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• 
  

• 
  Bronx, New York
  The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated. Located north of Manhattan and Queens, and south of Westchester County, the Bronx is the only borough that is located primarily on the mainland (a very small portion of Manhattan, the Marble Hill neighborhood, is physically located on the mainland, due to the rerouting of the Harlem River in 1897). The Bronx's population is 1,400,761 according to the 2010 United States Census. The borough has a land area of 42 square miles (109 km²), making it the fourth-largest in land area of the five boroughs, the fourth most populated, and the third-highest in density of population.
  The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, closer to Manhattan, and the flatter East Bronx, closer to Long Island. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City (then largely confined to Manhattan) in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of Greater New York in 1898. Bronx County, with the same boundaries as the borough, was separated from New York County (afterwards coextensive with the Borough of Manhattan) as of January 1, 1914. Although the Bronx is the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S., about a quarter of its area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center, on land deliberately reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with the building of roads, bridges and railways.
  
  wn.com/Bronx,_New_York
• 
  California
  California (pronounced ⁱ/kælɨˈfɔrnjə/) is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third most extensive (after Alaska and Texas). It is home to the nation's second- and sixth-largest census statistical areas (Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and San Francisco Bay Area), and eight of the nation's fifty most populated cities (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach and Oakland). The capital city is Sacramento.
  California's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west, to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east – from the Redwood–Douglas-fir forests of the northwest, to the Mojave Desert areas in the southeast. The center of the state is dominated by Central Valley, a major agricultural area. California contains both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States (Mount Whitney and Death Valley), and has the third-longest coastline of all states (after Alaska and Florida). Earthquakes are a common occurrence due to the state's location along the Pacific Ring of Fire: about 37,000 are recorded annually.
  
  wn.com/California
• 
  Chicago
  Chicago (ⁱ/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. The city has around 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland", is the third largest in the United States, with an estimated 9.8 million people. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, though a small portion also extends into DuPage County.
  Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, Chicago is listed as an alpha+ global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world on the 2012 Global Cities Index. The city retains its status as an international hub for finance, industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. In 2008^[update], the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. Among metropolitan areas, Chicago has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, ranking just behind Tokyo, New York City, and Los Angeles. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.
  
  wn.com/Chicago
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  Culver City
  Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver City's mayor is Andrew Weissman. Over the years, considering its incorporated status, over forty annexations of adjoining areas have occurred. As a result the city now comprises approximately five square miles.
  Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a significant center for motion picture and later television production, in part because it was the home of MGM Studios. It was also the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company from 1932 to 1985. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment now have headquarters in the city. The NFL Network studio is also based in Culver City.
  The area of present day Culver City was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans, who held a presence in the region for over 8,000 years.
  
  wn.com/Culver_City
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  Harlem
  Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem was annexed to New York City in 1873.
  Harlem has been defined by a series of boom-and-bust cycles, with significant ethnic shifts accompanying each cycle. Black residents began to arrive en masse in 1904, with numbers fed by the Great Migration. In the 1920s and 1930s, the neighborhood was the focus of the "Harlem Renaissance", an outpouring of artistic and professional works without precedent in the American black community. However, with job losses in the time of the Great Depression and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly.
  New York's revival in the late 20th century has led to renewal in Harlem as well. By 1995, Harlem was experiencing social and economic gentrification. Though the percentage of residents who are black peaked in 1950, the area remains predominantly black.
  
  wn.com/Harlem
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  Harlem, New York
  Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem was annexed to New York City in 1873.
  Harlem has been defined by a series of boom-and-bust cycles, with significant ethnic shifts accompanying each cycle. Black residents began to arrive en masse in 1904, with numbers fed by the Great Migration. In the 1920s and 1930s, the neighborhood was the focus of the "Harlem Renaissance", an outpouring of artistic and professional works without precedent in the American black community. However, with job losses in the time of the Great Depression and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly.
  New York's revival in the late 20th century has led to renewal in Harlem as well. By 1995, Harlem was experiencing social and economic gentrification. Though the percentage of residents who are black peaked in 1950, the area remains predominantly black.
  
  wn.com/Harlem,_New_York
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  Howard University
  Howard University is a federally chartered, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States. It has a Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education status of RU/H: Research Universities (high research activity).
  From its outset it has been nonsectarian and open to people of both genders and all races. In addition to the undergraduate program, Howard has graduate schools of business, pharmacy, law, medicine, dentistry and divinity.
  Shortly after the end of the Civil War, members of The First Congregational Society of Washington considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of African-American clergymen. Within a few weeks, the project expanded to include a provision for establishing a university. Within two years, the University consisted of the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Medicine. The new institution was named for General Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War hero, who was both the founder of the University and, at the time, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. Howard later served as President of the university from 1869-74.
  
  wn.com/Howard_University
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  Illinois
  Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.
  Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan. Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.
  
  wn.com/Illinois
• 
  Israel
  Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
  Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or  /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] ( listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
  Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.^{[neutrality is disputed]} Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
  
  wn.com/Israel
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  Italy
  Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
  Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
  
  wn.com/Italy
• 
  Kenosha, Wisconsin
  Kenosha ( /kəˈnoʊʃə/) is a city and the county seat of Kenosha County in the State of Wisconsin in United States. With a population of 99,218 as of May 2011, Kenosha is the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Kenosha is also the fourth-largest city on the western shore of Lake Michigan, following Chicago, Milwaukee, and Green Bay. Kenosha lies on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, 35 miles (56 km) south of Milwaukee and 50 miles north of Chicago. Kenosha is part of the U.S. Census Bureau's Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is heavily tied to both the Milwaukee metropolitan area and the Chicago metropolitan area.
  Kenosha is located in the southeastern corner of Wisconsin at 42°34′56″N 87°50′44″W / 42.58222°N 87.84556°W / 42.58222; -87.84556 (42.582220, -87.845624).. Kenosha's eastern boundary is Lake Michigan. It is bordered by the Town of Somers to the north, Bristol to the west and the village of Pleasant Prairie to the south. Kenosha's passenger train station is the last stop on Chicago's Union Pacific North Metra Line and is conveniently located almost halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago.
  
  wn.com/Kenosha,_Wisconsin
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  Kentucky
  Kentucky (ⁱ/kɨnˈtʌki/), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the Upper South of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.
  Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, because of the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River. It is also home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, and the nation's most productive coalfield. Kentucky is also known for horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.
  
  wn.com/Kentucky
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  Louisville, Kentucky
  Louisville (ⁱ/ˈluːiːvɪl/, local ⁱ/ˈluːəvəl/ or ⁱ/ˈlʌvəl/) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's total consolidated population at the 2010 census was 741,096 (Louisville's balance total, 597,337, excludes semi-autonomous towns and is the population listed in most sources and national rankings). An important internal shipping port in the 19th century, Louisville today is best known as the location of the Kentucky Derby, the first of three annual thoroughbred horse races making up the Triple Crown.
  Louisville is southeasterly situated along the border between Kentucky and Indiana, the Ohio River, in north-central Kentucky at the Falls of the Ohio. The Louisville metropolitan area is often referred to as Kentuckiana because it includes counties in Southern Indiana. A resident of Louisville is referred to as a Louisvillian. Although situated in a Southern state, Louisville is influenced by both Southern and Midwestern culture. It is sometimes referred to as either one of the most northernmost Southern cities or as on of the southernmost Northern cities in the United States along with St. Louis, Missouri and Washington, D.C.
  
  wn.com/Louisville,_Kentucky
• 
  Manhattan
  Manhattan (/mænˈhætən/) is the most densely populated and the oldest of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the U.S. state of New York. The borough and county consist of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent islands: Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island, Wards Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, part of Ellis Island,Mill Rock, and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a very small area on the mainland bordering the Bronx. The original city of New York began at the southern end of Manhattan, expanded northward, and then between 1874 and 1898, annexed land from surrounding counties.
  The New York County is the most densely populated county in the United States, and one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with a 2010 population of 1,585,873 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.5 km²), or 69,464 residents per square mile (26,924/km²), more dense than any individual American city. It is also one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005 per capita income above $100,000. Manhattan is the third-largest of New York's five boroughs in population, and its smallest borough in land area.
  
  wn.com/Manhattan
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  New York
  New York (/njuː ˈjɔrk/; locally IPA: [nɪu ˈjɔək] or [nuː ˈjɔɹk] ( listen)) is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. New York is the 27th most extensive, the 3rd most populous, and the 7th most densely populated of the 50 United States. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the west and north, and Quebec to the north. The state of New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.
  New York City, with a population of over 8.1 million, is the most populous city in the United States. Alone, it makes up over 40 percent of the population of New York state. It is known for its status as a center for finance and culture and for its status as the largest gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, New York City is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both the state and city were named for the 17th century Duke of York, James Stuart, future James II and VII of England and Scotland.
  
  wn.com/New_York
• 
  Newark, New Jersey
  Newark ( /ˈnjuː.ərk/) is the largest city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 277,140. It is the 67th largest city in the United States and one of the nation's major air, shipping, and rail hubs.
  Newark is located in the heart of New Jersey's Gateway Region, approximately 8 miles (13 km) west of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its location near the Atlantic Ocean on Newark Bay has helped make its port facility, Port Newark, the key container shipping facility for the New York metropolitan area, and the largest on the East Coast of the United States. It is the home of Newark Liberty International Airport, the first municipal commercial airport in the United States and one of the nation's busiest.
  Newark is headquarters to numerous corporations such as Prudential Financial and PSEG. It is home to several universities including Rutgers University, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, the Seton Hall University School of Law, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, along with hosting the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Prudential Center (home of the National Hockey League's New Jersey Devils), as well as numerous other cultural and sports venues.
  
  wn.com/Newark,_New_Jersey
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  Riverside Church
  The Riverside Church in the City of New York is an interdenominational American Baptist and United Church of Christ church in New York City, famous for its elaborate Neo-Gothic architecture and its history of social justice. It was described by The New York Times in 2008 as "a stronghold of activism and political debate throughout its 75-year history ... influential on the nation’s religious and political landscapes." It has been a focal point of global and national activism since its inception.
  The church was conceived by John D. Rockefeller and Harry Emerson Fosdick as a large, interdenominational church in a neighborhood important to the city, open to all who profess faith in Christ. Its congregation includes more than forty ethnic groups. As of 2007, the church had a $14 million annual operating budget and a paid staff of 130.
  The Church's mission statement, adopted in 1992, is:
  "...the worship of God, known in Jesus, the Christ, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ... to serve God through word and witness, to treat all human beings as sisters and brothers; and to foster responsible stewardship of God's creation ... The church pledges itself to education, reflection, and action for peace and justice and the realization of the vision of the heavenly banquet where all are loved and blessed."
  
  wn.com/Riverside_Church
• 
  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
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  White House
  The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.
  In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed inside the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt.
  
  wn.com/White_House
• 
  Wisconsin
  Wisconsin (ⁱ/wɨsˈkɒnsɨn/) is a US state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 23rd most extensive and the 20th most populous of the 50 United States. Wisconsin's capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. The state is divided into 72 counties.
  The word Wisconsin originates from the name given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian speaking American Indian groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River and record its name, arriving in 1673 and calling the river Meskousing in his journal. This spelling was later corrupted to Ouisconsin by other French explorers, and over time this version became the French name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling to its modern form when they began to arrive in greater numbers during the early 19th century. The current spelling was made official by the legislature of Wisconsin Territory in 1845.
  
  wn.com/Wisconsin
• 
  Yuma, Arizona
  Yuma (Cocopah: Yuum) is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 93,064 at the 2010 census, increased from the 2000 Census Bureau population of 77,515.
  Yuma is the principal city of the Yuma, Arizona Metropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of Yuma County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2008 estimated population of the Yuma MSA is 194,322, though more than 85,000 retirees make Yuma their winter residence.
  The area's first settlers were Native American tribes whose descendants now occupy the Cocopah and Quechan reservations. In 1540, expeditions under Hernando de Alarcon and Melchior Diaz visited the area and immediately saw the natural crossing of the Colorado River as an ideal spot for a city, as the Colorado River narrows to slightly under 1000 feet wide in one small point. Later military expeditions that crossed the Colorado River at the Yuma Crossing include Juan Bautista de Anza (1774), the Mormon Battalion (1848) and the California Column (1862).
  
  wn.com/Yuma,_Arizona

• Adolph Green
  Adolph Green (December 2, 1914  – October 23, 2002) was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday. Many people thought the pair were married; they were not, but they shared a unique comic genius and sophisticated wit that enabled them to forge a six-decade-long partnership that produced some of Hollywood and Broadway's greatest hits.
  Green was born in The Bronx to Hungarian-Jewish immigrants Daniel and Helen Weiss Green. After high school, he worked as a runner on Wall Street while he tried to make it as an actor. He met Comden through mutual friends in 1938 while she was studying drama at New York University. They formed a troupe called the Revuers, which performed at the Village Vanguard, a club in Greenwich Village. Among the members of the company was a young comedian named Judy Tuvim, who later changed her name to Judy Holliday, and Green's good friend, a young musician named Leonard Bernstein, frequently accompanied them on the piano. The act's success earned them a movie offer and the Revuers traveled west in hopes of finding fame in Greenwich Village, a 1944 movie starring Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche, but their roles were so small they barely were noticed, and they quickly returned to New York.
  
  wn.com/Adolph_Green
• André Previn
  André George Previn, KBE (born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929) is a German-American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings.
  Previn was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Charlotte (née Epstein) and Jack Previn, who was a lawyer, judge, and music teacher. He is said to be "a distant relative of" the composer Gustav Mahler. However, In a pre-concert public interview at the Lincoln Center, in May 2012, Previn laughed at the suggestion that he is related to Mahler. The year of his birth is uncertain. Whilst most published reports give 1929, Previn himself has stated that 1930 is his birth year. This situation is a consequence of his the family losing Previn's birth certificate when they left Germany in 1938.^{[citation needed]} His elder brother was director Steve Previn.^{[citation needed]} The Previn family, which was Jewish,^{[citation needed]} emigrated to the United States in 1939 to escape the Nazi regime in Germany.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/André_Previn
• Annie Ross
  Annie Ross (born 25 July 1930) is a Scottish jazz singer, chanteuse and actress, best known as a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.
  She was born as Annabelle Allan Short, in Mitcham, London, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians Jack Short and May Dalziel Short (née Allan). Her brother was entertainer Jimmy Logan. At the age of four, she went to New York in an immigration ship with her family; she later recalled that they "got the cheapest ticket, which was right in the bowels of the ship". Shortly after arriving in the city, she won a token contract with MGM through a children's radio contest run by Paul Whiteman. She subsequently moved with her aunt Ella Logan to Los Angeles, and her mother, father and brother returned to Scotland to be with the rest of their family. At the age of eight, she sang "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" in Our Gang Follies of 1938, and played Judy Garland's sister in Presenting Lily Mars (1943). At the end of tenth grade, she left school, changed her name to Annie Ross, and went to Europe, where she quickly established her singing career.
  
