This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
---|---|
Birth name | John Birks Gillespie |
Born | October 21, 1917Cheraw, South Carolina, U.S. |
Died | January 06, 1993Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
Instrument | Trumpet, piano, trombone |
Genre | BebopAfro-Cuban jazz |
Occupation | Trumpeter, bandleader, singer, composer |
Years active | 1935–1993 |
Associated acts | Charlie ParkerCab CallowayBud Powell |
Label | Pablo Records, Verve Records, Savoy Records, RCA Victor Records, Milan Records, Douglas Records }} |
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".
Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Jon Faddis and Chuck Mangione.
Allmusic's Scott Yanow wrote that "Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis's emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated . . . Arguably Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time."
In addition to featuring in the epochal moments in bebop, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of what early-jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the "Spanish Tinge". Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop.
Dizzy's first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and Teddy Hill, essentially replacing Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937. Teddy Hill’s band was where Dizzy Gillespie made his first recording, ''King Porter Stomp''. At this time Dizzy met a young woman named Lorraine from the Apollo Theatre, whom he married in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1993. Dizzy stayed with Teddy Hill’s band for a year, then left and free-lanced with numerous other bands. In 1939, Dizzy joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental ''Pickin' the Cabbage'', in 1940. (Originally released on ''Paradiddle'', a 78rpm backed with a co-composition with Cozy Cole, Calloway's drummer at the time, on the Vocalion label, #5467).
Dizzy was fired by Calloway in late 1941, after a notorious altercation between the two. The incident is recounted by Dizzy, along with fellow Calloway band members Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones, in Jean Bach's 1997 film, The Spitball Story. Calloway did not approve of Dizzy's mischievous humor, nor of his adventuresome approach to soloing; according to Jones, Calloway referred to it as “Chinese music.” During one performance, Calloway saw a spitball land on the stage, and accused Dizzy of having thrown it. Dizzy denied it, and the ensuing argument led to Calloway striking Dizzy, who then pulled out a switchblade knife and charged Calloway. The two were separated by other band members, during which scuffle Calloway was cut on the hand.
During his time in Calloway's band, Dizzy Gillespie started writing big band music for bandleaders like Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. He then freelanced with a few bands - most notably Ella Fitzgerald's orchestra, composed of members of the late Chick Webb's band, in 1942.
In 1943, Dizzy joined the Earl Hines orchestra. The legendary big band of Billy Eckstine gave his unusual harmonies a better setting and it was as a member of Eckstine's band that he was reunited with Parker, a fellow member of Hines's more conventional band. In 1945, Dizzy left Eckstine's band because he wanted to play with a small combo. A "small combo" typically comprised no more than five musicians, playing the trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass and drums.He was a world renowned figure and was a major influence on modern day jazz.
Gillespie compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody n' You" and "Salt Peanuts" sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, from the swing music popular at the time. "A Night in Tunisia", written in 1942, while Gillespie was playing with Earl Hines' band, is noted for having a feature that is common in today's music, a non-walking bass line. The song also displays Afro-Cuban rhythms. One of their first (and greatest) small-group performances together was only issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945. Gillespie taught many of the young musicians on 52nd Street, including Miles Davis and Max Roach about the new style of jazz. After a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, which left most of the audience ambivalent or hostile towards the new music, the band broke up. Unlike Parker, who was content to play in small groups and be an occasional featured soloist in big bands, Gillespie aimed to lead a big band himself; his first, unsuccessful, attempt to do this was in 1945.
After his work with Parker, Gillespie led other small combos (including ones with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, James Moody, J.J. Johnson, and Yusef Lateef) and finally put together his first successful big band. Dizzy Gillespie and his band tried to popularize bop and make Dizzy Gillespie a symbol of the new music. He also appeared frequently as a soloist with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. He also headlined the 1946 independently-produced musical revue film ''Jivin' in Be-Bop''.
In 1948 Dizzy was involved in a traffic accident when the bicycle he was riding was bumped by an automobile. He was slightly injured, and found that he could no longer hit the B-flat above high C. He won the case, but the jury awarded him only $1000, in view of his high earnings up to that point.
In 1956 he organized a band to go on a State Department tour of the Middle East and earned the nickname "the Ambassador of Jazz". During this time, he also continued to lead a big band that performed throughout the United States and featured musicians including Pee Wee Moore and others. This band recorded a live album at the 1957 Newport jazz festival that featured Mary Lou Williams as a guest artist on piano.
Afro-Cuban jazz was considered bebop-oriented, and some musicians classified it as a modern style. Afro-Cuban jazz was successful because it never decreased in popularity and it always attracted people to dance to its unique rhythms. Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are the compositions "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo" (both co-written with Chano Pozo); he was responsible for commissioning George Russell's "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop", which featured the great but ill-fated Cuban conga player, Chano Pozo. In 1977, Gillespie discovered Arturo Sandoval while researching music during a tour of Cuba.
In 1960, he was inducted into the ''Down Beat'' magazine's Jazz Hall of Fame.
During the 1964 United States presidential campaign the artist, with tongue in cheek, put himself forward as an independent write-in candidate. He promised that if he were elected, the White House would be renamed "The Blues House," and a cabinet composed of Duke Ellington (Secretary of State), Miles Davis, (Director of the CIA), Max Roach (Secretary of Defense), Charles Mingus (Secretary of Peace), Ray Charles (Librarian of Congress), Louis Armstrong (Secretary of Agriculture), Mary Lou Williams (Ambassador to the Vatican), Thelonious Monk (Travelling Ambassador) and Malcolm X (Attorney General). He said his running mate would be Phyllis Diller. Campaign buttons had been manufactured years ago by Gillespie's booking agency "for publicity, as a gag", but now proceeds from them went to benefit the Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr.; in later years they became a collector's item. In 1971 Gillespie announced he would run again but withdrew before the election for reasons connected to the Baha'i faith.
Gillespie published his autobiography, ''To Be or Not to Bop'', in 1979.
Gillespie was a vocal fixture in many of John Hubley and Faith Hubley's animated films, such as ''The Hole'', ''The Hat'', and ''Voyage to Next''.
In the 1980s, Dizzy Gillespie led the United Nation Orchestra. For three years Flora Purim toured with the Orchestra and she credits Gillespie with evolving her understanding of jazz after being in the field for over two decades. David Sánchez also toured with the group and was also greatly influenced by Gillespie. Both artists later were nominated for Grammy awards. Gillespie also had a guest appearance on ''The Cosby Show'' as well as ''Sesame Street'' and ''The Muppet Show''.
In 1982, Dizzy Gillespie had a cameo appearance on Stevie Wonder's hit "Do I Do". Gillespie's tone gradually faded in the last years in life, and his performances often focused more on his proteges such as Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis; his good-humoured comedic routines became more and more a part of his live act.
In 1988, Gillespie had worked with Canadian flautist and saxophonist Moe Koffman on their prestigious album ''Oo Pop a Da.'' He did fast scat vocals on the title track and a couple of the other tracks were played only on trumpet.
In 1989 Gillespie gave 300 performances in 27 countries, appeared in 100 U.S. cities in 31 states and the District of Columbia, headlined three television specials, performed with two symphonies, and recorded four albums. He was also crowned a traditional chief in Nigeria, received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; France's most prestigious cultural award. He was named Regent Professor by the University of California, and received his fourteenth honorary doctoral degree, this one from the Berklee College of Music. In addition, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award the same year. The next year, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the Kennedy Center Honors Award and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers ''Duke Ellington Award'' for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader. In 1993 he received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden.
November 26, 1992 at Carnegie Hall in New York, following the Second Bahá'í World Congress was Dizzy's 75th birthday concert and his offering to the celebration of the centenary of the passing of Bahá'u'lláh. Gillespie was to appear at Carnegie Hall for the 33rd time. The line-up included: Jon Faddis, Marvin "Doc" Holladay, James Moody, Paquito D'Rivera, and the Mike Longo Trio with Ben Brown on bass and Mickey Roker on drums. But Gillespie didn't make it because he was in bed suffering from cancer of the pancreas. "But the musicians played their real hearts out for him, no doubt suspecting that he would not play again. Each musician gave tribute to their friend, this great soul and innovator in the world of jazz."
Gillespie also starred in a film called ''The Winter in Lisbon'' released in 2004. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood section of the City of Los Angeles. He is honored by the December 31, 2006 - A Jazz New Year's Eve: Freddy Cole & the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
At the time of his death, Dizzy Gillespie was survived by his widow, Lorraine Willis Gillespie; a daughter, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson; and a grandson, Radji Birks Bryson-Barrett. Gillespie had two funerals. One was a Bahá'í funeral at his request, at which his closest friends and colleagues attended. The second was at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York open to the public.
Dizzy Gillespie, a Bahá'í since 1970, was one of the most famous adherents of the Bahá'í Faith which helped him make sense of his position in a succession of trumpeters as well as turning his life from knife-carrying roughneck to global citizen, and from alcohol to ''soul force'', in the words of author Nat Hentoff, who knew Gillespie for forty years. He spoke about the Baha'i Faith frequently on his trips abroad. He is often called the ''Bahá'í Jazz Ambassador''. He is honored with weekly jazz sessions at the New York Bahá'í Center.
In Dizzy's obituary, Peter Watrous describes his performance style:
Wynton Marsalis summed up Gillespie as a player and teacher:
Whatever the origins of Gillespie's upswept trumpet, by June, 1954, Gillespie was using a professionally manufactured horn of this design, and it was to become a visual trademark for him for the rest of his life.
