Results for "composer/conductor"

Andy Kirk

Born: May 28, 1898

In 1929, Kirk formed his band in Kansas City, and remained active until 1948. Their pianist, and the band's arranger, was Mary Lou Williams, who went on to become a prominent figure in her own right. Kirk’s was one of the earliest American bands to use the amplified guitar. One of the band's big hits was "Until The Real Thing Comes Along", a song first heard in the 1932 Revue 'Rhapsody in Black'. Andy was born and raised in Denver, CO. His teacher was Wilberforce Whiteman, father of Paul Whiteman. In 1921, Andy played tuba in George Morrison's Orch. in Denver, Colorado. In 1925, he moved to Dallas, Texas, where he played (doubling on baritone and bass saxophones) with Terrence Holder's 'Dark Clouds of Joy' orchestra, and in 1928, Andy took over as leader of Holder's first orchestra, moving the band to Kansas City, MO, for an engagement at Kansas City's prestigious Pla-Mor Restaurant

Spike Jones

Born: December 14, 1911

Popular musician and bandleader specializing in performing satirical arrangements of popular songs. Ballads and classical works receiving the Jones treatment would be punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells, and ridiculous vocals. Through the 1940s and early 1950s, the band recorded as Spike Jones and his City Slickers and toured the USA and Canada under the title, The Musical Depreciation Revue. Jones's father was a Southern Pacific railroad agent. Young Lindley got his nickname by being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of eleven he got his first set of drums

Buddy Johnson

Born: January 10, 1915

The Buddy Johnson Orchestra was one of the most popular R&B based bands during the immediate post war years. Buddy was typical of many bandleaders of the time who often put entertainment ahead of art. By taking that route he enjoyed more hits than most of his contemporaries. Woodrow Wilson Johnson was born in Darlington, South Carolina, on January of 1915. He took to music at an early age, becoming adept at the piano beginning at the age of five. As a teenager he was active in church and school groups arranging and producing musical presentations in the local community. By the time he was in his early twenties he headed for New York where he soon found work as a pianist with a traveling show called The Cotton Club Revue. He soon put together a small band that played blues tunes and riff based jump and boogie dance numbers

Mark Isham

Born: September 7, 1951

Mark Isham has received Grammy and Emmy awards, as well as Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. He is an electronic music innovator, musician, and prolific film composer. He has performed worldwide and collaborated with celebrated artists in multiple genres including Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Brian De Palma, Frank Darabont, John Ridley, Jodi Foster, and Robert Altman. Isham’s inimitable musical voice can be heard on over one hundred film and TV scores including A River Runs Through It, the Oscar-winning Crash, and The Black Dahlia. Additionally, A River Runs Through It and Men of Honor both received Grammy nominations

Roy Hawkins

The story of Roy Hawkins is another in the history of the blues which is filled with tragedy, injustice and mystery. The pianist who wrote the classic, now standard, “The Thrill is Gone,” has slipped into obscurity and is known but to a few, and those are the hard core aficionados of the genre which keep his name alive. Based in Richmond, California, which is across the bay from San Francisco, he was discovered by producer Bob Geddins, who recorded his early sides. These were then leased to Modern which was based out of Los Angeles. Between 1948 and 1951 Roy Hawkins was one of Modern Records’ best-selling artists, and one of their brightest prospects for the future

Phil Harris

Born: June 24, 1904

Phil Harris (born Wonga Philip Harris) was an American singer, songwriter, jazz musician, actor and comedian. Though successful as an orchestra leader, Harris is remembered today for his recordings as a vocalist, his voice work in animation and as a pioneer in radio situation comedy, first with Jack Benny, and then in a series in which he co-starred with his second wife, singer-actress Alice Faye, for eight years. Bandleader Harris was born in Linton, Indiana, but actually grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and identified himself as a Southerner (his hallmark song was "That's What I Like About the South")

Jan Hammer

Born: April 17, 1948

Jan Hammer's musical career is as firmly rooted in the fundamentals of classical, jazz and rock as it is committed to the future of electronics, synthesized sound, the possibilities of interactive media, television, film and animation.

His walls are lined with Grammy awards and gold and platinum plaques from around the world. His name is found on scores of recordings spanning the 1970s to the '90s — solo albums, collaborations with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff Beck, Al Di Meola, Mick Jagger, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Neal Schon, Elvin Jones and many others. Jan has composed and produced soundtracks for a long list of motion pictures, the music for 90 episodes of Miami Vice (which spun-off four soundtrack albums and its worldwide #1 hit theme song), 20 episodes of the popular British television series Chancer, and the music for BEYOND the Mind's Eye, one of the all-time best-selling music videos in Billboard chart history.

Max Greger

Born: April 2, 1926

Max Greger is a popular German orchestra leader and saxophonist. He began as an accordionist then went on to the Munich Conservatory where he studied clarinet and saxophone. After a stint in the military he started to play in jazz ensembles, and by the the end of the 1940’s was leading a big band. Greger was very popular in his native Germany throughout the ‘50’s, and appeared regularly on television from 1963 to 1977. He recorded countless records for Polydor. His musical output includes easy listening as well as jazz, swing, polka or Schlager. He was heavily influenced by Glenn Miller and liked to play his music live. By 2000 he started touring with Paul Kuhn and Hugo Strasser as the "Swing-Legenden" (swing legends)

Gordon Goodwin

Born: December 30, 1954

Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 GRAMMY Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of “Incredits” from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and thirteen GRAMMY nominations. Here’s another impressive number to add to the list: eighteen. As in the number of musicians in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, one of the most exciting large jazz ensembles on the planet. Populated by L.A.’s finest players, the Big Phat Band takes the big band tradition into the new millennium with a contemporary, highly original sound featuring Goodwin’s witty, intricate, and hard-swinging compositions in a veritable grab bag of styles: swing, Latin, blues, classical, rock and more. A steady, persistent audio diet of the giants of jazz, pop, rock and funk has nourished Goodwin’s being since childhood

Philip Glass

Born: January 31, 1937

Philip Glass, early protagonist of the Minimalist movement, studied with Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger. His first job, assisting Ravi Shankar on a film soundtrack, heralded the start of his own successful cinema career, and to date he has scored over fifty movies. Early works tended to be abstract, but from the mid-1970s his attention shifted towards the stage. His first operatic triumph, Einstein on the Beach, did much to reinvigorate the international contemporary opera scene. Profoundly interested in traditional cultures, Glass often draws on Eastern traditions, as in Monsters of Grace (1997), a multimedia collaboration based on the writings of Rumi