  wn.com/Annie_Ross
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  Aretha Franklin
  Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist. In a recording career that has spanned over half a century, Franklin's repertoire has included gospel, jazz, blues, R&B, pop, rock and funk. Franklin is known as one of the most important popularizers of the soul music genre and is referred to as the Queen of Soul, a title she was given early in her career. Franklin, the daughter of prominent Baptist minister and activist C. L. Franklin, began her singing career singing in her father's church at the age of ten and started recording four years later. After several years in the gospel circuit and with her father's blessing, she formed a secular pop music career at the age of eighteen, signing with Columbia Records, where she was branded by its CEO John Hammond as his most important act since Billie Holiday. Franklin's Columbia period wasn't as successful as hoped and in late 1966, Franklin switched over to Atlantic Records, where she began recording a string of popular hits including "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", "Think", "Chain of Fools" and what later became her signature song, "Respect".
  
  wn.com/Aretha_Franklin
• 
  Arnett Cobb
  Arnett Cobb (August 10, 1918 – March 24, 1989) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
  Cobb was born Arnette Cleophus Cobbs in Houston, Texas. His musical career began with the local bands of Chester Boone, from 1934 to 1936, and Milt Larkin, from 1936 to 1942 (which included a period on the West Coast with Floyd Ray). Among his bandmates in the Larkin aggregation were Illinois Jacquet, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Tom Archia, Cedric Haywood, and Wild Bill Davis. He replaced Illinois Jacquet in Lionel Hampton's band in 1942, staying with Hampton until 1947. He is credited with the words and music for the jazz standard "Smooth Sailing", 1951. Ella Fitzgerald recorded this for Decca and it can be heard on her album, Lullabies of Birdland.
  Cobb then started his own seven-piece band, but suffered a serious illness in 1950, which necessitated spinal surgery. Although he re-formed the band on his recovery, in 1956 its success was again interrupted, this time by a car crash. This had long term effects on his health, involving periods in hospital, and making him permanently reliant on crutches; nevertheless, Cobb worked as a soloist through the 1970s and 1980s in the U.S. and Europe.
  
  wn.com/Arnett_Cobb
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  Art Farmer
  Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer (August 21, 1928, Council Bluffs, Iowa – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette. His identical twin brother, Addison Farmer (d. 1963), was a bassist.
  The son of a steelworker, Art Farmer worked as a musician from the mid-1940s onwards. Based in Los Angeles, he played in the bands of Benny Carter and Jay McShann among others.
  He joined Lionel Hampton's orchestra around 1953, sharing the trumpet chairs within the organization with Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones. Having relocated to New York, he subsequently worked with Gigi Gryce, Horace Silver and Gerry Mulligan among others. From the middle of the 1950s, Farmer featured in recordings by leading arrangers of the day, including George Russell, Jones and Oliver Nelson. Significantly, he formed "The Jazztet" with the composer and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, both men having independently come to the conclusion that the other should be a member of their group. "The Jazztet" lasted until 1962, and assisting in the early careers of pianist McCoy Tyner and trombonist Grachan Moncur III, with the group recording several albums for Argo and Mercury Records. In the early 1960s Farmer established a trio with guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Steve Swallow. Later, with drummer Pete La Roca and pianist Steve Kuhn, Farmer and Swallow recorded the album Sing Me Softly of the Blues (1965) for the Atlantic label.
  
  wn.com/Art_Farmer
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  Art Tatum
  Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind since birth.
  Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time and he was a major influence on later generations of jazz pianists. He was noted for the complexity and speed of his performances, which set a new standard for jazz piano virtuosity. 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."
  For a musician of such stature, there is very little published information available about Tatum's life. Only one full-length biography has been published, Too Marvelous for Words, by James Lester. Lester interviewed many of Tatum's contemporaries for the book and drew from many articles published about him.
  
  wn.com/Art_Tatum
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  B.B. King
  Riley B. King (born September 16, 1925), known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American songwriter, vocalist, and famed blues guitarist.
  Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No. 6 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. and No. 17 in in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time. According to Edward M. Komara, King "introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that would influence virtually every electric blues guitarist that followed." King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
  King was born in a small cabin on a cotton plantation outside of Berclair, Mississippi, to Albert King and Nora Ella Farr on September 16, 1925.
  
  wn.com/B.B._King
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  Ben Webster
  Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973), a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Known affectionately as "The Brute", he had a tough, raspy, and brutal tone on stomps (with his own distinctive growls), yet on ballads he played with warmth and sentiment. Stylistically he was indebted to alto star Johnny Hodges, who, he said, taught him to play his instrument.
  Webster learned to play piano and violin at an early age, before learning to play the saxophone, although he did return to the piano from time to time, even recording on the instrument occasionally. Once Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster began to play that instrument in the Young Family Band (which at the time included Lester Young). Kansas City at this point was a melting pot from which emerged some of the biggest names in 1930s jazz, and Webster joined Bennie Moten's legendary 1932 band that included Count Basie, Oran Page and Walter Page. This era has been recreated in Robert Altman's film Kansas City.
  
  wn.com/Ben_Webster
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  Benny Carter
  Bennett Lester Carter (August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King. In 1958, he performed with Billie Holiday at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival.
  The National Endowment for the Arts honored Benny Carter with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 1986. He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, winner of the Grammy Award in 1994 for his solo "Prelude to a Kiss", and also the same year, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000 awarded the National Endowment for the Arts, National Medal of Arts, presented by President Bill Clinton.
  Born in New York in 1907, the youngest of three children and the only boy, received his first music lessons on piano from his mother. Largely self-taught, by age fifteen, Carter was already sitting in at Harlem night spots. From 1924 to 1928, Carter gained valuable professional experience as a sideman in some of New York's top bands. As a youth, Carter lived in Harlem around the corner from Bubber Miley who was Duke Ellington's star trumpeter, Carter was inspired by Miley and bought a trumpet, but when he found he couldn't play like Miley he traded the trumpet in for a saxophone. For the next two years he played with such jazz greats as cornetist Rex Stewart, clarinetist-soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, pianists Earl Hines, Willie "The Lion" Smith, pianist Fats Waller, pianist James P. Johnson, pianist Duke Ellington and their various groups.
  
  wn.com/Benny_Carter
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  Benny Goodman
  Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".
  In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music."
  Goodman's bands launched the careers of many major names in jazz, and during an era of segregation, he also led one of the first well-known racially-integrated jazz groups. Goodman continued to perform to nearly the end of his life, including exploring his interest in classical music.
  Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, who lived in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. His father was David Goodman, a tailor from Warsaw; his mother was Dora Grisinsky (from Kaunas, Lithuania). His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born.
  
  wn.com/Benny_Goodman
• Betty Comden
  Betty Comden (May 3, 1917 – November 23, 2006) was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century. Her writing partnership with Adolph Green lasted for six decades, during which time they collaborated with other leading entertainment figures such as the famed "Freed Unit" at MGM, Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein.
  Betty Comden was born Basya Cohen in New York City, attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, and studied drama at New York University. In 1938, mutual friends introduced her to Adolph Green, an aspiring actor. Along with the young Judy Holliday and Leonard Bernstein, Comden and Green formed a troupe called the Revuers, which performed at the Village Vanguard, a club in Greenwich Village. Due to the act's success, the Revuers appeared in the 1944 film Greenwich Village, but their roles were so small they barely were noticed, and they quickly returned to New York.
  
  wn.com/Betty_Comden
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  Bill Clinton
  William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.
  Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Clinton
• Billy Mackel
  John William "Billy" Mackel (December 28, 1912 – May 5, 1986) was an American jazz guitarist.
  Mackel played banjo early in his career in his home town of Baltimore, but switched to guitar (like many banjoists of the day) in the 1930s. He led his own band early in the 1940s, then joined Lionel Hampton in 1944. Mackel worked with Hampton, with occasional intermissions, for over thirty years, touring and recording with him copiously. In the 1940s he also recorded with Milt Buckner, Arnett Cobb, Herbie Fields, and others, and worked with Billy Williams in the 1960s.
  "Billy Mackel". The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.
  The website. http://www.lionelhampton.nl/billymackelstory.html
  
  wn.com/Billy_Mackel
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  Billy Wilder
  Billy Wilder (22 June 1906 – 27 March 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Wilder is one of only five people to have won Academy Awards as producer, director, and writer for the same film (The Apartment).
  Wilder became a screenwriter in the late 1920s while living in Berlin. After the rise of Nazi Party, Wilder, who was Jewish, left for Paris, where he made his directorial debut. He relocated to Hollywood in 1933, and in 1939 he had a hit when he co-wrote the screenplay to the screwball comedy Ninotchka. Wilder established his directorial reputation after helming Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir he co-wrote with mystery novelist Raymond Chandler. Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend, about alcoholism. In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Wilder
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  Bing Crosby
  Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artistes of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation.
  A multimedia star, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations; this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como,Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the "most admired man alive," ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.
  
  wn.com/Bing_Crosby
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  Bob Dylan
  Bob Dylan ( /ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965. However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.
  Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.
  
  wn.com/Bob_Dylan
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  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
• Busby Berkeley
  Busby Berkeley (November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.
  Berkeley was born to stage actress Gertrude Berkeley. Among Gertrude's friends were actress Amy Busby and actor William Gillette, then only four years away from playing Sherlock Holmes. Gertrude apparently named her son after both Busby and Gillette after they agreed to be the boy's godparents. The boy was named Busby Berkeley William Enos.
  In addition to her stage work, Gertrude played mother roles in silent films while Berkley was still a child. Berkeley made his stage debut at five, acting in the company of his performing family. During World War I, Berkeley served as a field artillery lieutenant. Watching soldiers drill may have inspired his later complex choreography. During the 1920s, Berkeley was a dance director for nearly two dozen Broadway musicals, including such hits as A Connecticut Yankee. As a choreographer, Berkeley was less concerned with the terpsichorean skill of his chorus girls as he was with their ability to form themselves into attractive geometric patterns. His musical numbers were among the largest and best-regimented on Broadway.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Busby_Berkeley
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  Cat Anderson
  William Alonzo Anderson (12 September 1916 – 29 April 1981), known as Cat Anderson, was an American jazz trumpeter best known for his long period playing with Duke Ellington's orchestra, and for his extremely wide range (more than five octaves), especially his playing in the higher registers.
  Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Anderson lost both parents when he was four years old, and was sent to live at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, where he learned to play trumpet. Classmates gave him the nickname "Cat" (which he used all his life) based on his fighting style. He toured and made his first recording with the Carolina Cotton Pickers, a small group based at the orphanage. After leaving the Cotton Pickers, Anderson played with guitarist Hartley Toots, Claude Hopkins' big band, Doc Wheeler's Sunset Orchestra (1938–1942), with whom he also recorded, Lucky Millinder, the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, Sabby Lewis's Orchestra, and Lionel Hampton, with whom he recorded the classic "Flying Home #2".
  
  wn.com/Cat_Anderson
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  Charles Mingus
  Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.
  Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz.
  Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players.
  
  wn.com/Charles_Mingus
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  Charlie Christian
  Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian (July 29, 1916 – March 2, 1942) was an American swing and jazz guitarist.
  Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra from August 1939 to June 1941. His single-string technique combined with amplification helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument. John Hammond and George T. Simon called Christian the best improvisational talent of the swing era. In the liner notes to the 1972 Columbia album Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian, Gene Lees writes that "many critics and musicians consider that Christian was one of the founding fathers of bebop, or if not that, at least a precursor to it".
  Christian's influence reached beyond jazz and swing — in 1990 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Christian was raised in Oklahoma City and was one of many musicians who jammed along the city's "Deep Deuce" section on N.E. Second Street. In 2006 Oklahoma City renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district Charlie Christian Avenue.
  
  wn.com/Charlie_Christian
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  Charlie Parker
  Charles Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), also known as Yardbird and Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.
  Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career and the shortened form, "Bird", which continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise."
  Parker was a highly influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and improvisation. Parker introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas, including rapidly passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. His tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Many Parker recordings demonstrate virtuosic technique and complex melodic lines, combining jazz with other musical genres, including blues, Latin, and classical.
  Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than an entertainer.
  
  wn.com/Charlie_Parker
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  Charlie Shavers
  Charles James Shavers (August 3, 1920 – July 8, 1971), known as Charlie Shavers, was an American swing era jazz trumpet player who played at one time or another with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams and Billie Holiday. He was also an arranger and composer, and one of his compositions, "Undecided", is a jazz standard.
  Charlie Shavers' father (a distant relative of Fats Navarro) was from the prominent Shavers family of Key West, Florida, and Charlie was a cousin of heavyweight boxer Earnie Shavers. Born in New York City, he originally took up the piano and banjo before switching to trumpet. In the mid-thirties, he performed with Tiny Bradshaw and Lucky Millinder. In 1936 he joined John Kirby's Sextet as trumpet soloist and arranger (he was only 16 but gave his birthdate as 1917 in order to avoid child labor laws - many biographies still list this date). His arrangements and solos with this band contributed greatly towards making it one of the most commercially successful and widely imitated bands of its day. In 1937 he was performing with Midge Williams and her Jazz Jesters. In 1944 he began playing sessions in Raymond Scott's CBS staff orchestra. In 1945 he left John Kirby's band to join Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, with whom he toured and recorded, off and on, until 1953. During this time he continued to play sessions at CBS, played with the Metronome All-Stars, and made a number of recordings as trumpet soloist with Billie Holiday. From 1953 to 1954 he worked with Benny Goodman, and toured Europe with Norman Granz's popular Jazz at the Philharmonic series, where he was always a crowd favorite. He went on to form his own band with Terry Gibbs and Louie Bellson.
  
