Tag Archives: Antonio Stradivari

December 18 ~ On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

Christmas Countdown: Good King Wenceslas

OCMS 1644 ~ Antonio Stradivari, Italian, most celebrated of all violin makers, died on this date.
Read more information about Stradivari

• 1778 ~ Joseph Grimaldi, Clown: ‘greatest clown in history’, ‘king of pantomime’, Joey the Clown; singer, dancer, acrobat, his character was part of the plot for the movie “Her Alibi”. He died in 1837.

• 1786 ~ Baron Karl von Weber, Opera composer

• 1788 ~ Camille Pleyel, Austrian piano builder/composer

OCMS 1869 ~ Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer and pianist
More information about MacDowell

• 1869 ~ Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and composer, dies at 40

• 1892 ~ Premiere of The Nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky. This traditional Christmas ballet is so popular that its annual performances keeps many opera companies afloat. Act 1 tells a story of how little Clara aids her magical Christmas gift (a Nutcracker in the form of a soldier) defeat an army of mice. As a reward, he takes her to his magic kingdom and introduces her to a variety of subjects in a colorful stream of character dances. Tchaikovsky’s supply of themes is endless and he constantly provides brilliant orchestration.

• 1919 ~ Anita O’Day (Colton), American jazz singer

• 1920 ~ Conductor Arturo Toscanini made his first recording for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey.

• 1934 ~ Willie Smith sang with Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra on Rhythm is Our Business on Decca Records

• 1941 ~ Sam Andrew, Guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company

• 1943 ~ Keith Richards, British rock guitarist and singer with The Rolling Stones

• 1948 ~ Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler, Bass with the Animals

• 1961 ~ The Tokens celebrated their first #1 hit single. The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) was a chart-topper for four weeks in a row.

• 1972 ~ Helen Reddy received a gold record for the song that became an anthem for women’s liberation, I Am Woman. The song had reached number one on December 9, 1972.

• 1975 ~ Rod Stewart announced that he was leaving the group, Faces, and was going solo in a deal with Warner Brothers.

• 1981 ~ Rod Stewart gave a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, which was televised to 23 countries and carried by FM radio stations in the US to an audience of about 35 million.

• 1982 ~ Daryl Hall and John Oates reached the #1 spot on the music charts for the fifth time with Maneater. The song stayed in the top spot for four weeks, making it Hall and Oates’ most popular hit.

• 2001 ~ Eddie Baker, whose efforts to create a jazz hall of fame planted the seeds for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, died after complications from heart surgery. He was 71. Baker, a trumpeter and pianist, had led the New Breed Jazz Orchestra since the 1960s, forming close relationships with many top jazz artists. He began calling for a jazz hall of fame as early as the 1970s. He held what he hoped would be the first annual induction to the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985 at the Music Hall. But attendance was low, despite a star-studded roster of talent that included the Count Basie Orchestra, George Benson and Woody Herman. He maintained the hall of fame on paper, even though it never had a physical home. Through the years, Baker suggested building a jazz hall in several spots in Kansas City, including the 18th and Vine district and Union Station. His push generated interest in the project, but the American Jazz Museum opened under a different name in 1997 without his involvement. He also was an original member of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, which organized pub crawls and promoted jazz in the 1980s, and he helped organize the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, a service organization of older musicians.

• 2004 ~ Legendary British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who’s who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died.

December 3 ~ On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

 

Christmas Countdown: Angels We Have Heard On High

• 1596 ~ Nicola Amati, Italian violin maker, teacher of Guarneri and Stradivari

• 1729 ~ Padre Antonio Francisco Javier Jose Soler, Spanish composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras. He is best known for his keyboard sonatas, an important contribution to the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ repertoire.

• 1876 ~ Hermann Goetz died.  He was a German composer.

• 1883 ~ Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor
Read quotes by and about Webern
More information about Webern

• 1907 ~ Connie (Connee) Boswell, Singer Connie or Connee (a spelling she preferred later in life), who also played several musical instruments, arranged vocals for herself and her two sisters. Although she was stricken with polio and worked from her wheelchair, she never let this get in the way of being part of her jazz-singing trio. The Boswell Sisters’ talent was quickly recognized and by the time Connee was 24 years old, the sisters were doing vaudeville, radio, playing New York’s Paramount Theatre, recording with the Dorsey Brothers: You Oughta Be in Pictures; making films and appearing on the U.S.A.’s first public TV broadcast. One thing led to another and Connie went solo, entertaining World War II troops, making films, appearing on Broadway and recording with big names like Woody Herman’s; even a duet classic with Bing Crosby: Basin Street Blues. Her musical influence spanned many generations and music styles. If you’d have asked Ella Fitzgerald, she would have told you, “They just don’t make ’em like Connee Boswell anymore.”

• 1911 ~ Nino Rota, composer (Torquemada)

•  1923 ~ Maria Callas (Calogeropoulous), American soprano
More information about Callas
Read quotes by and about Callas

• 1925 ~ The first jazz concerto for piano and orchestra was presented at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Commissioned by Walter Damrosch, American composer George Gershwin presented Concerto In F, and was also the featured soloist playing a flugelhorn in a slow, bluesy style as one of his numbers.

• 1927 ~ Phyllis Curtin, Singer: soprano with the New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala, Teatro Colon; coordinator of Voice Dept and Opera at Yale School of Music, Dean Emerita of Boston Univ School for the Arts

• 1927 ~ Ferlin Husky (aka: Simon Crum, Terry Preston), Singer

• 1930 ~ Andy (Howard Andrew) Williams, American Emmy Award-winning entertainer, singer

• 1931 ~ Jaye P. (Mary Margaret) Morgan, Singer, performer

• 1941 ~ Johann Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer

• 1944 ~ Frank Sinatra was in the Columbia Records studio recording Old Man River.

• 1948 ~ Ozzy (John) Osbourne, Songwriter, singer

• 1949 ~ Mickey Thomas, Singer with Jefferson Starship

• 1953 ~ Kismet opened on Broadway in New York. The show ran for 583 performances.

• 1955 ~ Elvis Presley’s first release on RCA Victor Records was announced. No, it wasn’t Hound Dog or Heartbreak Hotel. The first two sides were actually purchased from Sam Phillips of Sun Records: Mystery Train and I Forgot to Remember to Forget. Elvis was described by his new record company as “The most talked about personality in recorded music in the last 10 years.”

• 1960 ~ Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. Richard Burton and Julie Andrews played the leading roles in the musical written by Lerner and Loewe. Robert Goulet got rave reviews for his songs, If Ever I Would Leave You, Then You May Take Me to the Fair and How to Handle a Woman, among others. Camelot had a run of 873 performances. Broadway went Hollywood in the 1967 film version of Camelot. Its run was not quite as successful.

 

. 1965 ~ The Beatles sixth studio album Rubber Soul was released. Often referred to as a folk rock album, Rubber Soul incorporates a mix of pop, soul and folk musical styles. The title derives from the colloquialism “plastic soul”, which referred to soul played by English musicians.

• 1968 ~ The O’Kaysions received a gold record for Girl Watcher. The song had a promotional reprise in the 1990s as a theme for Merv Griffin’s Wheel of Fortune, with the revamped lyrics, I’m a Wheel Watcher…

. 1969 ~ The Rolling Stones recorded ‘Brown Sugar’ at Muscle Shoals studios. The single went on to be a UK and US Number 1.

.1972 ~ The Temptations earn their final #1 hit with “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”

• 1977 ~ After 29 weeks in the #1 position on the album charts (a record, literally…), Rumours, by Fleetwood Mac, was replaced at the top spot by the album Simple Dreams, sung by Linda Ronstadt.

• 1999 ~ Handel’s Messiah Gets Modern Makeover in Ireland

• 2000 ~ Kevin Mills, a member of the Christian rock groups Newsboys and White Heart, died after a motorcycle accident in Hollywood. He was 32. Mills, of Louisville, Ky., was a singer and bass player, his family said. He also was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and appeared on TV in “An Inconvenient Woman” in 1991. White Heart started in 1982. Newsboys, an Australian band now based near Nashville, was formed four years later. Newsboys have sold nearly 3 million records and earned three Grammy nominations on the religious rock circuit.

• 2000 ~ Washington Honored Eastwood, Baryshnikov, Others

• 2002 ~ Rich Dangel, credited with creating the opening guitar chords of garage band staple Louie Louie, died of an aneurysm at his home. He was 60. Dangel was a member of the seminal Northwest rock band the Wailers, who introduced the nation to the Northwest sound – raw, unpolished and catchy. He may be best known for coming up with the power chords that opened the Wailers’ 1961 regional hit, Louie, Louie, written by rhythm-and-blues singer Richard Berry and taken to the top of the national charts by another Northwest band, the Kingsmen from Portland, Ore. Dangel co-wrote his first chart hit, “Tall Cool One” with fellow Wailer John Greek when he was still in high school. The song resulted in the group’s first album, “The Fabulous Wailers,” a cross-country tour and a 1959 appearance on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.”

Music and Mathematics: The Fibonacci sequence

Posted by MaryO on

fibonacci-numbers

 

Life very often throws some curious coincidences my way. Just as I was preparing a presentation for architecture students at the Goa College of Architecture on ‘Architecture and Music’ and looking at the relationship of the Fibonacci sequence to music, what should appear in my newsfeed but the announcement of the famed piano firm Steinway and Sons unveiling its 600,000th piano, incorporating the iconic Fibonacci spiral in its design.

The veneer of the “Fibonacci” piano features the eponymous spiral made from six individual logs of Macassar Ebony, “creating a fluid design that represents the geometric harmony found in nature.”

In the words of designer Frank Pollaro, who spent over 6000 work-hours over four years in its creation: “Designing Steinway & Sons’ 600,000th piano was an honour and a challenge.  To me, knowing that this piano would become part of history meant that it had to be more than just a beautiful design, but also needed to visually convey a deeper message…as I considered the number 600,000, the Fibonacci spiral came to mind.  The way in which it continues to grow but stay true to its form is very much like Steinway and Sons over these many years. Combining the universal languages of music and mathematics suddenly made perfect sense.”

Mind you, 600,000 is not a number in the Fibonacci sequence; I checked. 600,000 is between the 29th and 30th numbers in the Fibonacci series, which are 514,229 and 832,040 respectively. But Pollaro was nevertheless highlighting an interesting relationship between music and mathematics.

Named after the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (c. 1170- c. 1250) who brought the Indian-Arabic numeral system to Europe, the Fibonacci series appear in nature and in music, and finds application in architecture and in instrument design, much before the Fibonacci Steinway.

