Harlan Leonard first showed up on traditional jazz radar as a member of Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra. He joined in 1923 and served as a vertebra in the backbone of the Moten reed section until 1931. Teaming up with another Moten veteran, Leonard worked with Thamon Hayes' Skyrockets, helping to steer this band until it too dissolved in 1937. Leonard formed his own Rockets in 1938. In 1940 they appeared at the Golden Gate Ballroom in New York, recorded about 23 sides for Bluebird, toured all over the continental United States, and finally disbanded in 1945 while working in California. This band contained a lot of young talent from Kansas City. Hearing all of their records in one package is a gas. Swing had matured. It was obviously ready to lunge forward into big-band modernity…
I Don't Know A Thing About Love: The Songs of Harlan Howard is the 73rd solo studio album by Willie Nelson, released on March 3, 2023. Produced by Buddy Cannon, the album is a tribute to the songwriter Harlan Howard. The album is a collection of ten songs performed by Nelson and originally written by Harlan Howard. Howard gave Nelson his first job as a songwriter for the publishing company Pamper Music. The album was produced by Buddy Cannon, and it will feature cover art drawn by Nelson's son, Micah.
Award-winning conductor and composer Johan de Meij's First Symphony 'The Lord of the Rings' is a spectacular evocation in five portraits and scenes based on Tolkien's tale of a grand quest and the struggle of good against evil. The Second Symphony is an ode to the symmetry of New York's streets and its massive architecture, as well as a tribute to the American styles of Copland and Bernstein, while the cinematic effects of the Third Symphony form an epic paean to the entire earth in all its miraculous beauty.