Category:1917 births Category:1993 deaths Category:People from Cheraw, South Carolina Category:African American musicians Category:American Bahá'ís Category:American jazz bandleaders Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz trumpeters Category:American memoirists Category:Bebop trumpeters Category:Burials at Flushing Cemetery Category:Cancer deaths in New Jersey Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Cuban jazz (genre) bandleaders Category:Cuban jazz (genre) composers Category:Cuban jazz (genre) trumpeters Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Latin jazz bandleaders Category:Latin jazz composers Category:Latin jazz trumpeters Category:Musicians from Pennsylvania Category:Musicians from South Carolina Category:People from Bergen County, New Jersey Category:People from Corona, Queens Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Savoy Records artists Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:Verve Records artists Category:Prestige Records artists Category:Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Converts to the Bahá'í Faith Category:20th-century Bahá'ís Category:Manor Records artists
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Charles Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.
Parker, with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, is widely considered to have been one of the most influential jazz musicians. Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career and the shortened form "Bird" remained Parker's sobriquet for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology" and "Bird of Paradise."
Parker played a leading role in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuoso technique, and improvisation based on harmonic structure. Parker's innovative approaches to melody, rhythm, and harmony exercised enormous influence on his contemporaries. Several of Parker's songs have become standards, including "Billie's Bounce", "Anthropology", "Ornithology", and "Confirmation". He introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including a tonal vocabulary employing 9ths, 11ths and 13ths of chords, rapidly implied passing chords, and new variants of altered chords and chord substitutions. His tone was clean and penetrating, but sweet and plaintive on ballads. Although many Parker recordings demonstrate dazzling virtuosic technique and complex melodic lines – such as "Ko-Ko", "Kim", and "Leap Frog" – he was also one of the great blues players. His themeless blues improvisation "Parker's Mood" represents one of the most deeply affecting recordings in jazz. At various times, Parker fused jazz with other musical styles, from classical to Latin music, blazing paths followed later by others.
Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat generation, personifying the conception of the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than just a popular entertainer. His style – from a rhythmic, harmonic and soloing perspective – influenced countless peers on every instrument.
Parker displayed no sign of musical talent as a child. His father presumably provided some musical influence; he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the T.O.B.A. circuit, although he later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways. His mother worked nights at the local Western Union. His biggest influence however was a young trombone player who taught him the basics of improvisation.
Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11 and at age 14 joined his school's band using a rented school instrument. One story holds that, without formal training, he was terrible, and thrown out of the band. Experiencing periodic setbacks of this sort, at one point he broke off from his constant practicing.
Groups led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten were the leading Kansas City ensembles, and undoubtedly influenced Parker. He continued to play with local bands in jazz clubs around Kansas City, Missouri, where he perfected his technique with the assistance of Buster Smith, whose dynamic transitions to double and triple time certainly influenced Parker's developing style.
In 1938, Parker joined pianist Jay McShann's territory band. The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago and New York City. Parker made his professional recording debut with McShann's band. It was said at one point in McShann's band that he "sounded like a machine", owing to his highly virtuosic yet nonetheless musical playing.
As a teenager, Parker developed a morphine addiction while in hospital after an automobile accident, and subsequently became addicted to heroin. Heroin would haunt him throughout his life and ultimately contribute to his death.
In 1942, Parker left McShann's band and played with Earl Hines for one year. Also in the band was trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, which is where the soon to be famous duo met for the first time. Unfortunately, this period is virtually undocumented because of the strike of 1942–1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, during which no official recordings were made. Nevertheless, we know that Parker joined a group of young musicians in after-hours clubs in Harlem such as Clark Monroe's Uptown House and (to a much lesser extent) Minton's Playhouse. These young iconoclasts included Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Charlie Christian, and drummer Kenny Clarke. The beboppers' attitude was summed up in a famous quotation attributed to Monk by Mary Lou Williams: "We wanted a music that they couldn't play" – "they" being the (white) bandleaders who had taken over and profited from swing music. The group played in venues on 52nd Street including the Three Deuces and The Onyx. In his time in New York City, Parker also learned much from notable music teacher Maury Deutsch.
Early in its development, this new type of jazz was rejected by many of the established, traditional jazz musicians who disdained their younger counterparts with comments like Eddie Condon's putdown: "They flat their fifths, we drink ours." The beboppers, in response, called these traditionalists "moldy figs". However, some musicians, such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman, were more positive about its development, and participated in jam sessions and recording dates in the new approach with its adherents.
Because of the 2-year Musicians' Union recording ban on all commercial recordings from 1942 to 1944 (part of a struggle to get royalties from record sales for a union fund for out-of-work musicians), much of bebop's early development was not captured for posterity. As a result, the new musical concepts only gained limited radio exposure. Bebop musicians had a difficult time gaining widespread recognition. It was not until 1945, when the recording ban was lifted, that Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell and others had a substantial effect on the jazz world. One of their first (and greatest) small-group performances together was rediscovered and issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945. Bebop began to grab hold and gain wider appeal among musicians and fans alike.
On November 26, 1945, Parker led a record date for the Savoy label, marketed as the "greatest Jazz session ever." The tracks recorded during this session include "Ko-Ko" (based on the chords of "Cherokee"), "Now's the Time" (a twelve bar blues incorporating a riff later used in the late 1949 R&B; dance hit "The Hucklebuck"), "Billie's Bounce", and "Thriving on a Riff".
Shortly afterwards, the Parker/Gillespie band traveled to an unsuccessful engagement at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles. Most of the group returned to New York, but Parker remained in California, cashing in his return ticket to buy heroin. He experienced great hardship in California, eventually being committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital for a six month period.
Although he produced many brilliant recordings during this period, Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic due to his habit. Heroin was difficult to obtain after he moved to California for a short time where the drug was less abundant, and Parker began to drink heavily to compensate for this. A recording for the Dial label from July 29, 1946, provides evidence of his condition. Prior to this session, Parker drank about a quart of whiskey. According to the liner notes of ''Charlie Parker on Dial Volume 1'', Parker missed most of the first two bars of his first chorus on the track, "Max Making Wax." When he finally did come in, he swayed wildly and once spun all the way around, going badly off mic. On the next tune, "Lover Man", producer Ross Russell physically supported Parker in front of the microphone. On "Bebop" (the final track Parker recorded that evening) he begins a solo with a solid first eight bars. On his second eight bars, however, Parker begins to struggle, and a desperate Howard McGhee, the trumpeter on this session, shouts, "Blow!" at Parker. McGhee's bellow is audible on the recording. Charles Mingus considered this version of "Lover Man" to be among Parker's greatest recordings despite its flaws. Nevertheless, Parker hated the recording and never forgave Ross Russell for releasing the sub-par performance (and re-recorded the tune in 1951 for Verve, this time in stellar form, but perhaps lacking some of the passionate emotion in the earlier, problematic attempt).
During the night following the "Lover Man" session, Parker was drinking in his hotel room. He entered the hotel lobby stark naked on several occasions and asked to use the phone, but was refused on each attempt. The hotel manager eventually locked him in his room. At some point during the night, he set fire to his mattress with a cigarette, then ran through the hotel lobby wearing only his socks. He was arrested and committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital, where he remained for six months.
Coming out of the hospital, Parker was initially clean and healthy, and proceeded to do some of the best playing and recording of his career. Before leaving California, he recorded "Relaxin' at Camarillo", in reference to his hospital stay. He returned to New York – and his addiction – and recorded dozens of sides for the Savoy and Dial labels that remain some of the high points of his recorded output. Many of these were with his so-called "classic quintet" including trumpeter Miles Davis and drummer Max Roach.
Some fans thought this record was a sell out and a pandering to popular tastes. It is now seen to have been artistically as well as commercially successful. While ''Charlie Parker with Strings'' sold better than his other releases, Parker's version of "Just Friends" is regarded as one of his best performances. In an interview, Parker said he considered it to be his best recording to that date.
By 1950, much of the jazz world had fallen under Parker's spell. Many musicians transcribed and copied his solos. Legions of saxophonists imitated his playing note-for-note. In response to these pretenders, Parker's admirer, the bass player Charles Mingus, titled a tune "Gunslinging Bird" (meaning "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there would be a whole lot of dead copycats") featured on the album ''Mingus Dynasty''. In this regard, he is perhaps only comparable to Louis Armstrong: both men set the standard for their instruments for decades, and few escaped their influence.
In 1953, Parker performed at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada, joined by Gillespie, Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach. Unfortunately, the concert clashed with a televised heavyweight boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott and as a result was poorly attended. Thankfully, Mingus recorded the concert, and the album ''Jazz at Massey Hall'' is often cited as one of the finest recordings of a live jazz performance, with the saxophonist credited as "Charlie Chan" for contractual reasons.
At this concert, he played a plastic Grafton saxophone (serial number 10265); later, saxophonist Ornette Coleman used this brand of plastic sax in his early career. There is a story that says Parker had sold his alto saxophone to buy drugs, and at the last minute, he, Dizzy Gillespie and other members of Charlie's entourage went running around Toronto trying to find Parker a saxophone. After scouring all the downtown pawnshops open at the time, they were only able to find a Grafton, which Parker proceeded to use at the concert that night. This account however is totally untrue. Parker in fact owned two of the Grafton plastic horns. At this point in his career he was experimenting with new sounds and new materials. Parker himself explains the purpose of the plastic saxophone in a May 9 of 1953 broadcast from Birdland and does so again in subsequent May 1953 broadcast.
