Tag Archives: dancer

September 23: On This Day in Music

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• 1870 ~ John Lomax, American folk-song collector and founder of the American Folklore Society at the Library of Congress

• 1923 ~ Jan Savitt and his orchestra recorded 720 in the Books on Decca Records.

• 1926 ~ John (William) Coltrane, American jazz tenor and soprano sax, composer

OCMS 1930 ~ Ray Charles, American soul singer, pianist and songwriter
More information about Charles

• 1935 ~ Les McCann, Singer

• 1940 ~ Paul Williams, Academy Award-winning songwriter

• 1943 ~ Steve Boone, Bass, singer with The Lovin’ Spoonful

• 1943 ~ Julio Iglesias, Singer, Guinness Book of Records for sales of more than 100 million copies of 60 LPs in five languages

• 1945 ~ Ronald Bushy, Drummer with Iron Butterfly

• 1949 ~ Bruce Springsteen ‘The Boss’, American rock singer and songwriter, inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 1999

• 1959 ~ Lita Ford, Guitarist with The Runaways

• 1967 ~ The Box Tops from Memphis hit #1 with The Letter. Though the song was #1 for four weeks and remained on the charts for 13 weeks. The Box Tops reorganized right after that first hit and never made it to #1 again.

• 1969 ~ The London Daily Mirror became a rumormonger. It printed a story saying that Beatle Paul McCartney was dead. It was the first, but not the last, time that rumor would make the rounds.

• 1971 ~ The Honey Cone scored their second gold record with Stick-Up on the Hot Wax label. It was a follow~up to their #1 smash, Want Ads on June 12, 1971.

• 1972 ~ Mac Davis earned one of the 1970s’ most head-scratching #1 hits with “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me”.

• 1987 ~ Bob Fosse passed away. He was an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film director and actor.

• 2003 ~ Rex Robbins, a Broadway actor who traveled nationally with “Gypsy,” “Hello Dolly!” and “Into the Woods,” died of a subdural aneurysm while visiting relatives. He was 68. Robbins, who lived in Manhattan, had roles in 18 Broadway shows between 1963 and 2000, including Herbie in the 1974 revival of “Gypsy” with Angela Lansbury and Buckingham in “Richard II” with Al Pacino in 1979. He also appeared in films including the original “Shaft,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “1776,” and was in more than 300 television commercials.

• 2006 ~ Sir Malcolm Arnold, English composer and professional trumpeter died. His output of works features music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.

September 2: Today in Music History

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• 1863 ~ Isador Philipp, French pianist

• 1888 ~ Friedrich Schorr, Hungarian bass-baritone

• 1917 ~ Laurindo Almeida, Grammy Award-winning composer, musician, guitarist

• 1919 ~ Marge Champion (Marjorie Belcher), Dancer, actress, choreographer with Gower Champion, model for animated Snow White

• 1924 ~ Theatregoers heard the song Indian Love Call for the first time in the operetta Rose Marie, which opened in New York City.

• 1927 ~ Sophie Tucker recorded her signature song, Some of These Days, for Columbia Records.

• 1931 ~ The radio show 15 Minutes with Bing Crosby debuted on CBS. The singer became a super-hot property after the debut.

• 1936 ~ David Blaki, British composer

• 1939 ~ Sam Gooden, Singer with Roosters

• 1940 ~ Jimmy Clanton, Singer, songwriter, toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars

• 1943 ~ Rosalind Ashford, Singer with Martha and the Vandellas

• 1946 ~ Marty Grebb, Musician, keyboards with The Buckinghams

• 1957 ~ Steve Porcaro, Keyboards, singer with Toto

• 1958 ~ Fritz McIntyre, Keyboards with Simply Red

• 1965 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for their single Help!, from the movie of the same name.

• 1997 ~ Sir Rudolf Bing died.  He was an Austrian-born opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, most notably being General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972.

• 2000 ~ Elvera Sanchez Davis, a tap dancer and the mother of Sammy Davis, Jr., died at the age of 95. Known as Baby Sanchez, Davis began performing at 16 in the chorus line at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem. She continued her career into the early 1940s, dancing for six years in the chorus line at the Apollo Theatre. In 1923, performing in a touring show called “Holiday in Dixie”, she met and married Sammy Davis Sr., also a dancer in the show. Their son was born in 1925. He became a tap-dance prodigy by age 10, trained and brought up by his father after his parents separated. Mrs. Davis retired when the Apollo disbanded its dance chorus, though she danced informally into her 90s. She also performed in touring revues and in films including Carl Micheaux’s 1936 “Swing”. Davis continued to be involved with tap dance until her death, serving from 1989 as an adviser to the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day.
Sammy Davis, Jr. died in 1990 at the age of 64.

• 2001 ~ Troy Donahue died at the age of 65. He was a matinee idol who climbed to stardom in the 1950s with his role in “A Summer Place.”

• 2001 ~ Jazz saxophonist Jay Migliori, who worked with musicians and singers ranging from
Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra, died of colon cancer. He was 70.
Migliori, who was also a founding member of the Grammy-winning jazz group Supersax, played on some 4,000 recordings during his career. Although he described his own style as “modern acoustic jazz with roots in bebop,” he was equally comfortable working with country stars like Glen Campbell, a wide variety of rock musicians including Zappa and the Four Seasons and pop stars as varied as Dean Martin and Celine Dion. He performed with more than two dozen bands over the years, including those led by Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, Terry Gibbs and Maynard Ferguson. In 1971, he joined Supersax, an ensemble built around a five-saxophone section that specialized in orchestrated Charlie Parker solos. He also recorded several albums of his own, including “Jazz in Transition” and “Smile.”

• 2006 ~ [Jean-Josephat] Clermont Pépin, Canadian pianist and composer (Implosion Symphony), died at the age of 80

August 25: Today in Music History

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• 1879 ~ New York’s Madison Square Garden displayed a real floating ship in a gigantic water tank as Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, was performed.

• 1902 ~ Stefan Wolpe, German-born American composer

• 1909 ~ Ruby (Ethel Hilda) Keeler, Dancer, actress

• 1913 ~ Bob Crosby, Bandleader with The Bob Cats, brother of Bing Crosby

OCMS   1918 ~ Leonard Bernstein, American conductor, composer and pianist
Read quotes by and about Bernstein
Links to more information about Bernstein
Grammy winner

 

 

• 1939 ~ Dorothy embarked on a journey down the yellow brick road with a lion, a tin man and a scarecrow in the classic film “The Wizard of Oz.”

• 1941 ~ Skinnay Ennis and his orchestra recorded the tune Don’t Let Julia Fool Ya.

• 1942 ~ Walter Williams, Singer with The O’Jays

• 1955 ~ Elvis Costello (Declan McManus), Musician, songwriter

• 1961 ~ Billy Ray Cyrus, Singer

• 1964 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for their hit single A Hard Day’s Night. It was the third gold record for the Fab Four. They would collect 18 more through 1970.

• 1971 ~ Ted Lewis passed away.  He was an American entertainer, bandleader, singer, and musician.

• 1982 ~ The group, Fleetwood Mac, received a gold record for the album Mirage.

• 2001 ~ Aaliyah died at the age of 22. She was a R&B singer and budding actress who made her film debut in “Romeo Must Die” and was killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas.

• 2001 ~ Jazz musician John Nelson, the father of pop star Prince, died at the age of 85. Nelson was the model for a character in the 1984 Prince movie “Purple Rain.” He also co-wrote songs on several of his son’s hit albums.
In the 1950s, Nelson was a pianist in the jazz group Prince Rogers Trio featuring singer Mattie Shaw. Shaw and Nelson married, and they named their son Prince Roger Nelson.
Nelson left the household when Prince was about 10 and his sister Tyka was 8. The father and son reconciled after Prince began his climb to fame.
Nelson co-wrote Computer Blue on the Purple Rain album, The Ladder on Around the World in a Day; Christopher Tracy’s Parade and Under the Cherry Moon on Parade and Scandalous on the Batman soundtrack.

• 2008 ~ Josef Tal, Israel composer (Israeli art music), died at the age of 97

August 23: Today in Music History

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• 1854 ~ Moritz Moszkowski, Polish-born German pianist and composer
More information about Moszkowski

• 1900 ~ Ernst Krenek, Austrian-born American composer, conductor and pianist

• 1905 ~ Constant Lambert, British composer, conductor and writer

• 1912 ~ Gene (Eugene Curran) Kelly, Dancer, actor: Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh, The Three Musketeers, Marjorie Morningstar, Inherit the Wind, North and South Book I; director: Singin’ in the Rain, Hello, Dolly!, A Guide for the Married Man, The Cheyenne Social Club

• 1917 ~ Tex (Sol) Williams, American country-western singer

• 1923 ~ Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, The Happiness Boys, were heard on radio for the first time. The two were billed as radio’s first comedians and were also credited with creating and performing the first singing commercial.

