. 1942 ~ Bobby Rydell, American rock-and-roll singer and drummer
. 1970 ~ The musical, Company, opened on Broadway. It ran for 705 performances at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. Company starred Elaine Stritch.
. 1975 ~ On top of the Billboard popular music chart was B.J. Thomas, with the longest title ever for a number one song. (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song was number one for one week, though it took that long just to say the title.
. 1978 ~ An updated version of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper appeared on television. In the lead role (his first TV special), was former Beatle, Ringo Starr. He sang new versions of Act Naturally, Yellow Submarine and With a Little Help from My Friends.
. 1984 ~ Count Basie (William Basie), U.S. jazz pianist and big band leader who led his orchestra from 1937, died.
. 1991 ~ Carmine Coppola, American composer and conductor (The Godfather Part II), and father of Francis Ford Coppola, died at the age of 80
. 1991 ~ Leo Arnaud, French-American composer (Bugler’s Dream), died at the age of 86
. 1997 ~ Gene [Eugene] Ames, singer (Ames Brothers), died of cancer at the age of 73
. 2013 ~ Country singer George Jones died at the age of eighty-one. Jones had several hit songs between the 1950s and 1990s and was known for being married to Tammy Wynette and struggling with drugs and alcohol.
. 2018 ~ Charles Neville, American vocalist and saxophonist (Neville Brothers), died of pancreatic cancer died at the age of 79
. 1699 ~ Johann Adolph Hasse, German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music.
. 1784 ~ François-Joseph Fetis, Belgian musicologist, composer, teacher, and influential music critic.
. 1851 ~ The Playel piano factory in Paris was destroyed by fire. Playel was the favorite of Chopin in the 19th century, and it was identified with French composers known as the impressionist musicians of the early 20th century — like Ravel and Debussy.
Pleyel was founded in 1807 by Ignaz Pleyel, a composer and music publisher who studied with Franz Joseph Haydn.
. 1867 ~ Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor and musical director. Famed for his temper in rehearsals, he was director of La Scala and the Metropolitan opera houses. He also conducted the NBC symphony orchestra. With a career spanned 68 years, he was a cellist at age 19
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. 1881 ~ Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer and pianist, born. His knowledge of western musical techniques allied to the inspiration he derived from Hungarian peasant songs enabled him to become a unique musical force.
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. 1903 ~ Grammy winner Frankie Carle (Carlone), Pianist and bandleader
. 1913 ~ The Palace Theatre opened its doors in New York City. Ed Wynn was first on the vaudeville bill. Some 20 years later, Wynn would be named as radio’s top entertainer. He later became popular on television, as well.
. 1918 ~ Debussy, French composer, died. His music, described as “musical Impressionism”, explored original avenues of expression.
. 1931 ~ Hal Kemp and his orchestra recorded Whistles, with Skinnay Ennis, for Brunswick Records. Both Kemp and Ennis sang in the Dorsey Brothers Concert Orchestra, under the direction of Dr. Eugene Ormandy (later, conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra). The pair were part of the orchestra vocal quartet that also featured Nye Mayhew and Saxey Dowell in 1928.
. 1934 ~ Johnny Burnette, ‘The Master’, singer, brother of singer Dorsey Burnette
. 1938 ~ Hoyt Axton, Singer, musician and songwriter. Axton’s mother, Mae Boren Axton, wrote Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel
. 1940 ~ Anita Bryant, Singer
. 1942 ~ Aretha Franklin, American soul singer, known as the “Queen of Soul” and “Lady Soul”, she won 15 Grammy Awards and was the first woman inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987)
. 1947 ~ Elton John (Reginald Kenneth Dwight). English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist who has had hits in the charts since 1970 with his first hit “Your Song”, Over the next 40 years he had a large number of hits with the last being in 2009 “Tiny Dancer (Hold Me Closer)” (Ironik featuring Elton John). Possibly his best known top ten singles over the 40 year period include “Rocket Man”, “Crocodile Rock”, “Daniel”, “Candle in the Wind”, “Bennie and the Jets”, “Pinball Wizard”, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (with Kiki Dee), “I’m Still Standing” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. It does not matter which generation you are from you have more than likely grown up listening to his music . Billboard magazine ranked him as the most successful male solo artist on “The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists” (Third overall, behind only The Beatles and Madonna). The awards he has gained during these years is also a testament to his music and include Academy Award, Golden Globe, Tony Award and multiple Grammys. From humble beginnings as a Pub Pianist to one of the music superstars of the modern era shows not only his talent but his commitment to his art.
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. 1948 ~ Kelly Garrett, Actress, singer
. 1949 ~ Neil Jones, Musician with Amen Corner
. 1951 ~ Maizie Williams, Singer with Boney M
. 1961 ~ “Gypsy” closed at the Broadway Theater in New York City after 702 performances
. 1966 ~ Jeff Healey, Guitarist, singer, songwriter with the Jeff Healey Band, CBC radio show: My Kind of Jazz
. 1971 ~ Tom Jones went gold with his single, She’s a Lady.
. 1971 ~ Louis Armstrong, the famous trumpet player, underwent a temporary tracheotomy after being admitted to a New York hospital. Armstrong had this throat operation after treatment for heart trouble.
. 1972 ~ The group, America, rode to the top of the pop music charts with their LP, America, and the single (included on the LP), A Horse with No Name. A Horse With No Name would be the group’s only gold record.
. 1991 ~ Eileen Joyce, pianist, died at the age of 78
. 1643 ~ Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian composer/organist, died at the age of 59
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. 1810 ~ Frédéric Chopin, Polish composer and pianist
Read quotes by and about Chopin
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. 1826 ~ John Thomas, Welsh composer and harpist
. 1904 ~ Glenn Miller, American trombonist and bandleader. Some of his memorable songs included In the Mood, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Tuxedo Junction, Moonlight Serenade and Pennsylvania 6-5000. The Glenn Miller Orchestra sound was a mix between jazz and swing and now more than 60 years later his music is unique and recognized by young and old the world over.
More information about Miller
. 1907 ~ Albert Clifton Ammons was born in Chicago, Illinois. He developed an interest in boogie-woogie and his 1936 recording of “Boogie Woogie Stomp” has been described as “the first 12-bar piano-based boogie-woogie.”
. 1922 ~ Michael Flanders, Songwriter, comedian with the duo: Flanders and [Donald] Swann, made humorous mockery of English and American failings, died in 1975
. 1927 ~ Harry Belafonte, American calypso and folk singer, UNICEF goodwill ambassador, father of Shari Belafonte
. 1928 ~ Paul Whiteman and his orchestra recorded Ol´ Man River for Victor Records. The featured vocalist on the track was 29-year-old Paul Robeson. The song became an American classic.
. 1930 ~ Benny Powell, Jazz musician, trombone with the Ernie Fields band, Lionel Hampton, a Count Basie veteran
. 1941 ~ FM Radio began in the U.S. when station W47NV in Nashville, TN started operations on this day. W47NV was the first commercial FM radio station to receive a license, some 20 years after its AM radio counterpart, KDKA in Pittsburgh. FM stands for ‘frequency modulation´ as opposed to ‘amplitude modulation´.
. 1941 ~ Downbeat magazine scooped the entertainment world with news that Glenn Miller’s renewed contract with Chesterfield Cigarettes was worth $4,850 a week (for three 15-minute programs).
. 1944 ~ Roger Daltrey, Singer with The Who
. 1968 ~ Country music stars Johnny Cash and June Carter got married on this day. Johnny walked down the aisle knowing that his 1956 hit, Folsom Prison Blues, was about to be redone for a June release. Cash has a daughter, Rosanne, (previous marriage) who became a country star in her own right in the 1980s.
. 1968 ~ Elton John’s first record, I’ve Been Loving You, was released by Philips Records in England. Philips, not realizing the potential of the soon-to-be superstar, released him in 1969, just prior to his teaming with lyricist Bernie Taupin. Elton then signed a contract with Uni Records and began to turn out what would become a string of more than 50 hits over the next 25 years.
. 1973 ~ The Robert Joffrey Dance Company opened with a unique presentation in New York City. The show featured music of the Beach Boys in “Deuce Coupe Ballet”. A clever show, even if it didn’t do much to bring the masses to ballet.
. 1985 ~ A Beatles song was used for the first time in a U.S. TV commercial. The rights for Lincoln-Mercury to use the song, HELP!, cost $100,000, helping boost the fortunes of the Ford Motor Company.
. 1985 ~ Eugene List, American concert pianist and teacher (Eastman School of Music), died at the age of 66. List performed internationally during the mid-to-late 1900s. He championed the works of the American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869). Gottschalk played this piece, with all its fanfares and flourishes reminiscent of an imaginary band concert, at all his concerts.
. 2003 ~ Nadine Conner, a soprano who performed for nearly two decades at the Metropolitan Opera after singing on national radio, died. She was 96. Conner debuted at the Met in 1941 as Pamina in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” conducted by Bruno Walter. She performed there 249 times over 18 seasons. She won acclaim not only for her Mozart roles, including Zerlina in “Don Giovanni” and Susanna in “The Marriage of Figaro,” but also for her portrayals of Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Mimi in Puccini’s “La Boheme,” Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” and Rosina in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” Conner began her career singing on national radio from Los Angeles, and appeared with such stars as Bing Crosby and Gordon MacRae and toured with film star Nelson Eddy. She joined a fledgling opera troupe in Los Angeles, making her debut as Marguerite in Gounod’s “Faust.” Her Met farewell, in 1960, also was in “Faust.”
. 1766 ~ Samuel Wesley, English organist and composer in the late Georgian period. Wesley was a contemporary of Mozart (1756–1791) and was called by some “the English Mozart.”
. 1771 ~ Johann Baptist Cramer, English musician of German origin. He was the son of Wilhelm Cramer, a famous London violinist and musical conductor, one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries.
. 1832 ~ Frederic Chopin’s first Paris concert. The musicologist Arthur Hedley has observed that “As a pianist Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances—few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime.”
. 1842 ~ Arrigo Boito, Italian composer, librettist and poet
. 1858 ~ Arnold Dolmetsch, British music antiquarian and musician
. 1932 ~ Michel Legrand, Academy Award-Winning composer for Best Original Score: Yentl in 1983, Brian’s Song, Ice Station Zebra
. 1934 ~ Renata Scotto, Italian soprano. She made her operatic debut at age 18 and is best known for performances as Violetta in La Traviata, Cio-Cio- San in Madama Butterfly, Mimi (and the occasional Musetta) in La Bohème, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Francesca in Francesca da Rimini. She is also an opera director.
. 1940 ~ Frances Langford recorded one of the classic songs of all time — and one that would become a Walt Disney trademark. When You Wish Upon a Star was recorded on Decca Records during a session in Los Angeles. Many artists have recorded the song, including pop diva Linda Ronstadt (with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in the early 1980s). One can hear the song not only on record, but as the theme in the opening credits of any Disney movie, video and TV program and those “I’m going to Disneyland/World!” commercials, too.
. 1942 ~ Paul Jones, Harmonica, singer with Manfred Mann
. 1943 ~ Stephen Douglas Burton, American composer and teacher
. 1947 ~ Lonnie Turner, Bass, singer with The Steve Miller Band
. 1964 ~ The musical, “What Makes Sammy Run”, opened in New York at the 54th Street Theatre. Making his Broadway debut in the show was Steve Lawrence. The production ran for 540 performances.
. 1985 ~ Yul Brynner reprised his role in “The King and I” setting a box office record for weekly receipts. The show took in $520,920.
. 1990 ~ Johnnie Ray died. He was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist.
. 1991 ~ Webb Pierce passed away. He was one of the most popular American honky tonk, rockabilly vocalists, guitarists of the 1950s
. 1994 ~ Donald Phillips, pianist/composer, died at the age of 80
. 1760 ~ Jan Ladislav Dussek, Czech composer and pianist. Along with his friend, famed piano maker John Broadwood, Dussek made important design improvements to the piano, allowing for the more dynamic style of playing that his highly original compositions required. Beethoven himself later used a Broadwood piano with Dussek’s innovations. This helped pave the way for Romanticism and Dussek’s influence on Beethoven’s piano writing has been well documented.
Dussek’s Piano Sonata Op. 77 in F minor (“L’invocation”), from 1812, is the last work he ever composed, and he saved the best for last. This is a neglected masterpiece that foreshadows Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms.
. 1881 ~ Anna (Pavlovna) Pavlova, Russia’s premier ballerina
. 1894 ~ Hans von Bülow, German pianist and composer died (b. 1830)
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. 1898 ~ Roy Harris, American composer
. 1904 ~ Ted Mack (William Maguiness), TV host of The Original Amateur Hour, The Ted Mack Family Hour
. 1914 ~ (Gordon) Tex Beneke, Bandleader, singer, tenor sax in the Glenn Miller Orchestra
, 1915 ~ Charles Emile Waldteufel, composer, died at the age of 77
. 1918 ~ All theatres in New York City were shut down in an effort to conserve coal.
. 1923 ~ Mel Powell, American jazz pianist and composer. One of his works is Mission to Moscow for Benny Goodman. He was also Dean of Music at California Institute of Arts.
. 1923 ~ Franco Zeffirelli, Italian director and producer of opera, theatre, film and television
. 1924 ~ Bandleader Paul Whiteman presented his unique symphonic jazz at the Aeolian Hall in New York City. The concert marked the first public performance of George Gershwin’sRhapsody in Blue. The composer, himself, was at the piano this night. Distinguished guests included John Philip Sousa and Jascha Heifetz.
. 1942 ~ Mildred Bailey recorded More Than You Know on Decca Records.
. 1948 ~ Joe Schermie, Bass with Three Dog Night
. 1949 ~ “Annie Get Your Gun” closed at the Imperial Theater in New York City after 1147 performances
. 1964 ~ The Beatles played two concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York City, concluding a very successful American tour.
. 1968 ~ Singer and famed guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, received an honorary high school diploma from Garfield High School in Seattle, WA, where he had dropped out at the age of 14.
