90-614: Johnny Otis (born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes ( Greek : Ιωάννης Αλέξανδρος Βελιώτης)); December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012) was an American singer, musician, composer, bandleader, record producer, and talent scout. He was a seminal influence on American R&B and rock and roll . He discovered numerous artists early in their careers who went on to become highly successful in their own right, including Little Esther Phillips , Etta James , Alan O'Day , Big Mama Thornton , Johnny Ace , Jackie Wilson , Little Willie John , Hank Ballard , and The Robins , among many others. Otis has been called
180-658: A 3-unit Peralta Community College District class. Otis died of natural causes on January 17, 2012, in the Altadena area of Los Angeles. He died three days before Etta James , whom he had discovered in the early 1950s. He is interred with his wife at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California, US. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
270-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
360-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
450-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
540-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
630-619: A hit for the Fiestas in 1959. As an artist and repertory man for King Records , Otis discovered numerous young prospects who later became successful, including Jackie Wilson , Hank Ballard , and Little Willie John . Otis hosted a television show, The Johnny Otis Show , and became an influential disc jockey in Los Angeles, with a program on radio station KFOX in Long Beach in 1955. In 1955, Otis started his own label, Ultra Records (he changed
720-545: A job at Ford Motor Company but was rejected because of his age. He worked at a general store owned by an Armenian family, with whom he lived for some time, then tried to become a boxer. During Prohibition in 1931 or 1932, he drove a hearse with a coffin that was packed with whiskey for the Purple Gang . He attended evening classes in music and taught himself to play guitar and piano. When Duke Ellington came to Detroit, he went backstage and met his hero. Determined to become
810-484: A musical entertainer, he moved to New York City and entered the world of show business as a "professional amateur". As Gaillard recalled much later: The MC would say, "Here they come, all the hopefuls!" Well, we may have been hopefuls but we weren't amateurs. Of course, you had to be a little bad in spots. If you were too good you'd lose the amateur image. I would be a tap dancer this week, next week I'd play guitar, two weeks later some boogie-woogie piano. They paid us $ 16
900-672: A predominantly black neighborhood in Berkeley, California , where his father owned a grocery store. He became known for his choice to live his professional and personal life as a member of the African-American community. He wrote, "As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black." On May 2, 1941, when Otis was 19, he married Phyllis Walker, an 18-year-old woman of African American and Filipino descent from Oakland, whom he had known since childhood. Despite deep and enduring objections from his mother,
990-434: A show. I did one with Frank Sinatra, I got $ 16 and he got $ 16. Every time I see him I say, "Got a raise yet, Frank?" Gaillard first rose to prominence in the late 1930s as part of Slim & Slam , a jazz novelty act he formed with bassist Slam Stewart . Their hits included " Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy) " and "Cement Mixer (Put-Ti-Put-Ti)". The duo performs in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin' . Gaillard's appeal
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#17330862514611080-466: A string of rhythm-and-blues hits through 1950. Otis and his Orchestra played at the third annual Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on September 7, 1947. Woody Herman , The Valdez Orchestra , The Blenders, T-Bone Walker , Slim Gaillard , The Honeydrippers , Sarah Vaughn and the Three Blazers also performed that same day. Otis discovered
1170-472: A teenager, having bought a set by forging his father's signature on a credit slip. Soon after, he dropped out of Berkeley High School , in his junior year. He joined a local band, the West Oakland House Rockers, with his pianist friend "Count" Otis Matthews. By 1939, they were performing at many local functions, mostly in and around Oakland and Berkeley , and were popular among their peers. In
1260-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
1350-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
1440-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
1530-517: Is one of the earliest known recordings of Parker's speaking voice. In 1949 he was playing in San Francisco. Near the end of Part Two of Jack Kerouac 's book On the Road is an account of meeting him at a performance there. Gaillard could play several instruments and managed to turn the performance from jazz to comedy. He would play the guitar with his left hand fretting with fingers pointing down over
1620-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
