This is the archive for April 2010
From wikipedia:
Percy Heath, (30 April 1923 – 28 April 2005), was a jazz musician, famous for position as double bass player for the Modern Jazz Quartet.
He was the brother of tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975. Heath also worked with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery and Thelonious Monk. At the age of 81, he released his first album as bandleader through the Daddy Jazz label. The album, titled
A Love Song, garnered rave reviews and served as a fitting coda for Heath's illustrious career.
Read A Remembrance of Percy Heath, Part 1-2 by R.J. DeLuke, free from allaboutjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 05:30 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From the U.S. Department of State:
Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)< an American composer, pianist, and bandleader. is often considered the most important composer in the history of jazz, with an estimated two thousand compositions, arrangements, and collaborations to his credit.
Early in the century, jazz bands became increasingly popular accompaniments for a new, faster style of social dancing. Ellington's career mirrored, and greatly influenced, the rise of the jazz band. In particular, his unique status owed itself to his combined talents of orchestration and bandleading.
Watch Duke Ellington perform Symphony in Black- A Rhapsody of Black Life, free from Redhotjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 12:26 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Madge Dorita Sinclair (28 April 1938 – 20 December 1995) was a Jamaican American character actress.
Sinclair was born Madge Dorita Walters in Kingston, Jamaica, to Herbert and Jemima Walters. She was a teacher in Jamaica until 1968 when she left for New York to pursue her career in acting.
Career
In 1978 she starred in the movie
Convoy as the Widow Maker. She would later receive an Emmy Award nomination for her role as Belle in the miniseries
Roots. She went on to a long-running stint in the 1980s as nurse Ernestine Shoop on the series
Trapper John, M.D. opposite Pernell Roberts. She received three Emmy nominations for her work on the show, and critic Donald Bogle praised her for "maintaining her composure and assurance no matter what the script imposed on her."
Learn more about Madge Sinclair, free from the Internet Movie Data Base.
Posted by courier at 12:01 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Alice Allison Dunnigan (1906–1983) was an African American journalist, civil rights activist and author. She was the first African American female correspondent to receive White House credentials, and the first black female member of the Senate and House of Representatives press galleries. She has written an autobiography titled
Alice A. Dunnigan: A Black Woman’s Experience. She also has a Kentucky State Historical Commission marker dedicated to her.
Alice chronicled the decline of Jim Crow during the 1940s and '50s, influencing her to become a civil rights activist. She was inducted into the Kentucky Hall of Fame in 1982.
Read more about Alice Dunnigan, free from the Logan Journal.
Posted by courier at 06:18 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Ella Fitzgerald photographed
by Carl Van Vechten in 1940.
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as "Lady Ella" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century.
With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was noted for her purity of tone, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. She is widely considered to have been one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook.
Listen to Ella Fitzgerald perform "Sing Me a Swing Song," recorded in 1936, free from npr.org.
Posted by courier at 12:10 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
David Harold Blackwell (born April 24, 1919) is Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is one of the eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. Born in Centralia, Illinois, he was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the first black tenured faculty member at UC Berkeley.
Learn more about David Blackwell, free from Bellevue College.
Posted by courier at 04:51 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Granville T. Woods (April 23, 1856 – January 30, 1910), was an African American inventor who holds more than 60 patents for inventions. Most of his work was on trains and street cars. Woods also invented the Multiplex Telegraph, a device that sent messages between moving trains and train stations. He was born in Columbus, Ohio and died in New York.
Woods attended school in Columbus until age 10, when he then went to work with his father. They worked repairing railroad equipment and machinery.
Learn more about Granville T. Woods, free from about.com.
Posted by courier at 06:14 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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MISCELLANEOUS
Happy Birthday to our 15th President, James Buchanan, born this day in 1791.