. 1972 ~ Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together knocked American Pie out of the top spot on the music charts. The record stayed at the top for one week, before giving way to Nilsson’s Without You. Green returned to his gospel roots in 1980 and is a minister in Memphis, TN. Green recorded 14 hit songs with six of them making it to the Top 10.
. 1976 ~ Sal Mineo, singer, died
. 1983 ~ Eubie Blake, US ragtime-composer/pianist (Memories of You), died at the age of 96
. 2011 ~ Elizabeth “Betty” Garrett, American actress, comedian, singer and dancer (All in the Family), died of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 91
Joseph Lamb (1887 to 1960) was an extraordinarily gifted ragtime pianist and composer along with Scott Joplin and James Scott. He differed from them, though, because the art of improvisation completely baffled him. In response to this, Lamb viewed ragtime as an art form written on paper, instead of a spontaneous one. Though his style and approach were markedly different from his peers, he still left behind a rich legacy and remained one of the most influential ragtime composers.
Lehar
Franz Lehar, 1870 to 1948 was the son of a bandmaster serving principally in Hungary. He followed his father’s profession, before winning, in 1902, success in the theatre in Vienna, where he succeeded in the following years in reviving the operetta, providing music of greater distinction, with tenor arias written specifically for Richard Tauber.
The reputation of Franz Lehar as a composer of operetta is assured as he wrote nearly forty of them. Of these by the far the best known is Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), first staged in Vienna in 1905, the favourite operetta of Adolf Hitler.
Lennon
John Lennon, 1940 to 1980,was a pop star, composer, songwriter, and recording artist. He was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK. and was The Beatles rhythm guitarist, keyboard player, and vocalist, and a partner in the Lennon–McCartney song-writing team. He married Japanese artist Yoko Ono in 1969. On the birth of his son, Sean (born in 1975), he retired from music to become a house-husband. Five years later he recorded (Just Like) Starting Over, but he was shot and killed by a deranged fan just before its release. His death affected millions of people, record sales soared, and he continues to be admired by new generations of fans.
Lerner and Lowe
Alan Jay Lerner,
Playwright, born August 31, 1918, New York, New York; died June 14, 1986
Frederick Loewe,
Composer, born June 10, 1904, Vienna, Austria; died February 14, 1988
Frederick Loewe, an unheralded Vienna-born composer, and Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist-playwright son of the proprietors of an American chain of women’s clothing shops, with sketches and lyrics for two Harvard Hasty Pudding shows among his major credits, met by chance at New York’s Lambs Club in 1942. Had they not, Brigadoon would never have emerged from the mists of the Scottish Highlands to make the world feel “Almost Like Being in Love” . . . no one would have been there to “Paint Your Wagon” . . . My Fair Lady would still be a less than lyrical English girl from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion who couldn’t sing a note. . . we might never have thought to “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” like “Gigi” . . . and Camelot would most likely have stayed within the pages of Arthurian legend.
When the two, who were destined to enrich the American musical theater with some of its most poignant, rousing, and memorable lyrics, engaging books and powerful musical scores, had that chance meeting more than 50 years ago, neither was widely known. Loewe’s Great Lady had had a brief run on Broadway in 1938. Lerner had added radio scripts to his Hasty Pudding Club show credits. But later collaborations after one brief failure, What’s Up? (1943), and the moderately successful The Day Before Spring (1945), which ran five months on Broadway, made musical history.
Alan Jay Lerner was one of three sons of Joseph J. Lerner, who founded Lerner Stores, Inc. He was educated in England and at the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, before entering Harvard. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music during vacations from Harvard. After graduating in 1940 with a B.S. degree, he wrote advertising copy and radio scripts for such programs as the “Philco Hall of Fame.”
Frederick “Fritz” Loewe was the son of Edmund Loewe, an eminent operetta tenor. When he was two, Frederick accompanied his father on a tour of the United States. The youngster played piano at four and, at nine, composed the tunes for a music hall sketch in which his father toured Europe. At 15, he wrote “Katrina,” a popular song that sold 3,000,000 copies in Europe. He had begun his own concert career as soloist with some of Europe’s leading symphony orchestras at the age of 13 after having studied with the noted European musician Ferruccio Busoni and Eugene d’Albert. In 1923, young Loewe was awarded the Hollander Medal in Berlin and studied composition and orchestration with Nickolaus von Reznicek.
The following year, the younger Loewe accompanied his father to America. Since neither a concert he gave at New York’s Town Hall, nor a subsequent week’s engagement at the Rivoli Theater led to further concert engagements, he tried teaching music and playing at Greenwich Village night clubs. When music failed to earn him a living, he worked as a busboy in a cafeteria and as a riding instructor at a New Hampshire resort. He took up flyweight boxing and failed, then went West, cowpunching, gold mining, and carrying mail on horseback over the Montana mountains before returning to New York where he found work as a piano player. In 1935, Loewe’s song “Love tiptoes Through My Heart” was accepted for the musical Petticoat Fever. His own musical, Salute to Spring, was presented in St. Louis in 1937. The next year, his Great Lady reached Broadway, but ran for only 20 performances.
The first Lerner-Loewe collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor’s farce The Patsy for a Detroit stock company in 1942. They called it Life of the Party and it enjoyed a nine-week hit that encouraged them to continue with the musical comedy What’s Up? which opened on Broadway in 1943. Lerner wrote the book and lyrics with Arthur Pierson, and Loewe composed the music. It ran for 63 performances and was followed in 1945 by their The Day Before Spring.
It was when the curtain went up to the haunted strains of bagpipes on the night of March 13, 1947, and the mist-shrouded Scottish Highland village of Brigadoon first appeared, that the team of Lerner and Loewe also emerged as potentially legendary. The musical, which after its original 581 performances on Broadway, toured extensively and has been revived frequently, won the “best musical”award from the New York Drama Critics Circle the year it opened and was hailed as having “evoked magic on Broadway.”
Between Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon, the next team effort by Lerner and Loewe, Lerner wrote Love Life, with music by Kurt Weill, which was selected as one of the best plays of the 1948-49 Broadway season, plus the story, screenplay and lyrics for the films Royal Wedding and Brigadoon and the story and screenplay for An American in Paris, for which he won an Oscar in 1951.
Paint Your Wagon rolled in in 1951, and then, five years later, on March 15, 1956, My Fair Lady opened and became one of the most spectacular successes–artistic and financial–in the history of the American theater. Playing a record 2,717 performances on Broadway alone, it went on to break all other existing world records. This musicalization of Shaw’s classic Pygmalion was named “outstanding musical of the year” by the New York Drama Critics Circle–and by millions of theater goers.
Lerner and Loewe’s next collaboration was on the film adaptation of the Colette novel Gigi, another success filled with songs destined to become standard.
There was more collaborating to come–the film version of the Antoine de Saint-Exupery fable The Little Prince in 1972, but the 1960 Broadway hit Camelot which brought Arthurian England to life for its most shining hour, rang the curtain down on the phenomenon of Lerner and Loewe. Loewe, who had suffered a heart attack in 1958, went into retirement.
In tribute to his long time former partner, Lerner wrote, “There will never be another Fritz. . . . Writing will never again be as much fun . A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more than I understood or misunderstood him, and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me.”
Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022) was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “The Killer”, he was described as “rock ‘n’ roll’s first great wild man”.
Liadov
Anatol Konstantinovich Liadov lived from 1855 until 1914. He was the son of a conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, and was trained at the Conservatory, where he was briefly a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and later a member of the teaching staff. He was associated with Balakirev and subsequently became a member of Belyayev’s circle, helping, in particular, in the establishment of the publishing-house that Belyayev established for Russian composers.
He was a thoroughly competent musician, conductor and composer, but did not apply himself consistently to work. His failure to supply music for the Dyagilev ballet in Paris in 1910 allowed Stravinsky his first chance with the Ballets russes. His compositions are characteristic of the period in Russian nationalism, when nationalism was joined with technical competence inculcated at the Conservatories.
The best known orchestral compositions by Liadov are the descriptive Russian fairy-tale pieces Kikimora, Baba-Yaga and Volshebnoye ozero (The Enchanted Lake). His last orchestral work was the symphonic poem Skorbnaya pesn. All are very much in the nationalist tradition exemplified by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Liadov wrote a number of shorter piano pieces, including Fugues and a set of Canons, testimony to his contrapuntal ability. Other pieces have characteristic titles, examples of pleasing and well crafted compositions for which there was a ready market.
Liadov wrote a setting of the final scene of Schiller’s Die Braut von Messina (The Bride from Messina) for his Conservatory graduation. Of some 26 songs, eighteen are Children’s Songs.
Liberace
(Walter) (Wladziu Valentino) Liberace, American pianist and showman. Lee, as he was known, was the master of Las Vegas. Hundreds of thousands flock to his museum there (operated by his brother, George) to see Liberace’s garish suits, trademark candelabra, and learn of the myths behind this hugely successful star of television, stage and concerts the world over.
Ligeti
György Ligeti, a composer, was born in 1923 in Transylvania. He studied and later taught at the Budapest Academy of Music. After leaving Hungary in 1956, he worked at the electronics studio in Cologne, then settled in Vienna, where he developed an experimental approach to composition. His first large orchestral work, Apparitions (1958–9), made his name widely known. In Aventures (1962) he uses his own invented language of speech sounds. He has also written a choral requiem, a cello concerto, and music for harpsichord, organ, and wind and string ensembles.
Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti was born in Bucharest and lived from 1917 until 1950. He was a pianist and composer who studied in Paris with Cortot and Boulanger, and after World War 2 established an international reputation as a gifted pianist, especially in the works of Chopin. His compositions include a Symphonie concertante for two pianos and strings, and a concertino for piano and orchestra. His career was cut short when he died of a rare form of cancer.
Liszt
Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, near Doborján, October 22, 1811 and died in Bayreuth, July 31, 1886. He was a Hungarian composer and pianist who was a major influence during the romantic period. Liszt was an outstanding pianist at seven, composed at eight and made concert appearances at nine. In addition to being a piano virtuoso, he was also a critic, conductor, city music director, literary writer and transcriber of the works of other composers. He transcribed Beethoven’s Symphonies for the piano.
Franz Liszt began his career as the outstanding concert pianist of the century, who, along with the prodigious violinist Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), created the cult of the modern instrumental virtuoso. To show off his phenomenal and unprecedented technique, Liszt composed a great deal of music designed specifically for this purpose, resulting in a vast amount of piano literature laden with dazzling scales, trills, arpeggios, leaps, and other technical marvels. In this vein, Liszt composed a series of virtuosic rhapsodies on Hungarian gypsy melodies, the best-known being the all too familiar Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2. Liszt developed the rhapsody as a form of serious music. This kind of music is worlds apart from the generally more introspective, poetic music of pianist-composer Frédéric Chopin.
Liszt was wildly handsome and hugely talented. He was extremely popular in Paris during the 1830’s. It is said that women actually fainted at his piano recitals. He was the first to position the piano so that its lid reflected the sound and the audience could see his profile as he performed.
Liszt was the first to write a tone poem, which is an extended, single-movement work for orchestra, inspired by paintings, plays, poems or other literary or visual works, and attempting to convey the ideas expressed in those media through music. Such a work is Les Pruludes, based on a poem in which life is expressed as a series of struggles, passions, and mysteries, all serving as a mere prelude to . . .what? The Romantic genre of the symphonic poem, as well as its cousin the concert overture, became very attractive to many later composers, including Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss.
Lloyd Webber
British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the most successful composers of this era with hugely successful commercial hits such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Sunset Boulevard, Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Evita. Cats, the longest-running production in Broadway history, closed after 7,397 performances on June 25, 2000.
Locatelli
Pietro Antonio Locatelli lived from 1695 until 1764. He was born in Bergamo, later moving to Rome, where he might have studied with Corelli, but more probably was a pupil of Valentini. He was an Italian composer of sonatas and concerti, but he was best known as a virtuoso violinist playing mostly in Amsterdam where he settled in 1721. He won a reputation as a virtuoso, performing in Italy, in Bavaria and in Berlin. In 1729 he settled in Amsterdam, where he taught and conducted an amateur orchestra and was able to pursue his wider cultural interests.
Locatelli wrote a number of concerti grossi, following the example of Corelli. The first set, published in Amsterdam in 1720, include twelve fugues. L’arte del violino (The Art of the Violin), published in 1733, contains twelve violin concertos and 24 Caprices, precursors of Paganini’s famous set for unaccompanied violin. A further set of six concertos was published two years later and a set of six, published in 1744, is scored for four violins, two violas and basso continuo. Locatelli combines the Roman style of Corelli with, in his solo concertos, the virtuosity of Vivaldi in Venice.
In his Concerti grossi, works for string orchestra with a smaller group of soloists, Locatelli at first follows the pattern of Corelli, with one or two violas added to Corelli’s solo group of two violins, cello and harpsichord. There is also a Concerto grosso that includes a group of solo wind instruments, in addition to solo violin concertos. Some of these works have programmatic titles. His L’arte del violino (The Art of the Violin) includes 24 Caprices for unaccompanied violin, challenging works that have been regarded by some as foreshadowing the Caprices of Paganini in the following century. Locatelli also published sets of trio sonatas and solo sonatas, including a set of the latter for flute and basso continuo.
Loewe
Frederick “Fritz” Loewe lived from 1904 until 1988. He was a composer, born in Vienna, Austria and at age 13 he was the youngest pianist to solo with the Berlin Symphony. At age 15 he composed Katrina (1919), which sold two million copies of sheet music in Europe. Although he had studied with great European masters of the piano, when he came to the U.S.A. in 1924 he failed as a piano virtuoso. He took up a series of odd jobs–prospecting for gold, professional boxing–but by the mid-1930s he had launched his career as a composer for the musical theater. Not until he teamed up with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner in 1942, however, did he find his true talent; their first big success was Brigadoon (1947) and this was followed by such classic stage and film musical scores as My Fair Lady (1956), Gigi (1958), and Camelot (1960). This last led to their falling-out and they did not collaborate again until in 1973 when they made a stage version of their film musical, Gigi. Their last collaboration was The Little Prince (1974), after which Loewe retired.
