Hollywood On 52nd Street
Over The Rainbow is a jazz classic taken from the 1939 American musical fantasy film The Wizard of Oz. It was the most commercially successful adaptation of the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The film stars Judy Garland, Terry the Dog as Toto, Ray bolger, Jack Halsy, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick, Pat Walshe as the leader of the flying monkeys and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins.
The Story: Dorothy is bored and her aunt, uncle and farmhands are too busy to pay attention to her so she runs off. Meeting carny mystic Professor Marvel who tells her fortune and convinces her to return home. Arriving home during a tornado she is knocked unconscious and she imagines the house being blown up into the funnel and ends up landing in Oz atop a wicked witch. Traveling from Munchkin Land to the Emerald City to see the Wizard, Dorothy encounters a scarecrow, a tin man, a cowardly lion, flying monkeys, talking trees and poppy fields. She meets the Wizard, kills the wicked witch and discovers home is all about just believing.
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James Edward Rowser was born on April 18, 1926 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a professional jazz bassist he played with Philly Joe Jones from 1954, with Dinah Washington in 1956-57 and from 1957 to 1959 with Maynard Ferguson, as well as Red Garland.
By 1963 he was touring Mexico with Benny Goodman and followed with a stint in 1964 accompanying Friedrich Guida in South America. He would go onto play out the decade with Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Les McCann, with whom he recorded frequently.
The consummate sideman, bassist Jimmy Rowser can list 97 recording sessions to his name. He has played or recorded with Ray Bryant, Yusef Lateef, Junior Mance, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Illinois Jacquet, Hilton ruiz, Eddie Harris, Cannonball Adderley, Herb Ellis, Sonny Criss, Ben Riley and Albert “Tootie” Heath.
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Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini on April 16, 1924 in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio and was raised in the steel town of West Aliquippa near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began piccolo lessons at age eight, by 12 began piano lessons and played flute in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, “Sons of Italy”. After graduating from high school he went to Juilliard School of Music and after one year of study was drafted into the Army, where in 1945 was part of the liberation force of a southern Germany concentration camp.
After the war years Mancini entered the music industry as a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra. He went on to broaden his skills in composition, counterpoint, harmony and orchestration during subsequent studies. By 1952 he joined the Universal Pictures music department and over the next six years contributed music to over 100 movies, most notably The Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story, Touch of Evil and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was also during this period that he wrote his first hit single for Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians titled I Won’t Let You Out of My Heart.
Henry left Universal International to work as an independent composer and arranger in 1958 and soon scored the television series Peter for writer and producer Blake Edwards. This was the genesis of a relationship in which Edwards and Mancini collaborated on 30 films over 35 years and was one of several pioneers introducing jazz elements in the late romantic orchestral film and TV scoring prevalent at the time.
Mancini’s scored film songs Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, The Pink Panther, A Time For Us, Baby Elephant Walk, and the Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet as well as many TV shows and movies such as the Thorn Birds, Peter Gunn and Remington Steele. Among his many singers he worked with frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Julie London, Peggy Lee among a host of others. He recorded over 90 albums, eight certified gold by the RIAA, a twenty-year contract with RCA that culminated in 60 commercial albums. Many of his songs have become jazz standards, most notably, Charade, Moment To Moment, Two For The Road, Love Story, Slow Hot Wind, Moonlight Sonata, The Pink Panther, The Days of Wine and Roses and Moon River.
Composer, arranger and conductor Henry Mancini died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles, California on June 14, 1994. He was working at the time on the Broadway stage version of Victor/Victoria, which he never saw on stage. Mancini was nominated for an unprecedented 72 Grammys, winning 20; nominated for 18 Academy Awards, winning four; won a Golden Globe Award, nominated for two Emmys, was posthumously Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and honored with a 37 cent postage stamp in 2004.
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Denny Zeitlin was born on April 10, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in the suburb of Highland Park. He began improvising on the piano at age two and was composing before elementary school. His father played piano by ear, his mother was his first piano teacher. He began formal study in Western classical music at age six, switching to jazz in the eighth grade. By the time he was in high school, he was playing professionally in and around Chicago.
While in college at the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign he was playing with Ira Sullivan, Johnny Griffin, Wes Montgomery, Joe Farrell, Wilbur Ware and Bob Cranshaw. Denny’s mentors included Billy Taylor and George Russell, while Bil Evans supported him by recording his composition “Quiet Now” and giving title to his 1970 album.
Zeitlin began his recording career when signing with Columbia Records in 1963 while studying medicine at John Hopkins University. His debut as a feature pianist was on the Jeremy Steig album Flute Fever along with Ben Riley and Ben Tucker. After moving to San Francisco in 1964 he recorded four albums as a leader for the label. He stood out from the crowd for the unbridled creativity of his work, the richness of his harmonic palette, and the sheer beauty of his piano tone.
Between 1968 and 1978, Denny ventured into electronic keyboards, synthesizers and sound altering devices, integrated them into his music and resulted in the release of Jazzy Spies in 1969 on the first season of Sesame Street. It featured the voice of Grace Slick. He would go on to be awarded Down Beat’s highest award for his Expansion album, score the music for the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and by the end of the decade returned focus to acoustic music.
Since 1968, Zeitlin has been on the teaching faculty at the University of California, San Francisco as a clinical professor of psychiatry, has a private practice, and is the founder of Control-Mastery Theory. He does all this while pursuing his passion for jazz, touring internationally and recording more than thirty-five albums to date tha include upwards of 100 original compositions. He is a first-place winner of the Down Beat International Jazz Critics Poll in 1965 and 1974.
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Victor Stanley Feldman was born on April 7, 1934 in Edgware, London, England and caused a sensation as a musical prodigy when he was discovered at aged seven. His family members were all musical and his father founded the Feldman Swing Club in 1942 to showcase his talented sons. His first professional appearance was playing drums at No. 1 Rhythm Club as a member of the Feldman Trio with brothers Robert on clarinet and Monty on piano accordion.
At eight years old the drummer was featured in the films King Arthur Was A Gentleman and Theatre Royal, in 1944 he was featured as “Kid Krupa” at a Glenn Miller AAAF band concert when he was 10, and went on to play vibraphone for Ralph Sharon Sextet and the Roy Fox band. Victor eventually made piano his instrument of choice and became best known.
Feldman recorded with Ronnie Scott’s orchestra and quintet from 1954 to 1955, and then in 1955 came to the U.S. He first worked with Woody Herman, then with Buddy Defranco. He recorded some thirty albums as a leader and recorded with Benny Goodman, George Shearing, Milt Jackson, Blue Mitchell, Lalo Schifrin, John Klemmer Sam Jones, Cannonball Adderley and others, as well as, Miles Davis on Seven Steps To Heaven, having composed the title track. He was a part of the 5-LP recording of Shelly Manne Black Hawk sessions in 1959.
Feldman settled in Los Angeles permanently and specialized in the lucrative session work for the film and recording industry. He also branched out to work with a variety of musicians outside of jazz, working with artists such as Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and Joe Walsh through the Seventies and Eighties.
Vibraphonist, drummer, percussionist, pianist and composer Victor Feldman died on May 12, 1987 at his home in Woodland Hills, California at age 53, following a heart attack. In 2009, he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
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