1710-860: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Slim Gaillard Bulee " Slim " Gaillard (January 9, 1911 – February 26, 1991), also known as McVouty ,
1800-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
1890-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
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#17330862514611980-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
2070-630: Is the ballad " Every Beat of My Heart ", first recorded by the Royals in 1952 for Federal Records . It was a hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1961. Otis also produced and played the vibraphone on " Pledging My Love ", by the singer Johnny Ace , which was number 1 on the Billboard R&;B chart for 10 weeks. Another successful song for Otis was " So Fine ", originally recorded by the Sheiks in 1955 for Federal and
2160-724: The 1920 census lists one "Beuler Gillard" [ sic ] as living in Pensacola, Florida , having been born in April 1918 in Alabama . Researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc have concluded that he was born in June 1918 in Claiborne , Alabama, where a "Theophilus Rothchild" [ sic ] had been raised the son of a successful merchant in the small town of Burnt Corn ; other documents give his name as Wilson, Bulee, or Beuler Gillard or Gaillard. At
2250-847: The Blues Hall of Fame in 1994. He was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2017. In the 1960s, Otis entered journalism and politics. He lost an election for a seat in the California State Assembly . He then became deputy chief of staff to state Assemblyman, later, Democratic Congressman , Mervyn M. Dymally . Otis also founded and preached in the New Landmark Community Gospel Church, which held Sunday services in Santa Rosa, California . Landmark's worship services centered on Otis's preaching and
2340-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
2430-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
2520-756: The Watts district of Los Angeles. Otis reduced the size of his band and hired the singers Mel Walker , Little Esther (born Esther Mae Jones and later known as Esther Phillips) and the Robins (who later became the Coasters ). He discovered the teenaged Esther Jones when she won a talent show at the Barrelhouse Club. With this band, he toured extensively in the United States as the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, and had
2610-500: The hipster anthem "Opera in Vout (Groove Juice Symphony)". They can be seen in a 1947 motion picture featurette O'Voutie O'Rooney filmed live at one of their nightclub performances. Slim and Bam was featured at the first Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles that was produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. on September 23, 1945, along with Count Basie . Gaillard also played for
2700-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
2790-529: The tenor saxophonist Big Jay McNeely , who played on his up-tempo "Barrelhouse Stomp". He began recording Little Esther and Mel Walker for Savoy Records , based in Newark, New Jersey , in 1949, and also released a stream of hit records, including " Double Crossing Blues ", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie", all of which reached number 1 on the Billboard R&;B chart. In 1950, Billboard selected Otis as
Johnny Otis - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-464: The "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues". Otis was born in Vallejo, California, to Greek immigrant parents, Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter. He had a younger sister, Dorothy, and a younger brother, Nicholas A. Veliotes , who became the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan (1978–1981) and Egypt (1984–1986). Johnny grew up in
2970-551: The 1950s R&B artists Louis Jordan , Charles Brown , Big Joe Turner , Pee Wee Crayton , Joe Liggins , Gatemouth Moore , Roy Milton , Amos Milburn , Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson , and Richard Berry , with three of those albums by Otis himself. In the 1980s, Otis had a weekly radio show, airing Mondays from 8 to 11 p.m. on the Los Angeles radio station KPFK , on which he played records and received as guests R&B artists such as Screamin' Jay Hawkins . Otis also recorded with his sons, Shuggie (guitar) and Nicky (drums), releasing
3060-708: The 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac . Gaillard, with Dodo Marmarosa on piano, appeared as a guest several times on Command Performance , recorded at KNX radio studios in Hollywood in the 1940s and distributed on transcription discs to American troops in World War II. In 1943, Gaillard was drafted in the United States Army Air Forces . There, Corporal Gaillard was an assistant crew chief working on B-26 “Marauder bombers” at Laughlin Field, Del Rio Texas. He
3150-539: The 1970s TV series Roots: The Next Generations and reprised some of his old hits on the NBC prime-time variety program The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show . By the early 1980s Gaillard was touring the European jazz festival circuit, playing with such musicians as Arnett Cobb . He also played with George Melly and John Chilton 's Feetwarmers, appearing on their BBC television series and also occasionally deputising for Melly when he
3240-453: The 1980s, Gaillard resumed touring the circuit of European jazz festivals. He followed Dizzy Gillespie's advice to move to Europe and, in 1983, settled in London , where he died of cancer on February 26, 1991, after a long career in music, film and television, spanning nearly six decades. Along with Gaillard's date of birth, his lineage and place of birth are disputed. Many sources state that he
3330-459: The 2nd Cavalcade of Jazz held at Wrigley Field on October 12, 1946, and played for the 3rd Cavalcade of Jazz held also at Wrigley Field on September 7, 1947. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Gaillard frequently opened at Birdland for Charlie Parker , Flip Phillips , and Coleman Hawkins . His December 1945 session with Parker and Dizzy Gillespie is notable, both musically and for its relaxed convivial air. "Slim's Jam", from that session,
3420-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
3510-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
3600-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
3690-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
Johnny Otis - Misplaced Pages Continue
3780-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
3870-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
3960-539: The Hand Jive", a clave -based vamp. It was a hit in the summer of 1958, peaking at number 9 on the U.S. Pop chart, and was Otis's only Top 10 single. The single reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. Otis's success with the song was somewhat short-lived, and he briefly moved to King Records in 1961, where he worked with Johnny "Guitar" Watson . In 1959, Otis auditioned the Coachella Valley, California band
4050-520: The Poontangs , both of which featured his son Shuggie and the singer Delmar "Mighty Mouth" Evans. A year later, he recorded a double live album of his band's performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival , Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey! with Little Esther Phillips , Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson , Pee Wee Crayton , Ivory Joe Hunter , and The Mighty Flea , among others. A portion of the performance
4140-589: The Powerhouse Brewing Co. After Otis' retirement in late 2004, his grandson Lucky hosted the show at KPFA for two years, until its final airing in late 2006, when Otis and his wife moved back to Los Angeles. In 1980, Frank Zappa stated in a Trouser Press interview that he adopted his trademark mustache and soul patch because "it looked good on bluesman Johnny Otis, so I grew it." He taught Music 15-B: Jazz, Blues and Popular Music in American Culture,
4230-682: The R&;B Artist of the Year. He also began playing the vibraphone on many of his recordings. In 1951, Otis released "Mambo Boogie", featuring congas, maracas, claves, and mambo saxophone guajeos in a blues progression, the first R&B mambo ever recorded. Otis moved to Mercury Records in 1951. He discovered the singer Etta James , who was then 13 years old, at one of his talent shows. He produced and co-wrote her first hit, " The Wallflower (Dance with Me, Henry) ". In 1952, while in Houston, Texas , Otis auditioned
4320-456: The Renes which featured a young Alan O'Day on vocals. Impressed, Otis recorded and produced the band performing three O'Day originals and a few covers at El Dorado Studios in Los Angeles. but the recordings were never released as most of the members of the Renes were minors. In 1969, Otis landed a deal with Columbia Records and recorded the albums Cold Shot! and the sexually explicit Snatch and
4410-679: The Slim Gaillard Quartet in 1945 on the Melodisc label, featuring Gaillard on guitar, Zutty Singleton on drums, "Tiny" Brown on bass and Dodo Marmarosa on piano. "Dunkin Bagels" was later included in the 2010 compilation CD Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations , issued by the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation . He made a cover version of a Greek folk song called "Tee say malee" ("Why Do You Care"). Arabic
4500-649: The United States and Europe well through the 1990s, headlining the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1990 and 2000. In 1993, he opened the Johnny Otis Market in Sebastopol, a grocery/deli/cabaret where Otis and his band (now joined by his grandsons Lucky on bass and Eric on rhythm guitar) played sold-out shows every weekend until it closed its doors in 1995. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
4590-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
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#17330862514614680-424: The age of twelve, he accompanied his father on a world voyage and was accidentally left behind on the island of Crete . On a television documentary in 1989, he said, "When I was stranded in Crete, I was only twelve years old. I stayed there for four years. I traveled on the boats to Beirut and Syria and I learned to speak the language and the people's way of life." After learning a few words of Greek, he worked on