• 1936 ~ Rudy Lewis, Singer with Drifters

• 1942 ~ Patricia McBride, Ballerina: New York City Ballet. For many years she was Mikhail Baryshnikov’s only partner

• 1943 ~ LIFE magazine spotlighted a dance craze that was sweeping the U.S.A., the Lindy Hop

• 1947 ~ Keith Moon, Singer, drummer with The Who

• 1947 ~ Margaret Truman, daughter of U.S. President Harry S Truman, presented her first public concert.  Margaret sang before 15,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert did not get great reviews. In fact, the critics didn’t like Margaret’s singing at all. And Margaret’s dad didn’t like the critics, and said so, from the White House.

• 1949 ~ Rick Springfield, Singer

• 1951 ~ Mark Hudson, Singer with The Hudson Brothers

• 1951 ~ Jimi Jamison, Singer with Survivor

• 1953 ~ Bobby G. (Gubby), Singer with Bucks Fizz

• 1960 ~ Oscar (Greeley Clendenning) Hammerstein II passed away
More information about Hammerstein

• 1962 ~ Shaun Ryder, Singer with Happy Mondays

• 1966 ~ The U.S. premiere of the motion picture Help!, starring The Beatles, was held for thousands of moviegoers wanting to see the group’s first, color, motion picture. Their first film, A Hard Day’s Night, had been produced in black and white.

• 1990 ~ David Rose passed away

• 2001 ~ Kathleen Freeman, a veteran character actress whose face if not her name was known to audiences from television sitcoms, the film classic “Singin’ in the Rain” and Broadway’s “The Full Monty,” died of lung cancer at the age of  82.
Freeman gave her final performance in “The Full Monty”. She played a sassy piano player in the hit musical and earned a Tony nomination in May 2001.

Big, brash and funny were Freeman’s trademarks in playing recalcitrant maids, demented nuns, mouthy housekeepers, battle-ax mothers, irate landladies and nosy neighbors.

Starting in the Golden Age of television, Freeman appeared in such shows as “Topper,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” “The Lucy Show,” “The Golden Girls,” “Murphy Brown” and “Married … With Children.”

“This will sound very corny and I’m sorry,” Freeman said last year in an Associated Press interview, “but I have always had the sense I was put here to do this: I am somebody who is around to help the world laugh. I have always had that sense. Corny but absolutely true.”

In “Singin’ in the Rain,” considered by many to be the best movie musical ever made, she played Jean Hagen’s frustrated voice teacher. Among Freeman’s other films were the sci-fi thriller “The Fly,” “The Rounders” with Henry Fonda, “Far Country” with Jimmy Stewart, and “North to Alaska” starring John Wayne. More recently she appeared in “Dragnet,” “Gremlins II,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” and both “Blues Brothers” comedies.

Freeman was born in Chicago and was propelled into show business at age 2. Her parents had a vaudeville act, Dixon and Freeman, in which their daughter did a little dance.

Freeman attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where she majored in music and was going to be a classical pianist. Then, she said, “A terrible thing happened. I got in a play and got a laugh. I just said a line and, `boom.”‘

Freeman then worked in many small theater groups, including the Circle Players, acting for such eminent directors – and actors – as Charles Laughton, Charlie Chaplin and Robert Morley.

At the same time, the early 1950s, the television explosion took over Los Angeles. From her first regular sitcom role, as the maid in “Topper,” Freeman went on to do just about every sitcom of the last 50 years.

For all her voluminous credits, Freeman’s stage credits were mostly on the road – touring as Miss Hannigan in “Annie” for 18 months, then in “Deathtrap” and later with Lauren Bacall in “Woman of the Year.”

Her only other Broadway appearance was for five months in the 1978 production of “13 Rue de l’Amore” starring Louis Jordan.

• 2001 ~ Frank Emilio Flynn, a blind pianist and Latin jazz pioneer who performed with many great American jazz artists, died at the age of 80.

Flynn lost his sight at age 13 but continued to study and perform classical works, transcribed into Braille, with the Symphonic Orchestra of Havana.

Flynn’s great passion was jazz, and in the 1950s he developed his own jazz-influenced ballad style, known in Cuba as “feeling.”

Performing with the Quinteto Cubana de Musica Moderno, or Cuban Quintet of Modern Music, he developed into one of the most important Cuban jazz musicians of his era.

He played at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1998 with trumpeters Alfredo Armenteros and Wynton Marsalis.

• 2018 ~ George Walker, Trailblazing American Composer, died at the age of 96

August 22: Today in Music History

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OCMS   1862 ~ Claude Debussy, French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though he himself disliked the term when applied to his compositions.
More information about Debussy

• 1906 ~ The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey began to manufacture the Victrola (record player). The hand-cranked unit, with horn cabinet, sold for $200. Records sold separately.

• 1917 ~ John Lee Hooker, American blues guitarist and singer, born in Clarksdale, Miss. He began his career in Detroit in 1948 with the release of Boogie Chillun, the biggest of his several hit records and a staple of both the blues and rock repertoires. He toured continually, and among “deep blues” artists, enjoyed an unusually successful career, appearing in concerts and on recordings with many of the leading figures in rock. He was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

OCMS  1928 ~ Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer
More information about Stockhausen
Read quotes by and about Stockhausen

• 1926 ~ Bob Flanigan, Singer with The Four Freshmen

• 1932 ~ The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began its first experimental TV broadcast in England.

• 1938 ~ Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared, dancing, on the cover of LIFE magazine, published on this day.

• 1938 ~ Count Basie recorded the classic swing tune, Jumpin’ at the Woodside, for Decca Records.

• 1942 ~ Joe Chambers, Musician: guitar, singer with The Chambers Brothers

• 1950 ~ Sam Neely, Singer

• 1960 ~ Debbi Peterson, Drummer, singer with Bangles

• 1961 ~ Roland Orzabal, Singer, guitarist

• 2002 ~ Frederick Selch, an advertising executive and magazine publisher who collected hundreds of antique musical instruments, died at the age of 72.
Selch began collecting almost 50 years ago and owned more than 300 musical instruments by 1977.
In that year, he founded the Federal Music Society, an organization dedicated to performing music from the Colonial-Federal period. The group’s 26 players used instruments in Selch’s collection to perform in more than 70 concerts.
Selch was also the owner, editor and publisher of Ovation, a monthly magazine about classical music, from 1983 to 1989. He produced the Broadway musical “Play Me a  Country Song” in 1982, and in the past 10 years was involved in a series of American  Music Festivals at Illinois Wesleyan University.
Selch, who received a master’s degree in radio-television production from Syracuse University, worked at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency from 1955 to 1974.
He is to be awarded a posthumous doctorate from the American Studies program at New York University.

• 2002 ~ Richard Lippold, a sculptor whose abstract works are featured at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall and at Harvard University, died. He was 87. Lippold created giant metal abstractions, many of which are suspended by wires so they appear to be hovering or moving through space.
His piece World Tree, a 27-foot structure of straight and circular metal tubes that resembles a radio antenna, stands on the Harvard University campus.
He is also known for Ad Astra, a double spire that rises 115 feet in front of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and Orpheous and Apollo, a constellation of bronze bars connected by wires in the lobby of Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center.
Lippold studied industrial design, piano and dance at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. He worked as a freelance industrial designer for several years before teaching art at the University of Michigan.
He later taught at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., and Hunter College in New York.

• 2018 ~ Ed King, former guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd who co-wrote ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ died at the age of 68

July 8: Today’s Music History

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Be sure your student reads and listens to Today’s Daily Listening Assignment

 

• 1574 ~ Giovanni Battista Stefanini, Composer

• 1637 ~ Johann Georg Ebeling, Composer

• 1638 ~ Matteo Coferati, Composer

• 1681 ~ Georg Neumark, Composer, died at the age of 60

• 1757 ~ Richard Wainwright, Composer

• 1819 ~ Vatroslav Lisinski, Composer

• 1857 ~ Rudolf Dellinger, Composer

• 1871 ~ Clement Harris, Composer

• 1878 ~ Harry Von Tilzer, Composer
More information about Von Tilzer

• 1876 ~ Josef Dessauer, Composer, died at the age of 78

• 1882 ~ Percy Aldridge Grainger, Australian-born American pianist and composer. He is famed for his use of folk-song melodies and is best remembered for his Country Gardens and Molly on the Shore.

