(Trombone, 1898–1961) A vital figure of the 1920s, Irving Milfred Mole was among the earliest trombonists with the virtuosity to express fully developed musical lines on an instrument largely still relegated to glissandos and rhythm accents. Mole elevated the instrument to first-chair status on hundreds of records and solos, many recorded with Red Nichols. He left jazz to ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1926–35) The Mississippi Sheiks were Lonnie Chatmon (guitar, violin) and Walter Vinson (guitar), sometimes joined by Chatmon’s brothers Sam (guitar, violin) and Armenter (a.k.a. Bo Carter, guitar), as well as Charlie McCoy (banjo, mandolin); the vocals were shared between the group members. Their repertoire blended blues themes with contemporary pop/novelty tunes, ...
(Cornet, 1905–65) As a child, Nichols played in his father’s brass band. After moving to New York in 1923 he teamed up with trombone player Miff Mole, and this marked the start of a long musical partnership. With Mole, Nichols recorded various line-ups under different names, the most common of which was Red Nichols & His ...
(Drums, 1898–1959) The grandfather of jazz drumming, Baby Dodds played in Fate Marable’s riverboat band from 1918–21 before joining King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band and relocating to Chicago. He remained there for the rest of his career, collaborating with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers and Armstrong’s Hot Seven, as well as trombonists Kid Ory and Miff ...
Jazz was the by-product of cultures coming together in New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century. The music, along with some of its greatest practitioners, moved north by 1917. That year Storyville, the red-light district, was forced to close and jazz musicians headed north to Chicago, where jazz matured into a fine art form. ...
‘The Triptych’ In constructing an operatic triple-bill, Puccini followed no precedent. He had nursed the idea for some time, to the despair of Giulio Ricordi, who felt it would be a box-office disaster. With the publisher’s death in 1912, Puccini soon felt able to work on the project. His librettist for La rondine, Giuseppe Adami, ...
January Le Pink Floyd Ballet Pink Floyd’s collaboration with ballet producer Roland Petit was first mooted in 1970, and Dave Gilmour and even Floyd’s manager Steve O’Rourke had talked enthusiastically about working with a 106 piece orchestra and the world-famous dancer Rudolf Nureyev. When performed for French TV on 14 January 1971 the dancers moved to ‘Set The Controls For ...
(Drums, singer-songwriter, b. 1945) Wyatt became drummer and vocalist with jazz-rockers Soft Machine. Forming Matching Mole in 1971, he overcame being wheelchair-bound after an accident to record solo classics such as Rock Bottom (1975), and had an unlikely hit single with The Monkees’ ‘I’m A Believer’. In 1983, he charted again with Elvis Costello’s ‘Shipbuilding’. 2003’s Cuckooland ...
AUTHORITATIVE
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...
CURATED
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.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.