  wn.com/Charlie_Shavers
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  Charlton Heston
  Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes. He also is well known for his roles in the films The Greatest Show on Earth and Touch of Evil.
  Heston was also known for his political activism. In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. Initially a moderate Democrat, he later supported conservative Republican policies and was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003.
  Heston was born John Charles Carter, the son of Lilla (née Charlton; 1899–1994) and Russell Whitford Carter (1897–1966), a sawmill operator. Most sources state that he was born in Evanston, Illinois. Heston's autobiography, however, and some other sources place his birth in No Man's Land, Illinois, which usually refers to a then-unincorporated area now part of Wilmette, a wealthy northern suburb of Chicago. Heston said in a 1995 interview that he was not very good at remembering addresses or his early childhood.
  
  wn.com/Charlton_Heston
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  Chu Berry
  Leon Brown "Chu" Berry (September 13, 1908,Wheeling, West Virginia – October 30, 1941,Conneaut, Ohio) was an American swing tenor saxophonist.
  Berry graduated from Lincoln High School, in Wheeling, then attended West Virginia State College, near Charleston, for three years. His sister Ann played piano and Chu became interested in music at an early age, playing alto saxophone at first with local bands. He was inspired to take up the tenor sax after hearing Coleman Hawkins on tour. Although Berry based his style on Hawkins' playing, the older man regarded Berry as his equal, saying "'Chu' was about the best."
  Most of Chu Berry's career was spent in the sax sections of major swing bands:
  "Although it has been stated in some publications that Chu Berry joined Count Basie's orchestra, this is erroneous. He did not take the place of Herschel Evans, but did, however, deputize for him at a recording date..."
  Throughout his brief career, Chu Berry was in demand as a sideman for recording sessions under the names of various other jazz artists, including Spike Hughes (1933), Bessie Smith (1933), The Chocolate Dandies (1933), Mildred Bailey (1935–1938), Teddy Wilson (1935–1938), Billie Holiday (1938–1939), Wingy Manone (1938–1939) and Lionel Hampton (1939).
  
  wn.com/Chu_Berry
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  Clark Terry
  Clark Terry (born December 14, 1920) is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Only three other trumpet players in history have ever received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: Louis Armstrong (Clark's old mentor), Miles Davis (whom Clark mentored), and Dizzy Gillespie (who often described Clark as the greatest jazz trumpet player on earth). Clark Terry is one of the most prolific jazz musicians in history, having appeared on 905 known recording sessions, which makes him the most recorded trumpet player of all time. In comparison, Louis Armstrong performed on 620 sessions, Harry "Sweets" Edison on 563, and Dizzy Gillespie on 501.
  He has played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–1951),Duke Ellington (1951–1959) and Quincy Jones (1960), and has recorded regularly both as a leader and sideman. In all, his career in jazz spans more than sixty years.
  
  wn.com/Clark_Terry
• Clifford Brown
  Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956), aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Valery Ponomarev, Wynton Marsalis, and many others.
  He won the Down Beat critics' poll for the "New Star of the Year" in 1954; he was inducted into the Down Beat "Jazz Hall of Fame" in 1972 in the critics' poll.
  Brown was born in Wilmington, Delaware. After briefly attending Delaware State University and Maryland State College, he was seriously injured in a car accident in June 1950. During his year-long hospitalization, Dizzy Gillespie visited the younger trumpeter and pushed him to pursue his musical career. Brown moved into playing music professionally, where he quickly became one of the most highly regarded trumpeters in jazz.
  He was influenced and encouraged by Fats Navarro, sharing Navarro's virtuosic technique and brilliance of invention. His sound was warm and round, and notably consistent across the full range of the instrument. He could articulate every note, even at very fast tempos which seemed to present no difficulty to him; this served to enhance the impression of his speed of execution. His sense of harmony was highly developed, enabling him to deliver bold statements through complex harmonic progressions (chord changes), and embodying the linear, "algebraic" terms of bebop harmony. In addition to his up-tempo prowess, he could express himself deeply in a ballad performance.
  
  wn.com/Clifford_Brown
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  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.
  
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  Cootie Williams
  Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams (July 10, 1911 – September 15, 1985) was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter.
  Born in Mobile, Alabama, United States, Williams began his professional career with the Young Family band, which included saxophonist Lester Young, when he was 14 years old. In 1928, he made his first recordings with pianist James P. Johnson in New York, where he also worked briefly in the bands of Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson. He rose to prominence as a member of Duke Ellington's orchestra, with which he performed from 1929 to 1940. He also recorded his own sessions during this time, both freelance and with other Ellington sidemen. In 1940 he joined Benny Goodman's orchestra, then in 1941 formed his own orchestra, in which over the years he employed Charlie Parker, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Bud Powell, Eddie Vinson, and other important young players.
  In 1947, Williams wrote the song "Cowpox Boogie" while recuperating from a bout with smallpox. He contracted the disease from a vaccination he insisted all band members receive.
  
  wn.com/Cootie_Williams
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  Daniel Hale Williams
  Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1858 – August 4, 1931) was an American surgeon. He was the first African-American cardiologist, and performed the first successful open-heart surgery in the United States. He also founded Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States.
  Williams was one of the first to have performed cardiac surgery. Earlier surgeries on the pericardium were performed by Francisco Romero in 1801, Dominique Jean Larrey prior to 1850, and by Henry Dalton in 1891. Also in 1891, he started the Provident Hospital and training school for nurses in Chicago, Illinois. This was established mostly for African-American citizens. In 1893 he repaired the torn pericardium of a knife wound patient, James Cornish, the second on record. He performed this surgery at Provident Hospital, Chicago, on 10 July 1893 About fifty-five days later, James Cornish had successfully recovered from the surgery.
  In 1893, during the administration of President Grover Cleveland, Williams was appointed surgeon-in-chief of Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C.. In addition to organizing the hospital, Williams also established a training school for African-American nurses at the facility.
  
  wn.com/Daniel_Hale_Williams
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  Dizzy Gillespie
  John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( /ɡɨˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and, occasionally, singer.
  Allmusic's Scott Yanow wrote, "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."
  Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop.
  In the 1940s Gillespie, together with Charlie Parker, became 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.
  
  wn.com/Dizzy_Gillespie
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  Dwight D. Eisenhower
  Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (pronounced /ˈaɪzənhaʊər/, EYE-zən-how-ər; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.
  Eisenhower was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and was reared in a large family in Kansas, by parents with a robust work ethic and religious background. As one of five sons, he was conditioned by a competitive atmosphere which instilled self-reliance. He attended and graduated from West Point, and later was married with two sons. After World War II Eisenhower served as Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman, then assumed the post of President at Columbia University.
  
  wn.com/Dwight_D._Eisenhower
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  Edward Albee
  Edward Franklin Albee III ( /ˈɔːlbiː/ AWL-bee; born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), and a rewrite of the book for the unsuccessful musical version of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966). His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee continues to experiment in new works, such as The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia? (2002).
  According to Magill's Survey of American Literature (2007), Edward Albee was born somewhere in Virginia (the popular belief is that he was born in Washington, D.C.). He was adopted two weeks later and taken to Larchmont, New York in Westchester County, where he grew up. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters. Here the young Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child. His adoptive mother, Reed's third wife, Frances tried to raise Albee to fit into their social circles.
  
  wn.com/Edward_Albee
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  Edward Villella
  Edward Villella (born October 1, 1936, Bayside), New York, is a danseur and choreographer, frequently cited as America's most celebrated male dancer at the time.
  Villella enrolled in the School of American Ballet at age ten, but then interrupted his studies to complete his college education. He attended the New York Maritime Academy, where he lettered in baseball and was a championship boxer. He graduated with a marine science degree in 1959, and rejoined the School of American Ballet.
  Villella became a member of the New York City Ballet in 1957, rising to soloist in 1958 and principal dancer in 1960. Among his most noteworthy performances were Oberon in George Balanchine's ballet A Midsummer Night's Dream (with music by Felix Mendelssohn), Tarantella, Rubies in the Balanchine ballet Jewels, and Prodigal Son.
  Villella was the first American male dancer to appear with the Royal Danish Ballet, and the only American ever asked to dance an encore at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. He danced at the inaugural for President John F. Kennedy, and performed for Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. He won an Emmy Award in 1975 for his CBS television production of Harlequinade. He danced in two television versions of The Nutcracker (in different roles), in a ballet film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in a 1966 TV production of Brigadoon, in which he played the tragic suitor Harry Beaton. During the 1960s he and his dancing partner Patricia McBride, who starred together in a 1965 television version of The Nutcracker, appeared often on the Ed Sullivan Show. In 1973, Villella appeared as himself in an episode of The Odd Couple titled "Last Tango in Newark" during which he said (much to Felix's dismay) that he always wanted to be a professional football player; his son, Roddy, also appeared. In 1983, Villella guest-starred on the soap opera Guiding Light.
  
  wn.com/Edward_Villella
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  Fayard Nicholas
  Fayard Antonio Nicholas (October 20, 1914 – January 24, 2006) was an American choreographer, dancer and actor. He, along with his brother Harold, made up the Nicholas Brothers tap-dance duo who starred in the MGM musicals An All-Colored Vaudeville Show (1935), Stormy Weather (1943), The Pirate (1948), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and Hard Four (2007). Fayard Nicholas was a member of the Bahá'í Faith.
  Fayard was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2001, along with his brother Harold Nicholas.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Fayard_Nicholas
• Fred Ebb
  Fred Ebb (April 8, 1928 – September 11, 2004) was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera.
  Ebb was born in Manhattan to a Jewish family, the son of Anna Evelyn (née Gritz) and Harry Ebb. He worked during the early 1950s bronzing baby shoes, as a trucker's assistant, and was also employed in a department store credit office and at a hosiery company. He graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, and also earned his Master’s Degree in English from Columbia University.
  One of his early collaborators was Phil Springer, and a song they wrote together ("I Never Loved Him Anyhow") was recorded by Carmen McRae in 1956. Another song Ebb wrote with Springer was "Heartbroken" (1953), which was recorded by Judy Garland, the mother of his future protégée, Liza Minnelli. Other Springer-Ebb tunes include "Moonlight Gambler" and "Nevertheless I Never Lost the Blues". "Don't Forget", which he wrote with Norman Leyden, was recorded by singer Eddy Arnold in 1954.
  
  wn.com/Fred_Ebb
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  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
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  George Pataki
  George Elmer Pataki (/pəˈtɑːki/; born June 24, 1945) is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.
  Pataki's paternal grandfather was János (later John) Pataki (1883–1971) of Aranyos-Apáti, Hungary, who came to the United States in 1908 and worked in a hat factory. János had married Erzsébet (later Elizabeth; 1887 – 1975) around 1904. Their son, Pataki's father, was Louis P. Pataki (1912–1996), a mailman. Pataki's maternal grandfather was Matteo Laganà (born in Calabria, Italy in 1889), who married Agnes Lynch of County Louth, Ireland around 1914. Their daughter, Margaret Lagana, is Pataki's mother. He has an older brother, Louis. George Pataki can still speak a little Hungarian today.
  Pataki married Elizabeth Rowland in 1973, and they have four children: Emily, Teddy, Allison, and Owen.
  After attending Peekskill High School, he entered Yale University in 1964 on an academic scholarship, and graduated in 1967. While there he served as chairman of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1970.
  
  wn.com/George_Pataki
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  George W. Bush
  George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. The eldest son of Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush, he was born in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush worked in oil businesses. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. In a close and controversial election, Bush was elected President in 2000 as the Republican candidate, defeating Vice President Al Gore in the Electoral College. Bush is the second American president to have been the son of a former president. He is also the brother of Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.
  Terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bush's first term as president on September 11, 2001. In response, Bush announced the War on Terror, an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan launched in 2001 and the war in Iraq launched in 2003. In addition to national security issues, Bush promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, and social security reform. He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors. His tenure saw national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and enhanced interrogation techniques. His administration also withdrew the U.S. from a some international treaty processes, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
  
  wn.com/George_W._Bush
• George Wallington
  George Wallington (born Giacinto Figlia; October 27, 1924, Palermo, Sicily – Cape Coral, Miami, February 15, 1993) was a highly regarded American bop pianist and composer.
  From 1943 to 1953 he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Marsala, Charlie Parker, Serge Chaloff, Allan Eager, Kai Winding, Terry Gibbs, Brew Moore, Al Cohn, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims, Red Rodney, and Lionel Hampton, and recorded as a leader for Savoy and Blue Note (1950). From 1954 to 1960 he led groups in New York that included newcomers Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, and Phil Woods, recording as leader with these musicians for the Prestige and Atlantic labels. In 1960 he retired to work in the family business, returning to music in 1984 and recording three albums. His style is often compared to the legendary Earl "Bud" Powell.
  His best known compositions are the bop standards "Lemon Drop" and "Godchild".
  He can be heard playing Lady Fair on the Verve release Metronome All-Stars 1956.
  
  wn.com/George_Wallington
• Gigi Gryce
  Gigi Gryce (also known as Basheer Qusim or Lee Sears; born George General Grice, Jr. November 28, 1925 in Pensacola, Florida — March 14, 1983 in Pensacola, Florida) was an American saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, educator, and big band bandleader.
  His performing career was relatively short and, in comparison to other musicians of his generation, Gryce's work is little known. However, several of his compositions have been covered extensively ("Minority," "Social Call," "Nica's Tempo") and have become minor jazz standards. Gryce's compositional bent includes harmonic choices similar to those of Benny Golson, Tadd Dameron and Horace Silver in the contemporaneous period. Gryce's playing, arranging, composing is most associated with the classic hard bop era (roughly 1953-1965).
  He retired from music in the early 1960s, due primarily to frustration with the financial side of his career.
  Although primarily a jazz musician, Gryce studied classical composition with Alan Hovhaness and Daniel Pinkham at the Boston Conservatory following World War II (he entered September 15, 1947 and obtained a Bachelor of Music degree on June 6, 1952). While there, he may have composed a number of symphonic compositions and chamber works. Gryce won a Fulbright scholarship and continued his studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Arthur Honegger. He also studied composition with the Boston music teacher Madame Margaret Chaloff, the mother of the baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff.
  