The basic ideas of the Fibonacci progression are contained in the writings of Indian scholar Pingala (300-200 BC) in his treatise on Sanskrit prosody.

The Fibonacci numbers have the following integer sequence:  0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987 and onward. Each added number is the sum of two previous numbers before it.

In nature, the Fibonacci sequence underpins phyllotaxis (arrangement of leaves on a stem), branching in trees, fruit sprouts of a pineapple among many other examples, and even the shape of the human external ear, and the cochlear apparatus of the inner ear.

It can be applied to the western musical scale as well, with the caveat that the  starting note one makes the measurement from (or the ‘root’ note) is designated as 1 and not 0. By this token, there are 13 notes in a scale through its octave. There are 8 notes in a diatonic scale (hence the top note is called an ‘oct’ave).  The 5th and 3rd notes create the basic foundation of musical chords. All these are Fibonacci numbers.

The very notes in the scale are based on natural harmonics created by ratios of frequencies. Ratios found in the first seven numbers of the Fibonacci series (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) are related to key frequencies of musical notes. Thus if we take an arbitrary frequency of 440 Hz, the root note has a ratio of 1/1, but the octave above it has a frequency of 880 Hz (2/1 of 440); a fifth above has a frequency of 660 Hz (3/2 of 440), and so on for other notes in the scale.

In last Sunday’s article, I had mentioned the ‘golden proportion’ or phi, which underpins the proportions of the Parthenon temple in the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.  This ‘golden ratio’ (also called the ‘golden section’, ‘golden mean’ or the ‘divine proportion’) of 1:1618 or 0.618 has influenced composition in painting and photography, prompting the notion of dividing a canvas into thirds vertically and horizontally, and to position a subject of interest ‘about one-third’ of the way across instead of in the centre.

This ‘golden ratio’ can be obtained by dividing a Fibonacci number (in the higher reaches, not the first few) by its immediate predecessor. The quotient approximates phi (φ). Thus 987/610= 1.61803, and its inverse is 0.618.

The climax or high point of many songs and other compositions is often found at the ‘phi’ (φ) point (61.8 per cent) of the work. We have seen this to be true in the first movement of

S. Bach’s G minor sonata for solo violin.

In many compositions in sonata form, the addition of a coda causes the recapitulation (the return of the original idea that started the work) to begin at the 61.8 per cent point.

The legendary violin maker Antonio Stradivari seemed to be aware of the ‘golden section’ and used it in the placement of the f-holes on his violins. The proportions of the violin conform to the ratios of ‘phi’ (φ). The spiral of a violin scroll also obeys the Fibonacci progression.

Isn’t it amazing, how the visual and aural world, indeed nature itself can all be unified by the same mathematical sequence?[NT]

From http://www.goacom.com/entertainment/28277-music-and-mathematics-the-fibonacci-sequence

On December 18 ~ in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

Christmas Countdown: The Birthday of a King

OCMS 1644 ~ Antonio Stradivari, Italian, most celebrated of all violin makers, died on this date.
Read more information about Stradivari

• 1778 ~ Joseph Grimaldi, Clown: ‘greatest clown in history’, ‘king of pantomime’, Joey the Clown; singer, dancer, acrobat, his character was part of the plot for the movie “Her Alibi”. He died in 1837.

• 1786 ~ Baron Karl von Weber, Opera composer

• 1788 ~ Camille Pleyel, Austrian piano builder/composer

OCMS 1869 ~ Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer and pianist
More information about MacDowell

• 1869 ~ Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and composer, dies at 40

• 1892 ~ Premiere of The Nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky. This traditional Christmas ballet is so popular that its annual performances keeps many opera companies afloat. Act 1 tells a story of how little Clara aids her magical Christmas gift (a Nutcracker in the form of a soldier) defeat an army of mice. As a reward, he takes her to his magic kingdom and introduces her to a variety of subjects in a colorful stream of character dances. Tchaikovsky’s supply of themes is endless and he constantly provides brilliant orchestration.

• 1919 ~ Anita O’Day (Colton), American jazz singer

• 1920 ~ Conductor Arturo Toscanini made his first recording for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey.

• 1934 ~ Willie Smith sang with Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra on Rhythm is Our Business on Decca Records

• 1941 ~ Sam Andrew, Guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company

• 1943 ~ Keith Richards, British rock guitarist and singer with The Rolling Stones

• 1948 ~ Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler, Bass with the Animals

• 1961 ~ The Tokens celebrated their first #1 hit single. The Lion Sleeps Tonight(Wimoweh) was a chart-topper for four weeks in a row.

• 1972 ~ Helen Reddy received a gold record for the song that became an anthem for women’s liberation, I Am Woman. The song had reached number one on December 9, 1972.

• 1975 ~ Rod Stewart announced that he was leaving the group, Faces, and was going solo in a deal with Warner Brothers.

• 1981 ~ Rod Stewart gave a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, which was televised to 23 countries and carried by FM radio stations in the US to an audience of about 35 million.

• 1982 ~ Daryl Hall and John Oates reached the #1 spot on the music charts for the fifth time with Maneater. The song stayed in the top spot for four weeks, making it Hall and Oates’ most popular hit.

