• Art Blakey
• Baltimore, Maryland
• Band leader
• Bandleader
• Bock-a-da-bock
• Buddy Rich
• Chick Webb
• Coleman Hawkins
• Drum
• Drum kit
• Drummer
• Duke Ellington
• Earl Hines
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Gene Krupa
• Harlem, Manhattan
• Hilton Schleman
• Jazz
• Jelly Roll Morton
• Johnny Hodges
• Louie Bellson
• Louis Armstrong
• Music genre
• Nat King Cole
• New York City
• Newspaper
• Portal Biography
• Savoy Ballroom
• Sidney Bechet
• Swing music
• The New York Times
• Tommy Benford
• Tuberculosis
• United States
• United States census
• Wikipedia Persondata
• 
  

• 
  New York City
  New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. As a global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.
  Located on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which comprises a state county. The five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a Census-estimated 2011 population of 8,244,910 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km²), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, with 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km²), and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.1 million people as of the 2010 Census.
  
  wn.com/New_York_City
• 
  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States

• 
  Art Blakey
  Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990), known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
  Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard.
  Blakey was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1982), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
  Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing the piano full-time, leading a commercial band. Shortly afterwards, reputedly because he thought he would be unable to compete with the emerging pianist Erroll Garner, he taught himself to play the drums in the aggressive swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc. He joined Mary Lou Williams as a drummer for an engagement in New York in autumn 1942. He then toured with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (1939–1942). During his years with Billy Eckstine’s big band (1944–7), Blakey became associated with the bebop movement, along with his fellow band members Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro and others.
  
  wn.com/Art_Blakey
• 
  Buddy Rich
  Bernard "Buddy" Rich (September 30, 1917 – April 2, 1987) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.
  Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish vaudevillians Robert and Bess Rich. His talent for rhythm was first noted by his father, who saw that Buddy could keep a steady beat with spoons at the age of one. He began playing drums in vaudeville when he was 18 months old, billed as "Traps the Drum Wonder." At the peak of Rich's childhood career, he was reportedly the second-highest paid child entertainer in the world (after Jackie Coogan). At 11 he was performing as a bandleader. He received no formal drum instruction, and went so far as to claim that instruction would only degrade his musical talent. He also never admitted to practicing, claiming to play the drums only during performances^{[citation needed]} and was not known to read music. He expressed great admiration for, and was influenced by, the playing of Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Dave Tough, and Jo Jones, among others.^{[citation needed]}.
  
  wn.com/Buddy_Rich
• Chick Webb
  William Henry Webb, usually known as Chick Webb (February 10, 1905 – June 16, 1939) was an American jazz and swing music drummer as well as a band leader.
  Webb was born in Baltimore, Maryland to William H. and Marie Johnson Webb. From childhood, he suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, leaving him with short stature and a badly deformed spine. He supported himself as a newspaper boy to save enough money to buy drums, and first played professionally at age 11.
  At the age of 17 he moved to New York City and by 1926, he was leading his own band in Harlem. Jazz drummer Tommy Benford said he gave Webb drum lessons when he first reached New York.
  He alternated between band tours and residencies at New York City clubs through the late 1920s. In 1931, his band became the house band at the Savoy Ballroom. He became one of the best-regarded bandleaders and drummers of the new "Swing" style. Drumming legend Buddy Rich cited Webb's powerful technique and virtuoso performances as heavily influential on his own drumming, and even referred to Webb as "the daddy of them all". The Savoy often featured "Battle of the Bands" where Webb's band would compete with other top bands (such as the Benny Goodman Orchestra or the Count Basie Orchestra) from opposing bandstands. By the end of the night's battles the dancers seemed always to have voted Chick's band as the best. As a result Webb was deemed the most worthy recipient to be crowned the first "King of Swing." Notably, Webb lost to Duke Ellington in 1937. Although a judge declared Webb's band the official winner in 1938 over Count Basie's, and Basie himself said he was just relieved to come away from the contest without embarrassing himself, surviving musicians continued to dispute the ruling for decades to follow.{}
  
  wn.com/Chick_Webb
• 
  Coleman Hawkins
  Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". While Hawkins is most strongly associated with the swing music and big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.
  Lester Young, who was called "Pres", in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review, said "As far as I'm concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, right? As far as myself, I think I'm the second one." Miles Davis once said: "When I heard Hawk, I learned to play ballads." Hawkins was nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean".
  Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1904. Some out-of-date sources say 1901, but there is no evidence to prove an earlier date; instead, there is record of Hawkins's parents' first female child being born on 8 March 1901 and dying in 1903 at the age of two, possibly basis for the mistaken belief. He was named Coleman after his mother Cordelia's maiden name.
  
