5 April

Pick a Day

5 APRIL

In Music History

Page 1
1 2 3

2019 The Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace is finally released in theaters, 47 years after it was recorded in 1972.More

2018 The EP Universal Love – Wedding Songs Reimagined is released, with six classic songs sung from the perspective of same-sex couples. Bob Dylan does "She's Funny That Way" as "He's Funny That Way," and St. Vincent turns "Then He Kissed Me" into "Then She Kissed Me."More

2017 Trans-Siberian Orchestra founder Paul O'Neill is found dead in a Tampa, Florida, hotel room. The band announces the 61-year-old rocker died from a chronic illness.

2015 Two days after Furious 7 is released in theaters, the "See You Again" video, featuring footage from the film, debuts on Facebook and Twitter. The next day, it is posted on YouTube, where it eventually breaks the record for most views, previously held by "Gangnam Style."More

2012 The Philip Lynott Exhibition opens at the 02 in London, celebrating the legacy of the Thin Lizzy frontman.

2011 Folk musician Gil Robbins (of the folk band The Highwaymen) dies of prostate cancer two days after his 80th birthday in Baja California, Mexico.

2009 Donald Trump fires TLC member Tionne Watkins, better known by her stage name T-Boz, in the sixth week of The Celebrity Apprentice, Season 8.

2008 Toto breaks up after performing its final concert in Seoul.

2006 Rock and roll singer-songwriter Gene Pitney dies of a heart attack at age 66 while touring the UK.

2005 Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas releases his debut solo album, …Something To Be, featuring the Top 10 hit "Lonely No More."More

1998 Prolific rock drummer Cozy Powell, who did time in Rainbow and Black Sabbath, dies at 50 when he crashes his car on the M4 near Bristol, England. He was racing to his girlfriend's house, who had called him distraught.

1988 Tracy Chapman's eponymous debut album is released.

1987 Jazz drummer Buddy Rich's funeral takes place in Los Angeles, with Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw, and Johnny Carson in attendance.

1985 Thousands of radio stations play "We Are The World" simultaneously at 10:50 a.m. EST. In the next few weeks, the song goes to #1 in America and the UK.

1984 Marvin Gaye's funeral takes place in Los Angeles, with Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Berry Gordy attending. Gaye died 4 days earlier when he was shot by his father during an argument.

Page 1
1 2 3

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band Makes First African-American Jazz Recordings

1923

Joe Oliver and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, featuring a young Louis Armstrong, make the first jazz recordings by an African American band at Gennett Records in rural Richmond, Indiana.

To call Gennett a studio might be a bit generous: It is a one-story shack with rugs on the ceiling and straw stuffed into the walls to muffle the sound of passing trains. Oliver is on lead cornet. The second cornet player is 21-year-old Louis Armstrong. Armstrong has made a name for himself in New Orleans and moved to Chicago two years earlier after receiving a telegram from Oliver inviting him to join the band. It is Armstrong's virtuosic solos that will eventually shift jazz away from ensembles like Oliver's band. The band's piano player is Lillian Hardin. She marries Armstrong on February 4, 1924. It is Hardin who is credited with urging Armstrong to leave Oliver's band in 1925. Armstrong will become a star while Oliver, suffering from gum disease, lives out his later years in poverty. They record nine tracks, including "Dippermouth Blues," which features a growling, plunger-muted solo by Oliver. His solo will be imitated many times over the years under the separate name "Sugar Foot Stomp." Armstrong shines on his own solo on "Chimes Blues," the first significant recorded solo of Armstrong's career. Oliver privately admits that he knows Armstrong is the better cornet player. An additional 30 tracks will be added to the set of recordings by the end of the year. Together with the first nine, they form the body of work that helps legitimize the New Orleans Dixieland style of jazz, as well as brings this form of jazz to a wider audience.

Categories

Comments

send your comment
Be the first to comment...

©2024 Songfacts®, LLC