Parker was known for often showing up to performances without an instrument, necessitating a loan at the last moment. There are various photos that show him playing a Conn 6M saxophone, a high quality instrument that was noted for having a very fast action and a unique "underslung" octave key.
Some of the photographs showing Parker with a Conn 6M were taken on separate occasions. because Parker can be seen wearing different clothing and there are different backgrounds. However, other photos exist that show Parker holding alto saxophones with a more conventional octave key arrangement, i.e. mounted above the crook of the saxophone e.g. the Martin Handicraft and Selmer Model 22 saxophones, among others. Parker is also known to have performed with a King 'Super 20' saxophone, with a semi-underslung octave key that bears some resemblance to those fitted on modern Yanagisawa instruments. Parker's King Super 20 saxophone was made specially for him in 1947.
Parker died in the suite of his friend and patron Nica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City while watching ''The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show'' on television. The official causes of death were lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis and had had a heart attack. Any one of the four ailments could have killed him. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.
It was well known that Parker never wanted to return to Kansas City, even in death. Parker had told his common-law wife, Chan, that he did not want to be buried in the city of his birth; that New York was his home and he didn’t want any fuss or memorials when he died. At the time of his death, though, he had not divorced his previous wife Doris, nor had he officially married Chan, which left Parker in the awkward post-mortem situation of having two widows. This complicated the settling of Parker's inheritance and would ultimately serve to frustrate his wish to be quietly interred in his adopted hometown. Dizzy Gillespie was able to take charge of the funeral arrangements that Chan had been putting together and organised a ‘lying-in-state’, a Harlem procession officiated by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and a memorial concert before Parker's body was flown back to Missouri to be buried there in accordance with his mother's wishes. Parker was buried at Lincoln Cemetery, 8604 E. Truman Road, Kansas City, Missouri.
Charlie Parker was survived by both his legal wife, Doris (née Doris June Snyder, August 16, 1922 – January 17, 2000), and his partner, Chan; a stepdaughter, Kim, who is also a musician; and a son, Baird; their later lives are chronicled in Chan Parker's autobiography, ''My Life in E Flat''.
Parker's estate is managed by CMG Worldwide.
While tunes such as "Now's The Time", "Billie's Bounce", and "Cool Blues" were based on conventional 12-bar blues changes, Parker also created a unique version of the 12-bar blues for his tune "Blues for Alice". These unique chords are known popularly as "Bird Changes". Like his solos, some of his compositions are characterized by long, complex melodic lines and a minimum of repetition although he did employ the use of repetitive (yet relatively rhythmically complex) motifs in many other tunes as well, most notably "Now's The Time".
Parker also contributed a vast rhythmic vocabulary to the modern jazz solo, one in which triplets and pick-up notes were used in (then) unorthodox ways to lead into chord tones, affording the soloist with more freedom to use passing tones, which soloists would have previously avoided. Within this context, Parker was admired for his unique style of phrasing and innovative use of rhythm. Via his recordings and the popularity of the posthumously published ''Charlie Parker Omnibook'', Parker's uniquely identifiable vocabulary of "licks" and "riffs" dominated jazz for many years to come. Today his ideas are routinely analyzed by jazz students and are part of any player's basic jazz vocabulary.
;Grammy Award {| class=wikitable |- | colspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| Charlie Parker Grammy Award History |- ! Year ! Category ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Result |- align=center | 1974 | Best Performance By A Soloist | ''First Recordings!'' | Jazz | Onyx | Winner |}
;Grammy Hall of Fame Recordings of Charlie Parker were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
{| class=wikitable |- | colspan="6" style="text-align:center;"| Charlie Parker: Grammy Hall of Fame Awards |- ! Year Recorded ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Year Inducted |- align=center | 1945 | "Billie's Bounce" | Jazz (Single) | Savoy | 2002 |- align=center | 1953 | ''Jazz at Massey Hall'' | Jazz (Album) | Debut | 1995 |- align=center | 1946 | "Ornithology" | Jazz (Single) | Dial | 1989 |- align=center | 1950 | ''Charlie Parker with Strings'' | Jazz (Album) | Mercury | 1988 |}
;Inductions {| class=wikitable |- | colspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| |- ! Year Inducted ! Title |- align=center | 2004 | Jazz at Lincoln Center: Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame |- align=center | 1984 | Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award |- align=center | 1979 | Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame |}
;National Recording Registry
In 2002, the Library of Congress honored his recording "Ko-Ko" (1945) by adding it to the National Recording Registry.
;U.S. Postage Stamp
{| class=wikitable |- | colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"| |- ! Year Issued ! Stamp ! USA ! Note |- align=center | 1995 | 32 cents Commemorative stamp | U.S. Postal Stamps | Photo (Scott #2987) |}
name | Charlie Parker Residence |
---|---|
nrhp type | nrhp |
locmapin | New York City |
lat degrees | 40 |
lat minutes | 43 |
lat seconds | 36 |
lat direction | N |
long degrees | 73 |
long minutes | 58 |
long seconds | 50 |
long direction | W |
coord parameters | region:US-NY_type:landmark |
location | 151 Avenue BManhattan, New York City |
built | c.1849 |
architecture | Gothic Revival |
added | April 7, 1994 |
designated nrhp type | April 7, 1994 |
refnum | 94000262 |
governing body | private |
designated other2 name | NYC Landmark |
designated other2 date | May 18, 1999 |
designated other2 abbr | NYCL |
designated other2 link | New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission |
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Name | Babe Ruth |
---|---|
Width | 256 |
Position | Outfielder / Pitcher |
Bats | Left |
Throws | Left |
Birth date | February 06, 1895 |
Birth place | Baltimore, Maryland |
Death date | August 16, 1948 |
Death place | New York, New York |
Debutdate | July 11 |
Debutyear | 1914 |
Debutteam | Boston Red Sox |
Finaldate | May 30 |
Finalyear | 1935 |
Finalteam | Boston Braves |
Stat1label | Batting average |
Stat1value | .342 |
Stat2label | Home runs |
Stat2value | 714 |
Stat3label | Hits |
Stat3value | 2,873 |
Stat4label | Runs batted in |
Stat4value | 2,217 |
Stat5label | Win–loss record |
Stat5value | 94–46 |
Stat6label | Earned run average |
Stat6value | 2.28 |
Teams | |
Highlights | |
Hofdate | |
Hofvote | 95.13% }} |
Ruth has since become regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture. He has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess and charismatic personality made him a larger than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties". Off the field he was famous for his charity, but also was noted for his often reckless lifestyle. Ruth is credited with changing baseball itself. The popularity of the game exploded in the 1920s, largely due to his influence. Ruth ushered in the "live-ball era", as his big swing led to escalating home run totals that not only excited fans, but helped baseball evolve from a low-scoring, speed-dominated game to a high-scoring power game.
In 1998, ''The Sporting News'' ranked Ruth number one on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". In 1999, baseball fans named Ruth to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of professional baseball. In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Muhammad Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athletes, out of over 800 dead or alive athletes, in America. The study found that over 97% of Americans over 12 years of age identified both Ali and Ruth. According to ESPN, he was the first true American sports celebrity superstar whose fame transcended baseball. In a 1999 ESPN poll, he was ranked as the third-greatest US athlete of the century, behind Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali.
Ruth was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927), setting the season record which stood until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth's lifetime total of runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record, until first surpassed by Hank Aaron in 1974. Unlike many power hitters, Ruth also hit for average: his .342 lifetime batting is tenth highest in baseball history, and in one season (1923) he hit .393, a Yankee record. His .690 career slugging percentage and 1.164 career on-base plus slugging (OPS) remain the Major League records. Ruth dominated the era in which he played. He led the league in home runs during a season twelve times, slugging percentage and OPS thirteen times each, runs scored eight times, and runs batted in (RBIs) six times. Each of those totals represents a modern record (as well as the all-time record, except for RBIs).
Not much is known about Ruth's early childhood. His mother was constantly ill (she later died of tuberculosis while Ruth was still a teenager). Ruth later described his early life as "rough". When he was seven years old, his father sent him to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory and orphanage, and signed custody over to the Catholic missionaries who ran the school (the site of St. Mary's was occupied by Cardinal Gibbons School). Ruth remained at St. Mary's for the next 12 years, only visiting with his family for special occasions. Brother Matthias Boutlier, the Head of Discipline at St. Mary's, first introduced Ruth to the game of baseball. He became a father figure in Ruth's life, teaching him how to read and write, and worked with Ruth on hitting, fielding and as his skills progressed, pitching. During his time in St. Mary's, Ruth was also taught tailoring, where he became a qualified shirtmaker and was a part of both the school band and the drama club.
On July 7, 1914, Dunn offered to trade Ruth, along with Ernie Shore and Ben Egan, to Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics. Dunn asked $10,000 ($}} in current dollar terms) for the trio, but Mack refused the offer. The Cincinnati Reds, who had an agreement with the Orioles, also passed on Ruth. Instead, the team elected to take George Twombley and Claud Derrick. Two days later, on July 9, Dunn sold the trio to Joe Lannin and the Boston Red Sox. The amount of money exchanged in the transaction is disputed.