  wn.com/Coleman_Hawkins
• 
  Duke Ellington
  Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and big-band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions. In the opinion of Bob Blumenthal of The Boston Globe "In the century since his birth, there has been no greater composer, American or otherwise, than Edward Kennedy Ellington." A major figure in the history of jazz, Ellington's music stretched into various other genres, including blues, gospel, film scores, popular, and classical. His career spanned more than 50 years and included leading his orchestra, composing an inexhaustible songbook, scoring for movies, composing stage musicals, and world tours. Several of his instrumental works were adapted into songs that became standards. Due to his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and thanks to his eloquence and extraordinary charisma, he is generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to an art form on a par with other traditional genres of music. His reputation increased after his death and the Pulitzer Prize Board bestowed on him a special posthumous honor in 1999.
  
  wn.com/Duke_Ellington
• 
  Earl Hines
  Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983) was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one major source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".
  Earl Hines was born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania 12 miles from Pittsburgh city center. His father played cornet and was leader of Pittsburgh's Eureka Brass Band, his stepmother a church organist. Hines intended to follow his father on cornet but "blowing" hurt him behind the ears - while the piano didn't. The young Hines took classical piano lessons - at eleven he was playing organ in his local Baptist church - but he also had a "good ear and a good memory" and could re-play songs and numbers he heard in theaters and park 'concerts': "I'd be playing songs from these shows months before the song copies came out. That astonished a lot of people and they'd ask where I heard these numbers and I'd tell them at the theatre where my parents had taken me." Later Hines was to say that he was playing piano around Pittsburgh "before the word 'jazz' was even invented".
  
  wn.com/Earl_Hines
• 
  Ella Fitzgerald
  Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella", was an American jazz and song vocalist. With a vocal range spanning three octaves (D♭3 to D♭6), she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
  Fitzgerald was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook. Over the course of her 59-year recording career, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.
  Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, the child of a common-law marriage between William and Temperance "Tempie" Fitzgerald. The pair separated soon after her birth and she and her mother went to Yonkers, New York, where they eventually moved in with Tempie's longtime boyfriend, Joseph Da Silva. Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923. She and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday School.
  
  wn.com/Ella_Fitzgerald
• 
  Gene Krupa
  Gene Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973) was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.
  Eugene Bertram Krupa was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna (Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa's nine children. Krupa's father, Bartłomiej, was an immigrant from Poland, and his mother, Anna, was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. His parents were very religious and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his grammar school days at various parochial schools and upon graduation, attended St Joseph's College for a year, but later decided it was not his vocation. He studied with Sanford A. Moeller and began playing professionally in the mid 1920s with bands in Wisconsin. He broke into the Chicago scene in 1927, when he was picked by MCA to become a member of "Thelma Terry and Her Playboys," the first notable American Jazz band (outside of all-girl bands) to be led by a female musician. The Playboys were the house band at The Golden Pumpkin nightclub in Chicago and also toured extensively throughout the eastern and central United States.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Gene_Krupa
• Hilton Schleman
  Hilton Schleman was an English author and wrote several book collections on jazz music.
  Schleman was a record company publicity man. His book Rhythm on Record: A Complete Survey and Register of All the Principal Recorded Dance Music from 1906-36 and a Who's Who of the Artists Concerned in the Making which was printed in 1936 and reprinted in 1978 remains a noted work on jazz music.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Hilton_Schleman
• 
  Jelly Roll Morton
  Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (October 20, 1885 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer.
  Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spirit and characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues" was the first published jazz composition, in 1915. Morton is also notable for naming and popularizing the "Spanish tinge" (habanera rhythm and tresillo), and for penning such standards as "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the latter a tribute to turn of the 19th to 20th century New Orleans personalities.
  Reputed for his arrogance and self-promotion as often as recognized in his day for his musical talents, Morton claimed to have invented jazz outright in 1902 — much to the derision of later musicians and critics. However, jazz historian, musician, and composer Gunther Schuller writes about Morton's "hyperbolic assertions" that there is "no proof to the contrary" and that Morton's "considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation".
  