If ever I would leave you from Camelot won him a Grammy Award.
Lully
Jean Baptiste Lully lived from about 1632 until 1687 and was considered to be a baroque composer. He was an Italian-born French court composer who molded Italian opera music to suit the French text. He was the first to compose French overtures, which served as model for subsequent composers, especially J. S. Bach. He changed his name from the Italian Giovanni Battista Lulli when he became a French citizen.
Lully was conducting a Te Deum to celebrate Louis XIV’s recovery from illness. He was banging loudly on the floor with a staff when he struck his foot with such force that it developed an abscess, from which the unfortunate Lully died shortly after.
Lunceford
James Melvin Lunceford was born. June 6, 1902, Fulton, Miss., U.S. and died on July 12, 1947, Seaside, Ore. He was an American jazz dance-band leader whose rhythmically appealing, well-disciplined orchestra performed arrangements by trumpeter Sy Oliver and others to popular acclaim from 1934 to 1945 and influenced both swing and post-World War II dance bands.
Lunceford, during his youth, acquired proficiency on all reed instruments, but he seldom played with his band because he preferred to conduct. He taught and organized a student orchestra in a Memphis, Tenn., high school before beginning his professional career as a bandleader in 1929. Practiced showmanship, precise ensembles, and a medium two-beat swing tempo rather than exciting soloists were the Lunceford band’s trademarks. The band’s most popular songs included Organ Grinder’s Swing (1936) and For Dancers Only (1937). The Lunceford band was considered to be on a par with bands led by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman during the 1930s, and in 1940 the ensemble won a celebrated “battle of the bands” from a field of 28 groups, among them Basie’s, Goodman’s, and Glenn Miller‘s. Arranger Oliver left Lunceford in 1939, and by 1942 the band’s popularity had declined. Following Lunceford’s death while on tour, pianist Edwin Wilcox and saxophonist Joe Thomas led the band for several years.
Lutoslawski
Witold Lutoslawski lived from 1913 until 1994. He was born and studied in Warsaw, winning a distinguished international reputation particularly from the 1950s onwards, a leading composer among a group of creative artists of outstanding ability, remarkable in his handling of forms and textures of great originality.
The genius of Lutoslawski was early evident in his 1938 Symphonic Variations. The years after the war brought a return to more conventional national modes of composition, heard in his Little Suite and Concerto for Orchestra. Later works have allowed a more experimental approach on a broader palette, to be heard in his Funeral Music of 1958, his Second Symphony and the Prelude and Fugue for thirteen string instruments.
Characteristic works for voice and orchestra include Paroles tissées for tenor and chamber orchestra, and Three Poems by Henri Michaux for twenty voices and orchestra.
Sammy Cahn (Samuel Cohen) lived from 1913 until 1993. If you care about anything at all, there’s a song written by Sammy Cahn for you to relate to. Sammy Cahn, the Tin Pan Alley legend, was born Samuel Cohen in New York City.
As a youngster, little Sammy wanted to grow up to be a famous vaudeville fiddler. How lucky we are that he stopped thinking about this in his teenage years. That’s when he met pianist, Saul Chaplin. Sammy wrote the words and Saul wrote the music to their first hit, Rhythm is Our Business for bandleader, Jimmie Lunceford. Then Until the Real Thing Comes Along for Andy Kirk and the jazz classic, Shoe Shine Boy, performed by Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, the Mills Brothers, even Bing Crosby. The Andrews Sisters were lucky to know Sammy, too. It was his adaptation of the Yiddish song, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön that became their signature.
Frank Sinatra’s many signature titles were Sammy Cahn’s words, too (with Jimmy Van Heusen’s music): All the Way (won an Oscar in 1957), My Kind of Town, and Grammy Award-winning September of My Years. As part of the personal song-writing team for Mr. Sinatra, Sammy also wrote Love and Marriage, The Second Time Around, High Hopes (another Oscar winner in 1959) and The Tender Trap.
If you still haven’t found a song that makes you care, try these additional Oscar winners by Sammy Cahn: Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and Call Me Irresponsible (1963). He composed 22 other songs that were nominated but didn’t win the gold statue!
Want to know more? Pick up the autobiography of the talented Sammy Cahn, written in 1974, I Should Care.
Cage
John (Milton) Cage lived from 1912 until 1992. He was an American composer who was born in Los Angeles, California, USA. He studied with a number of teachers including Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, who helped provoke his avant-garde proclivities. He began writing all-percussion pieces in the 1930s and proclaimed the use of noise as the next musical horizon; in 1938 he introduced the “prepared piano,” an instrument whose sound is radically modified by various objects placed on the strings. While writing much for prepared piano in the 1940s, notably the Sonatas and Interludes, he also produced some pioneering electronic music. Among the most widely influential elements of his thought was the idea of indeterminacy, music that is not strictly controlled, as seen in his 1951 Landscape No. 4 for twelve radios – the sound of which depends on what happens to be on the air. Later works, especially the notorious 4’33” (1954), involve complete silence. He continued to develop such concepts and he also produced several quirky, engaging books beginning with the 1961 Silence. In his later years he was widely acclaimed as one of the more original of American artists.
Caruso
Enrico Caruso was a tenor opera singer who lived from 1873 until 1921. His best known roles are Canio in Pagliacci, Rodolfo in La Bohème. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Rigoletto. He sang nearly 70 roles and appeared in nearly every country of Europe and North and South America. His final performance was La Juive at the Met in 1920.
Carissimi
Giacomo Carissimi lived from 1604 until 1674. He is considered to be one of the greatest Italian composers of the 17th century, notable for his oratorios and secular cantatas.
Cash
John R. Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark., one of seven children. When he was 12, his 14-year-old brother and hero, Jack, died after an accident while sawing oak trees into fence posts. The tragedy had a lasting impact on Cash, and he later pointed to it as a possible reason his music was frequently melancholy.
He worked as a custodian and enlisted in the Air Force, learning guitar while stationed in Germany, before launching his music career after his 1954 discharge.
“All through the Air Force, I was so lonely for those three years,” Cash told The Associated Press during a 1996 interview. “If I couldn’t have sung all those old country songs, I don’t think I could have made it.”
Cash launched his career in Memphis, performing on radio station KWEM. He auditioned with Sun Records, ultimately recording the single Hey Porter, which became a hit.
Sun Records also launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and others.
Folsom Prison Blues, went to No. 4 on the country charts in 1956, and featured Cash’s most famous couplet: “I shot a man in Reno/ just to watch him die.”
Cash recorded theme albums celebrating the railroads and the Old West, and decrying the mistreatment of American Indians. Two of his most popular albums were recorded live at prisons. Along the way he notched 14 No. 1 country music hits.
Because of Cash’s frequent performances in prisons and his rowdy lifestyle early in his career, many people wrongly thought he had served prison time. He never did, though he battled addictions to pills on and off throughout his life.
He blamed fame for his vulnerability to drug addiction.
“When I was a kid, I always knew I’d sing on the radio someday. I never thought about fame until it started happening to me,” he said in 1988. “Then it was hard to handle. That’s why I turned to pills.”