STAR Testing is next week and we need every Logan student to take the test and do their best! ASB Leadership is sponsoring a daily raffle of prizes for students who can tell themselves: “I took the test and did my best!” That means get to your testing room on time, give your best effort on each section and each problem, and you will receive a ticket for a chance at winning fabulous prizes. Daily prizes include gift cards to local restaurants and businesses, and grand prizes at the end of the week include a yearbook, digital camera, iPod, and a notebook computer. Let’s show our community that we can do it!
Posted by courier at 11:58 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Charles Mingus (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and human rights activist.
Having released numerous records of high regard, Mingus is considered one of the most important composers and performers of jazz as well as a pioneer in bass technique. Dozens of musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. Mingus was also influential and creative as a band leader, recruiting talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations.
Visit Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, the official website of Charles Mingus.
Posted by courier at 06:16 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Clara Ward (April 21, 1924 – January 16, 1973)[1] was an American gospel artist who achieved great success, both artistic and commercial, in the 1940s and 1950s as leader of The Famous Ward Singers.
A gifted singer and arranger, Ward took the lead-switching style used by male gospel quartets to new heights, leaving room for spontaneous improvisation and vamping by each member of the group while giving virtuouso singers such as Marion Williams the opportunity to step forward in songs such as "Surely, God Is Able" (among the first million-selling gospel hits), "How I Got Over" (which she wrote; one of the most famous songs in the Black gospel repertoire), and "Packin' Up".
Visit clarawardsingers.com.
Posted by courier at 05:18 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Gwendolyn Knight (April 20, 1914 – February 18, 2005) was an African American artist from Barbados, in the West Indies.
Gwendolyn Knight painted throughout her life, but did not start seriously exhibiting her work until the 1970s. Her first retrospective when she was nearly eighty years old ("Never Late for Heaven: The Art of Gwen Knight," at the Tacoma Art Museum (2003)).
Visit the Jacob and Gwen Knight Lawrence Visual Resource Center.
Posted by courier at 12:25 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Etheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet who became a notable poet in 1968 with his debut volume,
Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after Etheridge was arrested for robbery in 1960. A prose version was published in Italian as
Voce negre dal carcere, and in English as
Black Voices from Prison (1970), which includes other prisoners' writings. He is considered one of the major poets of the Black Arts Movement, which flourished from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s.
Read poems by Etheridge Knight.
Posted by courier at 06:14 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From the Spartacus Educational website:
Clarence Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio, on 18th April, 1857. His father had originally trained as a Unitarian minister, but lost his faith and Clarence was brought up as an agnostic. An opponent of slavery, Darrow brought up his son as a supporter of reformist politicians such as Horace Greeley and Samuel Tilden. Another important influence was the radical journalist, Henry George.
After an education at Allegheny College and the University of Michigan Law School, Darrow became a member of the Ohio bar in 1878. For the next nine years he was a typical small-town lawyer. However, in 1887 Darrow moved to Chicago in search of more interesting work.
Read Crime: Its Cause and Treatment by Clarence Darrow, free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 12:20 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Laverne Scott Caldwell (born 17 April, 1950) is an American Tony Award-winning actress known for her role as Rose on Lost.
Caldwell, who earned a degree in Theater Arts and Communications from Loyola University Chicago, has an extensive background in feature films, television and theater. Her film credits include
Mystery Alaska, Waiting to Exhale, The Net, The Fugitive, Dutch and
Without a Trace. Caldwell had recurring roles on
Judging Amy, and has guest-starred in JAG,
Chicago Hope, City of Angels and
Promised Land, all on CBS. Her additional television credits include
The Practice, The Division, Any Day Now, Murder One, The Pretender, Grace Under Fire, Melrose Place, Lois and Clark, ER, Nip/Tuck, L.A. Law, Ghost Whisperer, Cold Case, Saving Grace, State of Mind, and
The Cosby Show.
Watch L. Scott Caldwell in an episode of
Lost.
Posted by courier at 04:18 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Richard "Dick" Lane (April 16, 1928 – January 29, 2002) nicknamed "Night Train", was an American football player, best known as a defensive back for the Chicago Cardinals and Detroit Lions. During his rookie season in 1952, Lane established the record for most interceptions in an NFL season (14).
