Songs from what came to be known as the Great American Songbook, have been part of jazz perhaps since The Original Dixieland Jazz Band began recording Irving Berlin compositions. In the 1940s, singer Lee Wiley recorded several collections of 78s, known as “albums” – a name that stuck into the LP era, focused on the […]
Ella Fitzgerald
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Jazz at 100 Hour 45: Norman Granz and Verve Records
Ella and Louis In July 2, 1944, Norman Granz, a jazz fan and small-time LA promoter staged a concert in the Philharmonic Auditorium with $300 of borrowed money. His “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts were hugely successful and became tours that ran until 1957. These tours and the record labels they spawned – Clef, Norgran […]
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Jazz at 100 / The Jazz Messenger – The Porgy and Bess Show
Tags: Archie Shepp, Arkestra, Ben Webster, Bill Evans, Bill Frisell, Billie Holiday, Branford Marsalis, Cab Calloway, Coleman Hawkins, DuBose Heyward, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Free Bridge Quintet, George Gershwin, Gerald Wilson, Gil Evans, Herbie Hancock, Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Smith, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Johnny Hartman, Joni Mitchell, Kurt Elling, Louis Armstrong, Mal Waldron, Mel Torme, Miles Davis, New Vision Sax Ensemble, Nina Simone, Patricia Barber, Porgy & Bess, Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny Rollins, Sun RaCab Calloway as Sportin’ Life In the mid-1930’s, George Gershwin acquired the rights to the play Porgy by DuBose Heyward, based on his own novel of 1925. Gershwin’s great American opera, Porgy and Bess debuted in 1935 with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. For some period of time, the themes of domestic violence, […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 16: Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald
Billie Holiday began recording at 18 years old in 1933 in a session with Benny Goodman and was musically active until her death at 44 in 1959. Ella Fitzgerald also began recording at 18 (in 1935 as the singer with Chick Webb), but in her case, her career surged again in the mid-1950’s with the […]