He credited June Carter Cash, whom he married in 1968, with helping him stay off drugs, though he had several relapses over the years and was treated at the Betty Ford Center in California in 1984.
June Carter Cash was the daughter of country music great Mother Maybelle Carter, and the mother of singer Carlene Carter, whose father was country singer Carl Smith. Together, June Carter and Cash had one child, John Carter Cash. He is a musician and producer.
Singer Roseanne Cash is Johnny Cash’s daughter from his first marriage, to Vivian Liberto. Their other three children were Kathleen, Cindy and Tara. They divorced in 1966.
In March 1998, Cash made headlines when his California-based record company, American Recordings, took out an advertisement in the music trade magazine Billboard. The full-page ad celebrated Cash’s 1998 Grammy award for best country album for “Unchained.” The ad showed an enraged-looking Cash in his younger years making an obscene gesture to sarcastically illustrate his thanks to country radio stations and “the country music establishment in Nashville,” which he felt had unfairly cast him aside.
Jennings, a close friend, once said of Cash: “He’s been like a brother to me. He’s one of the greatest people in the world.”
Cash once credited his mother, Carrie Rivers Cash, with encouraging him to pursue a singing career.
“My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You’ll be singing for the world someday.”
Dozens of hit records like Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Sunday Morning Coming Down defined Cash’s persona: a haunted, dignified, resilient spokesman for the working man and downtrodden.
Cash’s deeply lined face fit well with his unsteady voice, which was limited in range but used to great effect to sing about prisoners, heartaches, and tales of everyday life. He wrote much of his own material, and was among the first to record the songs of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson.
One Piece at a Time was about an assembly line worker who built a car out of parts stolen from his factory. A Boy Named Sue was a comical story of a father who gives his son a girl’s name to make him tough. The Ballad of Ira Hayes told of the drunken death of an American Indian soldier who helped raise the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, but returned to harsh racism in America.
Cash said in his 1997 autobiography “Cash” that he tried to speak for “voices that were ignored or even suppressed in the entertainment media, not to mention the political and educational establishments.”
Cash’s career spanned generations, with each finding something of value in his simple records, many of which used his trademark rockabilly rhythm.
Cash was a peer of Elvis Presley when rock ‘n’ roll was born in Memphis in the 1950s, and he scored hits like Cry! Cry! Cry! during that era. He had a longtime friendship and recorded with Dylan, who has cited Cash as a major influence.
He won 11 Grammys – most recently in 2003, when Give My Love To Rose earned him honors as best male country vocal performance – and numerous Country Music Association awards. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
His second wife, June Carter Cash, and daughter Roseanne Cash also were successful singers. June Carter Cash, who co-wrote Cash’s hit Ring of Fire and partnered with her husband in hits such as Jackson, died in May 2003.
The late 1960s and ’70s were Cash’s peak commercial years, and he was host of his own ABC variety show from 1969-71. In later years, he was part of the Highwayman supergroup with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.
In the 1990s, he found a new artistic life recording with rap and hard rock producer Rick Rubin on the label American Recordings. And he was back on the charts with the 2002 album “American IV: The Man Comes Around.”
Most recently, Cash was recognized for his cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt with seven nominations at the August 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. He had hoped to attend the event but couldn’t because of his hospital stay. The video won for best cinematography.
He also wrote books including two autobiographies, and acted in films and television shows.
In his 1971 hit Man in Black, Cash said his black clothing symbolized the downtrodden people in the world. Cash had been “The Man in Black” since he joined the Grand Ole Opry at age 25.
“Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkle clothes and cowboy boots,” he said in 1986. “I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I’ve worn black clothes ever since.”
Johnny Cash, ‘”The Man in Black” who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and A Boy Named Sue, died Friday, September 12, 2003. He was 71.
“Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.”
Cash had battled a disease of the nervous system, autonomic neuropathy, and pneumonia in recent years. Cash lived in Hendersonville, Tenn., just outside of Nashville. He also had a home in Jamaica.
Cesti
Marc Antonio Cesti, 1623 to 1669, was an Italian composer working in Venice, Rome and Vienna. He reputedly wrote over one hundred operas of which 15 are extant.
Charles
Ray Charles (Robinson) is a singer, pianist, composer who was born in Albany, Ga in 1930. He lost his sight (from glaucoma) when he was six and attended a school for the blind where he learned to read and write music in braille and play piano and organ. Orphaned at age 15, he left school and began playing music to earn a living, moving to Seattle, Wash., in 1947. Dropping his last name, he performed at clubs in the smooth lounge-swing style of Nat “King” Cole. After some hits on Swing Time Records, he switched to Atlantic Records in 1952 and began to develop a rougher blues and gospel style. For New Orleans bluesman, Guitar Slim, he arranged and played piano on “The Things I Used To Do” (1953); the record sold a million copies. He went on to record his own “I’ve Got a Woman” in 1955 with an arrangement of horns, gospel-style piano, and impassioned vocals that led to the gospel-pop and soul music of the 1960s and to his hit “What’d I Say” (1959). Possessing a multifaceted talent, he recorded with jazz vibist Milt Jackson, made a country and western album that sold 3 million copies (1962), and continued to release a variety of pop hits, Broadway standards, and blues, gospel, and jazz albums. A major influence on popular black music during his early years, he gradually reached out to influence both white musicians and audiences. And although he had been convicted of using drugs in the 1950s, he lived to see the day when he was so acceptable to mainstream Americans that he became virtually the chief image for promoting Pepsi-Cola and he was asked to perform at many national patriotic and political events.
Charpentier
Marc Antoine Charpentier, 1636 to 1704, was a French composer who studied in Italy. When he returned to France he became the most outstanding French composer of oratorios.
Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini lived from 1760 until 1842. The Italian composer Cherubini came to occupy a dominant position in French musical life. He was employed at the Conservatoire in Paris on its foundation and from 1822 was director of the institution, retaining this position until the year of his death. His works include compositions for the stage, the church and for political purposes, a requirement of the turbulent revolutionary years.
Cherubini wrote some 30 operas and of these Les deux journées, now seldom heard, had influence on Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. The opera Médée, first staged in Paris in 1797, remains in occasional repertoire, with the aria Ah, nos peines, providing a popular soprano operatic recital item.
Chopin
Step into the melodious world of Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), the Polish maestro who danced his fingers across the piano keys, creating ripples in the Romantic era. Renowned globally as a virtuoso pianist and composer, Chopin dedicated his life to the ivory keys, weaving compositions that spoke a poetic language, unmatched in technique and emotional depth.
Born in the quaint village of Żelazowa Wola, in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, Chopin grew up under the artistic skyline of Warsaw. As Congress Poland unfolded its wings, so did Chopin’s prodigious talent. By the tender age of 20, having already mastered his art in Warsaw, he embarked on a journey just before the November 1830 Uprising broke out, a journey that would take him to the heart of Paris at 21.
Parisian life saw Chopin shine not in grand concert halls, but in the intimate embrace of salons, where his music found a home. In these salons, he enchanted a select few with 30 public performances, sustaining his life through the sale of his compositions and highly sought-after piano lessons. Among his admirers and friends was the legendary Franz Liszt, alongside other contemporaries like Robert Schumann, who were spellbound by his musical prowess.
