The Original Dixieland Jass Band
Have you been wondering who released the first Dixieland Jazz record? You don’t have to look any farther. The answer to that would be the Original Dixieland Jass Band. They recorded the song Livery Stable Blues and Dixie Jass Band One Step on February 26, 1917 for the Victor Talking Machine Company.
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, they changed the spelling of Jass to Jazz later in 1917, billed themselves as the “Creators of Jazz”. They were a group of white musicians who copied African-American southern music. The billing as the “Creators of Jazz” was more of a marketing slogan than anything else.
This first record was first marketed as a novelty. It did give many people their first taste of jazz and soon became a hit. It went on to sell over a million copies.
Nick La Rocca, who play trumpet, lead the band with Larry Shields on clarinet; Eddie Edwards on trombone; Tony Sbarbaro on drums and Henry Ragas on the piano.
The Band would record many more songs in an on and off career that would last until after World War II. The songs they recorded up until 1920 were in a variety of styles including traditional square dance. Their specialty was frantic group improvisation.
In 2006 the band was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for their 1917 recording of the Darktown Strutter’s Ball.
Remembering A Science Fiction Master
Unless you were a Science Fiction fan in the 1960s and 70s, you may not know the name Philip Jose Farmer. But during this period he was one of the genre’s best. Farmer passed away on February 25, 2009, a month after his 91st birthday.
Phillip Jose Farmer was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on January 25, 1918. He grew up in the town of Peoria.
Farmer’s first success came in 1952 with a novella called “The Lovers,”. The novella about a sexual relationship between a human and an extraterrestrial won the Hugo Award as “most promising new writer”. In all he won three Hugo Awards. With this success he decided to to become a full-time writer.
His Riverworld series, about a world where all of humanity is recreated along a grand river, original story won a $4,000 first prize.
Farmer was called by Issac Asimov, who many credit as being the greatest Science Fiction writer, as an “excellent science fiction writer; in fact, a far more skillful writer than I am….”
Along with his Riverworld series (To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The Fabulous Riverboat, The Dark Design and the Magic Labyrinth) he was the author of the Dayworld series, an overpopulation crisis on Earth has been relieved by having each person spends one day a week awake and the other six days in suspended animation and the World of Tiers series where mad demigods create pocket universes for their own amusement, only to face rebellion from their putative creatures. He also wrote A Barnstormers in Oz about Hank Stover, a pilot and the son of Dorothy Gale who flies to Oz in 1923.
From Julian to Gregorian
By the middle of the 16th the Calendar used by the Christian Religious leaders was off. The Julian Calendar designed and adopted during the reign of Julius Ceasar in 45 BC was off by 10 to few days.
This was causing confusion on when Easter as adopted by the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Pope Gregory decided that calendar reform was needed. The outcome of this reform was our current calendar, also called the Gregorian Calendar.
Part of the reform was to add these 10 days to the calendar. This action was adopted on February 24, 1582. Later in the year on October 5th, five Catholic counties adopted the calendar. The day after October 5th was October 14th in these countries.
When a county added these days to the calendar it caused for these days to be skipped. England, for example, didn’t adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1754. At that time another day needed to be added to the Calendar. September 2, 1752 was the last day that England observed the Julian Calendar with the next day being September 14th.
Adoption was slow, in fact as late as the 20th Century some countries were still on the Julian Calendar, including Russia, who changed in 1918, Greece in 1923 and Turkey in 1926.
Another change came in what was the beginning of the year. The Julian Calendar called March 1st as the first day of the year, while the Gregorian Calendar it became January 1st.
Silent Comedy Queen
Mabel Normand was born on November 9, 1892, in New Brighton, Staten Island, New York. Her parents were Mary Drury Normand and Claude G. Normand. There are accounts that give her birth as November 10, with the year given usually being 1894 or 1895. Of their children, only four survived childbirth: Ralph, Claude, Jr., Gladys, and Mabel; and of these, Ralph died in his teens of tuberculosis.
She worked as a bit player at D.W. Griffith’s American Mutoscope and Biograph film company in New York. In the winter of 1911-1912, Griffith took the main Biograph company, including Mabel, to California. Having met Mack Sennett in New York, when he relocated to California and started Keystone Film Company, she joined him.
Normand is regarded as “The Queen of Comedy” and the “Female Chaplin”. She was an actress and comedienne unique to movie history because of the role she played in the earliest development of American film comedy. It is said that she was the first to throw a cream pie into the face of Fatty Arbuckle on film creating a classic comedy routine. She worked in a series of films called the “Fatty and Mabel” comedies.
In 1916 she left Keystone to form her own company; Mabel Normand Feature Film Company. The company was short lived and only produced one film, Mickey, which sat undistributed for a year. She signed in 1918 with Goldwyn Films.
