(Trumpet, 1911–93) Mario Bauzá takes a large amount of credit for bringing music from his native Cuba into jazz. He worked with Noble Sissle and Chick Webb in New York in the 1930s before teaming up with Machito. While with Cab Calloway in 1939–40 he sparked Dizzy Gillespie’s interest in Cuban music, which eventually led to ‘Cubop’. He was ...
(Composer, arranger, violin, 1869–1944) Will Marion Cook was a highly educated musician, studying at Oberlin Conservatory and the Berlin Hochschule für Musik with virtuoso Joseph Joachim (he also studied briefly with Antonín Dvořák). He worked as a composer with Bob Cole’s All-Star Stock Company, a seminal force in early African-American musical comedy production. (The group later ...
1810–83, Italian The Italian tenor and one-time army officer Giovanni Mario played the title role in Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable at the Paris Opéra in 1838 and in 1843 was the first to sing Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at the Théâtre Italien. Mario Cavaliere di Candia, to use his real, aristocratic, name, had good looks ...
The guitar is a plucked stringed instrument played resting on the lap. Although it has a long history – thought by many to reach as far back as the ancient Greek lyre known as the kithara – it is best-known today in the design of the Spanish guitar-maker Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–92). The modern or classical guitar developed from the ...
(Various saxophones, 1913–91) Charlie Barnet led a successful big band from 1933 until the late 1940s and was one of the earliest white bandleaders to employ black musicians, beginning with Benny Carter as a guest soloist and arranger in 1934. He introduced singer Lena Horne as an unknown in 1941 and featured many notable musicians in his line-ups. His ...
(Trumpet, composer, arranger, 1921–2001) Arturo ‘Chico’ O’Farrill arrived in New York from Havana in 1948 with a self-confessed low opinion of his native Cuban music by comparison with jazz, but found inspiration in the developing Afro-Cuban jazz movement led by Dizzy Gillespie, Machito and Mario Bauzá. He became a key figure in creating what he called the ...
John Birks ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie shares the credit for creating bebop with Charlie Parker, but his place in the history of twentieth-century music rests on a considerably wider achievement. He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina in 1917 and acquired his nickname in the 1930s. He moved to New York and worked in big bands with Teddy Hill, Lionel ...
Elvis Aaron Presley was born in his family’s shot-gun shack in Tupelo, Mississippi, on 8 January 1935. His twin brother died at birth, and his mother doted on her sole son. He showed musical aptitude early, and loved to sing at the local First Assembly of God church. His mother, Gladys and father, Vernon, ...
(Vocals, maracas, c. 1912–84) Frank Raul Grillo was born in Florida of Cuban extraction and took the name Machito in 1940 when his brother-in-law, trumpet player Mario Bauzá, reorganized his year-old band the Afro-Cubans. Their arrangements clothed Cuban melodies and rhythms in jazz harmonies and instrumental voicings. They were highly influential in the emergence of Afro-Cuban jazz (sometimes ...
1808–36, Spanish Mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran was the elder daughter of Manuel Garcia and made her debut at age 17 singing in the chorus of the King’s Theatre in London. Shortly afterwards, she replaced the indisposed Giuditta Pasta as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Malibran was a brilliant, charismatic performer and was so successful as Rosina that she ...
Latin jazz is commonly defined as the fusion of American jazz melodies, improvisation and chords with Latin American rhythms, predominantly those of Afro-Cuban origin. How this marriage of styles occurred is also one of the most significant cultural musical exchanges in history. Mention the birth of Latin jazz to any aficionado of the art form and they will invariably reply ...
Baritones Baritones, it is said, sing and act, while tenors merely sing. That may tell us more about the roles they take than about the singers themselves, but certainly the finest baritones excel in both skills, none more than Tito Gobbi, whose most noted roles were Falstaff in Verdi’s eponymous opera, and Scarpia in ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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