Norma Deloris Engstrom, known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music. Called the "Queen of American pop music," Lee recorded over 1,100 masters and composed over 270 songs.
Theodore Leopold Friedman, known as Ted Lewis, was an American entertainer, bandleader, singer, and musician. He fronted a band and touring stage show that presented a combination of jazz, comedy, and nostalgia that was a hit with the American public before and after World War II. He was known by the moniker "Mr. Entertainment" or Ted "Is Everybody Happy?" Lewis. He died of lung failure in August 1971.
Milton Ager was an American composer, regarded as one of the top songwriters of the 1920s and 1930s. His most lasting compositions include "Ain't She Sweet” and “Happy Days Are Here Again”.
"Take the 'A' Train" is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that was the signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra.
Milton Gabler was an American record producer, responsible for many innovations in the recording industry of the 20th century. These included being the first person to deal in record reissues, the first to sell records by mail order, and the first to credit all the musicians on the recordings.
Lester Willis Young, nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
"Why Don't You Do Right?" is an American blues and jazz-influenced pop song usually credited to Kansas Joe McCoy. A minor key twelve-bar blues with a few chord substitutions, it is considered a classic "woman's blues" song and has become a standard. Singer Lil Green recorded a popular rendition in 1941, which Peggy Lee recorded the next year — accompanied by Benny Goodman — and made one of her signature songs.
Louis Ferdinand Bush was an American record producer, musician and songwriter, best known for performing, as a pianist under the pseudonym Joe "Fingers" Carr.
Maxine Sullivan, born Marietta Williams in Homestead, Pennsylvania, United States, was an American jazz vocalist and performer.
"Wonderful One" is a popular song recorded by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on January 25, 1923 in New York and was released as Victor 19019-B. The record reached no. 3 on the Billboard chart. The song was also recorded as "My Wonderful One".
Jack Wilson was an American jazz pianist and composer.
David Michael Barbour was an American jazz guitarist. He was married to singer Peggy Lee and was her co-writer, accompanist, and bandleader.
Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944 is a 10-CD box set compiling the complete known studio master recordings, plus alternate takes, of Billie Holiday during the time period indicated, released in 2001 on Columbia/Legacy, CXK 85470. Designed like an album of 78s, the medium in which these recordings initially appeared, the 10.5" × 12" box includes 230 tracks, a 116-page booklet with extensive photos, a song list, discography, essays by Michael Brooks, Gary Giddins, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, and an insert of appreciations for Holiday from a diversity of figures including Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello, Marianne Faithfull, B.B. King, Abbey Lincoln, Jill Scott, and Lucinda Williams. At the 44th Grammy Awards on February 27, 2002, the box set won the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album of the previous year.
"Hard Hearted Hannah, the Vamp of Savannah" is a popular song with words by Jack Yellen, Bob Bigelow, and Charles Bates, and music by Milton Ager. The song was published in June 1924 by Ager, Yellen & Bornstein, Inc., New York. Hard Hearted Hannah tells in humorous fashion the story of a sadistic "vamp" or femme fatale from Savannah, Georgia.
"Glad Rag Doll" is a 1928 song composed by Milton Ager and Dan Dougherty with lyrics by Jack Yellen. It was Ager and Yellen's first movie theme song, written for the motion picture of the same name starring Dolores Costello.
"There'll Be Some Changes Made" ("Changes") is a popular song by Benton Overstreet (composer) and Billy Higgins (lyricist). Published in 1921, the song has flourished in several genres, particularly jazz. The song has endured for as many years as a jazz standard. According to the online The Jazz Discography, "Changes" had been recorded 404 times as of May 2018. The song and its record debut were revolutionary, in that the songwriters (Overstreet and Higgins, the original copyright publisher, Harry Herbert Pace, the vocalist to first record it, the owners of Black Swan, the opera singer for whom the label was named, and the musicians on the recording led by Fletcher Henderson, were all African American. The production is identified by historians as a notable part of the Harlem Renaissance.
Terry Waldo is an American pianist, composer, and historian of early jazz, blues, and stride music, and is best known for his contribution to ragtime and his role in reviving interest in this form, starting in the 1970s. Says Wynton Marsalis in his introduction to Waldo's book: "He teaches Ragtime, he talks about Ragtime, he plays it, he embodies it, he lives it, and he keeps Ragtime alive." The book, This is Ragtime, published in 1976, grew out of the series of the same title that Waldo produced for NPR in 1974. Waldo is also a theatrical music director, producer, vocalist, and teacher. He is noted for his wit and humor in performance, as "a monologist in the dry, Middle Western tradition." Eubie Blake describes his first impression of Waldo's performance thus: "I died laughing...that's one of the hardest things to do—make people laugh. Terry's ability to do this, combined with his musicianship, actually reminds me of Fats Waller."
Kathy Ann Kosins is an American singer specializing in jazz and R&B; she is also an ASCAP award-winning songwriter and modern abstractionist painter. Kosins has recorded several CDs under her own name and was first known as a singer of soul, rock, and pop having worked extensively with the bands Was, Slingshot and recording artist Michael Henderson. In more recent years, she has become an internationally known jazz singer; as a multi-media artist she also incorporates her painting into those live presentations.
Milton Samuels was an American pianist, composer, and music publisher.
