30s

Francis Albert Sinatra (born December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey; died May 14, 1998 in Los Angeles, California) was an Italian American Grammy Award winning jazz singer, Academy Award winning actor, founder of Reprise Records and member of The Rat Pack. Beginning his musical career in the Swing Era along with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a highly successful solo artist, releasing 59 studio albums and becoming the idol of the 'bobby soxers'.

Growing up in a house filled with music, from the folk, calypso and opera enjoyed by her Jamaican born mother to the trad, swing and be-bop from her jazz-obsessed father, Louise Parker, aptly named after Louis Armstrong, was born to create the sort of soulful jazz she is rapidly gaining a reputation for. A big hit on the festival circuit and a regular on Radio 2’s Best of Jazz, British vocalist, Louise Parker is a powerful live performer and a skilful interpreter of swing, blues and gospel classics. She commits to each song with the warmth, spirit and passion of the great jazz divas.

Read more about Louise Parker on Last.fm.

The New York Philharmonic is the oldest active symphony orchestra in the United States, organized during 1842. Based in New York City, the Philharmonic performs most of its concerts at Avery Fisher Hall. The orchestra is older than any other American symphonic institution in existence by nearly four decades; its record-setting 14,000th concert was given in December 2004.[1] Since 2002, the Philharmonic's music director has been Lorin Maazel, whose tenure is scheduled to conclude at the end of the 2008-2009 season.

Huddie Ledbetter (23 January 1888-6 December 1949) was a leading American blues singer and guitarist. His songbook contained a large number of standard folk tunes, most adapted from previous sources. Though many of his posthumous releases list him as "Leadbelly," he himself spelled it "Lead Belly." This is also the usage on most of his original records, tombstone, as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation.