Jazzy Jeff

Jazzy Jeff may refer to:

Jeff

Jeff is a short form of the English given name Jeffrey, which derives from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Jeff is especially used in the US and Canada.

Music

DJ Jazzy Jeff

Jeffrey Allen Townes (born January 22, 1965), also known as DJ Jazzy Jeff or simply Jazz, is an American hip hop and R&B disc jockey, record producer, turntablist and actor who is best known for his early career with Will Smith as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

Biography

Early life and career beginnings

Jeffrey Allen Townes was born on January 22, 1965, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early on, he developed a reputation and a following as a school and block party DJ. He took the stage name DJ Jazzy Jeff and was one half of the hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince along with Will Smith. The group received the first Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance in 1989 for "Parents Just Don't Understand", though their most successful single was "Summertime" which earned the group their second Grammy and peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. He also won the world DJ championship in the 1986 New Music Seminar DJ Battle.

Acting

When Smith branched out into television with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Jazzy Jeff played a recurring character named Jazz, Smith's best friend on the show. In the early seasons, the two characters always greeted each other with their signature handshake (swinging mid-five, point-back, snap with both characters saying "Pssh!"). A recurring joke throughout the show's run involved the character being physically ejected from the house by Uncle Phil (James Avery), using the same footage for comedic effect.

Fox Sports (United States)

Fox Sports is the programming division of the Fox Broadcasting Company, owned by 21st Century Fox, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated regional and national sports cable channels. The flagship entity of 21st Century Fox's Fox Sports Media Group division, it was formed in 1994 with Fox's acquisition of broadcast rights to National Football League (NFL) games. In subsequent years, it has televised the National Hockey League (1994–1999), Major League Baseball (1996–present), NASCAR (2001–present), Bowl Championship Series (2007–2010), the USGA Championships (2015–present), and the FIFA World Cup (starting in 2018).

History

When the Fox Broadcasting Company launched in October 1986, the network's management, having seen how sports programming (in particular, soccer events) played a critical role in the growth of the British satellite service BSkyB, determined that sports would be the type of programming that would ascend Fox to a major network status the quickest; as a result, Fox tried to attract a professional football package to the network. In 1987, after ABC initially hedged on renewing its contract with the National Football League (NFL) for the television rights to Monday Night Football, Fox made an offer for the package at the same price that ABC had been paying at the time – about $13 million per game. However, partly due to the fact that Fox had yet to establish itself as a major network, the NFL decided to resume negotiations with ABC, with the two parties eventually agreeing to a new contract, keeping what was the crown jewel of the league's television broadcasts on that network (where it remained until 2006, when MNF moved to sister network ESPN as part of a contract that also saw NBC gain the Sunday Night Football package).

Sampler album

A sampler is a type of compilation album generally offered at a reduced price to showcase a selection of artists signed to a particular record label. The format became popular in the late 1960s as record labels sought to promote artists whose work was primarily available in album rather than single format, and therefore had little opportunity to gain exposure through singles-dominated radio airplay. Most samplers showcased already-released material so that as well as sampling the artist they sampled the albums from which the tracks were drawn.

Elektra Records

The first record sampler was A Folk Music Sampler released by Elektra Records in the USA in 1954, initially for radio stations and later reissued for retail sales. Jac Holzman of Elektra wrote:

At the time the term "sampler" was mainly used for a demonstration of needlework, and this was the first time the word had been applied to a musical compilation. Holzman was enthusiastic for the format, and Elektra regularly issued budget-priced samplers of its folk catalogue in the USA throughout the 1950s and 60s. In the UK, Elektra's office decided to use issue samplers to try to position the label in the marketplace, and issued the folk sampler Fantastic Folk (1968) before the more rock-oriented Select Elektra (1968). However, these British discs were full price issues.