• 2001 ~ Eddie Baker, whose efforts to create a jazz hall of fame planted the seeds for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, died after complications from heart surgery. He was 71. Baker, a trumpeter and pianist, had led the New Breed Jazz Orchestra since the 1960s, forming close relationships with many top jazz artists. He began calling for a jazz hall of fame as early as the 1970s. He held what he hoped would be the first annual induction to the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985 at the Music Hall. But attendance was low, despite a star-studded roster of talent that included the Count Basie Orchestra, George Benson and Woody Herman. He maintained the hall of fame on paper, even though it never had a physical home. Through the years, Baker suggested building a jazz hall in several spots in Kansas City, including the 18th and Vine district and Union Station. His push generated interest in the project, but the American Jazz Museum opened under a different name in 1997 without his involvement. He also was an original member of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, which organized pub crawls and promoted jazz in the 1980s, and he helped organize the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, a service organization of older musicians.

• 2004 ~ Legendary British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who’s who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died.

On December 3 ~ in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

 

Christmas Countdown: Angels We Have Heard On High

• 1596 ~ Nicola Amati, Italian violin maker, teacher of Guarneri and Stradivari

• 1729 ~ Padre Antonio Francisco Javier Jose Soler, Spanish composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras. He is best known for his keyboard sonatas, an important contribution to the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ repertoire.

• 1876 ~ Hermann Goetz died.  He was a German composer.

• 1883 ~ Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor
Read quotes by and about Webern
More information about Webern

• 1907 ~ Connie (Connee) Boswell, Singer Connie or Connee (a spelling she preferred later in life), who also played several musical instruments, arranged vocals for herself and her two sisters. Although she was stricken with polio and worked from her wheelchair, she never let this get in the way of being part of her jazz-singing trio. The Boswell Sisters’ talent was quickly recognized and by the time Connee was 24 years old, the sisters were doing vaudeville, radio, playing New York’s Paramount Theatre, recording with the Dorsey Brothers: You Oughta Be in Pictures; making films and appearing on the U.S.A.’s first public TV broadcast. One thing led to another and Connie went solo, entertaining World War II troops, making films, appearing on Broadway and recording with big names like Woody Herman’s; even a duet classic with Bing Crosby: Basin Street Blues. Her musical influence spanned many generations and music styles. If you’d have asked Ella Fitzgerald, she would have told you, “They just don’t make ’em like Connee Boswell anymore.”

• 1911 ~ Nino Rota, composer (Torquemada)

•  1923 ~ Maria Callas (Calogeropoulous), American soprano
More information about Callas
Read quotes by and about Callas

• 1925 ~ The first jazz concerto for piano and orchestra was presented at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Commissioned by Walter Damrosch, American composer George Gershwin presented Concerto In F, and was also the featured soloist playing a flugelhorn in a slow, bluesy style as one of his numbers.

• 1927 ~ Phyllis Curtin, Singer: soprano with the New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala, Teatro Colon; coordinator of Voice Dept and Opera at Yale School of Music, Dean Emerita of Boston Univ School for the Arts

• 1927 ~ Ferlin Husky (aka: Simon Crum, Terry Preston), Singer

• 1930 ~ Andy (Howard Andrew) Williams, American Emmy Award-winning entertainer, singer

• 1931 ~ Jaye P. (Mary Margaret) Morgan, Singer, performer

• 1941 ~ Johann Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer

• 1944 ~ Frank Sinatra was in the Columbia Records studio recording Old Man River.

• 1948 ~ Ozzy (John) Osbourne, Songwriter, singer

• 1949 ~ Mickey Thomas, Singer with Jefferson Starship

• 1953 ~ Kismet opened on Broadway in New York. The show ran for 583 performances.

• 1955 ~ Elvis Presley’s first release on RCA Victor Records was announced. No, it wasn’t Hound Dog or Heartbreak Hotel. The first two sides were actually purchased from Sam Phillips of Sun Records: Mystery Train and I Forgot to Remember to Forget. Elvis was described by his new record company as “The most talked about personality in recorded music in the last 10 years.”

• 1960 ~ Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. Richard Burton and Julie Andrews played the leading roles in the musical written by Lerner and Loewe. Robert Goulet got rave reviews for his songs, If Ever I Would Leave You, Then You May Take Me to the Fair and How to Handle a Woman, among others. Camelot had a run of 873 performances. Broadway went Hollywood in the 1967 film version of Camelot. Its run was not quite as successful.

• 1968 ~ The O’Kaysions received a gold record for Girl Watcher. The song had a promotional reprise in the 1990s as a theme for Merv Griffin’s Wheel of Fortune, with the revamped lyrics, I’m a Wheel Watcher…

• 1977 ~ After 29 weeks in the #1 position on the album charts (a record, literally…), Rumours, by Fleetwood Mac, was replaced at the top spot by the album Simple Dreams, sung by Linda Ronstadt.

• 1999 ~ Handel’s Messiah Gets Modern Makeover in Ireland

• 2000 ~ Kevin Mills, a member of the Christian rock groups Newsboys and White Heart, died after a motorcycle accident in Hollywood. He was 32. Mills, of Louisville, Ky., was a singer and bass player, his family said. He also was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and appeared on TV in “An Inconvenient Woman” in 1991. White Heart started in 1982. Newsboys, an Australian band now based near Nashville, was formed four years later. Newsboys have sold nearly 3 million records and earned three Grammy nominations on the religious rock circuit.

