Multitalented guitarist Carlos Santana was born the son of a mariachi musician in the Mexican town of Autlan de Navarro in 1947. The family moved to Tijuana when he was nine, and Carlos, who first played violin before changing to guitar, became interested in rock’n’roll and blues. At 13, he was earning money playing in cantinas and ...
Spanish guitar legend Carlos Montoya (1903–93) helped propel the flamenco style of music from accompaniment for gypsy folk dances and songs to a serious and internationally popular form of guitar music. Montoya was born into a gypsy family in Spain. He studied guitar with his mother and a local barber, eventually learning from professionals and becoming an expert on the ...
Orianthi Panagaris (b. 1985) was born in Adelaide, South Australia, to Greek and Australian parents. She began playing piano at age three, switched to acoustic guitar at six, and to electric at 11. After listening to a lot of Whitesnake, Van Halen and Def Leppard, she was wowed by Carlos Santana at a concert in ...
(Kar-loos Go’-mas) 1836–96 Brazilian composer Gomes was the son of a bandmaster, and after studies at the Imperial Conservatory of Music in Rio de Janeiro, he settled in Italy. His comedies Se sa minga and Nella Luna (1867–68) were successful, but international recognition really arrived with the composition of Il Guarany (La Scala, 1870), whose exotic score includes ...
(Composer, piano, guitar, 1927–94) Jobim was the best known of the Brazilian composers who made an impact on jazz. His international reputation blossomed due to his songs in the film Black Orpheus (1959) and with João Gilberto he sparked a bossa nova craze, boosted by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd’s Jazz Samba (1962). He led his own ...
Verdi’s five-act opera Don Carlos was taken from a drama written in 1787 by the German playwright Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805). Written for the Paris Opéra, Don Carlos was first performed there on 11 March 1867. Schiller’s play was translated and the libretto written by Joseph Méry, who unfortunately died before it was completed, and Camille du Locle ...
1930–2004 Austrian conductor Son of Erich Kleiber, he gained conducting appointments in Düsseldorf 1958–64, Zürich 1964–66 and Stuttgart 1966–68, his last full-time position. His debuts at Covent Garden, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera brought almost unanimous critical acclaim, as did his few studio recordings, such as Beethoven’s Fifth with the Vienna Philharmonic (1974). Though ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–present) A Latin-American take on what became known as jazz rock, the group led by Mexican Carlos Santana (guitar) were a palpable hit at Woodstock in 1969. This coincided with an eponymous debut album penetrating the US Top 10. An optimum commercial period – embracing US chart-toppers Abraxas and Santana III – was followed by dwindling success ...
Al Di Meola (b. 1954) rose to the top tier of contemporary jazz guitarists through his work with Chick Corea’s Return To Forever in the Seventies. In addition to a prolific solo career, he has collaborated on projects with bassist Stanley Clarke, keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and guitarists John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía. Al Laurence ...
Britain’s first home-grown guitar hero, Hank Marvin was born Brian Rankin in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1941. His first instruments were piano and banjo, but he switched to guitar upon discovering Buddy Holly. Marvin formed a skiffle band, The Railroaders, with school friend Bruce Welch, and they travelled to London in 1958 to compete, unsuccessfully, in ...
John Lee Hooker’s sparse blues sound was a major influence on the younger generations of blues musicians dominating the music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. His individual style retained a primitive purity at a time when many of his contemporaries were experimenting with groups and incorporating the influences of other types of music into their blues. Hooker’s guitar technique was ...
The original boogie man, John Lee Hooker (1917–2001) sustained a career of more than 50 years with his incessant one-chord stomp and half-spoken vocal style. But behind the captivating, hypnotic rhythm, Hooker found his own deep blues – one with dark tones and mysterious flurries of notes – as he groped to express, often with a wicked ...
John McLaughlin (b. 1942) led the Mahavishnu Orchestra and a series of other bands that stretched the boundaries of jazz-rock fusion and world music, as he inspired guitarists worldwide with his inventiveness and devotion to exotic sounds and spirituality. McLaughlin started on guitar when he was 11 and was initially inspired by blues and swing players. McLaughlin worked with Alexis ...
Though guitar playing in the 1980s was often thought of as a ‘guitar Olympics’ of sorts, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora typically eschewed fretboard flights of fancy in favour of melodic, tastefully arranged solos designed to serve the band’s infectious hit songs. While this approach has kept him on the outside of the guitar-hero clubhouse, his impact on ...
(Tenor and soprano saxophones, b. 1933) Wayne Shorter’s most significant early position was in Maynard Ferguson’s orchestra in 1958, where he met pianist Joe Zawinul. In 1959 Shorter joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and soon thereafter made his debut as a leader. He gained prominence as a member of Miles Davis’s ambitious groups from 1964–70, in which his ...
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David Bowie
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