Les Baxter and His Orchestra | en

Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) is an influential Japanese electropop band, formed in 1978. They are renowned as a major influence in popular music, and for pioneering the electropop music genre. The principal members are Haruomi Hosono (bass), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards). The band was originally conceived as a one-off studio project by Hosono, the other two members being recruited session musicians - the idea was to produce an album fusing orientalist exotica (cf their cover version of Martin Denny's Firecracker) with modern electronics. However the first album (with its cutting-edge production) was very popular, and the studio...

Electric Light Orchestra were a symphonic rock band which formed in Birmingham, England in 1970. The band was formed by Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, multiple instruments), Roy Wood (multiple instruments, vocals), Richard Tandy (keyboards, vocals) and Bev Bevan (drums). Lynne, Wood and Bevan were former members of the psychedelic rock band The Move. The band's lineup would fluctuate throughout its original incarnation, although Lynne, Tandy and Bevan would remain constant members. They incorporated the sounds of string ensembles, vocoders and dub echos into rock songs, thereby creating a very sophisticated studio version of rock. The musical content of ELO songs...

Fragmentorchestra is the pairing of Italian jazz aficionados Luca Pernici & Giulio Vetrone. The result is a beautiful and up-tempo album of moods and grooves for some autumnal bliss. For Luca and Giulio, Jazz also means improvisation, which Luca Pernici explains. "A musician, in the moment at which improvisation occurs, is irrationally set free from any approach, creating a philosophy of composition without any given time or place". The goal is just this, to preserve an improvised approach through breaking down beats and notes but still achieving the variety of an orchestra or better yet, a Fragment Orchestra... Luca Pernici...

Les Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was an American musician and composer. Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as "What Is This Thing Called Love?". Baxter then turned to arranging and conducting for Capitol Records in 1950, and conducted the orchestra of two early Nat King Cole hits, "Mona Lisa" and "Too Young". In...