  wn.com/Jelly_Roll_Morton
• 
  Johnny Hodges
  John Keith "Johnny" Hodges (July 25, 1906 – May 11, 1970) was an American alto saxophonist, best known for his solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years, except the period between 1932–1946 when Otto Hardwick generally played first chair. Hodges was also featured on soprano saxophone, but refused to play soprano after 1946, when he was given the lead chair. He is considered one of the definitive alto saxophones players of the Big Band Era (alongside Benny Carter).
  Hodges started playing with Lloyd Scott, Sidney Bechet, Lucky Roberts and Chick Webb. When Ellington wanted to expand his band in 1928, Ellington's clarinet player Barney Bigard recommended Hodges, who was featured on both alto and soprano sax. His playing became one of the identifying voices of the Ellington orchestra. Hodges left the Duke to lead his own band (1951–1955), but returned to the large ensemble shortly before Ellington's triumphant return to prominence – the orchestra's performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Hodges
• 
  Louie Bellson
  Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni (July 6, 1924 – February 14, 2009), known by the stage name Louie Bellson (his own preferred spelling, although he is often seen in sources as Louis Bellson), was an Italian-American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums.
  Bellson was an internationally acclaimed artist who performed in most of the major capitals around the world. Bellson and his first wife, the actress and singer Pearl Bailey (married 1952–1990), had the second highest number of appearances at the White House (only Bob Hope had more). He was a vice president at Remo, a drum company. Louie was also very great friends with the cymbal manufacturer Armand Zildjian.
  Louie Bellson was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, in 1924 and started playing drums at three years of age. At age 15, he pioneered the double-bass drum set-up. His detailed sketch earned him an 'A' in his high school art class. At age 17, he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest. Louie graduated from Moline High School, Moline, IL, in 1939.
  
  wn.com/Louie_Bellson
• 
  Louis Armstrong
  Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.
  Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
  Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over," whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Louis_Armstrong
• 
  Nat King Cole
  Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. He owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was one of the first black Americans to host a television variety show, and has maintained worldwide popularity since his death.
  Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on Saint Patrick's Day (March 17) in 1919. When he was 4, he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where his father, Edward Coles, became a Baptist minister (Ruuth 31). Cole learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina Coles, the church organist. His first performance, at age four, was of "Yes! We Have No Bananas". He began formal lessons at the age of 12, eventually learning not only jazz and gospel music but also European classical music, performing, as he said, "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Rachmaninoff".
  
  wn.com/Nat_King_Cole
• 
  Sidney Bechet
  Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.
  He was one of the first important soloists in jazz (beating cornetist and trumpeter Louis Armstrong to the recording studio by several months and later playing duets with Armstrong), and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist. Forceful delivery, well-constructed improvisations, and a distinctive, wide vibrato characterized Bechet's playing.
  Bechet's erratic temperament hampered his career, however, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim.
  Bechet was born in New Orleans to a middle-class Creole of color family. Sidney's older brother Leonard Bechet (1877–1952) was a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Sidney Bechet quickly learned to play several musical instruments kept around the house, mostly by teaching himself; he soon decided to focus on clarinet. At the age of six, Sidney started playing along with his brother's band at a family birthday party, debuting his talents to acclaim. Later in his youth, Bechet studied with such renowned Creole clarinetists as Lorenzo Tio, "Big Eye" Louis Nelson Delisle, and George Baquet. Soon after, Bechet would be found playing in many New Orleans ensembles, improvising with what was "acceptable" for jazz at that time (obbligatos, with scales and arpeggios, and "variating" the melody). These ensembles included parade work with Henry Allen's celebrated Brass Band, the Olympia Orchestra, and John Robichaux's "genteel" dance orchestra. In 1911-1912, he performed with Bunk Johnson in the Eagle Band of New Orleans, and in 1913-1914, with King Oliver in the Olympia Band.
  