Ruth appeared in five games for the Red Sox in 1914, pitching in four of them. He picked up the victory in his major league debut on July 11. The Red Sox had many star players in 1914, so Ruth was soon optioned to the minor league Providence Grays of Providence, Rhode Island for most of the remaining season. Behind Ruth and Carl Mays, the Grays won the International League pennant. Shortly after the season, in which he'd finished with a 2–1 record, Ruth proposed to Helen Woodford, a waitress whom he had met in Boston. They were married in Ellicott City, Maryland, on October 17, 1914.
During spring training in 1915, Ruth secured a spot in the Red Sox starting rotation. He joined a pitching staff that included Rube Foster, Dutch Leonard, and Smokey Joe Wood. Ruth won 18 games, lost eight, and helped himself by hitting .315. He also hit his first four home runs. The Red Sox won 101 games that year on their way to a victory in the World Series. Ruth did not pitch in the series, and grounded out in his only at-bat.
In 1916, after a slightly shaky spring, he went 23–12, with a 1.75 ERA and nine shutouts, both of which led the league. On June 27, he struck out ten Philadelphia A's, a career high. On July 11, he started both games of a doubleheader, but the feat was not what it seemed; he only pitched one-third of an inning in the opener because the scheduled starter, Foster, had trouble getting loose. Ruth then pitched a complete-game victory in the nightcap. Ruth had unusual success against Washington Senators star pitcher Walter Johnson, beating him four times in 1916 alone, by scores of 5–1, 1–0, 1–0 in 13 innings, and 2–1. Johnson finally outlasted Ruth for an extra-inning 4–3 victory on September 12; in the years to come, Ruth would hit ten home runs off Johnson, including the only two Johnson would allow in 1918–1919. Ruth's nine shutouts in 1916 set an AL record for left-handers which would remain unmatched until Ron Guidry tied it in 1978.
Despite a weak offense, hurt by the sale of Tris Speaker to the Indians, the Red Sox made it to the World Series. They defeated the Brooklyn Robins four games to one. This time Ruth made a major contribution, pitching a 14-inning complete-game victory in Game Two.
Ruth went 24–13 with a 2.01 ERA and six shutouts in 1917, and hit .325, but the Sox finished second, nine games behind the Chicago White Sox. On June 23 against the Washington Senators, after walking the leadoff hitter, Ruth erupted in anger, was ejected, and threw a punch at the umpire, which would result in a ten-game suspension. Ernie Shore came into the game in relief, the baserunner was out stealing, and Shore retired all twenty-six batters he faced, for which he was credited with a perfect game until the 1990s. Ruth's outburst was an example of self-discipline problems that plagued Ruth throughout his career, and is regarded as the primary reason (other than financial) that then-owner Harry Frazee was willing to sell him to the Yankees two years later.
The left-hander was pitching a no-hitter in a 0–0 game against the Detroit Tigers on July 11, before a single deflected off his glove in the eighth inning. Boston finally pushed across a run in the ninth, and Ruth held onto his 1–0 victory by striking out Ty Cobb. In 1942, Ruth called this game his greatest thrill on the field.
In 1918, Ruth pitched in 20 games, posting a 13–7 record with a 2.22 ERA. He was mostly used as an outfielder, and hit a league-leading eleven home runs. His statistics were curtailed slightly when he walked off the team in July following an argument with Boston's manager.
Ruth threw a 1–0 shutout in the opener of the 1918 World Series, then won Game Four in what would be his final World Series appearance as a pitcher. Ruth won both his starts, allowing two runs (both earned) in seventeen innings for an ERA of 1.06. Ruth extended his World Series consecutive scoreless inning streak to 29⅔ innings, a record that would last until Whitey Ford broke it in 1961.
In 1918, he began playing in the outfield more and pitching less, making 75 hitting-only appearances. Former teammate Tris Speaker speculated that the move would shorten Ruth's career, though Ruth himself wanted to hit more and pitch less. In 1918, Ruth batted .300 and led the A.L. in home runs with eleven despite having only 317 at-bats, well below the total for an everyday player.
During the 1919 season, Ruth pitched in only 17 of his 130 games. He also set his first single-season home run record that year with 29 (passing Ned Williamson's 27 in 1884), including a game-winning homer on a September "Babe Ruth Day" promotion. It was Babe Ruth's last season with the Red Sox.
On December 26, 1919, Frazee sold Ruth to the New York Yankees. Popular legend has it that Frazee sold Ruth and several other of his best players to finance a Broadway play, ''No, No, Nanette'' (which, though it actually didn't debut until 1925, did have origins in a December 1919 play, ''My Lady Friends''). The truth is not so simple, as Frazee had another financial concern: Babe Ruth.
After the 1919 season, Ruth demanded a raise to $20,000 ($}} in current dollar terms)—double his previous salary. However, Frazee refused, and Ruth responded by letting it be known he wouldn't play until he got his raise, suggesting that he may retire to undertake other profitable ventures.
Frazee finally lost patience with Ruth, and decided to trade him. However, he was effectively limited to two trading partners—the Chicago White Sox and the then-moribund Yankees. The other five clubs rejected his deals out of hand under pressure from American League president Ban Johnson, who never liked Frazee and was actively trying to remove him from ownership of the Red Sox. The White Sox offered Shoeless Joe Jackson $60,000 ($}} in current dollar terms), but Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston offered an all-cash deal—$100,000 ($}} in current dollar terms).
Frazee, Ruppert and Huston quickly agreed to a deal. In exchange for Ruth, the Red Sox would get $125,000 ($}} million in current dollar terms) in cash and three $25,000 ($}} in current dollar terms) notes payable every year at 6 percent interest. Ruppert and Huston also loaned Frazee $300,000 ($}} million in current dollar terms), with the mortgage on Fenway Park as collateral. The deal was contingent on Ruth signing a new contract, which was quickly agreed to, and Ruth officially became property of the Yankees on December 26. The deal was announced ten days later.
In the January 6, 1920 edition of ''The Boston Globe'', Frazee described the transaction: : "I should have preferred to take players in exchange for Ruth, but no club could have given me the equivalent in men without wrecking itself, and so the deal had to be made on a cash basis. No other club could afford to give me the amount the Yankees have paid for him, and I don't mind saying I think they are taking a gamble. With this money the Boston club can now go into the market and buy other players and have a stronger and better team in all respects than we would have had if Ruth had remained with us."
However, the January 6, 1920 ''The New York Times'' was more prescient: : "The short right field wall at the Polo Grounds should prove an easy target for Ruth next season and, playing seventy-seven games at home, it would not be surprising if Ruth surpassed his home run record of twenty-nine circuit clouts next Summer."
In 1920, his first year with the Yankees, Ruth hit 54 home runs and batted .376. His .847 slugging average was a Major League record until 2001. Aside from the Yankees, only the Philadelphia Phillies managed to hit more home runs as a team than Ruth did as an individual, slugging 64 in hitter-friendly Baker Bowl.
In 1921, Ruth improved to arguably the best year of his career, hitting 59 home runs, batting .378 and slugging .846 (the highest with 500+ at-bats in an MLB season) while leading the Yankees to their first league championship. On July 18, 1921, Babe Ruth hit career home run #139, breaking Roger Connor's record of 138 in just the eighth year of his career. (This was not recognized at the time, as Connor's correct career total was not accurately documented until the 1970s. Even if the record had been celebrated, it would have been on an earlier date, as Connor's total was at one time thought to be only 131.)
Ruth's name quickly became synonymous with the home run, as he led the transformation of baseball strategy from the "inside game" to the "power game", and because of the style and manner in which he hit them. His ability to drive a significant number of his home runs in the 450–500 foot range and beyond resulted in the lasting adjective "Ruthian", to describe any long home run hit by any player. Probably his deepest hit in official game play (and perhaps the longest home run by ''any'' player), occurred on July 18, at Detroit's Navin Field, in which he hit one to straightaway center, over the wall of the then-single-deck bleachers, and to the intersection, some from home plate.
As impressive as Ruth's 1921 numbers were, they could have been more so under modern conditions. Bill Jenkinson's 2006 book, ''The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs,'' attempts to examine each of Ruth's 714 career home runs, plus several hundred long inside-the-park drives and "fair-foul" balls. Until 1931 in the AL, balls that hit the foul pole were considered ground-rule doubles, and balls that went over the wall in fair territory but hooked foul were ruled foul. Many fields, including Ruth's home Polo Grounds, had exceptionally deep center fields—in the Polo Grounds' case, nearly five hundred feet. The author concluded that Ruth would have been credited with 104 home runs in 1921, if modern rules and field dimensions were in place. However, these claims ignore the extreme short distances down the left and right field lines, which were 279 and 258 feet respectively. In addition, the 21 foot overhang in left field often intercepted fly balls which would otherwise have been catchable and turned them into home runs. In either case, Ruth set major league records in total bases (457), extra base hits (119) and times on base (379), all of which stand to this day.
The Yankees had high expectations when they met the New York Giants in the 1921 World Series, and the Yankees won the first two games with Ruth in the lineup. However, Ruth badly scraped his elbow during Game 2, sliding into third base (he had walked and stolen both second and third). After the game, he was told by the team physician not to play the rest of the series. Although he did play in Games 3, 4 and 5, and pinch-hit in Game 8 of the best-of-9 Series, his productivity was diminished, and the Yankees lost the series. Ruth hit .316, drove in five runs and hit his first World Series home run. (Although the Yankees won the fifth game, Ruth wrenched his knee and did not return to the Series until the eighth [last] game.)