 

 

• 1885 ~ Hendrick Waelput, Flemish Composer and conductor (Blessing of Arms), died at the age of 39

• 1894 ~ Vladimir Nikitich Kashperov, Composer, died

• 1900 ~ George Antheil, American composer

• 1904 ~ Bill Challis, Arranger and pianist

• 1907 ~ Kishio Hirao, Composer

• 1907 ~ Florenz Ziegfeld staged the first Ziegfeld Follies at the roof garden of the New York Theatre.

• 1908 ~ Louis (Thomas) Jordan, Musician, alto sax, singer

• 1912 ~ Jacques Stehman, Composer

• 1907 ~ Billy Eckstine (William Clarence Eckstein), Pop Singer, band leader, bass-baritone singer

• 1927 ~ Carlo Franci, Composer

• 1928 ~ Norma Donaldson, Singer and actress

• 1931 ~ Louis W. Ballard, American composer

• 1931 ~ Jerry Vale (Genaro Vitaliano), Pop Singer

• 1935 ~ Steve Lawrence (Sidney Leibowitz), Pop Singer, married to singer Eydie Gorme

• 1941 ~ Philippe Gaubert, Composer, died at the age of 62

• 1942 ~ Catherinus Elling, Composer, died at the age of 83

• 1946 ~ Aleksander V Aleksandrov, Russian composer and conductor, died at the age of 63

• 1948 ~ Raffi Cavoukian, Singer, songwriter: children’s songs

• 1949 ~ Riccadro Pick-Mangiagalli, Composer, died at the age of 66

• 1951 ~ Pleas Ned Sublette, Composer

• 1957 ~ Henry Fevrier, Composer, died at the age of 81

• 1958 ~ The first gold record album presented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was awarded. It went to the soundtrack LP, Oklahoma!. The honor signified that the album had reached one million dollars in sales. The first gold single issued by the RIAA was Catch a Falling Star, by Perry Como, in March of 1958. A gold single also represents sales of one million records.

• 1961 ~ Andy Fletcher, Musician with Depeche Mode

• 1961 ~ Graham Jones, Musician, guitarist with Haircut 100

• 1961 ~ Julian Bautista, Composer, died at the age of 60

• 1969 ~ Gladys Swarthout, Opera singer and actress (Ambush), died at the age of 64

• 1994 ~ Dominic Lucero, Dancer and singer, died

• 1996 ~ James Woodie Alexander, Songwriter and vocalist, died at the age of 80

• 2002 ~ Lore Noto, producer of “The Fantasticks,” the world’s longest-running musical, died after a long battle with cancer. He was 79. It was Noto, a former actor and artists’ agent, who saw the possibilities in a small one-act musical written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt when it was first produced in 1959 at Barnard College in New York. He commissioned the authors to expand the show, which eventually opened at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village on May 3, 1960. It ran for 17,162 performances, closing Jan. 13 after a more than 40-year run. The musical, with book and lyrics by Jones and music by Schmidt, told an affecting tale of first love. A girl and boy are secretly brought together by their fathers and an assortment of odd characters including a rakish narrator, an old actor, an Indian named Mortimer and a Mute. Over the years, scores of performers appeared in the New York production. Among the musical’s better-known alums are its original El Gallo, Jerry Orbach, and such soap-opera stars as Eileen Fulton and David Canary. F. Murray Abraham, long before his Academy Award for “Amadeus”, played the Old Actor in the ’60s. Early in the show’s run, Noto went on in the role of the boy’s father and played the part, off and on, for 17 years.

• 2018 ~ Tab Hunter [Arthur Andrew Kelm], American actor (Tab Hunter Show, Lust in the Dust) and singer (Young Love), died of complications of deep vein thrombosis at the age of 86

• 2018 ~ Oliver Knussen, British composer (Where the Wild Things Are, Chicara), died at the age of 66

• 2018 ~ Alan Johnson, American 3-time Emmy Award-winning choreographer (Springtime for Hitler, West Side Story), died at the age of 81

July 1: Today’s Music History

Posted by MaryO on

 

Be sure your student reads and listens to Today’s Daily Listening Assignment

 

• 1586 ~ Claudio Saracini, Composer

• 1592 ~ Marc A Ingegneri, Italian violinist and composer, died

• 1662 ~ Simon Ives, Composer, died at the age of 61

• 1663 ~ Franz Xaver Murschhauser, Composer

• 1688 ~ Johann Ludwig Steiner, Composer

• 1691 ~ Marc’Antonio Pasqualini, Composer, died at the age of 77

• 1735 ~ James Lyon, Composer

• 1742 ~ Bohuslav Matej Czernohorsky, Czech monk and composer, died at the age of 58

