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American record company. It was founded in Los Angeles in 1962 by the former US army trumpeter Herb Alpert and the promoter-producer Jerry Moss. For first few years, A&M depended largely on revenues from Alpert's own recordings. His easy-listening instrumental music recorded with the Tijuana brass had sold over 20 million copies by 1968, when the company's turnover was $50 million. In 1966 A&M also scored a big success with Sergio Mendes and the Sandpipers' single, Guantanamera. Moss, however, was keen to broaden the appeal of A&M, and began recording such West Coast artists as Captain Beefheart and Dr John. In 1969 the label opened its first British office and by the early 1970s A&M also signed American recording deals with such artists as Procol Harum, The Move, Joe Cocker, Jimmy Cliff and Cat Stevens.

By the 1970s A&M were established as the most successful independent record label in the USA. In ...

Firm of music publishers. It was founded in New Haven in 1962 by Gary J.N. Aamodt and Clyde Rykken to provide modern critical editions of music of historical interest and artistic integrity for scholars, students, and performers of Western art music. The “Recent Researches” series were launched in 1964 with volumes of music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods; it has since expanded to span the history of Western music. Another series is dedicated to oral traditions in music. The series Recent Researches in American Music was initiated in 1977 in collaboration with the Institute for Studies in American Music. In 1968 the firm moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and the same year took over the production and distribution of the Yale University Collegium Musicum series of historical editions. Starting in 1988, the company has served as publisher for Music of the United States of America (MUSA), a set of scholarly editions, in collaboration with the American Musicological Society and with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Other projects have included A-R Special Publications (for performers) and a three book series co-published with the Music Library Assocation....

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Record company. Founded in 1955 in New York by American Broadcasting-Paramount Theaters, it was coeval with the birth of rock and roll, although a couple of years passed before the label produced hits in that genre, with such songs as Danny and the Juniors’ “At the Hop” (1957) and “Rock and roll is here to stay” (1958). It achieved sustained success with less boisterous pop music, particularly the work of Paul Anka (“Diana,” “Put your head on my shoulder,” and “Puppy Love”). The rest of the company’s output comprised children’s, spoken word, ethnic, jazz, and rhythm-and-blues records.

From the late 1950s the label attracted many successful African-American artists, including Fats Domino and B.B. King; after signing in 1959 Ray Charles scored his first number one pop single in 1960 with “Georgia on my Mind” and his first number one album in 1962 with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music...

Record company. Brothers Edward and Leo Messner founded the company as Philo Records in 1945 and changed the name to Aladdin the next year. Aladdin’s records, which appeared on the Aladdin label and over a half-dozen subsidiaries, were among the most popular “race” (later rhythm-and-blues) records of the time, and represented many facets of African American popular music following World War II. Based in Los Angeles, the company released upbeat boogie by Amos Milburn, such as the 1948 hit “Chicken-Shack Boogie,” and group vocal music by artists like the Five Keys. Blues also appeared on Aladdin by artists such as Charles Brown and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Jazz saxophonist Lester Young also recorded extensively for Aladdin during the 1950s. Several songs released on Aladdin foreshadowed the development of rock and roll, such as Shirley and Lee’s 1956 classic “Let the Good Times Roll.” In 1962, the company was sold to Lew Chudd’s Imperial Records....

Australian firm of publishers. It was started about 1890 in Sydney when Jacques Albert (b Fribourg, 1850; d at sea, 1914) began importing violins. In 1894 he was joined by his son Michel François [Frank] (1874–1962), who became sole proprietor in 1896. He continued to trade as J. Albert & Son and in the early 1900s negotiated Australian publishing rights with overseas music houses for both the American Annuals and Sixpenny Pops series. The firm extended its merchandise to orchestral and brass band instruments but sold this stock in 1932 to Allan’s in Melbourne. Shortly afterwards, J. Albert & Son Pty Ltd was formed to control the music publishing interests of the family. About 1970 the firm began the Albert Edition catalogue of predominantly Australian classical compositions, which now exceeds 500 titles and includes works by Ross Edwards, Margaret Sutherland, Wesley-Smith and Butterley. Alexis François Albert (...

Italian firm of music and general engravers and publishers, music and print sellers. The firm was active in Venice at the sign of the Beata Vergine della Pace on the Rialto from about 1770 to at least 1803. It was founded by the engravers Innocente Alessandri (b Venice, c1740), a pupil of Francesco Bartolozzi, and Pietro Scattaglia. From about 1770, during the years of publication of their joint magnum opus, Animali quadrupedi (Venice, Carlo Palese, 1771–5, illustrated with 200 plates designed, engraved and hand-coloured by themselves), they also worked as engravers and selling agents for the music publisher Luigi Marescalchi; on at least one title-page they are also described as his printers, which may have been another of their regular responsibilities. Together with Marescalchi they were associated with the revival of music publishing in Italy after 70 years of almost total inactivity. The fact that their names appear on almost all title-pages of Marescalchi’s Venice editions has often led cataloguers and bibliographers to ascribe to them publications that should properly be regarded as Marescalchi’s, resulting in numerous errors in RISM, the ...

(b Milan, 29 June–6 Aug 1647; d Milan, Sept 2, 1712). Italian composer and tenor. His family was originally from Centonara, in the province of Novara, where the surname Chiapetta (Chiappetta, Chiappetti, Ciapeta, Ciapetta) was so common that ‘de Alessandri’ was used to identify the branch to which the composer belonged. It was because of these origins that his contemporary L.A. Cotta included him in a list of Novara musicians, describing him as ‘Giulio de Alessandri Chiapetta di Centonara in Riviera di S Giulio’. The documents which refer to him and his compositions use both surnames separately, and so ‘Giulio d’Alessandri’ and the ‘Canon Chiapetta’ have been identified as two different composers. He was ordained priest on 6 April 1669. On 10 December 1676 he was appointed a tenor and vicemaestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral. During this period he collaborated with P.F. Tosi, who worked at Milan Cathedral from ...

(b ?Rome, Nov 24, 1747; d Casinalbo, nr Modena, Aug 15, 1798). Italian composer. According to Manferrari, he was born at S Damaso, near Modena. He studied in Naples and had his first large work, the oratorio Il Tobia, performed in Rome in 1765. Having gained recognition as a harpsichordist and conductor in Turin and in Paris at the Concert Spirituel, he visited Verona and Venice to prepare his first operas, Ezio and Il matrimonio per concorso, for Carnival 1767. At about this time he married the buffa singer Maria Lavinia Guadagni (b Lodi, 21 Nov 1735; d Padua, c1790), sister of the celebrated castrato Gaetano Guadagni; both were employed by the King's Theatre, London, for which Alessandri composed the comic operas La moglie fedele (1768) and Il re alla caccia (1769). Although he must have visited Vienna for the première of his opera ...

( b Rome, Jan 25, 1960). Italian harpsichordist, organist and conductor . Largely self-taught, he conducted his first major concert, of Cavalli's Calisto, in Rome in 1985, with a group of singers that were to form the nucleus of a permanent ensemble, Concerto Italiano. The ensemble's first recording, of Monteverdi's fourth book of madrigals, was widely acclaimed for its passion and colour, winning a Gramophone award in 1994; subsequent recordings have included madrigals by Monteverdi, Marenzio and Frescobaldi, and vocal works by Lassus. In 1995 Alessandrini founded the complementary Concerto Italiano instrumental ensemble, with whom he has performed and recorded concertos by Bach and Vivaldi, and made an imaginative recording of Bach's Art of Fugue. His other recordings include Bach's sonatas for violin and harpsichord, vocal works by Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Pergolesi, and Handel's Roman oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. With Concerto Italiano he has appeared at major concert halls and festivals throughout Europe. In ...