• 2000 ~ Washington Honored Eastwood, Baryshnikov, Others

• 2002 ~ Rich Dangel, credited with creating the opening guitar chords of garage band staple Louie Louie, died of an aneurysm at his home. He was 60. Dangel was a member of the seminal Northwest rock band the Wailers, who introduced the nation to the Northwest sound – raw, unpolished and catchy. He may be best known for coming up with the power chords that opened the Wailers’ 1961 regional hit, Louie, Louie, written by rhythm-and-blues singer Richard Berry and taken to the top of the national charts by another Northwest band, the Kingsmen from Portland, Ore. Dangel co-wrote his first chart hit, “Tall Cool One” with fellow Wailer John Greek when he was still in high school. The song resulted in the group’s first album, “The Fabulous Wailers,” a cross-country tour and a 1959 appearance on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.”

December 18 ~ in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

Christmas Countdown: The Birthday of a King

OCMS 1644 ~ Antonio Stradivari, Italian, most celebrated of all violin makers, died on this date.
Read more information about Stradivari

• 1778 ~ Joseph Grimaldi, Clown: ‘greatest clown in history’, ‘king of pantomime’, Joey the Clown; singer, dancer, acrobat, his character was part of the plot for the movie “Her Alibi”. He died in 1837.

• 1786 ~ Baron Karl von Weber, Opera composer

• 1788 ~ Camille Pleyel, Austrian piano builder/composer

OCMS 1869 ~ Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer and pianist
More information about MacDowell

• 1869 ~ Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and composer, dies at 40

• 1892 ~ Premiere of The Nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky. This traditional Christmas ballet is so popular that its annual performances keeps many opera companies afloat. Act 1 tells a story of how little Clara aids her magical Christmas gift (a Nutcracker in the form of a soldier) defeat an army of mice. As a reward, he takes her to his magic kingdom and introduces her to a variety of subjects in a colorful stream of character dances. Tchaikovsky’s supply of themes is endless and he constantly provides brilliant orchestration.

• 1919 ~ Anita O’Day (Colton), American jazz singer

• 1920 ~ Conductor Arturo Toscanini made his first recording for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey.

• 1934 ~ Willie Smith sang with Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra on Rhythm is Our Business on Decca Records

• 1941 ~ Sam Andrew, Guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company

• 1943 ~ Keith Richards, British rock guitarist and singer with The Rolling Stones

• 1948 ~ Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler, Bass with the Animals

• 1961 ~ The Tokens celebrated their first #1 hit single. The Lion Sleeps Tonight(Wimoweh) was a chart-topper for four weeks in a row.

• 1972 ~ Helen Reddy received a gold record for the song that became an anthem for women’s liberation, I Am Woman. The song had reached number one on December 9, 1972.

• 1975 ~ Rod Stewart announced that he was leaving the group, Faces, and was going solo in a deal with Warner Brothers.

• 1981 ~ Rod Stewart gave a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, which was televised to 23 countries and carried by FM radio stations in the US to an audience of about 35 million.

• 1982 ~ Daryl Hall and John Oates reached the #1 spot on the music charts for the fifth time with Maneater. The song stayed in the top spot for four weeks, making it Hall and Oates’ most popular hit.

• 2001 ~ Eddie Baker, whose efforts to create a jazz hall of fame planted the seeds for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, died after complications from heart surgery. He was 71. Baker, a trumpeter and pianist, had led the New Breed Jazz Orchestra since the 1960s, forming close relationships with many top jazz artists. He began calling for a jazz hall of fame as early as the 1970s. He held what he hoped would be the first annual induction to the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985 at the Music Hall. But attendance was low, despite a star-studded roster of talent that included the Count Basie Orchestra, George Benson and Woody Herman. He maintained the hall of fame on paper, even though it never had a physical home. Through the years, Baker suggested building a jazz hall in several spots in Kansas City, including the 18th and Vine district and Union Station. His push generated interest in the project, but the American Jazz Museum opened under a different name in 1997 without his involvement. He also was an original member of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, which organized pub crawls and promoted jazz in the 1980s, and he helped organize the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, a service organization of older musicians.

• 2004 ~ Legendary British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who’s who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died.

December 3 ~ in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

 

Christmas Countdown: Angels We Have Heard On High

• 1596 ~ Nicola Amati, Italian violin maker, teacher of Guarneri and Stradivari

• 1729 ~ Padre Antonio Francisco Javier Jose Soler, Spanish composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras. He is best known for his keyboard sonatas, an important contribution to the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ repertoire.

• 1876 ~ Hermann Goetz died.  He was a German composer.

• 1883 ~ Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor
Read quotes by and about Webern
More information about Webern

• 1907 ~ Connie (Connee) Boswell, Singer Connie or Connee (a spelling she preferred later in life), who also played several musical instruments, arranged vocals for herself and her two sisters. Although she was stricken with polio and worked from her wheelchair, she never let this get in the way of being part of her jazz-singing trio. The Boswell Sisters’ talent was quickly recognized and by the time Connee was 24 years old, the sisters were doing vaudeville, radio, playing New York’s Paramount Theatre, recording with the Dorsey Brothers: You Oughta Be in Pictures; making films and appearing on the U.S.A.’s first public TV broadcast. One thing led to another and Connie went solo, entertaining World War II troops, making films, appearing on Broadway and recording with big names like Woody Herman’s; even a duet classic with Bing Crosby: Basin Street Blues. Her musical influence spanned many generations and music styles. If you’d have asked Ella Fitzgerald, she would have told you, “They just don’t make ’em like Connee Boswell anymore.”

