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Charles Parker Jr., nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader 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. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber.
William James "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him". Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock and roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s.
Andrew Dewey Kirk was an American jazz bandleader and saxophonist who led the Twelve Clouds of Joy, a band popular during the swing era.
Joe Lee Wilson was an American jazz singer from Bristow, Oklahoma, who lived in Europe since 1977.
Wilbur "Kansas Joe" McCoy was an American Delta blues singer, musician and songwriter.
A nighthawk is a nocturnal bird.
Harold Teen is a discontinued, long-running American comic strip written and drawn by Carl Ed. Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson may have suggested and certainly approved the strip's concept, loosely based on Booth Tarkington's successful novel Seventeen. The strip ran from 1919 to 1959. Asked in the late 1930s why he had started the strip, Ed answered, "Twenty years ago, there was no comic strip on adolescence. I thought every well-balanced comic sheet should have one."
Benjamin Moten was an American jazz pianist and band leader born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16- to 18-piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 1950s, the band survived long past the big band era itself and the death of Basie in 1984. It continues under the direction of trumpeter Scotty Barnhart.
Robert Lee McCollum was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. He was the father of the blues musician Sam Carr. Nighthawk was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.
Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the much more improvisational style of bebop. The hard-swinging, bluesy transition style is bracketed by Count Basie, who in 1929 signed with Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra, and Kansas City native Charlie Parker, who ushered in the bebop style in America.
Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra was the first Kansas City jazz band to achieve national recognition, which it acquired through national radio broadcasts. It was founded in 1918, as the Coon-Sanders Novelty Orchestra, by drummer Carleton Coon and pianist Joe Sanders.
Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, six or seven nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges, Lions Clubs, hotel ballrooms, and the like. Francis Davis, jazz critic for The Village Voice, likened territory bands to "the Top 40 cover bands of their day, typically relying on stock arrangements of other ensembles' hits." He said, "many historians give much credit to territory bands for popularizing modern ballroom dancing that began during the World War I era with the influence of Vernon and Irene Castle."
A big band remote was a remote broadcast, common on radio during the 1930s and 1940s, involving a coast-to-coast live transmission of a big band.
The Blackhawk was a restaurant in the Chicago Loop from 1920 to 1984. It served a menu of American cuisine, notably prime rib and a signature "spinning salad bowl", and was, in the early part of its history a nationally known entertainment venue for Big Band music. Its legacy continued until 2009 at Don Roth's Blackhawk in Wheeling, Illinois.
"Flamin' Mamie" is a 1925 jazz classic composed by Paul Whiteman and Fred Rose.
Hugo Frey was an American pianist, violinist, composer, songwriter, conductor, and arranger. He was a prolific editor for piano sheet music, the primary audience being the "living room" pianist, providing simplified arrangements of some of the more difficult pieces.
Fran Frey was a singer and saxophonist best known for his work for George Olsen and His Music in the 1920s and early 1930s. Among his better known songs are "The Varsity Drag" of 1927; "Big City Blues" of 1929, and "A Garden in the Rain", also of 1929. Frey sang on 77 songs with the George Olsen band on recordings and on the radio. "Who?" sold more than a million copies.
Orville Knapp was an American dance bandleader born in Kansas City, Missouri. He was the brother of Evalyn Knapp.
References
- Eugene Chadbourne, Joe Sanders at Allmusic
- "Joe Sanders". The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz .
