Word: self-taught
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Died. Ziggy Elman, 54, self-taught trumpeter who kept the nation jumping during the swing era; in Los Angeles. Born Harry Finkelman, he changed his name after he signed with Benny Goodman in 1936, joined the Tommy Dorsey band in 1940, and after the war formed his own group. His signature tune, And the Angels Sing, which he adapted from a Jewish wedding dance, was the best-known piece in a musical bag filled with inventiveness...
Died. Wes Montgomery, 43, self-taught guitarist, whose knack for turning jazz to pop and vice versa produced such hit albums as A Day in the Life and California Dreaming; of a heart attack; in Indianapolis. Long acclaimed as one of the country's best jazz guitarists, he got into the groove with Goin' Out of My Head, his first pop LP and a 1966 Grammy winner...
...financial backing beyond what he can generate from lectures and writing (his auto-safety book, Unsafe at Any Speed, sold 450,000 hard-cover and paperback copies, earned him $55,000). Nader's success is largely due to his unerring flair for phrasemaking, backed by diligent research. A self-taught speed reader, he flips through thousands of pages of Government reports and technical journals, then distills his findings into mind-grabbing slogans. One article on meat, for example, was titled "Watch That Hamburger!"; his most effective apothegm during the automobile ruckus, "They Can't Sell Safety...
What makes it more impressive is that Schuller was a high school dropout, and is a completely self-taught composer ("I learned from the best teachers, the scores themselves"). The son of a New York Philharmonic violinist, he became a professional French horn player at 16, at 19 started a 14-year stint with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. All the while, he composed prolifically. even scribbling notes during rests at performances...
...Bright and incisive, yet unmistakably working-class, Callaghan buttressed his own claim to the No. 2 spot in the Labor Party by successfully presenting Wilson's unpopular deflationary policies as the only sensible way to deal with the "mess" left over from 13 years of Tory rule. Though self-taught in economics (his education ended at the secondary level), Callaghan has a thorough grasp of world finance, and he explained the necessity of tough measures in a common-sense way that appealed to the Laborites. He is thus invaluable to Wilson as the most effective defender of the government...