Little Black Project: Jet Jazz Quiz

Answer: His first known recording was in 1977

One of Thelonious Monk's first contacts with music was an old player piano someone gave his family during their early years in New York City, when he was five or six. Both of his parents played a little, and he taught himself by trying to mimic them and songs he heard on the radio. When his sister took piano lessons, he would watch, take notes and practice. When he was eleven, Monk's parents finally got him formal training, first with a classically trained teacher and then with a local woman jazz pianist. By the time he was sixteen, he had formed his first band, was getting local gigs and was winning "Audition Nights" at the famous Harlem Apollo Theater. In 1941, he got his first job as house pianist for Minton's Playhouse also in Harlem. A Columbia University student who loved jazz made his acetate disc recordings at Minton's and made plastic "paper disc" copies. These were the first recordings of Monk. In the early 1940s, he started composing in earnest, and his songs were being played and recorded by other jazz musicians. He made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet in 1944 and his first recording for Blue Note Records in 1947. In 1963, "Time Magazine" featured Monk on the cover. While Monk remains one of the most recorded jazz composers, he only wrote about 70 works.

(Question provided by pitegny)

Answer: Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, 1917-1993, was a master of the jazz trumpet, and became famous for his showmanship and witty playing of jazz standards. He played in many of the big bands, famously stabbing Cab Calloway in the thigh during a heated altercation, which resulted in his being fired from the band. He went on to other big bands, including his own, and wrote some great band music.

He and Charlie "Bird" Parker were at the forefront in the development of bebop and modern jazz. His trademark bent trumpet was the result of stage dancers falling on it. He liked the effect so much that he continued to play with a professionally made bent trumpet with an upturned bell. He received many major awards for his lifetime contribution to music, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

(Question provided by windrush)

Answer: Duke

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. His sharp dressing sense earned him the nickname of 'Duke' in childhood, and the name stuck with him. Duke was known for leading a jazz orchestra and had a long and successful stint at the New York nightclub, Cotton Club. Over the course of a career spanning decades, Duke wrote over a thousand compositions. His legacy includes 14 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom - USA's highest civilian honour, and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award.

(Question provided by zorba_scank)

Answer: Pops

Armstrong got the nickname Satchmo as a child. Satchmo is short for satchel mouth. As a kid, Armstrong used to play for pennies in the street and, allegedly, stored the coins in his mouth to prevent other children from stealing them. The nickname Pops comes from his inability to remember people's names. He would simply refer to people as Pops until one day when someone called him Pops as a joke.

(Question provided by Joepetz)

Answer: Doris Day

Doris Day (1922-2019) was an American actress and singer. Born as Doris Mary Kappelhoff, she started singing in big bands in 1939. In 1947 she embarked on a career as solo singer and actress. In the beginning of her career she sang many jazzy songs, later evolving to mellow pop. Some of her best known songs are the jazzy "Sentimental Journey" (1945) and the pop song "Que sera, sera" (title music to Hitchcock's 1956 movie "The Man Who Knew Too Much", starring Doris Day and James Stewart).
"Day By Night" was the follow-up to Doris' very popular album "Day By Day" (1956).
Why is this question introduced into a quiz on "jet" jazz? Well, the album title refers to the night, which usually is jet black in colour.

(Question provided by JanIQ)

Answer: Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday - who was nicknamed 'Lady Day' - began her singing career in New York in the mid-1930s. She is remembered as one of the most influential jazz singers of the 20th century and made notable recordings of several 'jazz standard' songs, including her 1936 version of 'The Way You Look Tonight' with pianist Teddy Wilson.

Her career flourished during the late 1930s and 1940s until issues with alcohol and drug abuse culminated in the health problems that led to her death in 1959 at just 44 years of age.

(Question provided by Fifiona81)

Answer: Horacio Hernandez

Horacio Hernandez was born in Havana in 1963. His nickname comes from the style of his music, which sounds very much alike to that of Afro-American jazz musicians.
Hernandez recorded at least thirty albums with over twenty other artists. He is best known for his repeated collaboration with the Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, but also made at least one record with the guitarist Carlos Santana and one with the Italian singer Zucchero.

(Question provided by JanIQ)

Answer: Tuba

William Orval Crow was born on December 27, 1927. In fourth grade, he took up the trumpet. Eventually he learnt to play all the brass instruments, including the double bass. Bill Crow was the long-term bassist in saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's bands in the 1950s and 1960s. What followed was a long career in music, including theatre orchestras for Broadway shows where he sometimes played tuba, a favoured instrument. Bill is also an author, having written "Jazz Anecdotes" that was published by Oxford University Press in 1991 and his autobiography, "From Birdland to Broadway", two years later.

(Question provided by em1958) 

Answer: Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) ended her extremely long career of public performance in 1993, three years before her death. Fitzgerald collected multiple Grammy Awards during her career as well as the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among others. A Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award was received by Fitzgerald in 1967, and archival material of her career is shared between the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Library of Congress. Her extensive cookbook collection was donated to the Schlesinger Library (Harvard University) and public sheet music to UCLA.

(Question provided by Lones78) 

Answer: Hammond organ

Active from 1960 to his death in 2001, Jack McDuff (born Eugene McDuff) was one of the leading jazz organ players of all time. He has recorded over fifty albums as bandleader and contributed to dozens more under the lead of other musicians. His most prolific period was the 1960s where he released up to five albums per year, most of them on the well-known jazz label Prestige Records.

(Question provided by WesleyCrusher)