• 1911 ~ Nino Rota, composer (Torquemada)

•  1923 ~ Maria Callas (Calogeropoulous), American soprano
More information about Callas
Read quotes by and about Callas

• 1925 ~ The first jazz concerto for piano and orchestra was presented at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Commissioned by Walter Damrosch, American composer George Gershwin presented Concerto In F, and was also the featured soloist playing a flugelhorn in a slow, bluesy style as one of his numbers.

• 1927 ~ Phyllis Curtin, Singer: soprano with the New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala, Teatro Colon; coordinator of Voice Dept and Opera at Yale School of Music, Dean Emerita of Boston Univ School for the Arts

• 1927 ~ Ferlin Husky (aka: Simon Crum, Terry Preston), Singer

• 1930 ~ Andy (Howard Andrew) Williams, American Emmy Award-winning entertainer, singer

• 1931 ~ Jaye P. (Mary Margaret) Morgan, Singer, performer

• 1941 ~ Johann Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer

• 1944 ~ Frank Sinatra was in the Columbia Records studio recording Old Man River.

• 1948 ~ Ozzy (John) Osbourne, Songwriter, singer

• 1949 ~ Mickey Thomas, Singer with Jefferson Starship

• 1953 ~ Kismet opened on Broadway in New York. The show ran for 583 performances.

• 1955 ~ Elvis Presley’s first release on RCA Victor Records was announced. No, it wasn’t Hound Dog or Heartbreak Hotel. The first two sides were actually purchased from Sam Phillips of Sun Records: Mystery Train and I Forgot to Remember to Forget. Elvis was described by his new record company as “The most talked about personality in recorded music in the last 10 years.”

• 1960 ~ Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. Richard Burton and Julie Andrews played the leading roles in the musical written by Lerner and Loewe. Robert Goulet got rave reviews for his songs, If Ever I Would Leave You, Then You May Take Me to the Fair and How to Handle a Woman, among others. Camelot had a run of 873 performances. Broadway went Hollywood in the 1967 film version of Camelot. Its run was not quite as successful.

• 1968 ~ The O’Kaysions received a gold record for Girl Watcher. The song had a promotional reprise in the 1990s as a theme for Merv Griffin’s Wheel of Fortune, with the revamped lyrics, I’m a Wheel Watcher…

• 1977 ~ After 29 weeks in the #1 position on the album charts (a record, literally…), Rumours, by Fleetwood Mac, was replaced at the top spot by the album Simple Dreams, sung by Linda Ronstadt.

• 1999 ~ Handel’s Messiah Gets Modern Makeover in Ireland

• 2000 ~ Kevin Mills, a member of the Christian rock groups Newsboys and White Heart, died after a motorcycle accident in Hollywood. He was 32. Mills, of Louisville, Ky., was a singer and bass player, his family said. He also was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and appeared on TV in “An Inconvenient Woman” in 1991. White Heart started in 1982. Newsboys, an Australian band now based near Nashville, was formed four years later. Newsboys have sold nearly 3 million records and earned three Grammy nominations on the religious rock circuit.

• 2000 ~ Washington Honored Eastwood, Baryshnikov, Others

• 2002 ~ Rich Dangel, credited with creating the opening guitar chords of garage band staple Louie Louie, died of an aneurysm at his home. He was 60. Dangel was a member of the seminal Northwest rock band the Wailers, who introduced the nation to the Northwest sound – raw, unpolished and catchy. He may be best known for coming up with the power chords that opened the Wailers’ 1961 regional hit, Louie, Louie, written by rhythm-and-blues singer Richard Berry and taken to the top of the national charts by another Northwest band, the Kingsmen from Portland, Ore. Dangel co-wrote his first chart hit, “Tall Cool One” with fellow Wailer John Greek when he was still in high school. The song resulted in the group’s first album, “The Fabulous Wailers,” a cross-country tour and a 1959 appearance on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.”

December 18 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

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Hanukkah
Hanukkah Music
Hanukkah Music Lyrics

 

Hanukkah 2017 began at sunset (4:48 at the O’Connor Music Studio) on Tuesday, December 12 and ends on Wednesday, December 20.

Christmas Music: The Birthday of a King

OCMS 1644 ~ Antonio Stradivari, Italian, most celebrated of all violin makers, died on this date.
Read more information about Stradivari

• 1778 ~ Joseph Grimaldi, Clown: ‘greatest clown in history’, ‘king of pantomime’, Joey the Clown; singer, dancer, acrobat, his character was part of the plot for the movie “Her Alibi”. He died in 1837.

• 1786 ~ Baron Karl von Weber, Opera composer

OCMS 1869 ~ Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer and pianist
More information about MacDowell

• 1892 ~ Premiere of The Nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky. This traditional Christmas ballet is so popular that its annual performances keeps many opera companies afloat. Act 1 tells a story of how little Clara aids her magical Christmas gift (a Nutcracker in the form of a soldier) defeat an army of mice. As a reward, he takes her to his magic kingdom and introduces her to a variety of subjects in a colorful stream of character dances. Tchaikovsky’s supply of themes is endless and he constantly provides brilliant orchestration.