4770-400: The albums The New Johnny Otis Show (Alligator, 1981), Johnny Otis! Johnny Otis! (Hawk Sound, 1984) and Otisology (Kent, 1986). In the summer of 1987, Otis hosted his own Red Beans & Rice R&B Music Festival in Los Angeles, which featured top-name acts and hosted a Southern-style red beans and rice cook-off. Otis released Spirit of the Black Territory Bands in 1992, for which he
4860-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
4950-418: The early 1940s Otis played in swing orchestras, including Lloyd Hunter 's Serenaders and Harlan Leonard 's Rockets. He founded his own band in 1945; they had one of the most enduring hits of the big-band era, " Harlem Nocturne ", a composition by Earle Hagen . His band included Wynonie Harris , Charles Brown , and Illinois Jacquet , among others. In 1947, he and Bardu Ali opened the Barrelhouse Club in
5040-527: The early 1960s, Gaillard lived in San Diego , California . During that time he recorded several singles and performed with local bands. Under the name Slim Delgado, he recorded a rock and roll single for the Xavier label titled "Frank Rhoads Round" The B-side is a song called "Dr. Free". Gaillard appeared in several shows in the 1960s and 1970s, including Marcus Welby, M.D. , Charlie's Angels , Mission: Impossible , Medical Center , The Flip Wilson Show , and Then Came Bronson . He also appeared in
5130-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
5220-448: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
5310-456: The featured players are no more than Otis's hired hands, including guitarist Shuggie O . But (in ascending order) Roy Milton , Big Joe Turner , Ivory Joe Hunter, Little (?) Esther Phillips, Roy Brown , and Cleanhead Vinson are a cast that beats anything Richard Nader's ever put into the Garden ." Otis toured less in the 1970s. He started the Blues Spectrum label and released a series of thirteen albums, Rhythm and Blues Oldies , which featured
5400-414: The fingerboard (instead of the usual way up from under it), or would play credible piano solos with his palms facing up. Gaillard wrote the theme song to the Peter Potter radio show. In addition, in 1950 he wrote and recorded the "Don Pitts On the Air" theme for San Francisco DJ Don Pitts. On March 27, 2008, the Pitts theme song entered the archives of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio . In
5490-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
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#17330862514615580-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
5670-414: The island "making shoes and hats". He then joined a ship working the eastern Mediterranean ports, mainly Beirut , where he picked up some knowledge of Arabic. When he was about 15, he re-crossed the Atlantic, hoping the ship would take him home to Cuba, but it was bound for the U.S. and he ended up in Detroit. He never saw either of his parents again. Alone and unable to speak English, he tried to get
5760-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
5850-565: The late 1930s with hits such as " Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy) " and "Cement Mixer (Put-Ti-Put-Ti)" after forming Slim and Slam with Leroy Eliot "Slam" Stewart . During World War II, Gaillard served as a bomber pilot in the Pacific. In 1944, he resumed his music career and performed with such notable jazz musicians as Charlie Parker , Dizzy Gillespie , and Dodo Marmarosa . In the 1960s and 1970s, he acted in films—sometimes as himself—and also appeared in bit parts in television series such as Roots: The Next Generations . In
5940-458: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
6030-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
6120-434: The name to Dig after releasing five singles). He continued to perform and appeared on TV shows in Los Angeles from 1957. On the strength of their success, he signed with Capitol Records . Featuring the singer Marie Adams and with his band, now known as the Johnny Otis Show, he made a comeback, at first in the British charts with " Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me " in 1957. In April 1958, he recorded his best-known song, "Willie and
6210-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
6300-408: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
6390-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
6480-489: The singer Elvis Presley recorded a new version of the song, which quickly became a number 1 hit. Claiming Leiber and Stoller illegally had the original contract nullified and rewrote a new one stating that the two boys (who were both 17) were the only composers of the song, Otis sued. The judge decided the case in favor of the defendants, ruling that the first contract with Otis was null and void because they were minors when they signed it. One of Otis's most famous compositions
6570-430: The singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton . He produced, co-wrote, and played drums on her 1953 recording of " Hound Dog " (the first recording of the song); he and his band also provided the backup "howling" vocals. The song was co-written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller . Otis had a legal dispute with the songwriting duo over the credits after he learned that Leiber and Stoller had revised the contractual agreement before
