Melle Weersma (January 22, 1908, Harlingen - September 14, 1988, Putten) was a Dutch composer, arranger, and bandleader, who played in jazz, light music, and symphonic styles.
Harlingen, West Frisian: Harns is a municipality and a city in the northern Netherlands, in the province of Friesland on the coast of Wadden Sea. Harlingen is a town with a long history of fishing and shipping. Harlingen received city rights in 1234.
Putten is a municipality and town in the province of Gelderland, Netherlands. It had a population of 24,362 in 2017. It is located in the coastal area of the old Zuiderzee. To the east of Putten lies the Veluwe, the biggest national park of the Netherlands. To the north, east and west, Putten is surrounded by farmlands.
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States. It originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".
Weersma played in the late 1920s with The Electorians, and then in the early 1930s with Juan Lossas and Bobby 't Sas. From late 1931 to early 1932 he worked in Berlin as a film score arranger. He founded his own short-lived large ensemble called the Red, White and Blue Aces in 1934. Early in 1935 he worked with Jack Hylton in London, then moved to Chicago later in the year, where he did arrangements for Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Andre Kostelanetz. Returning to England in 1936, he took a position as an arranger for Henry Hall at the BBC.
Jack Hylton was an English pianist, composer, band leader and impresario.
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,705,994 (2018), it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the US, with portions of the northwest side of the city extending into DuPage County near O'Hare Airport. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland. At nearly 10 million people, the metropolitan area is the third most populous in the nation.
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than six decades.
Weersma moved to Argentina in 1938, working with dance bands and radio programs, and that same year wrote the song "Penny Serenade", a hit on record for Nat Gonella. During World War II he did a stint in the United States Navy, then returned to Argentina after the war, where he composed his works Criollo Suite and Peruvian Waltz (Gaviota). In 1954 he returned to the Netherlands, where he worked in the radio and records industries.
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country located mostly in the southern half of South America. Sharing the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, the country is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2 (1,073,500 sq mi), Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas, the second largest in South America after Brazil, and the largest Spanish-speaking nation. The sovereign state is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, which is the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.
Nathaniel Charles Gonella was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist, and mellophonist. He founded the big band The Georgians, during the British dance band era.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from more than 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