Chopin’s life, however, was a nocturne shadowed by the relentless pursuit of tuberculosis, which ultimately claimed him on October 17, 1849. For 11 years, he battled the disease, pouring his soul into his music.
The essence of Chopin’s music is a beautiful paradox – it’s an intricate blend of lyrical romanticism, the rustic charm of Polish folk tunes, and awe-inspiring technical virtuosity. His legacy lives on in the dreamy realms of his nocturnes, the precision of his études, and the rhythmic grace of his waltzes. Transcending the barriers of piano, his compositions have found new life in various instruments and have gracefully waltzed into films, television shows, and commercials.
Chopin’s melodies are not just notes strung together; they are a testament to his undying love for Poland and his genius, resonating through time and continuing to stir the hearts of audiences worldwide. In Chopin’s music, we find an eternal resonance that speaks of passion, homeland, and the unquenchable spirit of creativity.
Christoff
Boris Christoff lived from 1914 until 1993. He was a bass-baritone who was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He studied law in Sofia, then studied singing in Rome and Salzburg. His debut recital was in Rome in 1946. He sang at La Scala in Milan in 1947, at Covent Garden in 1949, and from 1956 in the USA.
Clementi
Muzio Clementi lived from 1752 until 1832. He was a composer and pianist who born in Rome. In 1766 he was brought to England, where he conducted the Italian Opera in London (1777–80), toured as a virtuoso pianist (1781), and went into the piano-manufacturing business. He wrote the Gradus ad Parnassum from 1817 to 1826, a piano method on which subsequent piano methods have been based. He composed mainly piano and chamber music.
Coates
Eric Coates lived from 1886 until 1957 and was the greatest British composer of light music in the 20th century, though his education never looked to be leading him in that direction. He was born in the midlands of England, in the county of Nottinghamshire, in 1886. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, taking viola with the legendary Lionel Tertis, and composition with Frederick Corder. But it was as a violist that he earned his living, joining the famous Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood. From 1913 to 1919 he was principal viola, and a list of first British performances by that orchestra would indicate that he came into contact with all the most avant garde music of his day. Yet it was to be in the field of light music that he was to become famous.
It was the time of the radio, the BBC Light Programme with its demands for new music, and the need to brighten the country after the First World War, and above all it was the day of the ‘bright young thing’. It was the perfect scene for a composer who could produce a seemingly endless stream of easily memorable melodies. A publishing house commissioned him to write a major light music work for orchestra each year, while they were happy to take anything from him including his large output of songs.
Orchestras demanded that he conduct his own music with them, and he started a second career as a conductor of light music including many appearances with the BBC Theatre Orchestra. His music spoke to all generations, from those looking for nostalgia, to the very young, with his phantasies, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘The Three Bears’. He produced one major success after another, his music in the war years valuable to the morale of the nation, and included the stirring march for the Eighth Army to mark their Alamein victory in 1942 under General Montgomery.
Though he continued conducting his own music after the war, including definitive recordings of much of his output, his compositional career seemingly burned out. Then in a sudden flurry of activity he produced a number of fine works in his last years. That period included the Dambusters March for the film on that theme, the first time he succumbed to the many film music offers made to him.
He had so many successes, and his music became known to just about everyone in the UK, that it was thought he had a considerable output, but apart from his songs, it numbered less than fifty. Without doubt it was his training in classical music, and the years in the orchestra, that enabled him to write so fluently and so colourfully.
Sleepy Lagoon dates from 1930, but was not a huge success until an American dance orchestra turned it into a slow foxtrot. That led to the work being chosen for the opening music to the longest running radio show, Desert Island Discs, which started in 1948 and is still broadcast 50 years later. It remains probably the best known melody in the UK.
Two years later, among a number of short pieces written at this time, comes the very relaxed, Lazy Nights. Springtime Suite dates from 1937, and though its three movements never quite achieved the success of his other suites, it is one of his most skilfully constructed works. The previous year Coates met a commission from a virtuoso saxophonist for a new work. The brilliant Saxo-Rhapsody was the result. Composed in less than a month, its jaunty and jolly atmosphere so perfectly captured the nature of the instrument, while providing the soloist with a piece of unabashed showmanship.
The waltz was still the ballroom favourite, and Coates provided a number of such works, though truth to tell, they were more often played as an orchestral work than for dancing. Footlights dates from 1939, the same year that saw the little orchestral romance, Last Love.
Four Ways Suite dates from 1925, Coates looking in four directions, north, south, east and west. The north is represented by Scotland; the second movement has a distinct Italian flavour; China is the east, and flying in the face of the mood among British musicians at that time, it is jazz for the West. The disc ends with Coates’ last composition, High Flight, intended for a Warwick film of 1957.
Cohan
George M. (Michael) Cohan was an actor, singer, composer os songs such as Over There, The Yankee Doodle Boy, Give My Regards to Broadway, Mary’s a Grand Old Name, You’re a Grand Old Flag and Harrigan. He was the subject of movie called Yankee Doodle Dandy, as well as a Broadway show named George M!
There is a statue of George M. Cohan in New York.
Cole
Nat King Cole lived from 1917 until 1965. He was born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Chicago. Cole was a jazz pianist, singer, bandleader,for the King Cole Trio, a songwriter who wrote Straighten Up and Fly Right, an actor in St. Louis Blues, the first black entertainer to host a national TV show and the father of singer Natalie Cole.
His daughter, Natalie, became a pop music star with many hits in the 1990s – including an album of standards made popular by her father: “Mona Lisa”, “For Sentimental Reasons”, “Nature Boy”, “Too Young” and “Unforgettable”. With modern recording technology, she was able to record a duet with her father’s voice.
His first recording was in 1936. Although Cole’s commercial success as a pop artist was phenomenal, it unfortunately came with the sacrifice of his exemplary and extremely influential talents as a jazz pianist. Before he turned full-time to singing, he had already influenced the likes of Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, and Ray Charles with his intricate and innovative piano style and piano/guitar/bass lineup.
Cole’s songs included: Mona Lisa, Too Young, Unforgettable, Pretend, Ballerina, Ramblin’ Rose and The Christmas Song Cole passed away Feb 15, 1965 and was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1990.
Coleman, Cy
Born Seymour Kaufman of immigrant East European Jewish parents in the Bronx, Coleman’s first major hit was Wildcat, the 1960 musical about wildcat oil drilling that starred Lucille Ball (news) and featured the classic Hey Look Me Over. His later hits included City of Angels and Barnum.
Coleman was a self-taught jazz pianist whose career started at the age of 7 when he played a recital at Carnegie Hall.
Songs such as Witchcraft and The Best is Yet to Come were made popular by Sinatra, while another longtime collaborator was screenwriter and lyricist Adolph Green, best known for 1950s classic Singin’ in the Rain.
Coleman also worked closely with Shirley MacLaine, conceiving and co-writing her television special If My Friends Could See Me Now and creating the musical Gypsy in My Soul in 1976 that won Emmy awards for both Coleman and MacLaine.
