Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue notes of jazz and the blues. Originally dedicated to recording traditional jazz and small group swing, the label began to switch its attention to modern jazz around 1947. From there, Blue Note grew to become one of the most prolific, influential and respected jazz labels of the mid-20th century, noted for its role in facilitating the development of hard bop, post-bop and avant-garde jazz, as well as for its iconic modernist art direction.
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians. Gordon's height was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" and "Sophisticated Giant". His studio and performance career spanned more than 40 years.
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator. He is one of the few musicians to be elected to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in the year of their death.
Arthur Blakey was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Harold Floyd "Tina" Brooks was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and composer best remembered for his work in the hard bop style.
Edward Rudolph "Butch" Warren Jr. was an American jazz bassist who was active during the 1950s and 1960s.
Steve Davis is an American jazz trombonist.
Larry Ritchie was an American jazz drummer and record/CD producer. He was born in Brooklyn, New York as Lawrence Ritchie to Walter Ritchie, an electrician, and Pearl Ritchie, a domestic worker, both of whom were migrants from rural Virginia.
Freddie Redd was an American hard-bop pianist and composer. He is best known for writing music to accompany The Connection (1959), a play by Jack Gelber. According to Peter Watrous, writing in The New York Times: "Mr. Redd hung out at jam sessions in the 1950s and played with many of the major figures, Sonny Rollins to Art Blakey, and worked regularly with Charles Mingus. When things got tough, he just moved on, living in Guadalajara, Mexico, and in Paris and London."
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/poet Julian Beck. After Beck's death in 1985, company member Hanon Reznikov became co-director with Malina; the two were married in 1988. After Malina's death in 2015, her responsibilities were taken over by her son Garrick Maxwell Beck, Tom Walker and Brad Burgess. The Living Theatre and its founders were the subject of the 1983 documentary Signals Through the Flames.
The Connection may refer to:
One Night with Blue Note is a 1985 feature length jazz film directed by John Charles Jopson.
The Connection is a 1961 feature film directed by the American experimental filmmaker Shirley Clarke. The film was Clarke's first feature; she had made several short films over the previous decade. Jack Gelber wrote the screenplay, adapting his play of the same name. The film was the subject of significant court cases regarding censorship. It is the first known movie shot in the found footage format and beginning with a found footage title card.
Jack Gelber was an American playwright best known for his 1959 drama The Connection, depicting the life of drug-addicted jazz musicians. The first great success of the Living Theatre, the play was translated into five languages and produced in ten nations. Gelber continued to work and write in New York, where he also taught writing, directing and drama as a professor, chiefly at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, where he created the MFA program in playwriting. In 1999 he received the Edward Albee Last Frontier Playwright Award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in theatre.
The Music from "The Connection" is an album by the Freddie Redd Quartet, recorded as the soundtrack for Jack Gelber's 1959 play The Connection on February 15, 1960 and released on Blue Note later that year. The quartet features saxophonist Jackie McLean and rhythm section Michael Mattos and Larry Ritchie.
Music from The Connection is a jazz album by trumpeter Howard McGhee recorded on June 13, 1960, and released on the Felsted label. It features performances by McGhee, Tina Brooks, Freddie Redd, Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson. The album featured music from the off-Broadway play The Connection by Jack Gelber, featuring music composed by Redd. A slightly earlier recording of the same score by the Freddie Redd Quartet with Jackie McLean, The Music From "The Connection", was issued by Blue Note.
Shades of Redd is an album by American pianist Freddie Redd recorded in 1960 and released on the Blue Note label.
Redd's Blues is an album by the American pianist Freddie Redd, recorded in 1961 but not released on the Blue Note label until 1988.
The Jazz Messengers were a jazz combo that existed for over thirty-five years beginning in the early 1950s as a collective, and ending when long-time leader and founding drummer Art Blakey died in 1990. Blakey led or co-led the group from the outset. "Art Blakey" and "Jazz Messengers" became synonymous over the years, though Blakey did lead non-Messenger recording sessions and played as a sideman for other groups throughout his career.
"Yes sir, I'm gonna to stay with the youngsters. When these get too old, I'm gonna get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."