• 1764 ~ Georg Christoph Grosheim, Composer

• 1784 ~ Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, composer, son of J.S. Bach, died
More information about Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

• 1805 ~ Georg Ritschel, Composer, died at the age of 60

• 1883 ~ Manuel Gregorio Tavarez, Composer, died at the age of 39

• 1899 ~ Cavan O’Connor, Singer

• 1908 ~ Peter Anders, German opera singer

• 1910 ~ Marius Petipa, French ballet dancer and choreographer, died

• 1914 ~ Earle Warren, Alto sax player

• 1915 ~ Willie Dixon, Blues Musician

• 1917 ~ William Gillock, Educational Music Composer

• 1925 ~ Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, French composer, died at the age of 59
More information about Satie

• 1926 ~ Hans Werner Henze, German composer

• 1927 ~ Hans Eklund, Composer

• 1928 ~ Volker Wangenheim, Composer

• 1930 ~ Leslie Caron, Dancer

• 1933 ~ Strauss and von Hofmannsthal’s opera “Arabella,” premiered in Dresden
More information about Strauss

• 1935 ~ James Cotton, blues vocalist

• 1939 ~ Louis Davids (Simon David), Cabaret performer/chorus performer, died

• 1941 ~ Twila Tharp, Choreographer

• 1941 ~ John Gould, British composer and musical comic

• 1942 ~ Andrae Crouch, Gospel Singer

• 1945 ~ Debbie Harry, American singer

• 1946 ~ June Montiero, American vocalist

• 1947 ~ Clarence Lucas, Composer, died at the age of 80

• 1950 ~ Edward Faber Schneider, Composer, died at the age of 77

• 1954 ~ Fred Schneider, Singer for pop-punk band the B-52s

• 1956 ~ Elvis Presley appeared wearing a tuxedo on the Steve Allen Show

• 1960 ~ Benjamin Britten’s cantata “Carmen Baseliense,” premiered in Basel
More information about Britten

• 1963 ~ The Beatles recorded She Loves You & I’ll Get You

• 1964 ~ Pierre Monteux, French/American conductor, died at the age of 89

• 1965 ~ Claude Thornhill, Composer, died at the age of 55

• 1967 ~ “Funny Girl”, the story of Fanny Brice, closed at Winter Garden Theater New York City after 1348 performances
More information about Fanny Brice

• 1967 ~ The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, went #1 for 15 weeks

• 1968 ~ John Lennon’s first full art exhibition (You are Here)

• 1969 ~ John & Yoko were hospitalized after a car crash

• 1969 ~ Shelby Singleton bought Sun Records from Sam Phillips

• 1970 ~ Jimi Hendrix first recording session (New York City)

• 1972 ~ “Follies” closed at Winter Garden Theater New York City after 524 performances

• 1972 ~ “Hair” closed at Biltmore Theater New York City after 1750 performances

• 1973 ~ Mario La Broca, Composer, died at the age of 76

• 1973 ~ “Jesus Christ Superstar”, by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice, closed at Mark Hellinger New York City after 711 performances

• 1978 ~ “Act” closed at Majestic Theater New York City after 233 performances

• 1982 ~ John Everett Watts, Composer, died at the age of 51

• 1982 ~ Shon Coco Palm, (Jacobo JM Palm), Curaçan Composer, died

• 1982 ~ ABC national music radio network scheduled premiere, but it never happened

• 1988 ~ Hellmuth Christian Wolff, Composer, died at the age of 82

• 1988 ~ Lex van Delden, Dutch Composer and writer, died at the age of 68

• 1995 ~ “Kiss of the Spider Woman” closed at Broadhurst New York City after 906 performances

• 1996 ~ Placido Domingo became art director of Washington Opera

• 2015 ~ Val Doonican, Irish singer and entertainer, died at the age of 88

• 2018 ~ Dame Gillian Lynne [Pyrke], British dancer, choreographer and actress, known for Broadway work on “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” died at the age of 92

and

 

May 11: Today’s Music History

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• 1885 ~ Joseph “King” Oliver, American jazz cornetist and bandleader

• 1887 ~ Paul Wittgenstein, an Austrian concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist.

