. 1710 ~ Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, composer, son of J.S. Bach

. 1880 ~ Lillian Russell made her vaudeville debut, in New York City.

. 1899 ~ Hoagy (Hoagland Howard) Carmichael, American jazz pianist and songwriter, singer, bandleader, attorney

. 1909 ~ Helen Hayes appeared for the first time on the New York stage. She was a member of the cast of In Old Dutch, which opened at the Herald Square Theatre.

1913 ~ Lord Benjamin Britten, British composer
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Grammy winner

. 1925 ~ Gunther Schuller, American composer, conductor, French-horn player and educator

. 1938 ~ Bunny Berigan and his orchestra recorded Jelly Roll Blues on Victor Records. The tune became a standard for the band.

. 1943 ~ Floyd Sneed, Drummer with Three Dog Night

. 1946 ~ Aston Barrett, Musician with ‘Family Man’, bass with Bob Marley & The Wailers

. 1949 ~ Steve ‘Miami’ Van Zandt, Singer, songwriter, guitar

. 1950 ~ Tina (Martina) Weymouth, Bass with Talking Heads

. 1953 ~ Craig Hundley, Pianist with the Craig Hundley Trio

. 1955 ~ RCA paid the unheard of sum of $25,000 to Sam Phillips of Memphis, TN for the rights to the music of a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi: Elvis Presley. Thanks to negotiations with Elvis’ manager, Colonel Tom Parker, RCA tossed in a $5,000 bonus as well, for a pink Cadillac for Elvis’ mother.

. 1957 ~ The Miles Davis Quintet debuted with a jazz concert at Carnegie Hall in New York.

. 1965 ~ The production of Man of LaMancha, including the classic The Impossible Dream, opened in New York City for the first of 2,328 performances.

. 1975 ~ Dr. Zhivago appeared on TV for the first time. The production, including Somewhere My Love, had earned $93 million from theater tickets over ten years. NBC paid $4 million for the broadcast rights.

. 1977 ~ Tony Orlando returned to the concert stage after a self-imposed, three-month retirement following the suicide death of his good friend, Freddie Prinze. Orlando appeared in concert in San Carlos, California.

. 2001 ~ Norman Granz, the impresario who helped make jazz more accessible to the public while making the music business fairer to black performers, died in Geneva, Switzerland, of complications from cancer. He was 83. Granz owned four labels – Clef, Norgran, Verve and Pablo – and at one time or another recorded most of the major names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Oscar Peterson. Many historians credit him with bringing top jazz performers in integrated bands into venues across the country through a series called Jazz at the Philharmonic. Granz’s efforts also helped end a system in which white performers generally earned far more than blacks. He insisted on equality in pay, dining and accommodations for his musicians. In 1947, he told Down Beat magazine that he lost $100,000, then a sizable sum, by turning down bookings in segregated concert halls.