He was born in Austin, Texas, and raised by Ella Lane, a woman who found him abandoned as an infant. After graduation from high school, he spent one year in junior college before dropping out and serving four years in the United States Army.
Visit the official Dick Lane website.
Posted by courier at 12:16 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia
Eugene "Jug" Ammons (April 14, 1925 – August 6, 1974) also known as "The Boss," was an American jazz tenor saxophone player, and the son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons.
Ammons began to gain recognition when he went on the road with trumpeter King Kolax band in 1943, at the age of 18. He became a member of the Billy Eckstine and Woody Herman bands in 1944 and 1949 respectively, and then in 1950 formed a duet with Sonny Stitt. His later career was interrupted by two prison sentences for narcotics possession, the first from 1958 to 1960, the second from 1962 to 1969. He recorded as a leader for Mercury (1947-1949), Aristocrat (1948-1950) and Chess (1950-1951), Prestige (1950-1952), Decca (1952), and United (1952-1953). For the rest of his career, he was affiliated with Prestige.
Learn more about Gene Ammons at geneammons.com.
Posted by courier at 05:14 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen (first called
Nellie Walker) (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964) was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote two novels and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote earned her recognition by her contemporaries and by present-day critics.
Nella Larsen went by various names throughout her life. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 13, 1891 as Nellie Walker. She was the daughter of Danish immigrant Marie Hanson and Peter Walker, a West Indian man of color from Saint Croix who soon disappeared from her life. Her mother was a domestic case worker. Taking the surname of her Scandinavian stepfather Peter Larsen, Walker also at times went by Nellye Larson, Nellie Larsen and, finally, Nella Larsen. When she married, she sometimes used her married name Nella Larsen Imes.
Read excerpts of Nella Larsen's novel, Quicksand, free from googlebooks.
Posted by courier at 04:02 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American pianist and composer. He is regarded not only as one of the greatest living jazz musicians, but also as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
Visit Herbie Hancock's website.
Posted by courier at 06:10 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Jane Matilda Bolin LL.B. (April 11, 1908-January 8, 2007) was the first African-American woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to join the city's law department. She became the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States when she was sworn in to the bench of the New York City Domestic Relations Court in 1939.
Bolin was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the youngest of four siblings. Her father, Gaius Charles Bolin, was the first African-American to graduate from Williams College and became a lawyer. Her mother, Matilda Ingram Bolin (née Emery), a white Englishwoman, died when Bolin was 8 years old.
Read more about Jane Bolin at the website of the American Bar Association.
Posted by courier at 06:02 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:Bunny Wailer, also known as Bunny Livingston (born Neville O'Riley Livingston, April 10, 1947, Jamaica), is a singer songwriter and percussionist and was an original member of reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. He is widely regarded as a musical legend and is considered one of the longtime standard bearers of reggae music. He has been named by Newsweek as one of the three most important musicians in world music.
Listen to an interview with Bunny Wailer, free from ireggae.com.
Posted by courier at 05:54 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Irene Morgan (April 9, 1917 – August 10, 2007), later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an important predecessor to Rosa Parks in the successful fight to overturn segregation laws in the United States. Like the more famous Parks, but eleven years earlier, in 1944, the 27-year-old Baltimore-born African-American was arrested and jailed in Virginia for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate Greyhound bus to a white person. In a 1946 landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that Virginia's state law enforcing segregation on interstate buses was illegal.
A fateful bus ride
In July 1944, Morgan was a 27-year-old mother of two, who was in Gloucester County, Virginia visiting her mother. One Sunday morning she boarded a Greyhound Lines intercity bus bound for Baltimore, Maryland, where she was going home from visiting her mother in Gloucester county, Virginia. She sat down four rows from the back of the bus, in the section for "colored" people. When a white couple boarded and needed seats, the driver told Morgan and her seatmate to move farther back. Irene Morgan refused.