• 1888 ~ Irving Berlin, Russian-born American songwriter and lyricist
More information about Berlin
 Grammy winner

 

• 1894 ~ Martha Graham, Modern dancer: Denishawn dance school and performing troupe, Graham company, established school of modern dance at Bennington College; choreographer

• 1895 ~ William Grant Still, American composer
More information about Still

• 1916 ~ Max Reger, German composer, pianist and professor (Leipzig Univ), died at the age of 43

• 1927 ~ The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded; although the first Oscars were not presented for several years after its founding.

• 1931 ~ Dick Garcia, Guitarist

• 1941 ~ Eric Burdon, Singer with The Animals

• 1943 ~ Les (John) Chadwick, Bass with Gerry & The Pacemakers

• 1965 ~ Liza Minnelli opened in Flora the Red Menace. The musical ran for only 87 performances at the Alvin Theatre.

• 1970 ~ The Chairmen of the Board received a gold record for the hit, Give Me Just a Little More Time. The Detroit group recorded three other songs in 1970, with moderate success.

• 1979 ~ Lester Flatt passed away.  He was a bluegrass guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his collaboration with banjo picker Earl Scruggs in The Foggy Mountain Boys.

• 2000 ~ Zydeco trumpeter Warren Ceasar, who recorded three solo albums and performed with the legendary Clifton Chenier, died of a brain aneurysm. He was 48. Ceasar, who was born and raised in Basile, was the nephew of the late internationally known fiddler, Canray Fontenot. In addition to his role as frontman for Warren Ceasar and the Zydeco Snap Band, Ceasar also played with Clifton Chenier, who is known as “The Grandfather of Zydeco.” Ceasar also performed with soul greats Isaac Hayes and Al Green.

• 2011 ~ [Eugene Edward] Snooky Young, American jazz trumpeter who mastered the plunger mute, died at the age of 92

 

• 2018 ~ Scott Hutchinson, Scottish musician (Frightened Rabbit), died at the age of 36

May 10: Today’s Music History

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OCMS 1855 ~ Anatoli Liadov, Russian composer
More information about Liadov

• 1876 ~ Richard Wagner’s Centennial Inaugural March was heard for the first time at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, PA. Wagner did just fine for creating the magnificent work. He received a paycheck of $5,000. In 1876 dollars, that was quite a lot of money.

• 1888 ~ Max Steiner, composer and conductor, born. Best known for his film scores for such films as “The Informer” and “Now Voyager” for which he won academy awards and Gone With The Wind.

• 1894 ~ Dmitri Tiomkin, Conductor, composer: film scores such as “High Noon.”

• 1899 ~ Fred Astaire (Austerlitz), Dancer, American actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, and television presenter. He is widely considered the most influential dancer in the history of film. He Starred in 10 Broadway and West End musicals, made 31 musical films including Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937) Holiday Inn (1942), Easter Parade (1948) and The Band Wagon (1953). His stage and subsequent film and television careers spanned a total of 76 years.

• 1909 ~ Mother Maybelle Carter (Addington), Played melody on bass strings of guitar, rhythm on treble, singer with The Carter Family

• 1916 ~ OCMS Milton Byron Babbitt, American composer and theorist
More information on Babbitt

• 1935 ~ Larry Williams, Singer

• 1940 ~ Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded the classic, Perfidia, for Decca Records. The song would later be a hit for The Ventures (1960).

• 1936 ~ Gary Owens, DJ, TV and radio host

• 1938 ~ Henry Fambrough, Singer with The Spinners

• 1941 ~ Danny Rapp, Singer with Danny & The Juniors

• 1945 ~ Graham Gouldman, Musician: guitar, singer, songwriter

• 1946 ~ Donovan (Leitch), Scottish folk singer

• 1946 ~ Dave Mason, Songwriter, musician, singer

• 1951 ~ Frank Sinatra teamed with Axel Stordahl’s orchestra and on Columbia Records.

• 1963 ~ The Rolling Stones produced their very first recordings this day. The session included Come On and I Wanna Be Loved. The Stones would make it to the American pop music charts in August, 1964.

• 1974 ~ Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely earned a gold record for the group, The Main Ingredient. The trio began as the Poets in 1964. Cuba Gooding, Sr. is heard singing lead.

