Hugh Laurie - Fascinating Fact 5311

HUGH LAURIE didn't find out his father was a gold medal Olympic rower until he turned 20. Laurie was a champion rower at university in England.

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Albert Ammons

   
Artist: Albert Ammons

   Genre(s): 
Blues
   

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Discography:


   
 Collection (Boogie Woogie)

   Year:    
Tracks: 21

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Albert Ammons was one of the braggy trey of late-'30s boogie-woogie along with Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. Arguably the most potent of the trey, Ammons was likewise elastic enough to play swing music. Ammons played in Chicago clubs from the twenties on, although he likewise worked as a taxi number one wood for a time. Starting in 1934, he light-emitting diode his own dance band in Chicago, and he made his first records in 1936. In 1938, Ammons appeared at Carnegie Hall with Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis, an event that in truth helped launch the boogie-woogie craze. Ammons recorded with the early pianists in duets and trios, match right in with the Port of Harlem Jazzmen on their Blue Note session, appeared regularly at Cafe Society, recorded as a sideman with Sippie Wallace in the forties, and he even cut a session with his son, the great tenorman Gene Ammons. Albert Ammons worked steadily throughout the forties, playing at President Harry Truman's inauguration in 1949; he died by and by that year. Many of his recordings are presently available on CD.





Green Guerilla Groovers

Harry Potter - Fascinating Fact 5435

HARRY POTTER author JK ROWLING has raised $50,000 (GBP25,000) for charity after auctioning off a one-off 800 word prequel to her famous wizard book franchise at a London auction on Monday (10Jun08).

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Steely Dan plots new additions to summer tour map

Steely Dan [ tickets ] has added new dates to its impending summer trek, which finds the veteran jazz-rockers holding court in New York City and dropping in on a Canadian jazz fest.The group will also tour a handful of West Coast wineries during the outing, which kicks off June 8 in Hollywood, FL. The NYC visit comes later in the month, with the band launching a four-night run at the Beacon Theatre beginning June 13.After a trip north of the border for Montreal's July 1-2 International Jazz Festival, the band will head west for a mid-summer leg. The outfit's current schedule is below; check the group's website for updates.The upcoming tour will mark the third straight year that the band--led by co-founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker--has launched a major tour after a career spent largely avoiding the business of touring altogether.Last year, the group toured North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand with a 10-piece band that included drummer Keith Carlock, bassist Freddie Washington and guitarist Jon Herington. Steely Dan performed an exhaustive set list that featured songs from the pair's three-decade-plus career, as well as samplings from Fagen's recently released "Morph the Cat" and Becker's upcoming second solo LP, "Circus Money," which drops June 10.Steely Dan continues to tour behind 2003's "Everything Must Go." The group's previous album, 2000's "Two Against Nature," was the pair's first new studio release in 20 years and earned the band three Grammys in 2001, including Album of the Year.