  wn.com/Gigi_Gryce
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  Ginger Rogers
  Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century.
  During her long career, she made a total of 73 films, and was best known as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She achieved great success on her own in a variety of film roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). She ranks #14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of actress screen legends.
  Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, the only child of William Eddins McMath, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Lela Emogene (née Owens; 1891–1977). Ginger's parents separated soon after her birth, and she and her mother went to live with her grandparents, Walter and Saphrona (née Ball) Owens, in nearby Kansas City. Rogers' parents fought over her custody. After her mother denied him visitation, her father reportedly absconded with his daughter twice. After her parents divorced, Rogers stayed with her grandparents while her mother wrote scripts for two years in Hollywood. Rogers was to remain close to her grandfather (much later, when she was a star in 1939, she bought him a home at 5115 Greenbush Avenue in Sherman Oaks, California so that he could be close to her while she was filming at the studios).^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Ginger_Rogers
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  Gregory Peck
  Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor.
  One of the world's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an Academy Award. President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at #12. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1983.
  Eldred Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California, the son of Missouri-born Bernice Mae "Bunny" (née Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, who was a chemist and pharmacist. Peck's father was of Irish (maternal) heritage and English (paternal) heritage, and his mother was of Scots (paternal) and English (maternal) ancestry. Peck's father was a Catholic and his mother converted upon marrying his father. Peck's Irish-born paternal grandmother, Catherine Ashe, was related to Thomas Ashe, who took part in the Easter Rising fewer than three weeks after Peck's birth and died while on hunger strike in 1917. Peck's parents divorced by the time he was six years old and he spent the next few years being raised by his maternal grandmother.
  
  wn.com/Gregory_Peck
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  Hank Jones
  Henry "Hank" Jones (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award. He was also honored in 2003 with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award. In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On April 13, 2009, the University of Hartford presented Jones with a Doctorate Degree for his musical accomplishments.
  Jones recorded over sixty albums under his own name, and countless others as a sideman.
  Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Henry "Hank" Jones moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where his father, Henry Jones Sr. a Baptist deacon and lumber inspector, bought a three-story brick home. One of seven children, Jones was raised in a musical family. His mother Olivia Jones sang; his two older sisters studied piano; and his two younger brothers—Thad, a trumpeter, and Elvin, a drummer—also became prominent jazz musicians. He studied piano at an early age and came under the influence of Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, and Art Tatum. By the age of 13 Jones was performing locally in Michigan and Ohio. While playing with territory bands in Grand Rapids and Lansing in 1944 he met Lucky Thompson, who invited Jones to work in New York City at the Onyx Club with Hot Lips Page.
  
  wn.com/Hank_Jones
• Harold Nicholas
  Harold Lloyd Nicholas (March 27, 1921 – July 3, 2000) was an American dancer specializing in tap. He was the younger half of the world famous tap dancing pair the Nicholas Brothers, known as two of the world's greatest dancers. His older brother was Fayard Nicholas. Harold was married to actress Dorothy Dandridge from 1942 to 1951.
  Nicholas was born to drummer and orchestra leader Ulysses Domonick and pianist Viola Harden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. By the age of three, his older brother Fayard enjoyed sitting in the audience of the black vaudeville theater where his parents performed, enraptured by the great performers on stage. Immersed in show business, when the Nicholases added a second son to the family, seven-year-old Fayard insisted that the child be named after his idol, Harold Lloyd, the silent screen comedian. Soon after Harold was born the two brothers began dancing. They quickly gained acclaim for their elegant acrobatic moves and mastery of tap. When Fayard turned 16 and Harold 9, they had made their first appearance at the legendary Cotton Club in New York City. They were popular immediately.
  
  wn.com/Harold_Nicholas
• Harold Prince
  Harold Smith "Hal" Prince (born January 30, 1928) is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century. He has garnered twenty-one Tony Awards, more than any other individual, including eight for directing, eight for producing the year's Best Musical, two as Best Producer of a Musical, and three special awards.
  Prince wasCole was her born in New York City to Milton A. Prince, a stockbroker, and Blanche Stern. He entered the University of Pennsylvania at age 16, where he followed a liberal arts curriculum and graduated three years later. He later served two years with the United States Army in post-WWII Germany.
  Prince began work in the theatre as an assistant stage manager to theatrical producer and director George Abbott. Along with Abbott, he co-produced The Pajama Game, which won the 1955 Tony Award for Best Musical. He went on to direct his own productions in 1962 beginning with A Family Affair and hit a series of unsuccessful productions.
  
  wn.com/Harold_Prince
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  Harry James
  Henry Haag “Harry” James (March 15, 1916 - July 5, 1983) was an actor and musician best known as a trumpeter who led a swing band during the Big Band Swing Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.
  Harry James was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a traveling circus. By the age of 10 he was taking trumpet lessons from his father, who placed him on a strict daily practice schedule. Each day, James was given one page to learn from the Arban's book and was not allowed to pursue any other pastime until he had learned that particular page.
  In 1931 his family settled in Beaumont, Texas, where James began playing with local dance bands.
  In 1935 he joined the nationally popular Ben Pollack but at the start of 1937 left Pollack to join Benny Goodman's orchestra, where he stayed through 1938. He was nicknamed "The Hawk" early in his career for his ability to "sight-read." A common joke was that if a fly landed on his written music, Harry James would play it. His low range had a warmth associated with the cornet and even the flugelhorn, but he achieved this on the trumpet. This was emulated by Jack Sheldon, but this sound was underrecorded in favor of James' brilliant high register.
  
  wn.com/Harry_James
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  Howard Hawks
  Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896–December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. He is popular for his films from a wide range of genres such as Scarface (1932), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Sergeant York (1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and Rio Bravo (1959).
  In 1975, Hawks was awarded the Honorary Academy Award as "a master American filmmaker whose creative efforts hold a distinguished place in world cinema," and in 1942 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Sergeant York.
  Howard Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana on May 30, 1896. Hawks was the first-born child of Frank W. Hawks (1865–1950), a wealthy paper manufacturer, and the former Helen Howard (1872–1952), the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Hawks's family on his father's side were American pioneers and his ancestor John Hawks had emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630. The family eventually settled in Goshen and by the 1890s was one of the wealthiest families in the Mid-West, due mostly to the highly profitable Goshen Milling Company. Hawk's maternal grandfather C. W. Howard (1845–1916) had homesteaded in Neenah, Wisconsin in 1862 at age 17 and within 15 years had earned a fortune in the town's Paper mill and other industrial endeavors. Frank Hawks and Helen Howard met in the early 1890s and married in 1895. Hawks was the oldest of five children and his birth was followed by Kenneth Neil Hawks (August 12, 1899- January 2, 1930), William Bellinger Hawks (1902- January 10, 1969), Grace Louise Hawks (October 17, 1903- December 23, 1927) and Helen Bernice Hawks (1906- May 4, 1911). In 1898 the family moved to Neenah, Wisconsin where Franks Hawks began working for his father-in-law's Howard Paper Company.
  
  wn.com/Howard_Hawks
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  Illinois Jacquet
  Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet (October 31, 1922 - July 22, 2004) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, best remembered for his solo on "Flying Home", critically recognized as the first R&B saxophone solo.
  Although he was a pioneer of the honking tenor saxophone that became a regular feature of jazz playing and a hallmark of early rock and roll, Jacquet was a skilled and melodic improviser, both on up-tempo tunes and ballads. He doubled on the bassoon, one of only a few jazz musicians to use the instrument.
  Jacquet was born to a Sioux mother and a Creole father in Broussard, Louisiana and moved to Houston, Texas, as an infant, and was raised there as one of six siblings. His father, Gilbert Jacquet, was a part-time bandleader. As a child he performed in his father's band, primarily on the alto saxophone. His older brother Russell Jacquet played trumpet and his brother Linton played drums.
  At 15, Jacquet began playing with the Milton Larkin Orchestra, a Houston-area dance band. In 1939, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he met Nat King Cole. Jacquet would sit in with the trio on occasion. In 1940, Cole introduced Jacquet to Lionel Hampton who had returned to California and was putting together a big band. Hampton wanted to hire Jacquet, but asked the young Jacquet to switch to tenor saxophone.
  
  wn.com/Illinois_Jacquet
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  Jack Lemmon
  John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts (for which he won the 1955 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger (for which he won the 1973 Best Actor Academy Award), The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing (for which he won 'Best Actor' at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival), Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.
  Lemmon was born in an elevator^{[citation needed]} at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He was the only child of Mildred Burgess LaRue (née Noel) and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., who was the president of a doughnut company. Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School in Newton and The Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts. He had stated that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight. Lemmon attended Phillips Academy (Class of 1943) and Harvard University (Class of 1947), where he lived in Adams House and was an active member of several Drama Clubs - becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club - as well as a member of the Delphic Club for Gentleman, a final club at Harvard. After Harvard, Lemmon joined the Navy, receiving V-12 training and serving as an ensign. On being discharged, he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway. He studied acting under coach Uta Hagen. He also became enamored of the piano and learned to play it on his own. He could also play the harmonica, organ, and the double bass.
  
  wn.com/Jack_Lemmon
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  Jacques d'Amboise
  Jacques d'Amboise (born July 28, 1934) is an American danseur and choreographer.
  D'Amboise was born as Joseph Jacques Ahearn in Dedham, Massachusetts. He was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, where ballets were especially created for him by famous choreographer George Balanchine. He has also choreographed ballets for the New York City Ballet.
  As well as ballets, d'Amboise danced in films, including Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, where he played the part of Ephraim, one of the brothers—and Carousel (1956), where he danced the ballet role of the Starlight Carnival barker in Louise's Ballet.
  D'Amboise founded National Dance Institute in 1976, which has been teaching school children how to dance for the past 30 years. A documentary film (He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin' ) about Jacques d'Amboise and National Dance Institute won an Academy Award. The NDI program often combines music and art with studies of other cultures, histories, and literature, offering a unique and comprehensive performing arts experience, while fostering curiosity and a sense of achievement.
  
  wn.com/Jacques_d'Amboise
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  Jason Robards
  Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. (July 26, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an American actor on stage, and in film and television. He is a winner of the Tony Award, two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award. He was also a United States Navy combat veteran of World War II.
  He became famous playing works of Eugene O'Neill, an American playwright, and regularly performed in O'Neill's works throughout his career. Robards was cast in both common-man roles and as well-known historical figures.
  Robards was born in Chicago, the son of Hope Maxine (née Glanville) Robards and Jason Robards, Sr., an actor who regularly appeared on the stage and in such early films as The Gamblers (1929). Robards was of English, Welsh, Irish, and Swedish descent.
  The family moved to New York City, New York, when Jason Jr. was still a toddler, and then moved to Los Angeles, California, when he was six years old. Later interviews with Robards suggested that the trauma of his parents' divorce, which occurred during his grade-school years, greatly affected his personality and worldview.
  
  wn.com/Jason_Robards
• Jerome Richardson
  Jerome Richardson (December 25, 1920 – June 23, 2000) was an American jazz musician, tenor saxophonist, and flute player, who also played alto sax, baritone sax, clarinet and piccolo. He played with Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, and later with Earl Hines' small band.
  Richardson was born in Oakland, California and died in Englewood, New Jersey.
  
  wn.com/Jerome_Richardson
• Jessye Norman
  Jessye Norman (born September 15, 1945) is an American opera singer. Norman is a well-known contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and is among some of the most highly successful performers in classical music. A dramatic soprano, Norman is associated in particular with the Wagnerian repertoire, and with the roles of Sieglinde, Ariadne, Alceste, and Leonore.
  Jessye Mae Norman was born on September 15, 1945 in Augusta, Georgia to Silas Norman, an insurance salesman, and Janie King-Norman, a school teacher. She was one of five children in a family of amateur musicians; her mother and grandmother were both pianists, her father a singer in a local choir. Norman's mother insisted that she start piano lessons at an early age. Norman attended Charles T. Walker Elementary School, A.R. Johnson Junior High School, and Lucy C. Laney Senior High School, all in downtown Augusta.
  
  wn.com/Jessye_Norman
• Jimmy Bertrand
  Jimmy Bertrand (24 February 1900 – August 1960) was an American jazz and blues drummer.
  James Bertrand was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, and was active on the Chicago blues/jazz scene of the 1920s. Bertrand recorded with Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Tampa Red, Ma Rainey, Freddie Keppard, Erskine Tate, Big Bill Broonzy, Doc Cook, Jimmy Blythe, Lee Collins, and Blind Blake amongst many others. In addition he led Jimmy Bertrand's Washboard Wizards.
  As well as drums and washboard, Bertrand also played the xylophone and slide whistle. He was the brother-in-law of Jelly Roll Morton and brother of the showgirl, Mabel Bertrand.
  He was also a noted instructor; his pupils included Wallace Bishop, Lionel Hampton, and Big Sid Catlett.
  
  wn.com/Jimmy_Bertrand
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  Jimmy Cleveland
  Jimmy Cleveland (May 3, 1926 – August 23, 2008) was an American jazz trombonist born in Wartrace, Tennessee.
  Cleveland worked with many well-known jazz musicians, including Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Quincy Jones, Lucky Thompson, Gigi Gryce, Oscar Peterson, Oscar Pettiford and James Brown. He also recorded a sequence of albums for EmArcy/Mercury Records in the 1950s and 1960s. He continued to make records with Zion Records later in his career.
  Cleveland died August 23, 2008 in Lynwood, California at age 82.
  with Julian Cannonball Adderley:
  With Brass Fever
  with James Brown:
  with Donald Byrd
  with Clifford Coulter
  with Miles Davis:
  with Gil Evans
  with Art Farmer:
  With Dizzy Gillespie
  with Gigi Gryce:
  With Milt Jackson
  with Antonio Carlos Jobim:
  with Quincy Jones:
  with Gene Krupa:
  with Melba Liston:
  with Charles Mingus:
  With Blue Mitchell
  With the Modern Jazz Quartet
  with Wes Montgomery:
  With Oliver Nelson
  with Phineas Newborn, Jr.
  With Duke Pearson
  with Oscar Peterson:
  with Oscar Pettiford:
  
  wn.com/Jimmy_Cleveland
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  Joanne Woodward
  Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman. She is perhaps best known for her Academy Award winning role in The Three Faces of Eve (1957).
  Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia, daughter of Elinor Gignilliat (née Trimmier) and Wade Woodward, Jr., who at one point was vice president of publisher Charles Scribner's Sons. Her middle name, "Gignilliat", originates from distant Huguenot ancestry. She was influenced to become an actress by her mother's love of movies. Her mother named her after Joan Crawford, using the Southern pronunciation of the name "Joanne". Attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, nine-year-old Woodward rushed out into the parade of stars and sat on the lap of Laurence Olivier, star Vivien Leigh's partner and future husband. She eventually worked with Olivier in 1977, in a television production of Come Back, Little Sheba. During rehearsals, she mentioned this incident to him and he told her he remembered her doing it.
  
  wn.com/Joanne_Woodward
• John H. Hammond
  John Henry Hammond II (December 15, 1910 – July 10, 1987) was an American record producer, Civil Rights activist, non-musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s. In his service as a talent scout, Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music.
  Hammond was instrumental in sparking or furthering numerous musical careers, including those of Benny Goodman, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Big Joe Turner, Pete Seeger, Babatunde Olatunji, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Bob Dylan, Freddie Green, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Arthur Russell, Asha Puthli and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues artist Robert Johnson's music.
  He also strived for racial integration, not only in the musical frontier but in the United States in general.
  Hammond was christened John Henry Hammond, Jr., although both his father and grandfather shared the same name. He was the youngest child and only son of John Henry Hammond. His father attended Yale, graduating with a law degree from Columbia. His grandfather was Civil War General John Henry Hammond, who married Sophia Vernon Wolfe. His father was a brother of Ogden H. Hammond, ambassador to Spain, and uncle to politician Millicent Fenwick. Despite the family fortune from his mother's side of the family, his father worked to provide for his family and maintain the family fortune. He worked in various jobs "as a banker, lawyer, and railroad executive".Hammond's mother was the former Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, one of three daughters of William Douglas Sloane and Emily Thorn Vanderbilt. John H. Hammond, Sr. and Emily Sloane were wed on April 5, 1899. They also had four daughters: Emily, Adele, Rachel, and Alice, who married musician Benny Goodman in 1942.
  
  wn.com/John_H._Hammond
• John Kander
  John Harold Kander (born March 18, 1927) is the American composer of a number of musicals as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb.
  Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bernice (née Aaron) and Harold S. Kander. Kander attended The Pembroke Country-Day School and Oberlin College before earning a Master's degree at Columbia University where he was a protégé of Douglas Moore and studied composition with Jack Beeson.
  Kander began his Broadway career as substitute rehearsal pianist for West Side Story. The stage manager for West Side Story then asked Kander to play the auditions for her next show, Gypsy. During the auditions, Kander met the choreographer, Jerome Robbins, who suggested that Kander compose the dance music for the show in 1959. After that experience, he wrote dance arrangements for Irma la Douce in 1960.
  His first produced musical was A Family Affair, written with James and William Goldman. He met lyricist Fred Ebb in 1962 and began a songwriting collaboration that would last for more than four decades. Later that year rising star Barbra Streisand recorded two of the duo's songs, "My Coloring Book" and "I Don't Care Much." In 1965, Kander and Ebb landed their first show on Broadway, Flora the Red Menace, produced by Hal Prince, directed by George Abbott, and with book by George Abbott and Robert Russell,^{[disambiguation needed ]} in which Liza Minnelli made her initial Broadway appearance. Kander and Ebb have since been associated with writing material for both Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera, and have produced special material for their appearances live and on television.
  
  wn.com/John_Kander
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  Johnny Carson
  John William "Johnny" Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host and comedian, known for thirty years as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992). Carson received six Emmy Awards, the Governor Award, and a 1985 Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. Johnny Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993.
  Although his show was already successful by the end of the 1960s, during the 1970s Carson became an American icon and remained so until his retirement in 1992. He adopted a casual, conversational approach with extensive interaction with guests, an approach pioneered by Arthur Godfrey and previous Tonight Show hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Late night hosts David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Fallon have all cited Carson's influence on their late-night talk shows, which resemble his in format and tone.
  Carson was born in Corning, Iowa, in the year 1925, to Homer Lloyd "Kit" Carson, a power company manager, and Ruth Hook Carson, who was of Irish descent. He grew up in the nearby towns of Avoca, Clarinda, and Red Oak in southwest Iowa before moving to Norfolk, Nebraska, at the age of eight. At the age of twelve, Carson found a book on magic at a friend's house and immediately purchased a mail-order magician's kit. He debuted as "The Great Carsoni" at fourteen and was paid $3; many other performances at local picnics and country fairs followed.
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Carson
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  Johnny Cash
  John R. "Johnny" Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003), was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is primarily remembered as a country music icon, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly and rock and roll—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal led to Cash being inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
  Cash was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice; for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for his rebelliousness, coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor; for providing free concerts inside prison walls; and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black". He traditionally started his concerts by saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." and usually following it up with his standard "Folsom Prison Blues".
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Cash
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  Johnny Griffin
  John Arnold Griffin III (April 24, 1928 – July 25, 2008) was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.
  Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax. While still at high school at age 15, Griffin was playing with T-Bone Walker in a band led by Walker's brother.
  Alto saxophone was still his instrument of choice when he joined Lionel Hampton's big band three days after his high school graduation, but Hampton encouraged him to take up the tenor, playing alongside Arnett Cobb. He first appeared on a Los Angeles recording with Hampton's band in 1945 at age 17.
  By mid-1947, Griffin and fellow Hampton band member Joe Morris had formed a sextet made up of local musicians, including George Freeman, where he remained for the next two years. His playing can be heard on various early Rhythm and Blues recordings for Atlantic Records. By 1951 Griffin was playing baritone saxophone in an R&B sextet led by former bandmate Arnett Cobb.
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Griffin
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  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
• Judith Jamison
  Judith Ann Jamison (born May 10, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American dancer and choreographer, best known as the Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
  
  wn.com/Judith_Jamison
• Jule Styne
  Jule Styne (December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British-born American songwriter especially famous for a series of Broadway musicals, which included several very well known and frequently revived shows.
  Styne was born in London, England as Julius Kerwin Stein of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. At the age of eight he moved with his family to Chicago, where at an early age he began taking piano lessons. He proved to be a prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies before he was ten years old.
  Styne attended Chicago Musical College, but before then he had already attracted attention of another teenager, Mike Todd, later a successful film producer, who commissioned him to write a song for a musical act that he was creating. It would be the first of over 1,500 published songs Styne would compose in his career.
  Styne established his own dance band, which brought him to the notice of Hollywood, where he was championed by Frank Sinatra and where he began a collaboration with lyricist Sammy Cahn, with whom he wrote many songs for the movies, including "It's Been a Long, Long Time" (#1 for 3 weeks for Harry James and His Orchestra in 1945), "Five Minutes More," and the Oscar-winning "Three Coins in the Fountain". He collaborated on the score for the 1955 musical film My Sister Eileen with Leo Robin. Ten of his songs were nominated for the Oscar, many written with Cahn, including "I've Heard That Song Before" (#1 for 13 weeks for Harry James and His Orchestra in 1943), "I'll Walk Alone", "It's Magic" (a #2 hit for Doris Day in 1948) and "I Fall in Love Too Easily".
  
  wn.com/Jule_Styne
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  Katharine Hepburn
  Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Known for her headstrong independence and spirited personality, Hepburn's career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned more than 60 years. Her work came in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and she received four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer. Hepburn's characters were often strong, sophisticated women with a hidden vulnerability.
  Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while studying at Bryn Mawr College. After four years in the theatre, favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Her early years in the film industry were marked with success, including an Academy Award for her third picture, Morning Glory (1933), but this was followed by a series of commercial failures. In 1938 she was labeled "box office poison". Hepburn masterminded her own comeback, buying out her contract with RKO Radio Pictures and acquiring the film rights to The Philadelphia Story, which she sold on the condition that she be the star. In the 1940s she was contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where her career focused on an alliance with Spencer Tracy. The screen-partnership spanned 25 years, and produced nine movies.
  
  wn.com/Katharine_Hepburn
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  Kenny Dorham
  McKinley Howard (Kenny) Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did or public recognition. For this reason, his name has become (in the words of writer Gary Giddins) "virtually synonymous with underrated." He also composed the jazz standard "Blue Bossa," which first appeared on Joe Henderson's album Page One.
  Dorham was one of the most active bebop trumpeters. He played in the big bands of Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington and the quintet of Charlie Parker. He was a charter member of the original cooperative Jazz Messengers. He also recorded as a sideman with Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, and he replaced Clifford Brown in the Max Roach Quintet after Brown's death in 1956. In addition to sideman work, he led his own groups, including the Jazz Prophets (formed shortly after Art Blakey took over the Jazz Messengers name). The Jazz Prophets, featuring a young Bobby Timmons on piano, bassist Sam Jones and tenorman J. R. Monterose with guest Kenny Burrell on guitar, recorded a live album 'Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia in 1956 for Blue Note.
  
  wn.com/Kenny_Dorham
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  Kirk Douglas
  Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch, Russian: И́сер Даниело́вич; December 9, 1916) is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past (1947), Champion (1949), Ace in the Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Lust for Life (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Spartacus (1960), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962).
  He is No.17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time, making him the highest-ranked living person on the list. In 1996, he received the Academy Honorary Award "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community."
  Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Bryna "Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch, a businessman. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel, Belarus. His father's brother, who emigrated earlier, used the surname Demsky, which Douglas's family adopted in the United States. In addition to their surname, his parents also changed their given names to Harry and Bertha. Douglas grew up as Izzy Demsky and legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas before entering the Navy during World War II.
  
  wn.com/Kirk_Douglas
• Lara Saint Paul
  Silvana Savorelli (b. 1946 in Asmara from Italian father and Eritrean mother), professionally known as Lara Saint Paul, is an Italian Eritrean singer, entertainer, impresario and record producer.
  Lara Saint Paul's first public performance was in 1962 at the Festival della canzone italiana, also known as the Sanremo Music Festival, in Italy. She went by the name of Tanya and performed the ballad I colori della felicità.
  Adopting the stage name Lara Saint Paul, she performed in the 1966 Festival delle Rose with the song Il pieno and was a finalist in the 1967 Festival della Canzone Napoletana for her performance of Te faie desidera'.
  Her first big success arrived when she returned to the Sanremo Music Festival in 1968 as one of the two performers of the song Mi va di cantare. The other performer was Louis Armstrong, and they performed alongside Lionel Hampton. She also participated in Sanremo in 1972 with Se non fosse tra queste mie braccia lo inventerei and in 1973 with Una casa grande. She was a finalist three times in the Sanremo Music Festival.
  
  wn.com/Lara_Saint_Paul
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  Lauren Bacall
  Lauren Bacall ( /ˌlɔrən bəˈkɔːl/; born Betty Joan Perske, September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.
  She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947), as well as a comedienne in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall has also worked on Broadway in musicals, gaining Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
  In 1999, Bacall was ranked #20 of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
  
  wn.com/Lauren_Bacall
• Lee Young
  Lee Young (March 7, 1914 – July 31, 2008) was an American jazz drummer and singer. His musical family included his father Willis Young and his older brother, saxophonist Lester Young. In 1944 he played with Norman Granz's first "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert.
  Young was born in 1914 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Willis Young and Lizetta Teresa Johnson. His father was a musician, as were other relatives. His older brother Lester Young became a famed saxophonist. Lee began playing from an early age and the family had a band for several years.
  In 1944 Lee Young was the drummer at Norman Granz's first "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert, which also featured guitarist Les Paul, trombonist J.J. Johnson, and saxophonist Jean-Baptiste "Illinois" Jacquet, amongst others.
  Young played with such jazz and swing music notables as Mutt Carey, Fats Waller, Les Hite, Benny Goodman, and Lionel Hampton. In the 1950s Young played with Nat King Cole's trio. From the 1960s on, he worked as an artist & repertory man for such record labels as Vee-Jay and Motown.
  
  wn.com/Lee_Young
• Les Hite
  Les Hite (February 13, 1903, Duguoin, Illinois – February 6, 1962, Santa Monica, California) was an American jazz bandleader.
  Hite attended the University of Illinois and played saxophone with family members in a band in the 1920s. Following this, he played with Detroit Shannon and then the Helen Dewey Show, but when this group disbanded abruptly, Hite relocated to Los Angeles. There he played with The Spikes Brothers Orchestra, Mutt Carey, Curtis Mosby, and Paul Howard. He became leader of Howard's band in 1930, and played at the Cotton Club in Los Angeles for several years, accompanying Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller among others. They also recorded frequently for film soundtracks and occasionally appeared on camera.
  Hite's big band, known as Sebastian's Cotton Club Orchestra, primarily played in Los Angeles, though they occasionally went on tour. Musicians who played in the band include Lionel Hampton, Marshall Royal, Lawrence Brown, Britt Woodman, Joe Wilder, T-Bone Walker, and Dizzy Gillespie. Hite rarely recorded, and for this reason much of the details of his life and work are poorly documented. The only sessions he did were 14 numbers recorded between 1940 and 1942.
  
  wn.com/Les_Hite
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  Lionel Hampton
  Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich to Charlie Parker and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
  Lionel Hampton was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1908, and was raised by his grandmother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1916. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, which was off limits because of racial segregation. During the 1920s—while still a teenager—Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and started playing drums. Hampton was raised Roman Catholic, and started out playing fife and drum at the Holy Rosary Academy near Chicago.
  
  wn.com/Lionel_Hampton
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  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
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  Maria Tallchief
  Elizabeth Maria Tallchief (born January 24, 1925) was the first Native American to become prima ballerina. From 1942 to 1947 she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but she is even better known for her time with the New York City Ballet, from its founding in 1947 through 1965. Known professionally as Maria Tallchief, her family called her Betty Marie.
  She was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma to a father who was a chief in the Osage Nation and a Scots-Irish mother.
  Of her childhood she wrote, "I was a good student and fit in at Sacred Heart (Catholic school). But in many ways, I was a typical Indian girl — shy, docile, introverted. I loved being outdoors and spent most of my time wandering around my big front yard, where there was an old swing and a garden. I'd also ramble around the grounds of our summer cottage hunting for arrowheads in the grass. Finding one made me shiver with excitement. Mostly, I longed to be in the pasture, running around where the horses were...".
  She enjoyed music, dancing and ballet. Her desire to pursue a career in the arts was a challenging dream for a Native American child in those days. The family moved to Beverly Hills, California in 1933, where Maria studied ballet with Bronislava Nijinska for five years. Madame Nijinska's philosophy of discipline made sense to Tallchief. "When you sleep, sleep like a ballerina. Even on the street waiting for the bus, stand like ballerina".
  
