WLawrence Cecil Adler was an American harmonica player. Known for playing major works, he played compositions by George Gershwin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Benjamin. During his later career, he collaborated with Sting, Elton John, Kate Bush and Cerys Matthews.
WLouis Daniel Armstrong, nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He is among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and different eras in the history of jazz.
WEddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, vaudevillian, actor, and songwriter. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, this "Apostle of Pep" was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing anecdotes about his wife Ida and five daughters. Some of his hits include "Makin' Whoopee", "Ida ", "If You Knew Susie", "Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me", “Mandy”, "My Baby Just Cares for Me”, "Margie", and "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm ?" He also wrote a few songs, including "Merrily We Roll Along", the Merrie Melodies Warner Bros. cartoon theme.
WThe Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumper sweaters and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland, contributing to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones.
WMyron Cohen was an American comedian and raconteur.
WThe Dukes of Dixieland was an American, New Orleans "Dixieland"-style revival band, originally formed in 1948 by brothers Frank Assunto, trumpet; Fred Assunto, trombone; and their father Papa Jac Assunto, trombone and banjo. Their first records featured Jack Maheu, clarinet; Stanley Mendelsohn, piano; Tommy Rundell, drums; and Barney Mallon, tuba and string bass. The 1958 album “Marching Along with the Dukes of Dixieland, Volume 3,” lists Frank, Fred, and Jac Assunto, along with Harold Cooper (clarinet), Stanley Mendelsohn (piano), Paul Ferrara (drums), and Bill Porter. During its run the band also featured musicians such as clarinetists Pete Fountain, Jerry Fuller, Kenny Davern, drummers Barrett Deems, Charlie Lodice, Buzzy Drootin and guitarists Jim Hall, and Herb Ellis. The band also recorded with Louis Armstrong.
WLionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996.
WAlois Maxwell "Al" Hirt was an American trumpeter and bandleader. He is best remembered for his million-selling recordings of "Java" and the accompanying album Honey in the Horn (1963), and for the theme music to The Green Hornet. His nicknames included "Jumbo" and "The Round Mound of Sound". Colin Escott, an author of musician biographies, wrote that RCA Victor, for which Hirt had recorded most of his best-selling recordings and for which he had spent most of his professional recording career, had dubbed him with another moniker: "The King." Hirt was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in November 2009. He received 21 Grammy nominations during his lifetime, including winning the Grammy award in 1964 for his version of "Java".
WSt. Elmo Sylvester Hope was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were close friends of another influential pianist, Thelonious Monk.
WHenriette Ragon, better known as Patachou, was a French singer and actress. She was an Officier of the Légion d'honneur.
WJohnny Puleo was an American musician and actor who specialized in playing the harmonica.
WBoris Claudio "Lalo" Schifrin is an Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He is best known for his large body of film and TV scores since the 1950s, incorporating jazz and Latin American musical elements alongside traditional orchestrions. He is a five-time Grammy Award winner, and has been nominated for six Academy Awards and four Emmy Awards.
WDonald Walbridge Shirley was an American classical and jazz pianist and composer. He recorded many albums for Cadence Records during the 1950s and 1960s, experimenting with jazz with a classical influence. He wrote organ symphonies, piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic tone poem based on the 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of "Variations" on the 1858 opera Orpheus in the Underworld.