6660-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
6750-412: The traditional-style performances of a vocal group and choir backed by his rhythm section and an organist. The church closed in mid-1998. The Johnny Otis Show , relocated from KPFK to sister station KPFA in Berkeley, California , where it aired on Saturday mornings. After his market in Sebastopol opened in 1994, Otis broadcast from there, with his band playing live on the air, later broadcasting from
6840-449: The young couple left California and eloped to marry in Reno, Nevada , where interracial marriage was accepted at the time. They had four children: two sons, Shuggie Otis and Nicholas Otis—both of whom became musicians—and two daughters, Janice and Laura. Johnny and Phyllis also raised Lucky Otis, Shuggie's son with his first wife, Miss Mercy Fontenot of The GTOs . Otis began playing drums as
6930-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
7020-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
7110-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
7200-423: Was an American jazz singer and songwriter who played piano, guitar, vibraphone , and tenor saxophone. Gaillard was noted for his comedic vocalese singing and word play in his own constructed language called "Vout-o-Reenee", for which he wrote a dictionary. In addition to English, he spoke five languages (Spanish, German, Greek, Arabic, and Armenian) with varying degrees of fluency. He rose to prominence in
7290-569: Was born in Detroit , Michigan, though he said himself that he was born in Santa Clara, Cuba , of an Afro-Cuban mother called Maria (Mary Gaillard) and a German-Jewish father called Theophilus (Theophilus Rothschild) who worked as a ship's steward. During an interview in 1989, Gaillard added: "They all think I was born in Detroit because that was the first place I got into when I got to America." However,
7380-553: Was discharged before the end of the war after a year and 7 months of service; six months after being diagnosed with chronic frontal sinusitis. He "qualified as a pilot flying [...] B-26 bombers in the Pacific" and resumed his music career on his release from the draft in 1944. Upon his return he released the song "Atomic Cocktail" , which featured seemingly lighthearted lyrics laced with symbolism about nuclear war. Gaillard later teamed with bassist Bam Brown, and their successes included
7470-606: Was featured in the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty for Me . Live at Monterey was released in 1971 by Epic Records . Reviewing it in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said, "In-concert compilations are often incoherent, but the blues-style hard jive beloved of performer-turned-majordomo Otis has such formal integrity that this r&b spectacular moves smoothly for four sides. Some of
7560-419: Was introduced as Cuban. "Rooney! I am Cuban too." [...] Slim said how much he wanted to make a Latin record and talked about his friend the great Cuban leader Machito. This was 1985. I had been flying between Angola, where Cuban troops were fighting and Miami where one million exiled Cubans live. We talked of all those Cubans who wanted to go back to Cuba but couldn't. [...] In his inimitable, enthusiastic way Slim
7650-638: Was nominated for a Grammy Award. He moved the festival to the city of San Dimas , where it ran annually in association with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation for twenty years, until 2006. Otis and his family moved from southern California to Sebastopol, California , a small apple-farming town in Sonoma County . He continued his weekly radio program from KPFK 's sister station KPFA in Berkeley, California , which aired every Saturday from 9am to noon. Otis performed across
7740-451: Was similar to Cab Calloway 's and Louis Jordan 's in that he presented a hip style with broad appeal (for example in his children's song " Down by the Station "). Unlike them, he was a master improviser whose stream of consciousness vocals ranged far from the original lyrics. He sang wild interpolations of nonsense syllables, such as "MacVoutie O-reeney". One such performance is celebrated in
7830-550: Was trying to sell me, a movie maker, the idea of recording an album. In 1986, Gaillard appeared in the musical film Absolute Beginners , singing "Selling Out". In the autumn of 1989, the BBC aired director Anthony Wall 's four-part documentary on Gaillard entitled Slim Gaillard's Civilisation . Gaillard used Yiddish in at least two of his songs, "Dunkin' Bagels", and "Matzo Balls", where he refers to numerous Jewish ethnic dishes eaten by Ashkenazi Jews. The songs were issued by
7920-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
8010-464: Was unwell. Gaillard's behavior on stage was often erratic and nerve-wracking for the accompanying musicians. He made a guest appearance on Show 106 of the 1980s music program Night Music , an NBC late-night music series hosted by David Sanborn . Around Christmas 1985, Gaillard recorded the album Siboney at Gateway Studios in Battersea , London, produced by Joe Massot . As Massot recalled later: I
8100-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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