  wn.com/Maria_Tallchief
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  Marilyn Horne
  Marilyn Horne (born January 16, 1934, Bradford, Pennsylvania) is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages.
  Horne was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, but moved with her parents to Long Beach, California, when she was 11. At the age of 13, she became part of the newly formed Los Angeles Concert Youth Chorus. She attended the University of Southern California where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She is an alumna of Long Beach Polytechnic High School and returned in 1989 in a performance to benefit its music program. As a high school student, Marilyn was part of the St. Luke's Choir of Long Beach under the direction of William Ripley Dorr. This prestigious choir often worked for the movie studios and recorded on Capitol Records. Marilyn and her sister Gloria were part of St. Luke's Quartet along with tenor, Bob James and baritone, Philip D. Haynes.
  
  wn.com/Marilyn_Horne
• Marion Williams
  Marion Williams (August 29, 1927 – July 2, 1994) was an American gospel singer.
  Marion Williams was born in Miami, Florida, to a religiously devout mother and musically inclined father. She left school when she was nine years old to help support the family, and worked as a maid, a nurse, and in factories and laundries. She began singing in front of auiences while young. As was common in the area, Williams learned African-American blues and jazz, alongside Caribbean calypso. Poverty caused Williams to leave school at fourteen, working with her mother at a laundry. She was singing at church and on street corners, inspired by a wide range of musicians, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Smith Jubilee Singers. She stuck with gospel in spite of pressure to switch to popular blues tunes or the opera.
  In 1946, while visiting a friend in Philadelphia, Williams happened to sing before an audience that included Clara and Gertrude Ward. They recognized her talent and offered her a job. A year later, she became part of the famous Ward Singers. Her growling, hands-on-the-hips vocal style made her the group's undisputed star.
  
  wn.com/Marion_Williams
• Milt Buckner
  Milt Buckner (10 July 1915 – 27 July 1977) was an American jazz pianist and organist, originally from St. Louis, Missouri. He was orphaned as a child, but an uncle in Detroit (trombone player John Tobias) taught him to play. Buckner pioneered the parallel chords style which influenced Red Garland, George Shearing, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson.
  He first played in Detroit with the McKinney Cotton Pickers and then with Cab Calloway. In 1941 he joined Lionel Hampton's big band, and for the next seven years served as its pianist and staff arranger. He led a short-lived band of his own for two years, but then returned to Hampton's in 1950. In 1952, he formed his own group. He often played in Europe in the late 60's. Buckner pioneered the use of the electric organ. He died in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of sixty-two.
  Buckner's brother, Ted Buckner, was a noted jazz saxophonist.
  
  wn.com/Milt_Buckner
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  Milt Hinton
  Milton John "Milt" Hinton (June 23, 1910 – December 19, 2000), "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".
  Hinton was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he resided until age eleven when he moved to Chicago, Illinois. He attended Wendell Phillips High School and Crane Junior College. While attending these schools, he learned first to play the violin, and later bass horn, tuba, cello and the double bass. As a young violinist out of school, he found gainful employment as a bassist. He later recounted in interviews, released in 1990 on Old Man Time, how this prompted him to switch to double bass.
  In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he worked as a freelance musician in Chicago. During this time, he worked with famous jazz musicians such as Jabbo Smith, Eddie South, and Art Tatum. In 1936, he joined a band led by Cab Calloway. Members of this band included Chu Berry, Cozy Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Illinois Jacquet, Jonah Jones, Ike Quebec, Ben Webster, and Danny Barker.
  
  wn.com/Milt_Hinton
• Monk Montgomery
  William Howard "Monk" Montgomery (October 10, 1921 – May 20, 1982) was an American jazz bassist.
  Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Montgomery was the older brother of guitarist Wes Montgomery; younger brother, Buddy Montgomery played vibraphone and piano. The brothers released a number of albums together as the Montgomery Brothers.
  He is perhaps the first electric bassist of significance to jazz, introducing the Fender Precision Bass to the genre in 1951. Montgomery also played the double bass. His professional career did not start until after his younger brother Wes, at the age of 30. From 1951 to 1953 he worked in Lionel Hampton's Orchestra. After that he worked with his brothers and Alonzo Johnson in the Montgomery Johnson Quintet. In 1955 he moved to Seattle to form the Mastersounds from 1957–1960. Later from 1966–1970, he freelanced with Cal Tjader and continued to play where he settled in Las Vegas, Nevada with The Red Norvo Trio. In his final years he was active in the Las Vegas Jazz Society, which he founded. He had also been planning a world jazz festival.
  
  wn.com/Monk_Montgomery
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  Morton Gould
  Morton Gould (December 10, 1913 – February 21, 1996) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist.
  Born in Richmond Hill, New York, Gould was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six. Gould studied at the Institute of Musical Art, although his most important teachers were Abby Whiteside and Vincent Jones.
  During the Depression, Gould, while a teenager, worked in New York City playing piano in movie theaters, as well as with vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as the staff pianist. By 1935, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for New York's WOR radio station, where he reached a national audience via the Mutual Broadcasting System, combining popular programming with classical music.
  In the 1940s, Gould appeared on the Cresta Blanca Carnival program as well as The Chrysler Hour on CBS where he reached an audience of millions.
  Gould composed Broadway scores such as Billion Dollar Baby and Arms and the Girl; film music such as Delightfully Dangerous, Cinerama Holiday, and Windjammer; music for television series such as World War One; and ballet scores including Interplay, Fall River Legend, and I'm Old Fashioned.
  
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  NAACP
  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people.
  The NAACP bestows the annual Image Awards for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and the annual Spingarn Medals for outstanding positive achievement of any kind, on deserving African Americans. It has its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.
  The NAACP's headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional regional offices in California, New York, Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Texas and Maryland. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in the states included in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.
  
  wn.com/NAACP
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  Neil Simon
  Neil Simon (born July 4, 1927) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that were made into movies. He also has written the books for several musicals, including Sweet Charity.
  Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927 in The Bronx, New York City to Irving Simon, a garment salesman, and his wife Mamie. He was their second son and grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan during the Great Depression. His father often abandoned the family, causing financial and emotional difficulties. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School and graduated at the age of sixteen.
  He attended New York Universitybriefly from 1944 to 1945, where he was enlisted in the Army Air Force Reserve training program. He was assigned to Lowry Air Force Base during 1945 and attended the University of Denver from 1945 to 1946. He was a sports editor for the military magazine Rev-Meter.
  
  wn.com/Neil_Simon
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  Nelson Rockefeller
  Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was an American businessman, philanthropist, public servant, and politician. He served as the 41st Vice President of the United States (1974–1977), serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York (1959–1973). He also served the Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions. A member of the Rockefeller family, he was also a noted art collector.
  Rockefeller, a Republican, was politically moderate. In his time, moderates in the Republican party were called "Rockefeller Republicans". As Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 his achievements included the expansion of the State University of New York, efforts to protect the environment, the building of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, increased facilities and personnel for medical care, and creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, he served as Vice President (under the 25th Amendment) from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford. Ford ascended to the presidency following the August 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, over the Watergate Scandal, and Ford selected Rockefeller as his own replacement. But Rockefeller did not join the 1976 Republican national ticket with President Ford, marking his retirement from politics.
  
  wn.com/Nelson_Rockefeller
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  Norman Granz
  Norman Granz (August 6, 1918, Los Angeles, USA – November 22, 2001, Geneva, Switzerland) was an American jazz music impresario and producer.
  Granz was a fundamental figure in American jazz, especially from about 1947 to 1960. He was the founder of five record labels: Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve and Pablo.
  Born in Los Angeles, the son of Jewish immigrants from Tiraspol, he first emerged into the public view when he organised desegregated jam sessions at the Trouville Club in Los Angeles, which he later expanded when he staged a memorable concert at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday, July 2, 1944, under the heading of "Jazz at the Philharmonic".
  The title of the concert, "A Jazz Concert at the Philharmonic Auditorium", had been shortened by the printer of the advertising supplements to "Jazz at the Philharmonic". Only one copy of the very first concert program is known to exist. Norman Granz had organised the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert with about $300 of borrowed money.
  
  wn.com/Norman_Granz
• Norman Z. McLeod
  Norman Zenos McLeod (September 20, 1898, Grayling, Michigan – January 27, 1964, Hollywood, California) was an American film director, cartoonist and writer.
  McLeod made several successful and influential movies such as Taking A Chance (1928), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), Alice in Wonderland (1933), Topper (1937) and Merrily We Live (1938). Other memorable films directed by McLeod includes It's a Gift (1934) with W. C. Fields, and the Danny Kaye comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).
  His nickname, as recorded on a publicity still on the set of Monkey Business, was "Macko."
  He was educated at the University of Washington and spent two years as a fighter pilot in the Army Air Service in France during World War I. He was married to Evelyn Ward. He died, aged 65, following a stroke. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  
  
  
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  Oscar Peterson
  Oscar Emmanuel Peterson CC CQ OOnt (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career. He is considered to have been one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, having played thousands of live concerts to audiences worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.
  Peterson was born to immigrants from the West Indies; his father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood that he found himself surrounded by the jazz culture that flourished in the early 20th century. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills with the trumpet and piano. However, a bout of tuberculosis at age seven prevented him from playing the trumpet again, and so he directed all his attention to the piano. His father, Daniel Peterson, an amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers, and his sister Daisy taught young Oscar classical piano. Young Oscar was persistent at practising scales and classical etudes daily, and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his astonishing virtuosity.
  
  wn.com/Oscar_Peterson
• Osie Johnson
  James "Osie" Johnson (January 11, 1923 in Washington, D.C. – February 10, 1966 in New York City) was a jazz drummer, arranger and singer.
  He first worked with Sabby Lewis and then, after service in the United States Navy freelanced for a time in Chicago. From 1951 to 1953 he worked in Earl Hines's band.
  He can be heard on albums by Paul Gonsalves, Zoot Sims, and Mose Allison. He recorded an album as a singer, "A Bit of the Blues," and had arranged at a "hit" for singer Dinah Washington. His final recordings as a singer were on a J J Johnson album, now compiled as a collection called "Goodies."
  
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  Paul Newman
  Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver, auto racing team owner, and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money and eight other nominations, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.
  Newman was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of July 2011, these donations exceeded $300 million.
  Newman was born in Shaker Heights (a suburb of Cleveland). He was the son of Theresa (née Fetzer or Fetsko; Slovak: Terézia Fecková) and Arthur Sigmund Newman, who ran a profitable sporting goods store. His father was Jewish (Paul's paternal grandparents, Simon Newman and Hannah Cohn, were immigrants from Hungary and Poland). His mother, who practiced Christian Science, was born to a Slovak Roman Catholic family at Humenné, Ptičie (formerly Pticsie) in the former Kingdom of Hungary, Austria–Hungary (now Humenné in Slovakia). Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as a Jew, stating that "it's more of a challenge". Newman's mother worked in his father's store, while raising Paul and his brother, Arthur, who later became a producer and production manager.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Newman
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  Pete Seeger
  Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an iconic figure in the mid-20th-century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes.
  As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962); Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964, and The Seekers in 1966. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In the PBS "American Masters" episode Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Seeger states it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome".
  
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  Pope Paul VI
  Paul VI (Latin: Paulus PP. VI; Italian: Paolo VI), born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.
  Montini served in the Vatican's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential co-workers of Pope Pius XII, who named him in 1954 Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese, yet denying him the Cardinal designation that traditionally accompanies being Archbishop of Milan, a function which made him automatically Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors.
  
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  Quincy Jones
  Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991. He is particularly recognized as the producer of the album Thriller, by pop icon Michael Jackson, which has sold more than 110 million copies worldwide, and as the producer and conductor of the charity song “We Are the World”.
  In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song "The Eyes of Love" from the Universal Pictures film Banning. That same year, he became the first African American to be nominated twice within the same year when he was nominated for Best Original Score for his work on the music of the 1967 film In Cold Blood. In 1971, Jones would receive the honor of becoming the first African American to be named musical director/conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. He was the first African American to win the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1995. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African American, each of them having seven nominations. At the 2008 BET Awards, Quincy Jones was presented with the Humanitarian Award. He was played by Larenz Tate in the 2004 biopic about Ray Charles, Ray.
  
