Although he was heartbroken to be leaving home, it was at school where he received a formal musical education and learned to read, write and arrange music in Braille score for big bands and play piano, organ, sax, clarinet, and trumpet. At 7, he became a charity student at the state-supported school for the deaf and blind in St. Ray had shown an interest in music since the age of 3, encouraged by a cafe owner who played the piano.
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His mother refused to let him wallow in self-pity however and since the sight loss was gradual, she began to work with him on how to find things and do things for himself. Although it is presumed that untreated glaucoma was the cause, no official diagnosis was ever made. Soon after the death of his brother he gradually began to lose his sight and by 7 years of age Ray Charles was blind.
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The tragedy and painful memories of the next several years however would change him forever.Īt just five years old Charles had to endure the trauma of witnessing the drowning death of his younger brother in his mother's large portable laundry tub. Nothing below us except the ground.''Īlthough it was a poor existence, and his father was "hardly ever around", he described himself as a "happy kid".
Story continues below ↓Ĭharles recalled how poor his family was in his 1978 autobiography, "Brother Ray": "Even compared to other blacks.we were on the bottom of the ladder looking up at everyone else. Young Ray grew up during the Great Depression, a period when there was almost no such thing as financial gain for anyone and particularly a black family living in the totally segregated South. His family moved to Greenville, Fla., when Charles was an infant. His father, Bailey Robinson, was a mechanic and a handyman, and his mother, Aretha, stacked boards in a sawmill.
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In so doing he changed what had previously been only a black and white territorial paper map of American music into a 3-D, solid terrain model, full of color. The great Ray Charles was an explorer who returned time and again from expeditions across musical boundaries to give us, in his own unique way, melodious stories and charts of his adventures. He left behind a long list of hits and Grammy awards and the musicians he influenced are as diverse in genre as the music he wrote, arranged, performed and recorded. Ray Charles died from acute liver disease Thursday June 10, 2004. Traces the career of "the kid from Red Bank" through Kansas City and into the later stages of his life as a bandleader. May wrote many Swing era classics for Glenn Miller and Charlie Barnet and later for Sinatra and Nat Cole. The trumpeter, bandleader, composer and arranger died Jan. This extensive biography spans the entire lengthy career of the jazz legend. The jazz guitar great died May 6th, 2004 and left behind a vast body of recorded jazz work.īenny Carter was one of the greatest arrangers and jazz musicians the genre has ever known. She later released a number of fine swinging albums for Norman Granz on his Clef, Norgran and Verve record labels. Not your typical big band “canary” Anita’s voice was heard soaring over the brassy bands of Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton during the Swing era. The prolific jazz pianist died 12-23-2007. His recordings with several incarnations of the Oscar Peterson Trio are superb to fans of straight ahead mainstream jazz that swings. Oscar Peterson performed as accompanist for a who’s who of jazz soloists and vocalists.
Vocalist, piano, reeds, songwriter, arranger The legendary performer, known since the 1950s as "The Genius," died June 10th, 2004 of liver disease. Crossed countless perceived musical boundaries throughout his career
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