1921-1923 would be disaster years for Normand. In 1921 her good friend Fatty Arbuckle was tried for rape and murder. Then on February 1, 1922 shortly after leaving the home of director William Desmond Taylor, he was murdered. Mabel was the last, other than the murderer, to see him alive and was closely scrutinized by police and the media. In 1923 she was involved in another scandal when her chauffeur Joe Kelly shot and wounded Courtland Dines, one of her many friends.
Towards the end of the 1920’s Normand’s health declined. After an extended stay in a sanitarium she died from tuberculosis in Monrovia, California at age 38 on February 23, 1930.
The Truths of Washington
George Washington, the leader of the Continental Army and later the first President of the United States, thought of February 22nd as his birthday. He was born on February 11, 1731 under the Julian Calendar. The Julian Calendar was used in England, in which Virginia was a colony in 1731, but the Gregorian Calendar was used in most parts of the world. England would adopt the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 adding 11 days to the calendar. Washington accepted and added those 11 days.
Washington was a member of the Second Continental Congress, but he didn’t participate nor sign the Declaration on Independence. On June 14, 1775, a year before the debate and adoption, he was named Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. He was however one of the prime movers to change the Articles of Confederation, which turned out to be the writing and the adoption of the new Constitution.
While Washington had false teeth, they were not made of wood. He did have ones made by Dr. John Greenwoodby of gold and hippopotamus ivory. Dr. John Greenwood is known as the “Father of Modern Dentistry”.
Mason Locke Weems also known as Parson Weems wrote “A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington.” Weems felt that Washington was the “greatest man that ever lived”. Some of the things he wrote about Washington was more about his character than actual truths. One of these is about a Young Washington cutting down his father’s cherry tree and not lying to his father about his actions. Did he do it, probably not, but Weems felt it fit Washington’s Character of being truthful.
The District of Columbia, or Washington DC, the capital of the United States was begun when he was President and he was involved in the design of the city and the White House, the President’s home. Washington never lived in the White House and probably never in the city itself. The Capitals of the United States while he was President were New York City (March 4, 1789 to December 5, 1790) and Philadelphia (December 6, 1790 to May 14, 1800).
Washington may have spent many years away from his home of Mount Vernon, Virginia, but other than a trip to Barbados in the West Indies when he was 19 he never left the soil of what would become the United States. He went to Barbados with ith his older half-brother, Lawrence, in hopes to improve Lawrence’s health. Lawrence would die within the year. He did travel to foreign soil as a soldier during the French-Indian War, but most, if not all of that area has become the United States. Even though there were battles fought in Canada during the American Revolution, Washington was not at any of those battles.
The Rings of Color
Ever wonder why there are five rings, each of a different color on w white background in the Olympic Flag? Pierre baron de Coubertin, who was the Olympic Committee President form 1896 to 1925 said upon its introduction that the five rings represented each of the five “the five parts of the world won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition.” The six colors, blue, yellow, black, green, and red on a white background represented the colors found in the flags of the nations that existed at that time.
This was in the middle of the 1910’s. The first games that the flag was debuted in 1920 at the Games of the VII Olympiad in Antwerp, Belgium.
At the Closing Ceremony, traditionally, the flag is passed from the mayor of one host city to the next host. This however didn’t happen after its first use in 1920. That flag was lost and a replacement was made.
What happened to that original flag? That was discovered in 1997. Hal Haig Prieste who had won a bronze medal in platform diving as a member of the 1920 US Olympic team was being interviewed when a reporter mentioned that the IOC had not been able to find out what had happened to the original Olympic flag. It was then that he came clean and told that after the Antwerp Games he had climbed the flag pole and took the flag. In 2000 at the Sydney Games Prieste the flag was returned to the IOC by Prieste, by then 103 years old. The Antwerp Flag is now on display at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, with a plaque thanking him for donating it.
The Flag used in Paris in 1924 was used until it was retired from service in 1988 at the the Seoul games. It was used for both the Summer and Winter games until 1952 when it was decided to have an official flag for each. Both of these are still in use.
When the flag is lowered at the closing ceremony, it signals the end of the Games.
A Rock on Ice
The Winter Olympics in Vancouver have been going on for nearly a week. While some have been watching the skating or the ski events, one of the games that I find interesting is the game of curling. It’s not a game that is a young’s person game with strength and stamina. It’s a game of the mind that science is a factor. Some have even called it chess on ice.
The game is considered to be first placed, and therefore invented, in Scotland. The earliest form of the game was played in the early 1500s. A old curling stone is thought to be from 1511.
The game came to North America with the Scottish Immigrants. The first North American Curling Club was the Royal Montreal Curling Club formed in 1807. America’s first club was the Orchard Lake Curling Club in Michigan that founded in 1832. Curling was in North American before the creation of Baseball, Basketball and American Football.