Read Irene Moran's obituary in the New York Times.
Posted by courier at 05:43 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1920 – November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable. McRae drew inspiration from Billie Holiday, but established her own distinctive voice. She went on to record over 60 albums, enjoying a rich musical career, performing and recording in the United States, Europe, and Japan.
Learn more about Carmen McRae, free from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Posted by courier at 06:20 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Billie Holiday(April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), born Eleanora Fagan and later called Lady Day, was an American singer known equally for her difficult life and her emotive, poignant singing voice. Holiday has long been considered one of the greatest jazz voices of all time.
Early life
Holiday had a difficult childhood which greatly affected her life and career. Much of her childhood is clouded by conjecture and legend, some of it propagated by her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956. This account is known to contain many inaccuracies. Her professional pseudonym was taken from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Holiday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday," presumably to distance herself from her neglectful father, but eventually changed it back to "Holiday."
Visit Billie Holiday: The Official Site of Lady Day, for more information.
Posted by courier at 12:35 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Ivan Dixon (April 6, 1931 – March 16, 2008) was an American actor, director, and producer best known for his series role in the 1960s sitcom
Hogan's Heroes, for his role in the 1967 telefilm
The Final War of Olly Winter, and for directing hundreds of episodes of television series. Active in the Civil Rights Movement, he served as a president of Negro Actors for Action.
Watch an interview with Ivan Dixon, free from ReelBlack and YouTube.
Posted by courier at 03:55 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856, – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author and leader of the African American community.
Washington was born into slavery to a white father and a black slave mother on a rural farm in southwestern Virginia. After the slaves were freed there in 1865, he worked in West Virginia in a variety of menial labor jobs for several years before making his way to Hampton Roads seeking an education. He worked his way through the school which is now Hampton University and attended college at Wayland Seminary. After returning to Hampton as a teacher, upon recommendation of Hampton's president, Sam Armstrong, he was named in 1881 as the first leader of the new normal school which became Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Read Up from Slavery: an autobiography by Booker T. Washington,
one of three of his works presented free by Project Gutenberg.
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Posted by courier at 12:23 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Major Lance (April 4, 1939 – September 3, 1994) was an American R&B singer. After a number of US hits in the 1960s, including "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um", he became an iconic figure in Britain in the 1970s among followers of Northern soul.
Major Lance was born in Winterville, Mississippi. Major was his given forename. As a child, he relocated with his family to Chicago, attending Wells High School - the same school as Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler - taking up boxing and also singing as a member of the Five Gospel Harmonaires. In the mid-1950s, he and singer Otis Leavill formed a group, the Floats, who broke up before recording any material. Lance became a featured dancer on a local TV show, and presenter Jim Lounsbury secured him a one-off record deal with Mercury Records, who released his single "I Got a Girl", written and produced by Curtis Mayfield, in 1959. The record was not successful, and Lance worked at various jobs over the next few years.
Watch Major Lance perform "The Beat, free from YouTube.com.
Posted by courier at 12:20 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Booker Little, Jr (2 April 1938 – 5 October 1961), was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished tone and balanced phrasing. He is considered to be one of the first trumpet players to develop his own sound after Clifford Brown.
Posted by courier at 12:37 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984)[1] was an American blues singer, songwriter, and nurse. Her career had started back in the early 1920s, and from there on, she became a successful jazz and blues recording artist, being critically acclaimed to the ranks of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith. In the 1950s, she retired from performing and entered the medical field, only to successfully resume her singing career in her eighties.
Born in Memphis, she left home while still in her early teens and settled in Chicago, Illinois. There, she peeled potatoes by day and hounded club owners by night, determined to land a singing job. Her persistence paid off, and Hunter began a climb through some of the city's lowest dives to a headlining job at its most prestigious venue for black entertainers, the Dreamland ballroom. She had a five-year association with the Dreamland, beginning in 1917, and her salary rose to $35 a week.
Watch Alberta Hunter sing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," free from YouTube.
Posted by courier at 12:34 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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