• 1919 ~ Anita O’Day (Colton), American jazz singer

• 1920 ~ Conductor Arturo Toscanini made his first recording for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey.

• 1934 ~ Willie Smith sang with Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra on Rhythm is Our Business on Decca Records

• 1941 ~ Sam Andrew, Guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company

• 1943 ~ Keith Richards, British rock guitarist and singer with The Rolling Stones

• 1948 ~ Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler, Bass with the Animals

• 1961 ~ The Tokens celebrated their first #1 hit single. The Lion Sleeps Tonight(Wimoweh) was a chart-topper for four weeks in a row.

• 1972 ~ Helen Reddy received a gold record for the song that became an anthem for women’s liberation, I Am Woman. The song had reached number one on December 9, 1972.

• 1975 ~ Rod Stewart announced that he was leaving the group, Faces, and was going solo in a deal with Warner Brothers.

• 1981 ~ Rod Stewart gave a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, which was televised to 23 countries and carried by FM radio stations in the US to an audience of about 35 million.

• 1982 ~ Daryl Hall and John Oates reached the #1 spot on the music charts for the fifth time with Maneater. The song stayed in the top spot for four weeks, making it Hall and Oates’ most popular hit.

• 2001 ~ Eddie Baker, whose efforts to create a jazz hall of fame planted the seeds for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, died after complications from heart surgery. He was 71. Baker, a trumpeter and pianist, had led the New Breed Jazz Orchestra since the 1960s, forming close relationships with many top jazz artists. He began calling for a jazz hall of fame as early as the 1970s. He held what he hoped would be the first annual induction to the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985 at the Music Hall. But attendance was low, despite a star-studded roster of talent that included the Count Basie Orchestra, George Benson and Woody Herman. He maintained the hall of fame on paper, even though it never had a physical home. Through the years, Baker suggested building a jazz hall in several spots in Kansas City, including the 18th and Vine district and Union Station. His push generated interest in the project, but the American Jazz Museum opened under a different name in 1997 without his involvement. He also was an original member of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, which organized pub crawls and promoted jazz in the 1980s, and he helped organize the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, a service organization of older musicians.

• 2004 ~ Legendary British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who’s who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died.

December 3 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

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Christmas Music: Angels We Have Heard On High

• 1596 ~ Nicola Amati, Italian violin maker, teacher of Guarneri and Stradivari

• 1729 ~ Padre Antonio Francisco Javier Jose Soler, Spanish composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras. He is best known for his keyboard sonatas, an important contribution to the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ repertoire.

• 1876 ~ Hermann Goetz died.  He was a German composer.

OCMS 1883 ~ Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor
Read quotes by and about Webern
More information about Webern

• 1907 ~ Connie (Connee) Boswell, Singer Connie or Connee (a spelling she preferred later in life), who also played several musical instruments, arranged vocals for herself and her two sisters. Although she was stricken with polio and worked from her wheelchair, she never let this get in the way of being part of her jazz-singing trio. The Boswell Sisters’ talent was quickly recognized and by the time Connee was 24 years old, the sisters were doing vaudeville, radio, playing New York’s Paramount Theatre, recording with the Dorsey Brothers: You Oughta Be in Pictures; making films and appearing on the U.S.A.’s first public TV broadcast. One thing led to another and Connie went solo, entertaining World War II troops, making films, appearing on Broadway and recording with big names like Woody Herman’s; even a duet classic with Bing Crosby: Basin Street Blues. Her musical influence spanned many generations and music styles. If you’d have asked Ella Fitzgerald, she would have told you, “They just don’t make ’em like Connee Boswell anymore.”

OCMS 1923 ~ Maria Callas (Calogeropoulous), American soprano
More information about Callas Read quotes by and about Callas

• 1925 ~ The first jazz concerto for piano and orchestra was presented at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Commissioned by Walter Damrosch, American composer George Gershwin presented Concerto In F, and was also the featured soloist playing a flugelhorn in a slow, bluesy style as one of his numbers.

• 1927 ~ Phyllis Curtin, Singer: soprano with the New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala, Teatro Colon; coordinator of Voice Dept and Opera at Yale School of Music, Dean Emerita of Boston Univ School for the Arts

• 1927 ~ Ferlin Husky (aka: Simon Crum, Terry Preston), Singer

• 1930 ~ Andy (Howard Andrew) Williams, American Emmy Award-winning entertainer, singer

• 1931 ~ Jaye P. (Mary Margaret) Morgan, Singer, performer

• 1941 ~ Johann Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer

• 1944 ~ Frank Sinatra was in the Columbia Records studio recording Old Man River.

• 1948 ~ Ozzy (John) Osbourne, Songwriter, singer

• 1949 ~ Mickey Thomas, Singer with Jefferson Starship

• 1953 ~ Kismet opened on Broadway in New York. The show ran for 583 performances.

• 1955 ~ Elvis Presley’s first release on RCA Victor Records was announced. No, it wasn’t Hound Dog or Heartbreak Hotel. The first two sides were actually purchased from Sam Phillips of Sun Records: Mystery Train and I Forgot to Remember to Forget. Elvis was described by his new record company as “The most talked about personality in recorded music in the last 10 years.”

