Arthur “Art” Blakey
Arthur Blakey, also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy award winning jazz drummer and bandleader in the jazz music band “Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers”. He is one of the creators of the modern bebop style of drumming, and his music style is considered to be until know very influential to young jazz musicians. Blakey was introduced to the “Grammy Hall of Fame” in 2001, and has been awarded with the “Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2005. Max Roach said about Arthur: “Art was an original… He’s the only drummer whose time I recognize immediately. And his signature style was amazing; we used to call him ‘Thunder’. When I first met him on 52d Street in 1944, he already had the polyrhythmic thing down. Art was the perhaps the best at maintaining independence with all four limbs. He was doing it before anybody was”. Arthur Blakey was embracing new jazz artists in his music band as known as “The Messengers”, as he said during a live session: “I’m going to stay with the youngsters. When these get too old I’ll get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active”.
Benny Benjamin David Goodman
Benny was born in a poor immigrant family in 30 May 1909, Chicago, Illinois, USA. He started playing music professionally in the age of 13, and went to “Ben Pollack’s Orchestra” in 1925, being a member of it and playing in it in California, Chicago, and New York until the year of 1929. In 1929-1930 he joined the Red Nichols, and he has been working for the following four years as a “Broadway and radio-studio musician”, played on many ”freelance” jazz recordings and amongst them he leaded many. In 1934, he created his first regular orchestra for Billy Rose’s Music Hall. The year of 1935 had been a benchmark for his career as; “the band began a residency at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles which was to prove the turning-point in Goodman’s career and a cornerstone of the Swing era”, he has been named after the nickname “the King of Swing”.
In the 1940s he stepped forward into the classical music, “playing concerts with José Iturbi (1942) and commissioning Bela Bartok to write ‘Contrasts for clarinet, violin, and piano’ in 1947”. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, he has been touring with his bands in a national and international range. “In 1955 he recorded the soundtrack for the Hollywood film, The Benny Goodman Story, featuring Steve Allen in the title role”. Benny continued playing “brilliantly” on concert appearances until his death.
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong, born on August 4, 1901, in Louisiana, New Orleans is known to be one of the most appreciated jazz soloists of all times. He began singing in a “barbershop quartet”. In 1914, Armstrong started playing music in local clubs where he was spotted as a talent. In 1918, Armstrong joined the band of Kid Ory, and after a while he joined the band of Fate Marable.
Louis Armstrong made his first recording with King Oliver from the “Creole Jazz Band”. In 1925, Armstrong recorded as a band leader of various groups such as the “Hot Five” and the “Hot Seven”.
During the 1930’s Armstrong became famous worldwide as the most influential American Jazz Artist and went on tours in Europe. In 1936, Armstrong made his debut appearance in Hollywood in the film “Pennies from Heaven”. Armstrong was one of the few of jazz artists to have “Top 40 hits” despite the rock era such as “Hello, Dolly”. In addition, Armstrong criticized in public Eisenhower’s reluctance to intervene when Governor Orval Faubus asked from the “Arkansas National Guard” to end the integration of public schools in Little Rock.
Armstrong continued to play in concerts and to appear in television until his death in New York City on July 6.
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday is considered to be one of the most admired jazz vocalists of all times. Despite that fact, there is little information known about her personal life due to the fact that she liked making up stories about her life. Billie took her name after her mother’s favorite silent-screen actress Billie Dove, and her father’s last name. She initially auditioned for a dancer and due to her being so bad she was asked if she could sing instead. She sang “Traveling All Alone”, and “left the audience in tears”. Holiday began her recording career in 1935 after being signed with “Columbia Records”. In 1938, Holiday became the first black singer to be in a “white” orchestra after she joined the “Artie Shaw’s big band”. In 1944 she moved from “Columbia Records” to “Decca” and stayed there until 1950. Her collaboration with Decca resulted some of her best songs including her biggest “hit” “Lover Man”. Throughout her career, Holiday has been an object of discrimination, a fact that kept her mainly in New York. In her personal life she dealt with some challenges as she had become addicted to heroin and a “heavy drinker”. Her addictions have eventually started to take over her life as she was convicted for drug charges and served nine and a half months in jail. By the year of 1958, Holiday was facing problems regarding her health, finances and “emotional well-being”. In June 1959, she was arrested on drug charges and convicted under house arrest in “Metropolitan Hospital in New York City”. On July 1959, Holiday died at the age of forty four.