Ruth's appearance in the 1921 World Series also led to a problem and triggered another disciplinary action. After the series, Ruth played in a barnstorming tour. A rule then in force prohibited World Series participants from playing in exhibition games during the off-season, the purpose of which was to prevent Series participants from "restaging" the Series and undermining its value. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis suspended Ruth for the first six weeks of the 1922 season. Landis had made his point about adhering to the letter of the rules, but he also recognized that the rule was no longer needed, and rescinded it.
Despite his suspension, Ruth started his 1922 season on May 20 as the Yankees' new on-field captain. But five days later, he was ejected from a game for throwing dirt on an umpire, and then climbed into the stands to confront a heckler; Ruth was subsequently stripped of the captaincy. In his shortened season, Ruth appeared in 110 games, batted .315, with 35 home runs and drove in 99 runs, but compared to his previous two dominating seasons, the 1922 season was a disappointment for Ruth. Despite Ruth's off-year, Yankees managed to win the pennant to face the New York Giants for the second straight year in the World Series. In the series, Giants manager John McGraw instructed his pitchers to throw Ruth nothing but curveballs, and Ruth never adjusted. Ruth had just two hits in seventeen at-bats, and the Yankees lost to the Giants for the second straight year by 4–0 (with one tie game).
In 1923, the Yankees moved from the Polo Grounds, where they had sublet from the Giants, to their new Yankee Stadium, which was quickly dubbed "The House That Ruth Built". Ruth hit the stadium's first home run on the way to a Yankees victory over the Red Sox. Ruth finished the 1923 season with a career-high .393 batting average and major-league leading 41 home runs. For the third straight year, the Yankees faced the Giants in the World Series. Rebounding from his struggles in the previous two World Series, Ruth dominated the 1923 World Series. He batted .368, walked eight times, scored eight runs, hit three home runs and slugged 1.000 during the series, as the Yankees won their first World Series title, four games to two.
thumb|Ruth after being knocked unconscious from running into a wall at Griffith Stadium on July 5, 1924. On July 5, 1924, Ruth was knocked unconscious after running into a wall during a game at Griffith Stadium against the Washington Senators. Despite evident pain and a bruised pelvic bone, Ruth insisted on staying in the game and hit a double in his next at-bat. Ruth narrowly missed winning the Triple Crown in 1924. He hit .378 for his only American League batting title, led the major leagues with 46 home runs, and batted in 121 runs to finish second to Goose Goslin's 129. Ruth's on-base percentage was .513, the fourth of five years in which his OBP exceeded .500. However, the Yankees finished second, two games behind the Washington Senators, who went on to win their only World Series while based in D.C. During that same year, Ruth served in the New York national Guard 104th Field Artillery.
During spring training in 1925 Ruth's ailment was dubbed "the bellyache heard round the world," when one writer wrote that Ruth's illness was caused by binging on hot dogs and soda pop before a game. Venereal disease and alcohol poisoning (caused by tainted liquor, a major health problem during the Prohibition) have also been speculated to be the causes of his illness. However, the exact nature of his ailment has never been confirmed and remains a mystery. Playing just 98 games, Ruth had what would be his worst season as a Yankee as he finished the season with a .290 average and 25 home runs. The Yankees team finished next to last in the American League with a 69–85 mark, their last season with a losing record until 1965.
This remains the only time that the final out of a World Series was a "caught stealing." The 1926 series was also known for Ruth's promise to Johnny Sylvester, a seriously ill 11-year old, that he would hit a home run on his behalf.
Ruth was the leader of the famous 1927 Yankees, also known as Murderer's Row because of the strength of its hitting lineup. The team won a then AL-record 110 games, a mark for a 154-game season surpassed by the 1954 Cleveland Indians (the 2001 Seattle Mariners now hold the record with 116 wins, though they played eight more games), took the AL pennant by 19 games, and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series.
With the race long since decided, the nation's attention turned to Ruth's pursuit of his own home run mark of 59. Early in the season, Ruth expressed doubts about his chances: "I don't suppose I'll ever break that 1921 record. To do that, you've got to start early, and the pitchers have got to pitch to you. I don't start early, and the pitchers haven't really pitched to me in four seasons. I get more bad balls to hit than any other six men...and fewer good ones." Ruth was also being challenged for his slugger's crown by teammate Lou Gehrig, who nudged ahead of Ruth's total in midseason, prompting the ''New York World-Telegram'' to anoint Gehrig the favorite. But Ruth caught Gehrig (who would finish with 47), and then had a remarkable last leg of the season, hitting 17 home runs in September. His 60th came on September 30, in the Yankees' next-to-last game. Ruth was exultant, shouting after the game, "Sixty, count 'em, sixty! Let's see some son-of-a-bitch match that!" In later years, he would give Gehrig some credit: "Pitchers began pitching to me because if they passed me they still had Lou to contend with." In addition to his career-high 60 home runs, Ruth batted .356, drove in 164 runs and slugged .772.
The following season started off well for the Yankees, who led the AL by 13 games in July. But the Yankees were soon plagued by some key injuries, erratic pitching and inconsistent play. The Philadelphia Athletics, rebuilding after some lean years, erased the Yankees' big lead and even took over first place briefly in early September. The Yankees, however, took over first place for good when they beat the A's three out of four games in a pivotal series at Yankee Stadium later that month.
Ruth's play in 1928 mirrored his team's performance. He got off to a hot start and on August 1, he had 42 home runs. This put him ahead of his 60 home run pace from the previous season. But Ruth was hobbled by a bad ankle the latter part of the season, and he hit just twelve home runs in the last two months of the regular season. His batting average also fell to .323, well below his career average. Nevertheless, he ended the season with 54 home runs, which would be the fourth (and last) time he hit 50 home runs in a season.
The Yankees had a 1928 World Series rematch with the St. Louis Cardinals, who had upset them in the 1926 series. The Cardinals had the same core players as the 1926 team, except for Rogers Hornsby, who was traded for Frankie Frisch after the 1926 season. Ruth batted .625 (the second highest average in World Series history), including another three-home run game (in game 4), Gehrig batted .545, and the Yankees demolished the Cardinals in four games. The Yankees thus became the first major league team to sweep their opponents in consecutive World Series.
Also in 1929, the Yankees became the first team to use uniform numbers regularly (the Cleveland Indians had used them briefly in 1916). Since Ruth normally batted third in the order (ahead of Gehrig), he was assigned number 3 (to Gehrig's 4). The Yankees retired Ruth's number on June 13, 1948; however, it was kept in circulation prior to that.
In 1930, which was not a pennant year for the Yankees, Ruth was asked by a reporter what he thought of his yearly salary of $80,000 ($}} million in current dollar terms) being more than President Hoover's $75,000. His response: "I know, but I had a better year than Hoover." That quote has also been rendered as, "How many home runs did ''he'' hit last year?" (Ruth had supported Al Smith in the 1928 Presidential election, and snubbed an appearance with president Hoover.) Three years later, Ruth would make a public appearance with the ex-President at a Stanford – USC football game.
In the 1932 season, the Yankees went 107–47 and won the pennant under manager Joe McCarthy, as Ruth hit .341, with 41 home runs and 137 RBIs.
The Yankees faced Gabby Hartnett's Chicago Cubs in the 1932 World Series. The Yankees swept the Cubs and batted .313 as a team. During Game 3 of the series, after having already homered, Ruth hit what has now become known as Babe Ruth's Called Shot. During the at-bat, Ruth supposedly gestured to the deepest part of the park in center-field, predicting a home run. The ball he hit traveled past the flagpole to the right of the scoreboard and ended up in temporary bleachers just outside Wrigley Field's outer wall. The center field corner was 440 feet away, and at age 37, Ruth had hit a straightaway center home run that was perhaps a 490 foot blow. It was Ruth's last Series homer (and his last Series hit), and it became one of the legendary moments of baseball history.
Ruth remained productive in 1933, as he batted .301, with 34 home runs, 103 RBIs, and a league-leading 114 walks. Elected to play in the first All-Star game, he hit the first home run in the game's history on July 6, 1933, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. His two-run home run helped the AL to a 4–2 victory over the NL, and Ruth made a fine catch in the game. Film footage of his All-Star game home run revealed the 38-year-old Ruth had become noticeably overweight.
Late in the 1933 season, he was called upon to pitch in one game and pitched a complete game victory, his final appearance as a pitcher. For the most part, his Yankee pitching appearances (five in fifteen years) were widely-advertised attempts to boost attendance. Despite unremarkable pitching numbers, Ruth had a 5–0 record in those five games, raising his career totals to 94–46.
In 1934, Babe Ruth recorded a .288 average, 22 home runs, and made the All-Star team for the second consecutive year. During the game, Ruth was the first of five consecutive strikeout victims (all of whom were future Hall of Fame players) of Giants pitcher Carl Hubbell, perhaps the most famous pitching feat in All-Star game history. In what turned out to be his last game at Yankee Stadium, only about 2,000 fans attended. By this time, Ruth had reached a personal milestone of 700 home runs and was about ready to retire.
After the 1934 season, Ruth went on a baseball barnstorming tour in the Far East. Players such as Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Gomez, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, and Lou Gehrig were among fourteen players who played a series of 22 games, with many of the games played in Japan. Ruth was popular in Japan, as baseball had been popular in Japan for decades. Riding in a motorcade, Ruth was greeted by thousands of cheering Japanese. The tour was considered a great success for further increasing the popularity of baseball in Japan, and in 1936 Japan organized its first professional baseball league.