He won three Tony Awards (news – web sites) as well as several Grammys and Emmys and an Oscar nomination for the music for the 1969 film Sweet Charity. which also starred MacLaine.
Coleman, Ornette
Ornette Coleman is a jazz musician, saxophonist and composer. He was born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas. His experiments in free-form improvisation sharply divided the jazz establishment upon his emergence in 1959. Largely self-taught, he played in rhythm-and-blues bands before settling in Los Angeles in 1951, where he gradually formed a quartet of musicians who were receptive to his unorthodox ideas. He first recorded in 1958 and made his New York debut the following year. He made a series of important recordings between 1959 and 1961 that shaped the direction of jazz for the next twenty years. A sporadic performing artist after the early 1960s, he occasionally led both a conventional jazz quartet and the rock band Prime Time, but turned increasingly to composition, producing several works for symphony orchestra in accordance with his “harmolodic theory.”
Copland
Aaron Copland lived between 1900 and 1990. He is considered to be a twentieth century composer.
Copland often used American folk music in his ballets, such as “Appalachian Spring”, which won a Pulitzer Prize.
Copland also wrote background music for movies and a ballet based on the story of Billy the Kid. He often used American themes in an expressive modern style, sometimes employing jazz rhythms.
Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli lived from 1653 until 1713. His contributions to the development of European music are the foundations of violin technique and creating the basic style for concerti grossi.
He spent most of his life in Rome, under the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Ottobani.
Couperin
François Couperin lived from 1668 until 1733. He was part of a famous French musical family and is most well-known for his harpsichord music.
Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell lived from 1897 until 1965. He was a composer who was born in Menlo Park, California. Cowell was largely self-taught as pianist and composer. In his teens he gravitated to radical musical experiments including his trademark use of tone-cluster harmony. From the 1920s he pursued an international career as composer, concert promoter, and pianist, specializing in his own and others’ “ultra-modern” music; he also taught and wrote books including the 1919 New Musical Resources, and in 1927 founded the historic New Music Quarterly. In his own music, progressive ideas appear alongside traditional material; his works include 20 symphonies.
Cristofori
Bartolommeo Cristofori (1655) Italian instrument maker, credited with designing the first pianoforte, which he called “the harpsichord that plays soft and loud”.
Cruger
Johann Cruger lived from 1598 until 1662. His Now Thank We All our God was harmonized by Felix Mendelssohn.
Cugat
Xavier Cugat lived from 1900 until 1990. He was a violinist and bandleader who was born in Barcelona, Spain and raised in Cuba. He first became popular in the United States in the 1920s with his tango orchestra; in the 1930s he introduced other Latin dance rhythms including the Cuban rumba. In the 1940s he appeared in many musical films, such as You Were Never Lovelier (1942). He promoted the popularity of Latin music in the United States.
Czerny
Carl Czerny was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works. His books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching.
Czerny is in the center top of this image. He influenced many!
• 1726 ~ The first performance of J. S. Bach‘s Sacred Cantata No. 55 Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht on the 22nd Sunday following Trinity. Was part of Bach’s third annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig 1725-27
• 1848 ~ Frederic Chopin played his final piano concert at a Polish benefit ball at Guildhall in London.
• 1850 ~ Giuseppe Verdi‘s opera Stifellio was first performed at the Teatro Grande in Trieste despite difficulties with the censors which resulted in cuts and changes.
• 1861 ~ First Performance of Johannes Brahms‘ Piano Quintet No. 1 in g, Op. 25, at a rehearsal in Hamburg, with pianist Clara Schumann.
• 1862 ~ The work noted above received its official premiere with members of the Hellmesberger Quartet; Brahms at the piano, in Vienna.
• 1877 ~ The first production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera, The Sorcerer, was presented, in London.
• 1888~ The first production of Tchaikovsky‘s Fifth Symphony in St. Petersburg.
• 1891 ~ Poland’s premier and premier ivory tickler, Ignace Jan Paderewski, made his American debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In later years, Paderewski, who suffered from arthritis, settled in Paso Robles, CA. The hot mineral baths located there eased his pain. He played only Steinway grand pianos custom-built to his specifications. In fact, five were made just for his use.
• 1925 ~ Sir Charles Mackerras, Australian conductor
• 1930 ~ David Amram, American composer and French-horn player
• 1938 ~ Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folk singer, songwriter and guitarist
• 1938 ~ Orchestra leader Kay Kyser, speaking to an audience at the College of the City of New York (CCNY) told of the “inner workings and artistic features of swing music.” It marked the first of a series of lectures on swing music presented by Kyser, who went on to present The Kollege of Musical Knowledge on radio.
• 1941 ~ Gene Clark, Singer, guitar with The Byrds
• 1942 ~ Bob Gaudio, Singer with The Royal Teens; The Four Seasons
• 1946 ~ Martin Barre, Guitarist with Jethro Tull
• 1950 ~ Roberta Peters filled in for the lead in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, making her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She would become one of the Met’s most famous stars.
• 1959 ~ Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer/pianist/conductor, died at the age of 72
• 1962 ~ The 4 Seasons, with Frankie Valli as lead singer, began a five-week run at the top of the tunedex with Big Girls Don’t Cry.
• 1967 ~ Ronald DeVoe, Singer with New Edition
• 1970 ~ Elton John recorded an album live, on what was WABC-FM in New York City. It marked the first time that a concert was aired live and recorded for release as aired. The LP was titled, 11/17/70.
• 1981 ~ Bob Eberly died
• 2001 ~ Jerry Jerome, a tenor sax player who was a featured soloist with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, died of leukemia. He was 89. One of the big names in the Big Band era, Jerome was a featured soloist with the Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Red Norvo and Artie Shaw orchestras. He then became a successful musical director and conductor on radio and television. Jerome also established a music business, scoring and arranging commercial jingles. Three years ago, Arbors Records released Jerome’s “Something Old, Something New.” The sequel recording, “Something Borrowed, Something Blue,” will be released in December. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Jerome started playing the sax while in high school. He attended the University of Alabama and went on the medical school, playing gigs at jazz clubs to earn tuition money. He joined Goodman’s orchestra at the height of its popularity in 1938. When Goodman broke up his band in 1940, Jerome joined Shaw. While with Shaw, he appeared in the film “Second Chorus,” with Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith.
• 2003 ~ Arthur Conley, a 1960s soul singer and protege of Otis Redding’s, died at his home in the town of Ruurlo, in the eastern Netherlands. He was 57. Conley was born in Atlanta and started his recording career in 1959 as leader of the group Arthur and the Corvets. He was best known for his 1967 hit, Sweet Soul Music, which he co-wrote with Redding based on a number by Sam Cooke. Conley had several minor hits in the following two years. He moved to Europe in the early 1970s after several tours of the continent, deciding that he was “fed up with the pressure” in the United States, said Giesen. In the Netherlands, Conley appeared on television and radio, and ran an independent record label. In the last five years he was an adviser to The Original Sixties R&B and Soul Show, which sought to reproduce the sound and look of the heyday of soul.
• 2018 ~ Cyril Pahinui, a nationally recognized Hawaiian guitarist and singer who preserved and extended the tradition of slack-key guitar, died at the age of 68
Grammy winner
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