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  Rex Stewart
  Rex Stewart (22 February 1907 – 7 September 1967) was an American jazz cornetist best known for his work with the Duke Ellington orchestra.
  After stints with Elmer Snowden, Fletcher Henderson, Horace Henderson, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and Luis Russell, Stewart joined the Ellington band in 1934, in replacement of Freddie Jenkins. Ellington arranged many of his pieces to showcase Stewart's half-valve effects, muted sound, and forceful style.
  Stewart co-wrote "Boy Meets Horn" and "Morning Glory" while with Ellington, and frequently supervised outside recording sessions by members of the Ellington band. After eleven years Stewart left to lead his own groups - " little swing bands, that were a perfect setting for his solo playing." He also toured Europe and Australia with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1947 to 1951. From the early 1950s on he worked in radio and television and published highly regarded jazz criticism. The book Jazz Masters of the Thirties is a selection of his criticism.
  
  wn.com/Rex_Stewart
• Risë Stevens
  Risë Stevens ( /ˈriːsə/; born June 11, 1913, New York City) is a retired American operatic mezzo-soprano.
  Born Risë Steenberg to Christian and Sarah (née Mechanic) Steenberg, known as "Sadie". Her father was of Norwegian Lutheran descent and her mother was Jewish, of Polish and Russian descent. She had a younger brother, Lewis "Bud" Steenberg. She studied at New York's Juilliard School for three years. She went to Vienna, where she was trained by Marie Gutheil-Schoder and Herbert Graf. She made her début as Mignon in Prague in 1936 and stayed there until 1938, also appearing in guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera.
  She was engaged at the Teatro Colón in 1938 (as Octavian) and was invited to the Glyndebourne Festival in 1939 where she was heard as Dorabella and Cherubino. In 1938 she made her début at the Metropolitan Opera as Mignon. Three days later, she sang Octavian opposite Lotte Lehmann. The film industry in Hollywood produced several films for her, including The Chocolate Soldier (1941) with Nelson Eddy and Going My Way (1944) with Bing Crosby, the latter film crediting Stevens as a contralto.
  
  wn.com/Risë_Stevens
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  Roy Acuff
  Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music," Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.
  Acuff began his music career in the 1930s, and gained regional fame as the singer and fiddler for his group, the Smoky Mountain Boys. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and although his popularity as a musician waned in the late 1940s, he remained one of the Opry's key figures and promoters for nearly four decades. In 1942, Acuff co-founded the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company—Acuff-Rose Music—which signed acts such as Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and The Everly Brothers. In 1962, Acuff became the first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
  Roy Acuff was born in Maynardville, Tennessee to Ida (née Carr) and Simon E. Neill Acuff, the third of five children. The Acuffs were a fairly prominent Union County family. Roy's paternal grandfather, Coram Acuff, had been a Tennessee state senator, and Roy's maternal grandfather was a local physician. Roy's father was an accomplished fiddler and a Baptist preacher, his mother was proficient on the piano, and during Roy's early years the Acuff house was a popular place for local gatherings. At such gatherings, Roy would often amuse people by balancing farm tools on his chin. He also learned to play harmonica and jaw harp at a young age.
  
  wn.com/Roy_Acuff
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  Roy Wilkins
  Roy Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was in his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
  Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Wilkins graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in sociology in 1923. He worked as a journalist at The Minnesota Daily and became editor of St. Paul Appeal, an African-American newspaper. After he graduated he became the editor of the The Call (Kansas City). In 1929, he married social worker Aminda "Minnie" Badeau; the couple had no children.
  Between 1931 and 1934, Wilkins was assistant NAACP secretary under Walter Francis White. When W. E. B. Du Bois left the organization in 1934, he replaced him as editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. From 1949–50 Wilkins chaired the National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization, which comprised more than 100 local and national groups.
  
  wn.com/Roy_Wilkins
• Scott Yanow
  Scott Yanow (born 4 October 1954) is an American jazz commentator, known for many contributions to the Allmusic website, for writing ten books on jazz and for reviewing jazz recordings for over 30 years.
  Born in New York, Yanow grew up near Los Angeles wanting to be a jazz journalist, discovering Dixieland in the Danny Kaye movie The Five Pennies and on a daily radio show while in high school. He soon broadened his tastes to the swing idiom and in college, after purchasing a Charlie Parker album that included White Christmas (which made it easier for him to appreciate bebop), he soon developed a strong taste and musical curiosity for all eras of jazz, from dixieland to the avant-garde, Fusion to modern jazz.
  Shortly after graduating from college, Yanow became the jazz editor for Record Review, being a major participant in all thirty three of its issues. Since Record Review closed in June 1984, Yanow has written for many jazz magazines and arts magazines including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Downbeat, Cadence, CODA and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene. In recent times, Yanow was interviewed on-camera by CNN about the Monterey Jazz Festival and by Arts & Entertainment for their televised American Masters biography on Dizzy Gillespie.
  
  wn.com/Scott_Yanow
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  Sean Connery
  Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one of them being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award) and three Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award).
  Connery is best known for portraying the character James Bond, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983 (six Eon Productions films and the non-canonical Thunderball remake, Never Say Never Again). In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His film career also includes such films as Marnie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Murder on the Orient Express, Dragonheart, and The Rock. He was knighted in July 2000. Connery has been polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine and in 1999, at age 69, he was voted "Sexiest Man of the Century".
  
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  Shirley Temple
  Shirley Jane Temple (born April 23, 1928), later Shirley Temple Black, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. She began her film career in 1932 at the age of three, and in 1934, found international fame in Bright Eyes, a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935, and film hits such as Curly Top and Heidi followed year after year during the mid-to-late 1930s. Licensed merchandise that capitalized on her wholesome image included dolls, dishes, and clothing. Her box office popularity waned as she reached adolescence, and she left the film industry at the age of 12 to attend high school^{[clarification needed]}. She appeared in a few films of varying quality in her mid-to-late teens, and retired completely from films in 1950 at the age of 22. She was the top box-office draw four years in a row (1935–38) in a Motion Picture Herald poll.
  
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  Sidney Poitier
  Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE ( /ˈpwɑːtjeɪ/ or /ˈpwɑːti.eɪ/; born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.
  In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three well-received films To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, making him the top box office star of that year. In all three films, issues revolve around the race of the characters Poitier portrays. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.
  Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as A Piece of the Action; Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being." Since 1997 he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12, 2009, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.
  
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  Slam Stewart
  Leroy Eliot "Slam" Stewart (September 21, 1914 – December 10, 1987) was an African American jazz bass player whose trademark style was his ability to bow the bass (arco) and simultaneously hum or sing an octave higher. He was originally a violin player before switching to bass at the age of 20.
  Stewart was born in Englewood, New Jersey in 1914. While attending the Boston Conservatory, he heard Ray Perry singing along with his violin. This gave him the inspiration to follow suit with his bass. In 1937 Stewart teamed with Slim Gaillard to form the novelty jazz act Slim and Slam. The duo's biggest hit was "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)" in 1938 (see 1938 in music).
  Stewart found regular session work throughout the 1940s with Lester Young, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum, Johnny Guarnieri, Red Norvo, Don Byas, the Benny Goodman Sextet, and Beryl Booker, among others. One of the most famous sessions he played on took place in 1945, when Stewart played with Dizzy Gillespie's group (which featured Charlie Parker). Out of those sessions came some of the classics of bebop such as "Groovin' High" and "Dizzy Atmosphere."
  
  wn.com/Slam_Stewart
• Snooky Young
  Eugene Edward "Snooky" Young (February 3, 1919 – May 11, 2011) was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known for his mastery of the plunger mute, with which he was able to create a wide range of sounds.
  Young was lead trumpeter of the Jimmie Lunceford band from 1939 to 1942. He played with Count Basie (three stints totalling eight years), Gerald Wilson and Lionel Hampton, among others, and was an original member of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band.
  His longest engagement was with NBC, where, as a studio trumpeter, he joined the Tonight Show Band in 1967 and stayed with them until 1992, when the band was replaced by a new, smaller group.
  He was also part of the touring ensemble that traveled with Doc Severinsen, performing live concert dates, corporate events, and headling shows in the main rooms of Las Vegas. The one nighters usually occurred on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, as Severinsen was committed to the Tonight Show on weeknights.
  For the Las Vegas gigs, the nucleus of Severinsen's touring band (Young, Conductor Steve Thoma, and drummer Paul Line) would commute to Vegas nightly, leaving Van Nuys airport around 6:00pm via Lear Jet, arriving in Las Vegas by 7:00. A limousine would transport the musicians directly backstage, where they would dress & prepare for an 8:00 pm & midnight show. Then back to the airport for the ride back to Los Angeles, where Severinsen and Young had their NBC gig, and Steve Thomas and Paul Line were undertaking studio sessions daily.
  
  wn.com/Snooky_Young
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  Stan Getz
  Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott Yanow as "one of the all-time great tenor saxophonists". Getz went on to perform in bebop, cool jazz and third stream, but is perhaps best known for popularizing bossa nova, as in the worldwide hit single "The Girl from Ipanema" (1964).
  Getz was born on February 2, 1927, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Ukrainian Jews who emigrated from the Kiev area in 1903. The family later moved to New York City for better employment opportunities. Getz worked hard in school, receiving straight As, and finished sixth grade close to the top of his class. Getz's major interest was in musical instruments, and he felt a need to play every instrument in sight. He played a number of them before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Getz instantly fell in love with the saxophone and began practicing eight hours a day.
  
  wn.com/Stan_Getz
• Stephen Sondheim
  Stephen Joshua Sondheim ( /ˈsɒnd.haɪm/) (born March 22, 1930) is an American composer and lyricist known for his contributions to musical theatre. He is the winner of an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards (more than any other composer) including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award. Described by Frank Rich of the New York Times as "the greatest, and perhaps best-known artist working in musical theatre", his most famous works include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods. He also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy.
  Sondheim has also written material for movies, including the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds, contributing the song "Goodbye For Now". He also wrote five songs for the 1990 movie Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", which won the Academy Award for Best Song.
  
  wn.com/Stephen_Sondheim
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  Stevie Wonder
  Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950 as Stevland Hardaway Judkins), known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.
  Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Well known albums also include Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.
  
  wn.com/Stevie_Wonder
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  Teddy Wilson
  Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson (November 24, 1912 – July 31, 1986) was an American jazz pianist. Described by critic Scott Yannow as "the definitive swing pianist", Wilson's sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. With Goodman, he was perhaps the first black musician to play in a racially integrated group. In addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the '80s.
  Wilson was born in Austin, Texas, on November 24, 1912. He studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in the Lawrence "Speed" Webb band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, later expanded to the Benny Goodman Quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton). The trio performed during the big band's intermissions. By joining the trio, Wilson became the first black musician to perform in public with a previously all-white jazz group.
  
  wn.com/Teddy_Wilson
• Valentine Davies
  Valentine Davies (August 25, 1905 - July 23, 1961) was an American film and television writer, producer, and director. His credits included Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Chicken Every Sunday (1949), The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and The Benny Goodman Story (1955). He was nominated for the 1954 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Glenn Miller Story.
  Davies was born in New York City, served in the Coast Guard, and graduated from the University of Michigan. He wrote a number of Broadway plays and was president of the Screen Writers Guild and general chairman of the Academy Awards program.
  Davies' 1947 novel Miracle on 34th Street was adapted for the screen the same year, earning the author the Academy Award for Best Story.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Valentine_Davies
• 
  Victor Borge
  Victor Borge ( /ˈbɔrɡə/ BOR-gə; 3 January 1909 – 23 December 2000), born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish and American comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane, and The Great Dane.
  Borge was born Børge Rosenbaum in Copenhagen, Denmark, into a Jewish family. His parents, Bernhard and Frederikke Rosenbaum, were both musicians—his father a violist in the Royal Danish Orchestra and his mother a pianist. Like his mother, Borge began piano lessons at the age of two, and it was soon apparent that he was a prodigy. He gave his first piano recital when he was eight years old, and in 1918 was awarded a full scholarship at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, studying under Olivo Krause. Later on, he was taught by Victor Schiøler, Liszt's student Frederic Lamond, and Busoni's pupil Egon Petri.
  Borge played his first major concert in 1926 at the Danish concert-hall Odd Fellow Palæet (The Odd Fellow's Lodge building). After a few years as a classical concert pianist, he started his now famous "stand up" act, with the signature blend of piano music and jokes. He married American Elsie Chilton in 1933, the same year he debuted with his revue acts. Borge started touring extensively in Europe, where he began telling anti-Nazi jokes.
  
  wn.com/Victor_Borge
• 
  Wes Montgomery
  John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (March 6, 1923 – June 15, 1968) was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily Remler, Kenny Burrell, Pat Metheny, Steve Howe, and Jimi Hendrix.
  Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. According to NPR Jazz Profiles "The Life and Music Of Wes Montgomery," the nickname "Wes" was a child's abbreviation of his middle name, Leslie. He came from a musical family; his brothers, Monk (string bass and electric bass) and Buddy (vibraphone and piano), were jazz performers. The brothers released a number of albums together as the Montgomery Brothers. Although he was not skilled at reading music, he could learn complex melodies and riffs by ear. Montgomery started learning the six string guitar at the relatively late age of 20 by listening to and learning the recordings of his idol, guitarist Charlie Christian, however he had played a four string tenor guitar since age twelve. He was known for his ability to play Christian's solos note for note and was hired by Lionel Hampton for this ability.
  
  wn.com/Wes_Montgomery
• 
  Willie Nelson
  Willie Hugh Nelson (pronounced /wɪli nɛlsən /; born April 30, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed at the end of the 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.
  
  wn.com/Willie_Nelson
• 
  Wynton Marsalis
  Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, United States. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences. Marsalis has been awarded nine Grammys in both genres, and a jazz recording of his was the first of its kind to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
  Marsalis is the son of jazz musician Ellis Marsalis, Jr. (pianist), grandson of Ellis Marsalis, Sr., and brother of Branford (saxophonist), Delfeayo (trombonist), Mboya, and Jason (drummer).
  Wynton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, the second of six sons of Dolores (née Ferdinand) and Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr., a pianist and music professor. At an early age, he exhibited an aptitude for music. At age eight, Wynton performed traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band led by banjoist Danny Barker, and at 14, he performed with the New Orleans Philharmonic. During high school, Wynton performed with the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, New Orleans Community Concert Band, New Orleans Youth Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony, various jazz bands and with a local funk band, the Creators.
  
  wn.com/Wynton_Marsalis

• What Is This Thing Called Love?
• I'll Never Be the Same
• Makin' Whoopee
• Hallelujah
• Perdido
• More Than You Know
• How High the Moon
• This Can't Be Love
• Stars Fell on Alabama
• Lover Man
• Prisoner of Love
• Love for Sale
• Body and Soul

• Avalon
• Just You, Just Me
• Blues for Benny
• I Got Rhythm
• Moonglow
• Air Mail Special
• The Man I Love
• Body and Soul
• Plaid
• Somebody Loves Me
• Deep Purple

• Airmail Special
• Blues for Oliver
• It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing
• Basin' Street Blues
• Oliver Twist
• Sunny Side of the Street
• When the Saints Go Marching In

• Pinetop's Boogie Woogie
• Ridin' on the L & N
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• Tempo's Birthday
• Air Mail Special, Parts I & II
• China Stomp
• Empty Glas (Normania)
• Blue Because of You
• Loose Wig

• My Last Affair
• Jivin' the Vibres
• The Mood That I'm In
• Stomp
• Buzzin' 'Round With the Bee
• Whoa Babe
• Stompology
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Rhythm, Rhythm (I Got Rhythm)
• China Stomp (Chinatown, My Chinatown)
• I Know That You Know
• I'm Confessin'
• Drum Stomp (Crazy Rhythm)
• Piano Stomp (Shine)
• I Surrender Dear
• The Object of My Affections
• Judy
• Baby, Won't You Please Come Home
• Everybody Loves My Baby
• After You've Gone
• I Just Couldn't Take It, Baby
• My Last Affair (alternate take)
• The Object of My Affections (alternate take)