After the 1934 season, the only teams that seriously considered hiring Ruth were the Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers. A's owner/manager Connie Mack gave some thought to stepping down as manager in favor of Ruth, but later dropped the idea, saying that Ruth's wife would be running the team in a month if Ruth ever took over. Ruth was in serious negotiations with Tigers owner Frank Navin, but missed a scheduled interview in late 1934. Meanwhile, Ruppert negotiated with other major-league clubs, seeking one that would take Ruth either as a manager or player.
Boston Braves owner Emil Fuchs finally agreed to take Ruth. Even though the Braves had fielded fairly competitive teams in the last three seasons, Fuchs was sinking in debt and couldn't afford the rent on Braves Field. Fuchs thought Ruth was just what the Braves needed, both on and off the field.
After a series of phone calls, letters and meetings, the Yankees traded Ruth to the Braves on February 26, 1935. It was announced that in addition to remaining as a player, Ruth would become team vice president and would be consulted on all club transactions. He was also made assistant manager to Braves skipper Bill McKechnie. In a long letter to Ruth a few days before the press conference, Fuchs promised Ruth a share in the Braves' profits, with the possibility of becoming co-owner of the team. Fuchs also raised the possibility of Ruth becoming the Braves' manager, perhaps as early as 1936.
Amid much media hoopla, Ruth played his first home game in Boston in over 16 years. Before an opening-day crowd of over 25,000, Ruth accounted for all of the Braves' runs in a 4–2 defeat of the New York Giants. The Braves had long played second fiddle to the Red Sox in Boston, but Ruth's arrival spiked interest in the Braves to levels not seen since their stunning win in the 1914 World Series.
That win proved to be the only time the Braves were over .500 that year. By May 20, they were 7–17, and their season was effectively over. While Ruth could still hit, he could do little else, and soon stopped hitting as well. His conditioning had deteriorated so much that he could do little more than trot around the bases. His fielding was dreadful; at one point, three of the Braves' pitchers threatened not to take the mound if Ruth was in the lineup. Ruth was also annoyed that McKechnie ignored most of his managerial advice (McKechnie later said that Ruth's presence made enforcing discipline nearly impossible). He soon discovered that he was vice president and assistant manager in name only, and Fuchs' promise of a share of team profits was also hot air. In fact, Fuchs expected Ruth to invest some of ''his'' money in the team.
On May 25, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Ruth went 4-for-4, drove in 6 runs and hit 3 home runs in an 11–7 loss to the Pirates. These were the last three home runs of his career. His last home run cleared the roof at the old Forbes Field—he became the first player to accomplish that feat. Five days later, in Philadelphia, Ruth played in his last Major League game. He struck out in the first inning and, while playing the field in the same inning, hurt his knee and left the game. In the 1948 film The Babe Ruth Story there was a more dramatic recounting of Ruth's last game. The Braves were depicted as winning the game against the Pirates and learning he had been fired for walking off the field during the game, while still in the locker room.
Two days after that, Ruth summoned reporters to the locker room after a game against the Giants and announced he was retiring. He had wanted to retire as early as May 12, but Fuchs persuaded him to stay on because the Braves hadn't played in every National League park yet. That season, he hit just .181 with six home runs in 72 at-bats. The Braves season went as badly as Ruth's short season. They finished 38–115, the fourth-worst record in Major League history, just a few percentage points fewer than the infamous 1962 New York Mets.
Ruth had two daughters. Dorothy Ruth was adopted by Babe and Helen. Decades later, she wrote a book, ''My Dad, the Babe'', claiming that she was Ruth's biological child by a girlfriend named Juanita Jennings.
Ruth adopted Julia Hodgson when he married her mother, actress and model Claire Merritt Hodgson. Julia currently resides in Arizona, and threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the final game in the original Yankee Stadium on September 21, 2008.
Ruth and Claire regularly wintered in Florida, frequently playing golf during the off-season and while the Yankees were spring training in Tampa, Florida. After retirement, he had a winter beachfront home in Treasure Island, Florida, near St. Petersburg.
Ruth made many forays into various popular media. He was heard often on radio in the 1930s and 1940s, both as a guest and on his own programs with various titles: ''The Adventures of Babe Ruth'' was a 15-minute Blue Network show heard three times a week from April 16 to July 13, 1934. Three years later, he was on CBS twice a week in ''Here's Babe Ruth'' which was broadcast from April 14 to July 9, 1937. That same year he portrayed himself in "Alibi Ike" on ''Lux Radio Theater''. His ''Baseball Quiz'' was first heard Saturdays on NBC June 5 to July 10, 1943 and then later that year from August 28 to November 20 on NBC, followed by another NBC run from July 8 to October 21, 1944.
His film roles included a cameo appearance as himself in the Harold Lloyd film ''Speedy'' (1928). His first film appearance occurred in 1920, in the silent movie ''Headin' Home''. He made numerous other film appearances in the silent era, usually either playing himself or playing a ballplayer similar to himself.
Ruth's voice was said by some biographers to be similar to that of film star Clark Gable, although that was obviously not evident in the silent film era. He had an appropriate role as himself in ''Pride of the Yankees'' (1942), the story of his ill-fated teammate Lou Gehrig. Ruth had three scenes in the film, including one in which he appeared with a straw hat. He said, "If I see anyone touch it, I'll knock his teeth in!" The teammates convinced young Gehrig (Gary Cooper) to chew up the hat; he got away with it. In the second scene, the players go to a restaurant, where Babe sees a side of beef cooking and jokes, "Well, I'll have one of those..." and, the dramatic scene near the end, where Gehrig makes his speech at Yankee Stadium ending with "I consider myself the luckiest man..."
The ''New York Times'' supports the evidence of the ambush marketing campaign when it wrote "For 85 years, Babe Ruth, the slugger, and Baby Ruth, the candy bar, have lived parallel lives in which it has been widely assumed that the latter was named for the former. The confection's creator, the Curtiss Candy Company, never admitted to what looks like an obvious connection – especially since Ruth hit 54 home runs the year before the first Baby Ruth was devoured. Had it done so, Curtiss would have had to compensate Ruth. Instead, it eventually insisted the inspiration was "Baby Ruth" Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. But it is an odd connection that makes one wonder at the marketing savvy of Otto Schnering, the company's founder."
Thus, in 1995, a company representing the Ruth estate brought the Baby Ruth candy bar into sponsorship officialdom when it licensed the Babe's name and likeness for use in a Baby Ruth marketing campaign. On page 34 of the spring, 2007, edition of the Chicago Cubs game program, there is a full-page ad showing a partially-unwrapped Baby Ruth in front of the Wrigley ivy, with the caption, "The official candy bar of Major League Baseball, and proud sponsor of the Chicago Cubs." Continuing the baseball-oriented theme, during the summer and post-season of the 2007 season, a TV ad for the candy bar showed an entire stadium (played by Dodger Stadium) filled with people munching Baby Ruths, and thus having to hum rather than singing along with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch.
Around this time, developments in chemotherapy offered some hope. Teropterin, a folic acid derivative, was developed by Dr. Brian Hutchings of the Lederle Laboratories. It had been shown to cause significant remissions in children with leukemia. Ruth was administered this new drug in June 1947. He was suffering from headaches, hoarseness and had difficulty swallowing. He agreed to use this new medicine but did not want to know any details about it. All the while he was receiving this experimental medication, he did not know it was for cancer. On June 29, 1947, he began receiving injections and he responded with dramatic improvement. He gained over and had resolution of his headaches. On September 6, 1947, his case was presented anonymously at the 4th Annual Internal cancer Research Congress in St. Louis. Teropterin ended up being a precursor for methotrexate, a now commonly used chemotherapeutic agent.
It is now known that Ruth suffered from nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPCA), a relatively rare tumor located in the back of the nose near the eustachian tube. Contemporary management for NPCA includes concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
On April 27, 1947, the Yankees held a ceremony at Yankee Stadium. Despite his health problems, Ruth was able to attend "Babe Ruth Day". Ruth spoke to a capacity crowd of more than 60,000, including many American Legion youth baseball players. Although lacking a specific memorable comment like Gehrig's "Luckiest man" speech, Ruth spoke from the heart, of his enthusiasm for the game of baseball and in support of the youth playing the game. (''Babe Ruth speaking at Yankee Stadium'')
Later, Ruth started the Babe Ruth Foundation, a charity for disadvantaged children. Another Babe Ruth Day held at Yankee Stadium in September 1947 helped to raise money for this charity.
After the cancer returned, Ruth attended the 25th anniversary celebration of the opening of Yankee Stadium on June 13, 1948. He was reunited with old teammates from the 1923 Yankee team and posed for photographs. The photo of Ruth taken from behind, using a bat as a cane, standing apart from the other players, and facing "Ruthville" (right field) became one of baseball's most famous and widely circulated photographs. The photo won the Pulitzer Prize.
Shortly after he attended the Yankee Stadium anniversary event, Ruth was back in the hospital. He received hundreds of well-wishing letters and messages. This included a phone call from President Harry Truman. Claire helped him respond to the letters.
On July 26, 1948, Ruth attended the premiere of the film ''The Babe Ruth Story'', a biopic about his own life. William Bendix portrayed Ruth. Shortly thereafter, Ruth returned to the hospital for the final time. He was barely able to speak. Ruth's condition gradually became worse, and in his last days, scores of reporters and photographers hovered around the hospital. Only a few visitors were allowed to see him, one of whom was National League president and future Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick. "Ruth was so thin it was unbelievable. He had been such a big man and his arms were just skinny little bones, and his face was so haggard," Frick said years later.
