• the ataaba is a traditional Arabic music form in which oral folk poetry is melodically improvised by a solo vocalist?
• Pakistani actress Veena Malik (pictured) has emerged as one of the leading women on Pakistani television with her abilities in improvisational mimicry?
• John Candy improvised the famous "Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips." line from The Blues Brothers on the request of a set designer's father?
• DJ Grand Mixer DXT is credited with inventing turntablism, the rhythmic scratching of a record on a turntable using different velocities to alter the pitch of the note or sound on the recording, making the turntable a fully performable and improvisational instrument?

Facts on topics related to Improvisation

Chicago

• architect John M. Van Osdel drafted the plans for the first architect-designed house in Chicago, formed Chicago's first architectural firm and ensured passage of Chicago's first building codes?
• blues musician Henry Gray is credited as helping to create the distinctive sound of the Chicago blues piano?
• blues singer Jesse Fortune, better known as the "Fortune Tellin' Man," passed on performing in Europe because he did not want to disappoint customers at his Chicago barbershop?
• Chicago alderman Sandi Jackson (pictured) transferred from Georgetown University Law Center to University of Illinois College of Law to be with her future husband, U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.?
• Chicago theater-owner Tony DeSantis survived two near-fatal explosions in his life?
• Chicago composer Margaret Bonds wrote her first work, the Marquette Street Blues, at the age of five?
• Chicago hairstylist John Lanzendorf owned one of the world's largest collections of dinosaur-themed artwork?
• Chicago politician Giuseppe Esposito was shot and killed in front of his family during the 1928 Republican Pineapple Primary?
• Chicago's Crown Fountain (pictured) displays LED images of faces, which typically create the illusion of puckered lips spouting water?
• Chicago's Fountain of Time by Lorado Taft is considered the earliest outdoor concrete sculpture?

Austin, Texas

• Jesse Sublett was a pioneer of the Austin, Texas, punk rock scene, authored a series of mystery novels, and wrote a history of the Texas Turnpike Authority?
• as part of a publicity stunt, the 1927 Texas Relays held a 89 mile (143 km) running race from San Antonio to Austin?
• the unusual configuration of the running track at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas – 84 m straights and 118 m curves – has garnered it a reputation as one of the fastest tracks in the world?
• when Jester Center was built in 1969, it was the largest dormitory in North America, the largest building in Austin, Texas, and the largest building project by the University of Texas at Austin?

Los Angeles

• Manson Family member Paul Watkins gave testimony to the Los Angeles District Attorney which helped explain Helter Skelter?
• LA's St. Cecilia Church, built in 1927, adapted to its multiethnic community by installing shrines to a beatified Nigerian priest, a Oaxacan Virgin, and a Guatemalan "Black Christ"?
• Los Angeles considered changing the name of the geographic region known as San Fernando Valley in 2002 to San Angeles, the same name used for the fictional city in the 1993 movie Demolition Man?
• Los Angeles-based hip hop group Black Eyed Peas have released two number one albums in both Australia and Switzerland, but have yet to achieve the same on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100?
• Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Don Sutton each made seven Opening Day starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958?
• Monica C. Lozano is the publisher and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles-based La Opinión, the largest Spanish language newspaper in the United States?
• Pink Dot is a Los Angeles–based chain of grocery stores that offers delivery service of groceries, deli food, cigarettes, and alcohol?
• Rancho Los Encinos near Los Angeles was founded in 1797, and raised cattle, sheep and wheat, and was a stagecoach stop, before becoming a real estate subdivision with Los Encinos State Historic Park at its heart?
• Sylvia Levin registered more than 47,000 new voters in the Los Angeles area, an individual record both in California and the United States?
• You Chung Hong, the first Chinese American admitted to practice law in California, helped develop the new Chinatown in Los Angeles in the 1930s, including designing its neon-lit gateway?

Boston

• Boston newspaper publisher John Mein shot a grenadier in a scuffle?
• Boston's Southwest Corridor Park was built along the vacant path of a canceled highway?
• Paducah, Kentucky's Lloyd Tilghman Memorial honors a Marylander, and was built by an English immigrant from Boston?
• Franklin W. Smith helped establish the YMCA in Boston, the first chapter of the organization in the United States?
• Freedom House, founded in 1949, raised money to support Operation Exodus, a voluntary desegregation and busing project in Boston before court-ordered desegregation?
• Henry Taylor Parker, a critic nicknamed "Hard-to-Please", was "Boston's oracle on theatre and music" for 29 years?
• John C. Cremony was a Boston newspaperman and United States Army Major who wrote the first dictionary of the Apache language and an account of their culture in 1869?
• Joseph T. Buckingham, a leading Boston journalist of the 1830s, was an indentured farm laborer as a boy?
• Shanty Hogan, a catcher with the New York Giants, joined with teammate Andy Cohen to form a vaudeville duo billed as "Cohen and Hogan", except in Boston, where they performed as "Hogan and Cohen"?
• Thomas Gold Appleton, the brother-in-law of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow known as "the Boston wit", is reported to have said as he was dying, "It will be a new experience"?

New York City

• African-American gay and transgender Ali Forney, once homeless himself, had a homeless LGBT youth center in New York City named after him for his work helping other youths?
• architecture critics praised the Art Deco Ghostbusters Building, in New York City, when it opened in 1929?
• Australian singer Lana Cantrell, a 1968 Grammy Award nominee for Best New Artist, later became an entertainment lawyer in New York City?
• Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Raven" while living at what is now called Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Fordham section of The Bronx in New York City?
• Hal the Central Park Coyote got his nickname from his temporary lair in Hallett Nature Sanctuary (pictured) in Central Park, New York City?
• Leo Tolstoy's play The Living Corpse played in New York City in both Yiddish (1911) and German (1916) before it was ever presented there in English (1918)?
• New York City authorities asked the Museum of Sex not to locate itself within 500 feet of a church or school?
• New York City has been working on the Second Avenue Subway project since 1919?
• New York City's Ramaz School, with 1,100 students in 2007, was named for Rabbi Moses Margolies and founded by his grandson Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, whose son was in the opening class of six in 1937?
• New York City's Central Park West Historic District contains only one building not felt to contribute to its historic character?