The game is played on a rectangle sheet of ice with two teams of four take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the target or the house. Sweepers with brooms accompany each rock to help direct the stones to their resting place.
Curling was a demonstration sport in the Olympics the first two years of the winter games. It didn’t return to the Olympics until 1992 again as a demonstration. In 1994 it again was a demonstration sport but beginning in 1998.
It is a very popular game in Canada where there are more curlers than in any other country.
Game Show Host Bill Cullen
William Lawrence Cullen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 18th, 1920. His eyesight was poor causing him to wear thick glasses, which would become his trademark.
Cullen’s broadcasting career began in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He worked at WWSW radio beginning as a frequent, though unpaid guest on an overnight program called 1500 Club and eventually becoming asalaried announcer. He was well known for his puckish sense of humor and for playing pranks on his fellow announcers while they were on the air.
In 1944 Cullen moved New York and one of his first jobs was writing for the Easy Ace radio show. In 1946 he got his first big break filling in as the host of the radio quiz Winner Take All.
He was the host of Cullen 23 different game shows between the years 1952, with Winner Takes All to 1986, with his last – Joker’s Wild. This makes him the host of more game shows than anyone in television history. He had hosted the original The Price is Right in the 1960’s and when it was slated for a revival in the early 70’s he was considered for the job. However, the producers felt it would be too strenuous for him and the show was given to Bob Barker who hosted it for 35 years until his retirement in 2007.
Cullen, who was a lifelong smoker, developed lung cancer in early 1990 and died from it on July 7th.
The Game Show Congress, a nonprofit association that seeks to promote the game show industry, annual award to performers with distinguished game show careers is called the Bill Cullen Career Achievement Award. Cullen was awarded the first award posthumously in 2004.
She May Have Acted Dumb
Paris Hilton was born on February 17, 1981. Her father is Richard Hilton. Her mother is former actress Kathy Richards. She is an heir in the Hilton Hotel fortune.
At 19, she signed with Donald Trump’s modeling agency, T Management and has worked with modeling agencies such as Ford Models Management, Models 1 Agency, Nous Model Management, and Premier Model Management. She has appeared in numerous advertising campaigns, including Iceberg Vodka, GUESS, Tommy Hilfiger, Christian Dior, and Marciano.
In 2001, Hilton began to develop a reputation as a 19-year-old socialite, being identified as “New York’s leading It Girl” whose fame was beginning to “extend beyond the New York tabloids”
In late 2003 she appeared in the Fox reality series The Simple Life with Nicole Richie. The show was to take two seemingly spoiled socialites who have everything, and put them into an atmosphere where they have nothing. At this same time a sex tape that was made by boyfriend Rick Salomon was released. Many feel that it was a deliberate publicity stunt.
In late 2006 she was arrested not once, but twice on DUI charges and sentenced to 45 days in jail. While in jail she suffered a breakdown and in early June her troubles were headline news. On June 8 she moved nearly all other news of the day aside. It was a day when she went to court to determine if she had to go back to prison. Other news for that day included a computer glitch that left air traffic in the East at a snare, the end of the G8 conference and a shuttle launch.
Shortly after wards she made a public announcement that she would stop acting dumb. Maybe acting dumb was the reason for her fame. Since that time she has fell out of the public eye.
Ghost Riders in The Sky
The song Ghost Riders in The Sky was written in 1948 by Stan Jones (1914-1963) while he was working in Death Valley for the National Park Service. During that summer he was assigned to the movie crew that was filming The Walking Hills as a technical adviser. He would play his songs for them while on breaks and they encouraged him to sell the songs and went to music publishers to try to sell the songs.
Shortly after the beginning of 1949, Burl Ives heard the song and decided to record it on February 16, 1949 reaching the charts on April 22 peaking at number 21. Also in 1949 the song was recorded by Bing Crosby on March 22, 1949 reaching the charts on May 6 with it peaking at number 16.
But it was Vaughn Monroe’s version recorded on March 14 reaching the charts on April 15 that reached the number 1 position. In fact it was the biggest record of 1949. When it was recorded in 1949 it was called Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)
Gene Autry thought so much of the song that he crafted a movie based on it. He also recorded the version that was used in the movie.
In 1949 alone at least six performers recorded the song and since that time it has been recorded numerous times in each of the succeeding decades. Johnny Cash recorded a version in 1979. On 1988 he performed a duet of the song with Willie Nelson on VH1 Storytellers. On that version Willie Nelson did the 4th verse instead of the third.
The newest version of the song appeared in the movie Ghost Rider with Nicholas Cage. The song was incorporated into the soundtrack. A few times during the movie you could hear the guitar riff and it featured perfectly when the ‘Ghost Riders’ made their 500 mile journey through the desert. A nearly 5 minute version of the song done by the group Spiderbait ran during the closing credits.
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