liang. Early years Born in Keyport, New Jersey, to an African-American father and Irish-American mother, Hall (along with three siblings) was raised by her maternal grandparents after her mother's death. She attended Bordentown Industrial School and graduated from Keyport High School. She also received classical training at the Juilliard School. Career Soon after she finished high school, Hall worked in the Lincoln settlement house in East Orange, New Jersey, teaching music to children during the day and to an adult chorus at night. In the early 1930s, she was a special soloist and assistant director for the Hall Johnson Choir. A leadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
