Birdland may refer to:
Charles Parker Jr., nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. He was a virtuoso and introduced revolutionary rhythmic and harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Parker was primarily a player of the alto saxophone.
Chubby Checker is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song "The Twist", and the pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song "Pony Time". His biggest UK hit, "Let's Twist Again", was released one year later ; that year, he also popularized the song "Limbo Rock", originally a previous-year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics, and its trademark Limbo dance, as well as other dance styles such as The Fly. In September 2008, "The Twist" topped Billboard's list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained in an August 2013 update of the list.
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer Alphonse Mouzon as well as American percussionists Don Alias and Barbara Burton. The band was initially co-led by Zawinul and Shorter but as the 1970s progressed, Zawinul became the primary composer and creative director of the group. Other prominent members throughout the band’s history included bassists Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson and Victor Bailey, drummers Chester Thompson and Peter Erskine, and percussionists Airto Moreira and Alex Acuña. A quintet of Zawinul & Shorter with a bassist, a drummer and a percussionist was the standard formation for Weather Report.
Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s.
Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time. Songs included in major fake book publications and jazz reference works offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards.
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian jazz and jazz fusion keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with Miles Davis and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, a musical genre that combined jazz with rock. He co-founded the groups Weather Report and The Zawinul Syndicate. He pioneered the use of electric piano and synthesizer, and was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" twenty-eight times by the readers of DownBeat magazine.
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš is a Czech jazz bassist. He is known as a founding member of the ensemble Weather Report, and for working as a bandleader and alongside Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette and others.
8:30 is the second live album from the jazz fusion group Weather Report, issued in 1979 by ARC/Columbia Records. The album rose to No. 3 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart and No. 47 on the Billboard 200 chart. 8:30 also won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.
Heavy Weather is the seventh album by Weather Report, released in 1977 through Columbia Records. By 1991, the release had sold 1,000,000 copies in America alone; it would prove to be the band's most commercially successful album and one of the best sellers in the Columbia jazz catalog. DownBeat magazine gave Heavy Weather a 5-star review, and later its readers voted it jazz album of the year.
Weather Report is the tenth studio album by the American jazz fusion band Weather Report, released in January 1982; there was some confusion among consumers and retailers upon its release as the band's first album (1971) was also self-titled. It is the final album featuring bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius and drummer Peter Erskine in the rhythm section.
Procession is the eleventh studio album by the jazz fusion band Weather Report. It was released in 1983 through Columbia Records. Although several previous Weather Report tracks included wordless singing, and "And Then" from Mr. Gone included brief lyrics, "Where the Moon Goes" was the band's first track including lyrics throughout, sung by members of the Manhattan Transfer. The band would continue to feature vocals on the next three studio albums.
Domino Theory is the twelfth studio album by jazz fusion band Weather Report, released in April 1984. It is the second studio album to feature the Hakim-Bailey-Rossy rhythm section. The album contains seven tracks, three of which were recorded live.
"Birdland" is a jazz/pop song written by Joe Zawinul of the band Weather Report as a tribute to the Birdland nightclub in New York City, which appeared on the band's 1977 album Heavy Weather. The Manhattan Transfer won a Grammy Award with their 1979 version of the song, which had lyrics by Jon Hendricks. Quincy Jones won two Grammy Awards for the version of the piece he included on his 1989 album Back on the Block. The leading Cuban band Los Van Van included an extended interpolation of the piece in their song Tim Pop/Birdland.
Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979. A revival began in 1986 with the opening of the second nightclub by the same name that is now located in Manhattan's Theater District, not far from the original nightclub's location. The current location is in the same building as the previous headquarters of The New York Observer.
Blow-Up is a soundtrack album by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, featuring music composed for Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup. MGM Records released the album in the United States on 20 February 1967, and in the United Kingdom on 10 May. The album features performances by Hancock, trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Joe Newman, alto saxophonist Phil Woods, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Although Jimmy Smith is credited with playing organ on the album, some sources claim it was actually Paul Griffin who was at the sessions.
The discography of Weather Report, an American jazz band with a career lasting sixteen years between 1970 and 1986, consists of fourteen studio albums, three live albums, eleven compilation albums, five singles, one B-side, and six video albums.
75 is a live album by Austrian-American jazz musician Joe Zawinul and his band the Zawinul Syndicate. It was recorded in 2007 at two performances in Switzerland and Hungary, among bandleader Joe Zawinul's final performances. The album was produced by Joachim Becker and originally released in 2008 by JVC Compact Discs, with the Zawinul Estate and Becker serving as executive producers. It was later released by BHM Productions and Heads Up International, the BHM release with the alternate title 75th. It peaked at number eighteen on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart and won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. The album received a generally positive critical reception.
In the 1970s jazz, jazz became increasingly influenced by Latin jazz, combining rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as conga, timbale, güiro, and claves, with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments. Artists such as Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola increasingly influenced the genre with jazz fusion, a hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion which was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments, and the highly amplified stage sound of rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix. All Music Guide states that "..until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate." However, "...as rock became more creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz world became bored with hard bop and did not want to play strictly avant-garde music, the two different idioms began to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces." On June 16, 1972, the New York Jazz Museum opened in New York City at 125 West 55th Street in a one and one-half story building. It became the most important institution for jazz in the world with a 25,000 item archive, free concerts, exhibits, film programs, etc.
The Zawinul Syndicate was a jazz fusion band formed by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul in 1988. The band evolved out of Zawinul's former band Weather Report. The band adhered to Zawinul's roots in jazz. Their style could be described as a combination of unusual grooves, driving and swinging rhythms and many borrowings from different music cultures.
Carnival is the 11th album by Canadian jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson on Columbia Records. This is yet another attempt to replicate the success of Conquistador. Another big theme song, a couple of originals, a blast from the past, and a cover of "Birdland", which was well received.