• 1960 ~ Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. Richard Burton and Julie Andrews played the leading roles in the musical written by Lerner and Loewe. Robert Goulet got rave reviews for his songs, If Ever I Would Leave You,Then You May Take Me to the Fair and How to Handle a Woman, among others. Camelot had a run of 873 performances. Broadway went Hollywood in the 1967 film version of Camelot. Its run was not quite as successful.

• 1968 ~ The O’Kaysions received a gold record for Girl Watcher. The song had a promotional reprise in the 1990s as a theme for Merv Griffin’s Wheel of Fortune, with the revamped lyrics, I’m a Wheel Watcher…

• 1977 ~ After 29 weeks in the #1 position on the album charts (a record, literally…), Rumours, by Fleetwood Mac, was replaced at the top spot by the album Simple Dreams, sung by Linda Ronstadt.

• 1999 ~ Handel’s Messiah Gets Modern Makeover in Ireland

• 2000 ~ Kevin Mills, a member of the Christian rock groups Newsboys and White Heart, died after a motorcycle accident in Hollywood. He was 32. Mills, of Louisville, Ky., was a singer and bass player, his family said. He also was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and appeared on TV in “An Inconvenient Woman” in 1991. White Heart started in 1982. Newsboys, an Australian band now based near Nashville, was formed four years later. Newsboys have sold nearly 3 million records and earned three Grammy nominations on the religious rock circuit.

• 2000 ~ Washington Honored Eastwood, Baryshnikov, Others

• 2002 ~ Rich Dangel, credited with creating the opening guitar chords of garage band staple Louie Louie, died of an aneurysm at his home. He was 60. Dangel was a member of the seminal Northwest rock band the Wailers, who introduced the nation to the Northwest sound – raw, unpolished and catchy. He may be best known for coming up with the power chords that opened the Wailers’ 1961 regional hit, Louie, Louie, written by rhythm-and-blues singer Richard Berry and taken to the top of the national charts by another Northwest band, the Kingsmen from Portland, Ore. Dangel co-wrote his first chart hit, “Tall Cool One” with fellow Wailer John Greek when he was still in high school. The song resulted in the group’s first album, “The Fabulous Wailers,” a cross-country tour and a 1959 appearance on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.”

December 18, 2016 ~ Today in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

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Christmas Music, Part 18 – The Birthday of a King

OCMS 1644 ~ Antonio Stradivari, Italian, most celebrated of all violin makers, died on this date.
Read more information about Stradivari

• 1778 ~ Joseph Grimaldi, Clown: ‘greatest clown in history’, ‘king of pantomime’, Joey the Clown; singer, dancer, acrobat, his character was part of the plot for the movie “Her Alibi”. He died in 1837.

• 1786 ~ Baron Karl von Weber, Opera composer

OCMS 1869 ~ Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer and pianist
More information about MacDowell

• 1892 ~ Premiere of The Nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky. This traditional Christmas ballet is so popular that its annual performances keeps many opera companies afloat. Act 1 tells a story of how little Clara aids her magical Christmas gift (a Nutcracker in the form of a soldier) defeat an army of mice. As a reward, he takes her to his magic kingdom and introduces her to a variety of subjects in a colorful stream of character dances. Tchaikovsky’s supply of themes is endless and he constantly provides brilliant orchestration.

• 1919 ~ Anita O’Day (Colton), American jazz singer

• 1920 ~ Conductor Arturo Toscanini made his first recording for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey.

• 1934 ~ Willie Smith sang with Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra on Rhythm is Our Business on Decca Records

• 1941 ~ Sam Andrew, Guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company

• 1943 ~ Keith Richards, British rock guitarist and singer with The Rolling Stones

• 1948 ~ Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler, Bass with the Animals

• 1961 ~ The Tokens celebrated their first #1 hit single. The Lion Sleeps Tonight(Wimoweh) was a chart topper for four weeks in a row.

• 1972 ~ Helen Reddy received a gold record for the song that became an anthem for women’s liberation, I Am Woman. The song had reached number one on December 9, 1972.

• 1975 ~ Rod Stewart announced that he was leaving the group, Faces, and was going solo in a deal with Warner Brothers.

• 1981 ~ Rod Stewart gave a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, which was televised to 23 countries and carried by FM radio stations in the US to an audience of about 35 million.

• 1982 ~ Daryl Hall and John Oates reached the #1 spot on the music charts for the fifth time with Maneater. The song stayed in the top spot for four weeks, making it Hall and Oates’ most popular hit.

• 2001 ~ Eddie Baker, whose efforts to create a jazz hall of fame planted the seeds for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, died after complications from heart surgery. He was 71. Baker, a trumpeter and pianist, had led the New Breed Jazz Orchestra since the 1960s, forming close relationships with many top jazz artists. He began calling for a jazz hall of fame as early as the 1970s. He held what he hoped would be the first annual induction to the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985 at the Music Hall. But attendance was low, despite a star-studded roster of talent that included the Count Basie Orchestra, George Benson and Woody Herman. He maintained the hall of fame on paper, even though it never had a physical home. Through the years, Baker suggested building a jazz hall in several spots in Kansas City, including the 18th and Vine district and Union Station. His push generated interest in the project, but the American Jazz Museum opened under a different name in 1997 without his involvement. He also was an original member of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, which organized pub crawls and promoted jazz in the 1980s, and he helped organize the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, a service organization of older musicians.

• 2004 ~ Legendary British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who’s who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died.