Bill Cunliffe

Bill Cunliffe (born June 26, 1956) is an American jazz pianist and composer based in Los Angeles. He has been described by The New York Times as being in the "modern jazz mainstream" and as an "accomplished pianist and composer." Ernie Rideout of Keyboard Magazine described Cunliffe's playing as "inventive, melodic, and soulful".

He has written books on jazz for Alfred Publications, and teaches at California State University, Fullerton.

Early life

Cunliffe was born in Andover, Massachusetts. He explained in an interview with All About Jazz writer Fred Jung that he discovered music at an early age, with particular emphasis on classical music as well as jazz-oriented music from the 1960s and 1970s:

My mother was a good pianist ... I started just copying little things that I would hear my mom play and I would sit next to her and listen.

Cunliffe described himself as having been drawn to "anything with hip harmony in it" with great melodies, and he loved listening to artists such as The Fifth Dimension, Burt Bacharach and Herb Alpert. He attended Phillips Academy, and graduated in 1974 in the school's first co–educational class. In college, he performed rock–and–roll gigs at the Prince Spaghetti House in Saugus, Massachusetts. Cunliffe attended Wesleyan University for several years. During this time, a friend named Michael Zaitchik introduced him to a jazz record of Oscar Peterson, and after listening to this record, Cunliffe became a "jazz player overnight", he recalled later. While in school, he considered careers in medicine and psychology, but in his junior year, he decided finally that "music was it."

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big Bands evolved with the times and continue to today. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra, and dance band are also used to refer to this type of ensemble. This does not, however, mean that each one of these names is technically correct for naming a 'big band" specifically.

In contrast to smaller jazz combos, in which most of the music is improvised, or created spontaneously, music played by big bands is highly "arranged", or prepared in advance and notated on sheet music. The music is traditionally called 'charts'. Improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger.

History and style

There are two distinct periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then typically consisting of 10–25 pieces, came to dominate popular music. At that time they usually played a form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins, which was dropped after the introduction of swing in 1935. A few bands also had violas and cellos, usually one or two along with them. The dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung (often in a tenor voice) and in tune with the melody.

Bill

Bill may refer to:

Documents

Tools and weapons

Andy Martin

Anthony Robert Martin-Trigona, usually known as Andy Martin (born 1945), is an American perennial candidate who has pursued numerous litigations.

The Nation,The Washington Post, and The New York Times identified him as the primary source of false rumors that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim during the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. In a later interview with CNN, Martin explicitly abandoned this view and now asserts Obama's real father is not Barack Obama, Sr., but African American journalist Frank Marshall Davis.

On October 17, 2008, Martin filed a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii calling for the public release of Barack Obama's birth certificate and other vital records. To counter conspiracy theories that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, the Obama campaign previously posted an image of his short-form birth certificate online. Martin's lawsuit sought a copy of Sen. Obama's long-form birth certificate. The Hawaii Supreme Court later denied Martin's request.

Bob Sheppard

Robert Leo Sheppard (October 20, 1910 – July 11, 2010) was the long-time public address announcer for numerous New York area college and professional sports teams, in particular the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (1951–2007), and the New York Giants (1956–2006) of the National Football League.

Sheppard announced more than 4,500 Yankees baseball games over a period of 56 years, including 22 pennant-winning seasons and 13 World Series championships; he called 121 consecutive postseason contests, 62 games in 22 World Series, and six no-hitters, including three perfect games. He was also the in-house voice for a half-century of Giants football games, encompassing nine conference championships, three NFL championships (1956, 1986, 1990), and the game often called "the greatest ever played", the classic 1958 championship loss to Baltimore.

Sheppard's smooth, distinctive baritone and precise, consistent elocution became iconic aural symbols of both the old Yankee Stadium and Giants Stadium. Reggie Jackson famously nicknamed him "The Voice of God", while Carl Yastrzemski once said, "You're not in the big leagues until Bob Sheppard announces your name."