• China Stomp (Chinatown)
• I Know That You Know
• On The Sunny Side Of The Street
• Drum Stomp (Crazy Rhythm)
• After You've Gone
• Ring Dem Bells
• Muskrat Ramble
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• High Society
• It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
• Sweethearts On Parade
• Twelfth Street Rag
• Memories Of You
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Flying Home
• I've Found A New Baby
• Four or Five Times
• Soft Winds
• The Sheik Of Araby
• Dinah
• Singin' the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home)
• House Of Morgan
• Jivin' With Jarvis
• Blue Because Of You
• Doug-Rey-Mi

• Panama
• Blues for Lorraine
• Genevieve
• Le Piege
• Jazz Stars News
• Sweethearts on Parade
• Hamp Swings the Bells (Ring Dem Bells)
• Honeysuckle Rose
• Body and Soul
• Whats's New (take 2)
• What's New
• Jam for Brigitte

• Flying Home
• Loose Wig
• Million Dollar Smile
• Midnight Sun
• Central Avenue Breakdown
• Blow Top Blues
• Rockin' in Rhythm
• Stardust
• Air Mail Special
• Moonglow
• The Hucklebuck
• Muchacho Azul
• Blue Because of You
• Hamp's Gumbo
• Sad Feeling
• Beulah's Boogie

• Ring Dem Bells
• Seven Come Eleven
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Blue Lou
• Psychedelic Sally
• Vibraphone Blues
• Hamp's Thing

• Jammin' on High Society
• Love Is a Many Splendored Thing
• Lullaby of Birdland
• Blues for Monique
• Regina's Drag
• New Saint-Louis Blues
• Just You, Just Me
• Exactly Like You

• All the Things You Are
• I Cover the Waterfront
• Red Ribbon
• Night and Day

• Take the "A" Train
• Cute
• The Man I Love
• Lullaby of Birdland
• I'll Never Be the Same
• Apple Core
• This Could Be the Start of Something Good
• Seven Come Eleven
• On Green Dolphin Street
• Giant Steps
• They Say That Falling in Love Is Wonderful
• Stompin' at the Savoy

• Dizzy Spells
• Hello Dolly!
• I Found a New Baby
• On Green Dolphin Street
• Undecided
• This Could Be the Start of Something New
• Ginger Man
• Jeepers Creepers

• Moment's Notice
• Giant Steps
• Buddy's Cherokee
• Take the "A" Train
• I'll Never Be the Same
• Buddy's Rock
• My Funny Valentine
• Latin Silk

• Just One of Those Things
• Midnight Sun
• This Can't Be Love
• Flying Home
• It's a Blue World
• Indiana
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie
• Body and Soul

• Always
• 'S Wonderful
• Air Mail Special
• The Nearness of You
• Soft Winds
• Stompin' at the Savoy
• Love for Sale
• April in Paris
• Just One of Those Things

• My Last Affair
• Jivin' the Vibes
• The Mood That I'm In
• Stomp
• Buzzin' Round With the Bee
• Whoa Babe
• Stompology
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Rhythm, Rhythm
• China Stomp
• I Know That You Know
• I'm Confessin'
• Drum Stomp
• Piano Stomp
• I Surrender, Dear
• The Object of My Affection
• Judy
• Baby Won't You Please Come Home
• Everybody Loves My Baby
• After You've Gone

• Flying Home
• Buzzin' Around With the Bee
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Stompology
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• Drum Stomp (Crazy Rhythm)
• I'm a Ding Dong Daddy (From Dumas)
• I'm in the Mood for Swing
• Everybody Loves My Baby
• 'S Wonderful
• Shufflin' at the Hollywood
• Wizzin' the Wizz
• Hot Mallets
• Early Session Hop
• Singin' the Blues
• Dinah
• Till Tom Special
• Jack the Bellboy
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie
• Rachel's Dream
• Anthropology

• Flying Home
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie
• Million Dollar Smile
• Red Cross
• Hamp's Blues
• Evil Gal Blues
• Flying Home
• Stardust
• Ribs and Hot Sauce
• Blow Top Blues
• Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
• Rockin in Rhythm, Parts 1 & 2
• Limehouse Blues
• Tempo's Birthday
• Jack the Fox Boogie

• Flying Home
• Gates Groove
• Gossamer Wings
• Don't You Worry 'bout A Thing
• Time After Time
• Jazz Me
• Take The "A" Train
• Sweet Lorraine
• Another Part Of Me
• Mojazz
• What A wonderful World

• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• I Know That You Know
• Drum Stomp
• Ring Dem Bells
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• It Don't Mean a Thing
• Sweethearts on Parade
• Memories of You
• I Found a New Baby
• Dinah
• The Shelk of Araby
• Jack the Bellboy
• Jivin' with Jarvis
• Blue

• Opener
• SA KU RA
• Thai Silk
• [untitled]
• Stardust
• 'S Wonderfull
• Midnight Sun
• Tenderly
• Flying Home
• Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie/When the Saints

• Undecided
• My Man
• Dark Eyes
• Too Much
• I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You
• Romeo's Gone Now
• Loch Lomond
• Reindeer
• Look! Four Hands
• Time for Lyons

• Air Mail Special
• Blues for Oliver
• It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
• Basin' Street Blues
• Oliver Twist
• Sunny Side of the Street
• When the Saints Go Marching In

• My Last Affair
• Jivin' the Vibes
• The Mood That I'm In
• Hampton Stomp
• Buzzin' Around With the Bee
• Stompology
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• I Got Rhythm
• China Stomp
• I Know That You Know
• Confessin'
• The Object of My Affection

• Tea for Two
• I'm Confessin'
• The Nearness of You
• Misty
• Avalon
• More Than You Know
• Runnin' Wild

• I'll Be Seeing You
• It Might As Well Be Spring
• I Know Why (And So Do You)
• Toot Toot
• Lover Man
• Autumn Leaves
• Danny Boy
• P.S. I Love You
• Dynamic Duo
• Fools Rush In
• Pinch Me
• But Beautiful

• Shades of Jade
• Till Tom Special
• Flying Home
• Save It, Pretty Mama
• Tempo and Swing
• House of Morgan
• I'd Be Lost Without You
• Central Avenue Breakdown
• Jack the Bellboy
• Dough-Rey-Mi
• Jivin' With Jarvis
• Blue Because You
• Ghost of a Chance
• Just for Laffs
• Martin on Every Block
• Pig Foot Sonata
• Charlie Was a Sailor
• Lost Love
• I Nearly Lost My Mind
• Altitude
• Fiddle Dee Dee
• Bogo Jo
• Open House
• Smart Alec
• Bouncing at the Beacon

• If It's Good
• Stan by for Further Announcements
• Ain't Cha Comin' Home
• Big Wig in the Wigwam
• Memories of You
• The Jumpin' Jive
• Twelfth Street Rag
• When Lights Are Low
• When Lights Are Low
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Hot Mallets
• Early Session Hop
• I'm on My Way From You
• Haven't Named It Yet
• The Heebie Jeebies Are Rockin' the Town
• The Munson Street Breakdown
• I've Found a New Baby
• I Can't Get Started
• Four or Five Times
• Gin for Christmas
• Dinah
• My Buddy
• Singin' the Blues

• Royal Family
• I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
• Flying Home
• In the Bag
• Loose Wig
• Chop Chop
• Flying Home No.2
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie
• Million Dollar Smile
• The Lamplighter
• Overtime
• Doublin' With Dublin
• Ribs and Hot Sause
• Blow Top Blues
• Playboy
• Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop

• You're My Ideal
• The Sun Will Shine Tonight
• Ring Dem Bells
• Don't Be That Way
• I'm in the Mood for Swing
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• Any Time at All
• Muskrat Ramble
• Down Home Jump
• Rock Hill Special
• Fiddle Diddle
• I Can Give You Love
• High Society
• It Don't Mean a Thing
• Johnny Get Your Horn and Blow It
• Sweethearts on Parade
• Shufflin' at the Hollywood
• Shufflin' at the Hollywood
• Denison Swing
• Wizzin' the Wizz

• My Last Affair
• My Last Affair
• Jivin' the Vibes
• The Mood That I'm In
• Stomp
• Buzzin' Around With the Bee
• Whoa Babe
• Stompology
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Rhythm, Rhythm (I Got Rhythm)
• China Stomp (Chinatown, My Chinatown)
• I Know That You Know
• Confessin'
• Drum Stomp (Crazy Rhythm)
• Piano Stomp (Shine)
• I Surrender Dear
• The Object of My Affection
• The Object of My Affection
• Judy
• Baby Won't You Please Come Home?
• Everybody Loves My Baby
• After You've Gone
• I Just Couldn't Take It Baby

• Ko-Ko
• Wail for the Cat
• Tap Step
• Hamp & Dex
• Dr. Lambchop
• Heavy Hearted Blues

• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Early Session Hop
• I'm in the Mood for Swing
• Don't Be That Way
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Ring Dem Bells
• Hot Mallets
• Everybody Loves My Baby
• Twelfth Street Rag
• Piano Stomp
• Shufflin' at the Hollywood
• I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)
• It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
• Stompology
• Shoe Shiner's Rag
• Muskrat Ramble
• Down Home Jump
• Buzzin' Around With the Bee

• Cherokee
• Ballad Medley: Tenderly / Autumn in New York / East of the Sun (West of the Moon) / I Can't Get Started
• Louise
• Jumpin' at the Woodside
• Gladys (alternate take)
• Gladys
• Headache

• Killer Joe
• Psychedelic Sally
• Vibe Boogie
• Flyin' Home
• Meet Benny Bailey

• September in the Rain
• Free Press Oui
• Always
• Real Crazy
• More Crazy
• More and More Crazy
• Completely Crazy
• I Only Have Eyes for You

• Airmail
• Big Bad Henry
• Moments Notice
• No Me Esqueca
• Giant Steps
• Rodney Round Rabin
• Flying Home
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie

• Ham Hock Blues
• Airmail Special
• Ring Dem Bells
• Avalon
• E.G.
• Fum

• It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
• I Know That You Know
• After You've Gone
• I've Found a New Baby
• China Stomp
• Ring Dem Bells
• Muskrat Ramble
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• High Society
• Drum Stomp
• Sweethearts on Parade
• Twelfth Street Rag
• Memories of You
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Four or Five Times
• The Sheik of Araby
• Dinah
• Singin' the Blues
• House of Morgan
• Jivin' With Jarvis
• Blue Because of You
• Dough-Ra-Me
• On the Sunny Side of the Street

• E.G.
• Psychedelic Sally
• Raunchy Rita
• Fun
• Ham Hock Blues
• Air Mail Special

• Air Mail Special
• E.G.
• Psychedelic Sally
• Raunchy Rita
• Fum
• Ham Hock Blues
• Ring Them Bells
• Lion's Den
• Here's That Rainy Day
• Killer Joe

• Dinah
• Vibraphone Blues
• I'm in the Mood for Swing
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• Shufflin at the Hollywood
• Memories of You
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Blue Because of You
• Flying Home
• Million Dollar Smile
• Overtime
• Flying on a V-Disc
• I Know That You Know
• Hey, Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
• Air Mail Special
• Midnight Sun
• Stardust
• Perdido

• Hamp's Boogie Woogie No. 1
• Beulah's Sister's Boogie
• Midnight Sun
• Hamp's Walking Boogie
• Cobb's Idea
• Red Top
• Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
• Flying Home No. 1
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie No. 2
• Air Mail Special (Parts I & II)
• Slide Hamp Slide
• Rockin' In Rhythm (Parts I & II)
• Flying Home No. 2
• Lose Wig
• In The Bag
• Adam Blew His Hat
• Tempo's Birthday
• Playboy

• Air Mail Special
• E.G.
• Psychedlic Sally
• Rounchy Rita
• Fun
• Ham Hock Blues

• Hot Mallets
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Haven't Named It Yet
• I've Found a New Baby
• Dinah
• Shades of Jade
• House of Morgan
• Jack the Bellboy
• Blue Because of You
• Fiddle Dee Dee
• Three-Quarter Boogie
• Flying Home (No.1)
• In the Bag
• Hamps Boogie-Woogie (No.1)
• Million Dollar Smile
• Overtime
• Beulah's Boogie
• Slide Wamp Slide
• Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
• Air Mail Special, Parts 1 & 2

• Hamp's Boogie Woogie
• Dues in Blues
• Hampology
• Bopology
• Jay Bird
• Brant Inn Boogie
• Be-Bop
• Stardust
• How High the Moon
• Mostly Moten
• Flying Home

• Graffitti Express
• Rolling Slow
• Central Avenue Breakdown
• Whisky Blues
• Mr. Freddie Blues
• The Sheik of Araby Boogie
• New York Shuffle
• Central Avenue Breakdown (2nd version)
• Jivin' in Jazzland
• Hamp's Boogie Woogie

• My Prayer
• My Funny Valentine
• Satin Doll
• The Nearness of You
• Vibraholiday
• The High and the Mighty
• Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
• 'Round Midnight
• But Beautiful
• Just You Just Me
• Blues in Gold
• The More I See You
• Skylark
• What's New
• Speak Low
• Until You Return
• Blue Moon
• Walkin' My Baby Home
• Day by Day
• For Better or Worse
• My Foolish Heart
• Poor Butterfly

• Jivin' With Jarvis
• Johnny Get Your Horn and Blow It
• Judy
• Just for Laughs
• Lost Love
• Martin on Every Block
• Memories of You
• Mood That I'm In
• Munson Street Breakdown
• Muskrat Ramble
• My Buddy
• My Last Affair
• Now That You're Mine
• On the Sunny Side of the Stree
• One Sweet Letter From You
• Open House
• Piano Stomp
• Pig Foot Sonata
• Rhythm, Rhythm
• Ring Dem Bells
• Rock Hill Special
• Save It Pretty Mama
• Shades of Jade
• Shoe Shiner's Drag
• Shufflin at the Hollywood

Born: 1908-04-20

Died: 2002-08-31