mick laBriola

Considered as a star forming region and cataloged as NGC 2264, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years distant and mixes reddish emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars with dark interstellar dust clouds. The featured image spans an angle larger than a full moon, covering over 50 light-years at the distance of NGC 2264. Its cast of cosmic characters includes the Fox Fur Nebula, whose convoluted pelt lies just to the left of the image center, bright variable star S Monvisible just to the right of the Fox Fur, and the Cone Nebula near the image top. With the Cone Nebula at the peak, the shape of the general glow of the region give it the nickname of the Christmas Tree Cluster, where stars are tree ornaments.

Christophe Kenner (December 25, 1929 – January 25, 1976) was an American, New Orleans–based R&Bsinger and songwriter, best known for two hit singles in the early 1960s, “I Like It Like That” and “Land of 1000 Dances“, which became staples in the repertoires of many other musicians.

Born on Christmas Day, in the farming community of Kenner, Louisiana, upriver from New Orleans,Kenner sang gospel music with his church choir. He moved to New Orleans when he was in his teens, to work as a stevedore.

In 1955 he made his first recordings, for a small label, Baton Records, without success. In 1957, he recorded his “Sick and Tired” for Imperial Records. Kenner’s recording reached No. 13 on the BillboardR&B chart. Fats Domino covered it the next year, and his version became a hit on the pop chart.“Rocket to the Moon” and “Life Is Just a Struggle”, both cut for Ron Records, were other notable songs Kenner recorded in this period.

Oscar Frederic Moore (December 25, 1916 – October 8, 1981) was an American jazz guitarist with the Nat King Cole Trio.

The son of a blacksmith, Moore was born in Austin, Texas, United States. The Moore family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he began performing with his older brother Johnny, who played both trombone and guitar. After moving to Los Angeles, he participated in his first recording session for Decca as part of the Jones Boys Sing Band led and arranged by Leon René. The group attracted local attention on radio and in two short films for MGM directed by Buster Keaton. Soon after, Moore accompanied pianist Nat King Cole at the Swanee Inn in North La Brea, Hollywood. He spent ten years with Cole in the piano-guitar-bass trio format, that influenced Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal.

Don Gabriel Pullen (December 25, 1941 – April 22, 1995 Roanoke, VA) was an American jazz pianist and organist. Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career. He composed pieces ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz. The great variety of his body of work makes it difficult to pigeonhole his musical style.

In 1964, he went to Chicago, Illinois, for a few weeks, where he encountered Muhal Richard Abrams‘ philosophy of making music. He then headed for New York, where he was soon introduced to avant-garde saxophonist Giuseppi Logan, who invited Pullen to play piano on his two albums, Giuseppi Logan(ESP, October 1964) and More (ESP, May 1965), both exercises in structured free playing.

Subsequently, Pullen and Milford Graves formed a duo. Their concert at Yale University in May 1966 was recorded. They formed their own independent SRP record label (standing for “Self Reliance Project”) to publish the result as two LPs. These were the first records to bear Pullen’s name, second to Graves’. Although not greatly known in the United States, these avant-garde albums were well received in Europe, most copies being sold there. In 2020, Corbett vs. Dempsey released the contents of both albums on a CD titled The Complete Yale Concert, 1966.

David Louis Bartholomew (December 24, 1918 – June 23, 2019) was an American musician, bandleader, composer, arranger, and record producer. He was prominent in the music of New Orleans throughout the second half of the 20th century. Originally a trumpeter, he was active in many musical genres, including rhythm and blues, big band, swing music, rock and roll, New Orleans jazz, and Dixieland. In his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he was cited as a key figure in the transition from jump blues and swing to R&B and as “one of the Crescent City’s greatest musicians and a true pioneer in the rock and roll revolution”.

Many musicians have recorded Bartholomew’s songs, but his partnership with Fats Domino produced some of his greatest successes. In the mid-1950s they wrote more than forty hits for Imperial Records, including the Billboard number one pop chart hit “Ain’t That a Shame“. