Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals.
Stevland Hardaway Morris, known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder.
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1985.
Henry "Hank" Mobley was an American hard bop and soul jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone, that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Lester Young, and his style that was laid-back, subtle and melodic, especially in contrast with players like Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. The critic Stacia Proefrock claimed him "one of the most underrated musicians of the bop era." Mobley's compositions included "Double Exposure," "Soul Station", and "Dig Dis," among others.
John Paul Larkin, known professionally as Scatman John, was an American musician. A prolific jazz pianist and vocalist for several decades, he rose to prominence during the 1990s through his fusion of scat singing and dance music. He recorded five albums, which were released between 1986 and 2001. As of 2023, Larkin has sold over 20 million albums worldwide and went 15 times gold and 18 times platinum. In the United States and Europe, Larkin is recognized for his 1995 singles "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" and "Scatman's World". He achieved his greatest success in Japan, where his album Scatman's World (1995) sold over a million copies. Outside of his musical activities, he had deepened exchanges with stuttering organizations and established the Scatland Foundation in 1996 to support people who stutter. Larkin was a recipient of the American Speech–Language–Hearing Association's Annie Glenn Award for outstanding service to the stuttering community and a posthumous inductee to the National Stuttering Association Hall of Fame.
Sugama Sangeetha, a variety of Bhavageethe, is an Indian musical genre in which poetry in the Kannada language is set to music. It gained recognition with the work of P. Kalinga Rao in the mid -20th century. Mysore Ananthaswamy and C. Aswath developed the form further in the 1960s and 1970s.
Deeper Water, the tenth studio album by Paul Kelly, was released on 12 September 1995 on White Label Records in Australia and on Vanguard Records in North America. It peaked at No. 40 on the ARIA Albums Chart and provided his second consecutive nomination as Best Male Artist at the ARIA Music Awards of 1996. In New Zealand Deeper Water reached No. 30 on the Official New Zealand Music Chart. Kelly issued its lead single, "Give in to My Love", in October 1995 and followed with "Deeper Water" later that year.
Renée Rebecca Geyer was an Australian singer who was one of that country's finest jazz, soul and R&B musicians. She released 15 studio albums with Moving Along (1977) and Tenderland (2003) both reaching number 11 on the Australian charts. Geyer's singles success as a solo artist in Australia were with "It's a Man's Man's World", "Heading in the Right Direction" and "Stares and Whispers" in the 1970s and "Say I Love You" in the 1980s. The latter also reached number one in New Zealand. The singer was an internationally respected and sought-after backing vocalist, whose session credits include work with Sting, Chaka Khan, Toni Childs, Joe Cocker, Neil Diamond, Men at Work and Trouble Funk.
Adiemus is a series of new-age music albums by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. It is also the title of the opening track on the first album of the series, Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary, recorded in 1994 and released the next year.
Montgomery Bernard "Monty" Alexander OJ is a Jamaican jazz pianist. His playing has a Caribbean influence and bright swinging feeling, with a strong vocabulary of bebop jazz and blues rooted melodies. He was influenced by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Les McCann, and Frank Sinatra. Alexander also sings and plays the melodica. He is known for his surprising musical twists, bright rhythmic sense, and intense dramatic musical climaxes. Monty's recording career has covered many of the well-known American songbook standards, jazz standards, pop hits, and Jamaican songs from his original homeland. Alexander has resided in New York City for many years and performs frequently throughout the world at jazz festivals and clubs.
Imagine: John Lennon is a soundtrack album of popular music compiled for the 1988 documentary film Imagine: John Lennon from songs written or co-written by John Lennon. Originally released that year as a double album, it now remains available on one CD.
Straight-ahead jazz is a genre of jazz that developed in the 1960s, with roots in the prior two decades. It omits the rock music and free jazz influences that began to appear in jazz during this period, instead preferring acoustic instruments, conventional piano comping, walking bass patterns, and swing- and bop-based drum rhythms.
Kurt Carr is an American gospel music composer and performer. While living in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, he served as Minister of Music at The First Baptist Church of Hartford located at the time on Greenfield Street. He is currently the Praise and Worship leader at The Fountain Of Praise in Houston, TX.
American Standard is an early ensemble work by noted American composer John Adams. The work is named for American Standard Brand appliances although Adams says that the title also reflects that the constituent movements are "indigenous musical forms" of the United States.
Zone Music Reporter is a website tracking New Age, world, and instrumental music. The site features weekly playlist, monthly airplay charts, and album reviews. Premium services are also offered to artists and their management compiling custom airplay reports for that artist.
Adam Anders is a Swedish film, television and music producer who has sold more than 100 million albums and in recent years has become one of the most in-demand Executive Producers for music-driven film and television. Anders is the CEO of Anders Media, and its record label Deep Well Records, a sub-label of Capitol Music Group. In 2023, Anders will make his directorial debut with the film, Journey To Bethlehem, a musical retelling of The Nativity Story, co-written by Peter Barsocchini and Anders, starring Fiona Palomo, Milo Manheim, and Antonio Banderas.
Sherry Finzer is an American flutist and composer based in Phoenix, Arizona. A national award-winning musician known for her contributions in the genre of flute and New Age music, Finzer is known predominantly as a soloist, but in recent years has formed the supergroup Trialogue with guitarist Darin Mahoney and percussionist Will Clipman. She performs extensively with local, national and international musicians, encompassing a variety of musical styles, including new-age, Latin, flamenco, classical, pop and jazz. Finzer tours worldwide as a Guo Flute and Pearl Flute Performing Artist, as well as in support of her album releases for the Heart Dance Records label, which she founded in 2006. Heart Dance Records represents 80+ artists in the New Age, Ambient, Acoustic, Electronic and Chill genres, as well as the radio promotions and PR company Higher Level Media.
Kidz Bop is an American children's music group composed like a music brand that produces family-friendly bowdlerized cover versions of pop songs and related media. Kidz Bop releases compilation albums that feature children covering clean versions of contemporary pop songs that chart high on the Billboard Hot 100 and/or receive heavy airplay from contemporary hit radio stations several months ahead of each album's release. Their cover versions contain censored lyrics with substitutes for the lyrics' original profanity; however, critics have commented that this does not necessarily remove the adult themes from the music.
Charlee Brooks is an American vocalist, composer, and audio engineer. Born and raised in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, she began her first works in production as a second engineer on the 2010 World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion. That same year she made her first television appearance as a performer during the live broadcast of BlizzCon 2010 on Direct TV. She continued her work in production / creative design through 2012 where she contributed to projects for Crystal Cruises, Dr. Daniel Amen, HGTV, Arbonne International and many others.
Lost & Found Music Studios is a Canadian musical-drama children's series created by Frank van Keeken and aired by Family Channel. The series is produced by Temple Street Productions and Beachwood Canyon Productions. It is a music-centered spinoff of the dance-focused The Next Step, using a similar mockumentary format and sharing characters and locations; the main characters of Lost & Found initially appeared in the third season of The Next Step. The series premiered on December 11, 2015 on Family Channel, running for two seasons of 27 episodes, and airing its final episode on March 31, 2017.