On August 16, the day after Frick's visit, Babe Ruth died at age 53 due to pneumonia. An autopsy showed the cancer Ruth died from began in the nose and mouth and spread widely throughout his body from there. His body lay in repose in Yankee Stadium. His funeral was two days later at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. Ruth was then buried in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York. At his death, the New York ''Times'' called Babe Ruth, "a figure unprecedented in American life. A born showman off the field and a marvelous performer on it, he had an amazing flair for doing the spectacular at the most dramatic moment."
Ruth's impact on American culture still commands attention. Top performers in other sports are often referred to as "The Babe Ruth of ______." He is widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball players in history. Many polls place him as the number one player of all time.
Ruth was mentioned in the poem ''"Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash:
Films have been made featuring Ruth, or a Ruth-like figure ("The Whammer" in ''The Natural'', for example).
During World War II, Japanese soldiers would yell in English, "To hell with Babe Ruth", in order to anger American soldiers. An episode of Hawaii Five-O would be named "To Hell With Babe Ruth" because of that.
As a sidelight to his prominent role in changing the game to the power game, the frequency and popularity of Ruth's home runs eventually led to a rule change pertaining to those hit in sudden-death mode (bottom of the ninth or later inning). Prior to 1931, as soon as the first necessary run to win the game scored, the play was over, and the batter was credited only with the number of bases needed to drive in the winning run. Thus, if the score was 3–2 with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, and the batter smacked an "over the fence home run", the game would end at 4–3, with the batter only allowed a double, and the runners officially stopped on 2nd and 3rd (since they weren't needed to win the game). The new rule allowed the entire play to complete, justified on the grounds that the ball was dead and that all runners could freely advance, thus granting the full allotment of HR and RBI to the batter, as we know it today. Several players lost home runs that way, including Ruth. As noted in the inaugural edition of ''The Baseball Encyclopedia'' (MacMillan, 1969), Ruth's career total would have been changed to 715 if historians during the 1960s had been successful in pursuing this matter. Major League Baseball elected not to retrofit the records to the modern rules, and Ruth's total stayed at 714.
Another rules change that affected Ruth was the method used by umpires to judge potential home runs when the batted ball left the field near a foul pole. Before 1931, i.e. through most of Ruth's most productive years, the umpire called the play based on the ball's final resting place "when last seen". Thus, if a ball went over the fence fair, and curved behind the foul pole, it was ruled foul. Beginning in 1931 and continuing to the present day, the rule was changed to require the umpire to judge based on the point where the ball cleared the fence. Jenkinson's book (p. 374–375) lists 78 foul balls near the foul pole in Ruth's career, claiming that at least 50 of them were likely to have been home runs under the modern rule.
Ruth's 1919 contract that sent him from Boston to New York was sold at auction for $996,000 at Sotheby's on June 10, 2005. The most valuable memorabilia item relating to Ruth was his 1923 bat which he used to hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium on April 18, 1923. Ruth's heavy Louisville Slugger solid ash wood bat sold for $1.26 million at a Sotheby's auction in December 2004, making it the third most valuable baseball memorabilia item, behind Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball and the famous 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card.
G | ! AB | ! R | ! H | ! HR | ! RBI | ! BB | ! SO | ! Avg. | ! OBP | ! SLG |
2,503 | 8,399 | 2,174| | 2,873 | 714 | 2,213 | 2,062 | 1,330 | .342 | .473 | .690 |
Win (baseball) | W | Loss (baseball)>L | Earned run average>ERA | Games played>G | Games started>GS | Complete game>CG | Shutout>SHO | Save (baseball)>SV | Innings pitched>IP | Hit (baseball)>H | Run (baseball)>R | Earned run>ER | Home run>HR | Hit by pitch>HBP | Base on balls>BB | Strikeout>SO | Winning percentage>WPct | Walks plus hits per inning pitched>WHIP | Batting average>AVG | Bases on balls per 9 innings pitched>BB/9 | Strikeouts per 9 innings pitched>K/9 |
94 | 46 | 2.28| | 163 | 148 | 107 | 17 | 4 | 1,221.1 | 974 | 400 | 309 | 10 | 29 | 441 | 488 | .671 | 1.16 | .220 | 3.25 | 3.60 |
Ruth was 89–46 with the Red Sox and was 5–0 with the Yankees overall. Ruth is 11th for career won-loss at 67.1%.
}}
Category:1895 births Category:1948 deaths Category:500 home run club Category:American League All-Stars Category:American League batting champions Category:American League ERA champions Category:American League home run champions Category:American League RBI champions Category:American people of German descent Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Baseball players from Maryland Category:Boston Braves players Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Brooklyn Dodgers coaches Category:Burials at Gate of Heaven Cemetery Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer Category:Major League Baseball first base coaches Category:Major League Baseball left fielders Category:Major League Baseball pitchers Category:Major League Baseball players with retired numbers Category:Major League Baseball right fielders Category:National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Category:New York Yankees players Category:Sportspeople from Baltimore, Maryland Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Baltimore Orioles (IL) players Category:Providence Grays (minor league) players
af:Babe Ruth bn:বেব রুথ zh-min-nan:Babe Ruth ca:Babe Ruth cs:Babe Ruth da:Babe Ruth de:Babe Ruth el:Μπέιμπ Ρουθ es:Babe Ruth fa:بیب روت fr:Babe Ruth ko:베이브 루스 hr:George Herman Ruth id:Babe Ruth it:Babe Ruth he:בייב רות' lv:Mazulis Rūts lt:Babe Ruth mr:जॉर्ज हर्मन रुथ, जुनियर nl:Babe Ruth ja:ベーブ・ルース no:Babe Ruth pl:George Herman Ruth pt:Babe Ruth ru:Рут, Бейб simple:Babe Ruth fi:Babe Ruth sv:Babe Ruth tl:Babe Ruth zh:貝比·魯斯This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Art Tatum |
---|---|
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
birth name | Arthur Tatum, Jr. |
born | October 13, 1909 |
died | November 05, 1956
Interred: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California |
origin | Toledo, Ohio, U.S. |
instrument | Piano |
genre | Jazz, stride |
occupation | Jazz pianist |
years active | 1927–1956 |
notable instruments | }} |
Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. Critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Tatum's quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with fresh (and sometimes futuristic) ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries ... Art Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists."
A child prodigy with perfect pitch, Tatum learned to play by ear, picking out church hymns by the age of three, learning tunes from the radio and copying piano-roll recordings his mother owned. In a Voice of America interview, he denied the widespread rumor that he learned to play by copying piano roll recordings made by two pianists. He developed an incredibly fast playing style, without losing accuracy. As a child he was also very sensitive to the piano's intonation and insisted it be tuned often. While playing piano was the most obvious application of his mental and physical skills, he also had an encyclopedic memory for Major League Baseball statistics.
In 1925, Tatum moved to the Columbus School for the Blind, where he studied music and learned braille. Subsequently he studied piano with Overton G. Rainey at either the Jefferson School or the Toledo School of Music. Rainey, who too was visually impaired, likely taught Tatum in the classical tradition, as Rainey did not improvise and discouraged his students from playing jazz. In 1927, Tatum began playing on Toledo radio station WSPD as 'Arthur Tatum, Toledo's Blind Pianist', during interludes in Ellen Kay's shopping chat program and soon had his own program. By the age of 19, Tatum was playing with singer Jon Hendricks, also an Ohioan, at the local Waiters' and Bellmens' Club. As word of Tatum spread, national performers, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Joe Turner and Fletcher Henderson, passing through Toledo would make it a point to drop in to hear the piano phenomenon.
Tatum worked in New York at the Onyx Club for a few months and recorded his first four solo sides on the Brunswick label in March, 1933. He returned to Ohio and played around the American midwest in the mid-1930s and played on the Fleischman Hour radio program hosted by Rudy Vallee in 1935. He also played stints at the Three Deuces in Chicago and in Los Angeles played at the Trocadero, the Paramount and the Club Alabam. In 1937 he returned to New York where he appeared at clubs and played on national radio programs. The following year he embarked on the Queen Mary for England where he toured, playing for three months at Ciro's Club owned by bandleader Ambrose. In the late 1930s he returned to play and record in Los Angeles and New York.
The last two years of his life, Tatum regularly played at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, including his final public performance in April 1956. Earlier, Tatum had personally selected and purchased for Clarence Baker the Steinway piano at Baker's, finding it in a New York showroom, and shipping it to Detroit.
Tatum was an innovator in reharmonizing melodies by changing the supporting chord progressions or by altering the root movements of a piece. This technique casts a familiar theme in a fresh light and gives the music an unexpected quality. Many of his harmonic concepts and larger chord voicings (e.g., 13th chords with various flat or sharp intervals) were well ahead of their time in the 1930s (except for their partial emergence in popular songs of the jazz age) and they would be explored by bebop-era musicians a decade later. He worked some of the upper extensions of chords into his lines, a practice which was further developed by Bud Powell and Charlie Parker, which in turn was an influence on the development of 'modern jazz'. Tatum also pioneered the use of dissonance in jazz piano, as can be heard, for example, on his recording of "Aunt Hagar's Blues", which uses extensive dissonance to achieve a bluesy effect. In addition to using major and minor seconds, dissonance was inherent in the complex chords that Tatum frequently used.
