Music

LOUIS ARMSTRONG
Louis Armstrong became a major force in shaping jazz during the 1920s.
"Satchmo", as he was popularly known, was a virtuoso on the trumpet and a master improvisor who set new standards of rhythmic flexibility and melodic development.

Armstrong led large bands and small ensembles, traveled frequently throughout the world and made many recordings.
He appeared in the 1953 film The Glenn Miller Story and continued to perfect the melodic improvising style he had pioneered in his early years.

BEATLES
This English popular musical quartet first started performing in cellars in Liverpool in 1958.
Their novel singing style, long hair and unconventional dress helped kick off the 1960s hippie movement and made them favorites of teenagers around the world.
The group included John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo (Richard) Starr, all of whom were born in the early 1940s.
Lennon and McCartney wrote most of the Beatles' songs, including such huge hits as She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Yesterday and Yellow Submarine.
Their songs forever changed the direction of music.
The group split up in 1970.
John Lennon was shot and killed in New York on December 8, 1980.

ENRICO CARUSO
Enrico Caruso was one of the most beloved opera singers of all time.
His beautiful tenor voice, blended with technical agility and an instinctive sense of drama created a superb artistic whole.
Caruso made his operatic debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in 1894 and performed throughout Italy.
He made his debut at London's Covent Garden in 1902 and continued to sing there frequently, appearing in such operas as Carmen and La Boheme.
He was the tenor star of every one of the 35 operas he performed in at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he made his debut in 1903.
Caruso also made some 250 operatic recordings, which reflect his superbly emotional and distinctly Italian style.

DUKE ELLINGTON
Duke (Edward Kennedy) Ellington, American jazz pianist, composer and orchestra leader, was instrumental in shaping the most distinctive and resourceful large jazz orchestra in America.
He created a large body of original jazz compositions, and he also wrote many popular songs, including Sophisticated Lady, Mood Indigo and Solitude.
By the time Ellington was 50, he had earned so much money from his music that he could have retired, but total commitment to music made him continue to write and perform until the end of his life.
He was passed over for a Pulitzer price in 1965 to which the then 66-year old Ellington remarked:
"Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young".
Ellington considered his music the reaffirmation of his Afro American musical heritage as well as a personal chronicle of his life.