Mort Garson (1924 - 2008) was a Canadian composer, bandleader and songwriter; he was a classically trained musician and electronic
researcher, started his career in the 1960s and was among the first
to experiment with the big Moog synthesiser. He was mainly known for his
original sci-fi space age soundscapes. In 1967, he recorded his first
album Cosmic Sounds which features sonic analog based compositions. Released in 1969, Electronic Hair Pieces
contains supernatural electronic moods, pulsating hypnotic effects and
moving synthesised textures.
Mort Garson's musical universe is close to Cecil Leuter and Jean-Jacques Perrey's kitsch moog pop soundscapes but within more mystical-cerebral-adventurous proportions, where lysergic electronic modulations meet dark epic timbres.
Felice Fugazza (1922-2007) was an early Italian electronic and pioneering analog sounds composer and player, he has been for years professor of Electronic
Music at Bologna Conservatory and he wrote the first book in Italy about
synthesizers.
Nino Nardini (Georges Achille Teperino) was a French composer, arranger, engineer, conductor and producer. Frequent collaborator of childhood friend Roger Roger.
Nardini was
born in 1912, to an Italian father and French
mother into a family of musicians. His father, a violinist and composer,
was his main music teacher. He started his musical career early, at the
age of seven, directing a philharmonic orchestra. While still a child,
he formed the 5-piece orchestra "Les Diables Rouges" with his friend
Roger Roger, which performed at local swing clubs on weekends between
the 1920's and 30's.
After the Second World War, he worked conducting and composing Spanish and Mexican ethnic and folk-related music.
He formed the Nino Nardini Orchestra
in 1951. They were, among other things, featured in "La Chansons de
Paris", a weekly musical program wich took place at the Theatre des
Champs Elysees. The orchestra continued to perform dance and pop music
live at the "Circus 58", allowing Teperino to fine-tune his arrangements
in dance styles like paso doble, foxtrot and cha cha cha. He also conducted the orchestras of Radio Luxembourg, Radio Circus
and Radio Theatre in Paris as well as taking conductor duties at a
French circus, learning with it the arrangement 'trickery' and
instrumentation to back the circus' gags and jokes.
In the early 1960's, he, along with Roger Roger, started work
composing for music libraries, recording in various styles, often
featuring instruments like the harpsichord, marimba or electric organ,
and later analog synthesizers and electronic keyboards, instruments
which he also featured in his pop arrangements at the time. In the
mid-60's, he constructed Studio Ganaro
with Roger Roger and Francis Gastambide, which him and Roger used to
record and produce their compositions. Teperino and Roger both had
fruitful careers in library music, composing a large amount of works for
French and British libraries, also experimenting with electronic music
in the late 60's and early 70's onwards. Their library music has been,
and continues to be featured in numerous radio programs, animations, TV
shows and films all over the world.
Bappi Lahiri (27 November 1952, West Bengal, India - 15 February 2022) was a son of Aparesh Lahiri,
a famous Bengali singer and Bansari, a musician and a singer who was
well-versed in classical music. His parents trained him in every aspect
of music. He began to play the tabla at the tender age of three.
He was a music director in Bollywood and popularized the use of
synthesized disco music in Indian cinema. Bappi Lahiri was the pioneer
of disco beats in India and is widely recognized throughout India as the
sole originator. He is widely known as the "Disco King" in India, even
today.
He has been known to sing duets with Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. He has also worked with renowned singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.
Ananda Shankar (11 December 1942 – 26 March 1999)
was an Indian sitarist and Bengali musician, best known for fusing Western and Eastern musical styles.
Son of Uday Shankar, nephew of Rajendra Shankar and Ravi Shankar, brother of Mamata Shankar, uncle of Ratul Shankar, and cousin of Shubho Shankar, Norah Jones, and Anoushka Shankar.
Leslie Thompson Baxter (March 14, 1922 - January 15, 1996) was an
American musician and composer. After working as an arranger and
composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening
music, known as exotica; Baxter, alongside Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, is celebrated as one of the progenitors of exotica music. He offered package tours in
sound, selling tickets to sedentary tourists who wanted to stroll
around some taboo emotions before lunch, view a pagan ceremony, go wild in the sun or conjure a demon, all without leaving home stereo comforts in the whitebread suburbs.
