Benny Goodman (1909 -1986 )
American clarinetist and jazz musician, who formed his own band in 1933. He was known as the "King of Swing" and his style started a new era in the history of jazz. His skill as a clarinetist was not confined to jazz: Bartok, Hindemith, and Copland all, composed solo works for him, and he also gave distinguished performances of classical works.
Charlie Parker (1920 -1955 )
American jazz saxophonist. In New York he played with some of the greatest name of jazz, including Thelonius Monk and Dizzy Gillespie and became one of the figures of the "be-bop" movement, making some classic recording with Miles Davis in 1945.
A Jazz Tradition
Unit 4
Background Information Language Points Key to Exercises
Background Information
Dizzy Gillespie
American jazz trumpet-player, a leading exponent of the "bop" style. After working with various other groups he formed his own in New York in 1944.
Count Basie (1904 -1984 )
American jazz bandleader. He took up the piano at an early age, looking to figures such as "fats" Waller and Willie, "the Lion" Smith for his models, and became famous as leader of his own "big band" from 1935.
Igor Stravinsky (1882 -1971)
inspiration for his own neo-classical works from the baroque and classical periods. Stravinsky had moved from Paris to Los Angles on the outbreak of the Second World War, and in the 1950s turned to serialism in such works as the cantatas Canticum sacrum (1955) and Threni (1957-1958). In his final years he wrote short bare works, many of them religious in feeling and form. The overriding feature of his music is rhythm, and the sense of the theatre and of the dance is never wholly absent even from his most austere works.
Duke Ellingtonபைடு நூலகம்(1899 -1974 )
American composer, pianist, and band-leader, the most distinctive and influential figure in the history of jazz. His band established its fame in the early 1930s, and some of its members remained with him for over 30 years. Ellington wrote over 900 compositions; his first world-wide success was Mond Indigo (1930).
Igor Stravinsky (1882 -1971)
Russian-born composer. In 1910 he began his travels with Diaghilev's ballet company, composing for it the ballets The Firebird (1909-1910), Petrushka (1910-1911), and of course, The Rite of Spring (1911 -.1913), which shocked Paris with its angular rhythms and liberal use of dissonance. He was prevented from returning to his native land by the 1917 revolution, but many works of this period have their roots in Russian folk-song, notably another ballet Les Noces (1914-1923). He was fascinated also by the idioms of Western music and derived