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(Vocals, 1917–96) Sixteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald joined Chick Webb’s band in 1934 and became its biggest attraction. After Webb’s death in 1939 she became titular leader of the orchestra, which continued until 1942; she then worked as a solo artist. After the war Fitzgerald revealed an uncanny talent for bebop scat singing; it drew the attention of Norman Granz, ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who have come together to play music. In theory, an ensemble could contain any number of instruments in any combination, but in practice, certain combinations just don’t work very well, either for musical reasons or because of the sheer practicality of getting particular instruments and players ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

The first African slaves arrived in America in 1619 and brought their music with them. From then until the Civil War of 1861–65, the music both fascinated and frightened the white slave owners who would flock to see the black people celebrating their weekly ‘day off’ in New Orleans’s Congo Square. At the same time, slave owners suppressed the ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

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 ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on 5 May 1988 in Tottenham, a deprived part of North London with a high rate of unemployment. Her mother, Penny Adkins, was just 18 and an art student when her daughter was born. Adele’s father, Mark Evans, exited Adele’s life when she was aged three, leaving mother and daughter ...

Source: Adele: Songbird, by Alice Hudson

(Drums, bandleader, 1909–39) Associated with the Savoy Ballroom from 1927, the Chick Webb band built a large audience in Harlem. In the 1930s arranger Edgar Sampson became the chief architect of its swinging style, which was propelled by Webb’s dynamic drumming and flashy solos, crackling with rim shots. He inspired Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Vocals, b. 1950) First heard in the 1970s with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, then in the Broadway musicals The Wiz and Sophisticated Ladies and later in pop/jazz contexts, Bridgewater relocated to Paris in 1983. Leading a trio, she regained career momentum in the 1990s with tribute projects commemorating Billie Holiday, Horace Silver and Ella Fitzgerald ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

California native Joe Pass (1929–94) developed a thoroughly precise jazz technique that propelled him to virtuoso status alongside pianist Oscar Peterson and vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, with whom he made a series of essential recordings for the Pablo label in the Seventies. Pass was raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He took up guitar after being inspired by singing cowboy Gene Autry. ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

(Guitar, 1929–94) Although drug addiction nearly killed the promising career of Joe Pass, he became one of the most influential and beloved guitarists in jazz. As a young man Pass played with various swing bands, then fell into heroin abuse while in the military. He recorded his first album while in rehabilitation in 1962, showcasing his impressive ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

Huddie Ledbetter was born in January 1888 in Mooringsport, Louisiana. He was exposed to music from an early age and began playing guitar before he was in his teens. The music he performed was composed of shouts, hollers and Native American songs, as well as ballads, religious songs and dance tunes from a variety of traditions. He ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Guitar, vocals, 1899–1977) John Adams Estes was born in Ripley, Tennessee. He teamed up with mandolinist Yank Rachell to work the area from 1919 until the late 1920s. His first recordings were made for Victor in 1929 and included his celebrated ‘Divin’ Duck Blues’. He left Brownsville for Chicago in 1931. With harmonica player Hammie Nixon, Estes ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Violin, vocals, bandleader, 1910–69) When Bob Wills set up business in the San Fernando Valley, he found strong competition from Spade Cooley, an Oklahoma-born fiddle player who initially worked as a singing-cowboy stand-in and musician before becoming bandleader in the Venice Pier Ballroom. There he attracted sell-out business with his band, which numbered 22 members ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

Though it was often referred to as a musical revolution, bebop was actually a natural evolution of jazz, involving innovative approaches to harmony and rhythm that advanced the music forward to a modern era. Traces of bebop began to emerge during the early 1940s, in orchestras led by Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine. Those adventurous impulses were further ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

The 1950s was a big decade for blues and jazz – arguably, the biggest. In the wake of international triumph and the stirrings of empire, the US enjoyed a boom of babies, cars, television, and urban and suburban development, that trickled down to embolden a stronger movement for civil rights for black people, inspired ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

The 1940s encompassed a wide range of musical art, reflecting extremes of economic hardship and recovery, global war and rebuilding. Empowered by necessarily full-tilt production, US industry recovered from the Depression, though the cream of its youth was siphoned off to fight on distant fronts, and returned to a strange new world. Great Britain suffered air ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...

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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.

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