Tatum could also play the blues with authority. Pianist Jay McShann, not known for showering compliments on his rivals, is on record as saying, "Art could really play the blues. To me, he was the world's greatest blues player, and I think few people realized that." His repertoire, however, was predominantly Broadway and popular standards, whose chord progressions and variety better suited his talents. His approach was elaborate, pyrotechnic, dramatic and joyous. His protean style combined stride, jazz, swing, boogie-woogie and classical elements, while the musical ideas flowed in rapid-fire fashion. Benny Green wrote in his collected work of essays, ''The Reluctant Art'', that "Tatum has been the only jazz musician to date who has made an attempt to conceive a style based upon all styles, to master the mannerisms of all schools and then synthesize those into something personal." He was playful, spontaneous and often inserted quotes from other songs into his improvisations. Tatum was not inclined toward understatement or expansive use of space. He seldom played in a simplified way, preferring interpretations that displayed his great technique and clever harmonizations. When jazz pianist Stanley Cowell was growing up in Toledo, his father prevailed upon Tatum to play piano at the Cowell home. Stanley described the scene as "Tatum played so brilliantly and so much . . . that I thought the piano was gonna break. My mother left the room . . . so I said "What's wrong, Mama?" And she said "Oh, that man plays too much piano." A handful of critics have complained that Tatum played too many notes or was too ornamental or was even 'unjazzlike'. Jazz critic Gary Giddins opined "That is the essence of Tatum. If you don't like his ornament, you should be listening to someone else. That's where his genius is."
From the foundation of stride, Tatum made great leaps forward in technique and harmony and he honed a groundbreaking improvisational style that extended the limits of what was possible in jazz piano. His innovations were to greatly influence later jazz pianists, such as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor, Bill Evans and Chick Corea. One of Tatum's innovations was his extensive use of the pentatonic scale, which may have inspired later pianists to further mine its possibilities as a device for soloing. Herbie Hancock described Tatum's unique tone as "majestic" and devoted some time to unlocking this sound and to noting Tatum's harmonic arsenal.
The sounds that Tatum produced with the piano were also distinctive. It was said that he could make a bad piano sound good. Generally playing at mezzoforte volume, he employed the entire keyboard from deep bass tones to sonorous mid-register chords to sparkling upper register runs. He used the sustain pedal sparingly so that each note was clearly articulated and chords were cleanly sounded. Tatum's harmonic invention produced tonal colors that identified his musical palette. He played with boundless energy and occasionally his speedy and precise delivery produced an almost mechanical effect not unlike the sound of a player piano.
Tatum played chords with a relatively flat-fingered technique compared to the curvature taught in classical training. Composer/pianist Mary Lou Williams told Whitney Balliett, "Tatum taught me how to hit my notes, how to control them without using pedals. And he showed me how to keep my fingers flat on the keys to get that clean tone." Jimmy Rowles said "Most of the stuff he played was clear over my head. There was too much going on — both hands were impossible to believe. You couldn't pick out what he was doing because his fingers were so smooth and soft, and the way he did it — it was like camouflage." When his fastest tracks of "Tiger Rag" are slowed down, they still reveal a coherent, syncopated rhythm.
Tatum did not readily adapt or defer to other musicians in ensemble settings. Early in his career he was required to restrain himself when he worked as accompanist for vocalist Adelaide Hall in 1932-33. Perhaps because Tatum believed there was a limited audience for solo piano, he formed a trio in 1943 with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart, whose perfect pitch enabled him to follow Tatum's excursions. He later recorded with other musicians, including a notable session with the 1944 Esquire Jazz All-Stars, which included Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and other jazz greats, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He also recorded memorable group sessions for Norman Granz in the mid-1950s.
Tatum appeared on Steve Allen's ''Tonight Show'' in the early 1950s, and on other television shows from this era. Unfortunately, all of the kinescopes of the Allen shows, which were stored in a warehouse along with other now defunct shows, were thrown into a local rubbish dump to make room for new studios. However, the soundtracks were recorded off-air by Tatum enthusiasts at the time, and many are included in Storyville Records extensive series of rare Tatum recordings.
Tatum is portrayed briefly (by actor Johnny O'Neill) in ''Ray'', a 2004 biopic about R&B; artist Ray Charles. When Charles enters a nightclub he remarks "Are my ears deceiving me or is that Art Tatum?" O'Neill captures Tatum's cool and collected presence at the keyboard.
Numerous stories exist about other musicians' respect for Tatum. Perhaps the most famous is the story about the time Tatum walked into a club where Fats Waller was playing, and Waller stepped away from the piano bench to make way for Tatum, announcing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house." Fats Waller's son confirmed the statement.
Charlie Parker (who helped develop bebop) was highly influenced by Tatum. When newly arrived in New York, Parker briefly worked as a dishwasher in a Manhattan restaurant where Tatum was performing and often listened to the legendary pianist. Parker once said “I wish I could play like Tatum’s right hand!”
When Oscar Peterson was still a young boy, his father played him a recording of Art Tatum performing "Tiger Rag". Once the young Peterson was finally persuaded that it was performed by a single person, Peterson was so intimidated that he did not touch the piano for weeks. Interviewing Oscar Peterson in 1962, Les Tompkins asked "Is there one musician you regard as the greatest?" Peterson replied "I’m an Art Tatum–ite. If you speak of pianists, the most complete pianist that we have known and possibly will know, from what I’ve heard to date, is Art Tatum." "Musically speaking, he was and is my musical God, and I feel honored to remain one of his humbly devoted disciples."
"Here's something new .... " pianist Hank Jones remembers thinking when he first heard Art Tatum on radio in 1935, " .... they have devised this trick to make people believe that one man is playing the piano, when I know at least three people are playing."
The jazz pianist and educator Kenny Barron commented that "I have every record [Tatum] ever made — and I try never to listen to them … If I did, I'd throw up my hands and give up!" Jean Cocteau dubbed Tatum "a crazed Chopin." Count Basie called him the eighth wonder of the world. Dave Brubeck observed, "I don't think there's any more chance of another Tatum turning up than another Mozart." Pianist Mulgrew Miller, a noted fan of Tatum, commented on personal growth by saying, "When I talk to the people I admire, they're always talking about continuous growth and development and I look at them and say, 'Well...what are YOU going to do?'. But, as Harold Mabern says, 'There's always Art Tatum records around'". Dizzy Gillespie said "First you speak of Art Tatum, then take a long deep breath, and you speak of the other pianists."
The elegant pianist Teddy Wilson observed, "Maybe this will explain Art Tatum. If you put a piano in a room, just a bare piano. Then you get all the finest jazz pianists in the world and let them play in the presence of Art Tatum. Then let Art Tatum play ... everyone there will sound like an amateur."
Other luminaries of the day including Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Godowsky and George Gershwin marveled at Tatum's genius.Jazz critic Leonard Feather has called Tatum "the greatest soloist in jazz history, regardless of instrument."
In 1993, an MIT student invented a term that is now in common usage in the field of computational musicology: The Tatum. It means "the smallest perceptual time unit in music" and is a tribute to Tatum's pianistic velocity.
The Toledo Jazz Society presents an annual event dedicated to Tatum entitled the Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Festival.
Zenph Studios, a software company focused on precisely understanding how musicians perform, recorded a new album of Tatum’s playing with Sony Masterworks in 2007. They created re-performances of Tatum’s first four commercial tracks, from March 21, 1933, and the nine tracks from the April 2, 1949 live concert at L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium. Sony recorded these anew in the same venue, in front of a live audience. These 13 tracks are on the album, “Piano Starts Here: Live from The Shrine,” which was recorded in high-resolution surround-sound and in binaural, as well as regular stereo. The binaural recording, when heard in headphones, let you hear what Tatum may have heard as he played on stage, with the piano spatially in front (bass on the left, treble on the right) and the live audience clearly downstage on the righthand side. Zenph’s re-performances have been performed live in numerous venues, including the Toronto Jazz Festival and New York’s Apollo Theater. Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson requested a live presentation, which he heard in an emotional re-performance in his home in March 2007.
Tatum's work was used and referenced heavily in the WB TV series ''Everwood'' (2002–2006), with some actual sound recordings used and compositions being performed in concerts by Ephram Brown (portrayed by Gregory Smith) in select episodes. James Earl Jones' character Will Cleveland introduced these works to young Ephram, who was an aspiring pianist, in the second season episode "Three Miners From Everwood".
For his 2008 album “Act Your Age,” Gordon Goodwin wrote a new big band arrangement to accompany Zenph’s re-performance of “Yesterdays,” and the track was recognized with a Grammy Nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement.
In 2009 in Toledo at the new Lucas County Arena a memorial was placed to Art Tatum.
Category:1909 births Category:1956 deaths Category:Swing pianists Category:Stride pianists Category:American jazz pianists Category:African American musicians Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:People from Toledo, Ohio Category:Blind musicians Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Verve Records artists Category:Capitol Records artists
an:Art Tatum da:Art Tatum de:Art Tatum et:Art Tatum es:Art Tatum eo:Art Tatum fr:Art Tatum io:Art Tatum it:Art Tatum he:ארט טייטום la:Arthurus Tatum lb:Art Tatum hu:Art Tatum nl:Art Tatum ja:アート・テイタム no:Art Tatum nn:Art Tatum pl:Art Tatum pt:Art Tatum ru:Тэйтум, Арт se:Art Tatum fi:Art Tatum sv:Art Tatum tr:Art Tatum zh:阿特·塔图姆This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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