• 2000 ~ Margaret Harris, a theater designer whose work helped modernize staid, gilt-laden English theater in the 1930s, died at the age of 95. Harris began attending theater as a teenager with her sister and a friend. They sketched the actors they saw on stage, sending the drawings to each theater. One sketch caught the eye of actor John Gielgud, who suggested the trio design the costumes for a production of “Romeo and Juliet” he planned to direct. Adopting the name Motley, the three went on to design several productions for Gielgud, including 1932’s landmark “Richard of Bordeaux,” “The Merchant of Venice” and “Hamlet.” Harris also worked on Broadway and in Hollywood, designing an American production of “Romeo and Juliet” starring Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and working on the sets for the film version of the musical “Oklahoma!” Queen Elizabeth II made Harris a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1975. In 1997, she received a special Olivier award, Britain’s equivalent of Broadway’s Tony.

.2010 ~ Lena Horne passed away at the age of ninety-two. Horne, a prominent player during the civil rights era, became known as the first African-American sex-symbol and actively fought against racial discrimination during her singing and acting career, which lasted over sixty years.

 

March 24: Today’s Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

. 1784 ~ Mozart‘s Piano Concerto No. 15 in B flat, K. 450 in B flat, K. 450 was first performed.  Mozart was the soloist.

It is a concertante work for piano, or pianoforte, and orchestra.  Mozart composed the concerto for performance at a series of concerts at the Vienna venues of the Trattnerhof and the Burgtheater. In a letter to his father, Mozart compared this concerto with the 16th concerto in D:

“I consider them both to be concertos which make one sweat, but the B flat one beats the one in D for difficulty.” Indeed, many pianists consider this to be the most difficult of all of Mozart’s piano concertos. The concerto is primarily difficult from its many quick scale patterns which must be played perfectly and also from its many fast chord patterns moving up and down.

Beginning with this concerto, Mozart began to use the term “grand” to describe his concerti such as K.450 which feature a prominent and required wind section for the ensemble. The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings.

The concerto is in three movements:
1. Allegro
2. Andante in E-flat major
3. Allegro

. 1808 ~ María Felicità Malibran, Spanish contralto

. 1895 ~ Arthur Murray, dancer

. 1900 ~ June (Algeria Junius) Clark, Musician, trumpeter

. 1916 ~ Enrique Granados, Spanish composer, died in the English Channel. Best known for his piano suite “Goyescas” after paintings by Goya.

. 1920 ~ Gene Nelson (Eugene Leander Berg), Actor, dancer in Lullaby of Broadway, Oklahoma, Tea for Two, The West Point Story

. 1922 ~ Dave Appell, Arranger for big bands: Benny Carter, Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines; TV music director, record producer, singer, songwriter, musician with Dave Appell and the Applejacks

. 1928 ~ Byron Janis (Yanks), American pianist, NBC Symphony Orchestra; well-known piano performance on Hugo Winterhalter’s Rhapsody in Blue recording, composed by George Gershwin.

. 1935 ~ After a year as a local show from New York City, “Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour” was heard on the entire NBC radio network. The show stayed on the air for 17 years. Later, Ted Mack took over for Bowes and made the move from radio to television.

. 1937 ~ Benjamin Luxon, British baritone

. 1941 ~ Glenn Miller began work on his first motion picture for 20th Century Fox. The film was Sun Valley Serenade.

. 1958 ~ Elvis Presley reported to local draft board 86 in Memphis, TN. He became US 53310761. Oddly, since Elvis was now ‘government property’ serving his time in the Army, Uncle Sam stood to lose an estimated $500,000 in lost taxes each year that Private Presley was in the Army.

. 1980 ~ Capitol Records released some rare Beatles tracks. Included in the album were stereo versions of Penny Lane and She Loves You, sung by the group in German, under the title, Sie Liebt Dich. Also included was a German version of I Want to Hold Your Hand or, in the Teutonic tongue, Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand.

. 2000 ~ French Quarter pianist and chanteuse Lily Simha Hood, whose fans included Tennessee Williams, died of kidney failure. She was cagey about revealing her age, and her husband asked that the secret remain with her death. Her musical career began on a whim. After dinner one night in 1976, the Hoods and a friend stopped at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, a Bourbon Street bar across from their house. Mrs. Hood played a few tunes on the piano for her friend and was hired on the spot, even though she wasn’t looking for a job. Soon, “Miss Lily” had a crowd of regulars including Tennessee Williams, who would bring in a songbook for her to sing from. Mrs. Hood never formally studied the piano and never learned to read music. She was self-taught and learned by listening. She performed at Lafitte’s for 16 years, but health problems ended her career about 1993.