  wn.com/Sidney_Bechet
• Tommy Benford
  Thomas "Tommy" Benford (April 19, 1905 – March 24, 1994) was an African American jazz drummer.
  Tommy Benford was the younger brother of tuba player Bill Benford. He studied music at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina. He went on tour with the school band, traveling with them to England in 1914.
  In 1920, he was working with the Green River Minstrel Show. Benford recorded with Jelly Roll Morton in 1928 and 1930. He also played with Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Eddie South. During the 1930s he stayed in Europe for a longer time, where he recorded with Coleman Hawkins, Bill Coleman, Joe Turner, Django Reinhardt, and Sidney Bechet. During the 1940s he worked with Noble Sissle, with Snub Mosley and Bob Wilber in New York City. At Jimmy Ryan's club he gigged with Rex Stewart. During the 1950s he toured with Muggsy Spanier and with Jimmy Archey.
  In later life he played with Stan McDonald. Benford died on March 24, 1994.
  
  wn.com/Tommy_Benford
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata

• Dog Bottom
• Jungle Mama
• Heebie Jeebies
• (I'm Left With The) Blues in My Heart
• Lona
• Blue Minor
• Don't Be That Way
• What a Shuffle
• Blue Lou
• Go Harlem
• Clap Hands! Here Comes Charlie
• That Naughty Waltz
• I Got Rhythm
• Squeeze Me
• Harlem Congo
• Midnight in a Madhouse
• Spinnin' The Webb
• Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)
• Who Ya Hunchin'
• In the Groove at the Grove

• If Dreams Come True
• Let's Get Together
• Stompin' at the Savoy
• Blue Minor
• Lonesome Moments
• Don't Be That Way
• What a Shuffle
• Blue Lou
• Down Home Rag
• Facts and Figures
• Go Harlem
• That Naughty Waltz
• Strictly Jive
• Squeeze Me
• Harlem Congo
• Midnite in a Madhouse (Midnite in Harlem)
• Azure
• Spinnin' the Webb
• Who Ya Hunchin'?
• In the Groove at the Grove

• Down Home Rag
• Facts and Figures
• Go Harlem
• Sing Me a Swing Song
• Gee but You're Swell
• Rusty Hinge
• Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie
• That Naughty Waltz
• Strictly Jive
• Squeeze Me
• If Dreams Came True
• Harlem Congo
• I Want to Be Happy
• Midnite in a Madhouse
• Azure
• Spinnin' the Webb
• Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)
• MacPherson Is Rebearsin (To Swing)
• Ella
• Who Ya Hunchin
• Tain't What You Do
• In the Groove at the Grove
• Lindyhopper's Delight
• Take It From the Top
• Jubilee Swing
• Untitled

• Are You Here to Stay?
• Moonlight and Magnolias
• I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)
• Facts and Figures
• Go Harlem
• Love Marches On
• There's Frost on the Moon
• Gee but You're Swell
• Rusty Hinge
• Wake Up and Live
• It's Swell of You
• Clap Hands! Here Comes Charley
• That Naughty Waltz
• In a Little Spanish Town
• I Got Rhythm
• I Ain't Got Nobody
• Strictly Live

• Heebie Jeebies
• Blues in My Heart
• Soft and Sweet
• Sunny Side of the Street
• Darktown Strutters Ball
• If Dream Come True
• Let's Get Together
• I Can't Dance
• Imagination
• Why Should I Beg for Love?
• Stomping at the Savoy
• Blue Minor
• True
• Lonesome Moments
• If It Ain't Love
• That Rhythm Man
• Sunny Side of the Street
• Lona
• Blue Minor
• It's Over Because We're Through
• Don't Be That Way
• What a Shuffle
• Blue Lou

Born: 1905-02-10

Died: 1939-06-16