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Posted by: Pat Padua
Afro-Cuban singer Graciela Perez-Grillo passed away in New York on April 7th. She was 94. Born in Havana, Perez-Grillo moved to New York in 1942, where she played bass and sang with an all-female band before fronting the Afro-Cuban orchestra with her stepbrother Machito. See photos of the woman known as the First Lady of …
Posted in: In Memoriam, Jazz, Musicians, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Billie Holiday, one of the great jazz singers, was born April 7, 1915. She recounted her hard life in the autobiography Lady sings the blues, but despite her suffering at the hands of family, a racist society, and her own addictions, despite the smoky, world-weary voice of her later years, the joy her music brought to …
Posted in: African American History, Birthdays, Jazz, Musicians, Women in Music
Posted by: Pat Padua
You may not know the name Raymond Scott (1908-1994), but if you spent any of your formative years, and perhaps some of your adult years, watching Warner Brothers cartoons, you’ve heard his music. Scott’s “Powerhouse” is among the iconic cartoon music compositions, featured in any number of assembly line scenes – not just in Warner …
Posted in: Composers, Film Music, Jazz
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following post is taken in part from an article written by Susan Clermont, Music Specialist, for the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Like no other American sport, baseball has been glorified and preserved in musical form by inspired songwriters and poets since its beginnings. In 1858, the year when amateur baseball teams in the northeast established …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The glorious weather we’re having in Washington gives us much to celebrate in both the secular and spiritual realms. See Easter hymns from the Coptic tradition in Coptic Orthodox Liturgical Chant & Hymnody in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Remember Passover with the Yiddish play, The mother of the world, or, Children come home in The American …
Posted in: Birthdays, Holidays, Musicians, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following post is by Norman Middleton, Senior Concert Producer in the Music Division. Concert hall conniptions. High note heebeegeebees. Booze, drugs, and wastepaper baskets. The issues surrounding performance anxiety, commonly known as “stage fright” will be examined by Senior Concert Producer Norman Middleton on April 9th at 6:15 p.m. in the Jefferson Building’s LJ119 …
Posted in: Sheet Music
Posted by: Pat Padua
“Hardly had the first song been composed before someone invented singing it out of tune. ” — Victor Borge, My Favorite Comedies in Music This April Fool’s Day, before asking your chum if she’d like to hear your musical henway, read what Leonard Bernstein said about Humor in Music in a script for one of …
Posted in: Musicians, Special Collections