April in Paris (album) April in Paris (album) April in Paris is an album by pianist/bandleader Count Basie and His Orchestra, his first released on the Verve label, recorded in 1955 and 1956. AllMusic awarded the album 5 stars calling it "one of those rare albums that makes its mark as an almost instant classic in the jazz pantheon" and noting ""April in Paris" proved Count Basie's ability to grow through modern jazz changes while keeping the traditional jazz orchestra vital and alive". The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide said it was "a commercial high point for this outfit". The Penguin Guide to Jazz
Rock Around the Clock (film) debuted in the 1955 teen flick "Blackboard Jungle", and is considered the first major rock and roll musical film. Haley's 1954 recording was previously played over the opening credits of "Blackboard Jungle" and the same recording was used for the opening of "Rock Around the Clock", marking a rare occasion where the same recording opened films released in such a short interval (the recording would be used once again to open the 1973 film "American Graffiti"). "Rock Around the Clock" tells a highly fictionalized rendition of how rock and roll was discovered. As band manager Steve Hollis observes that big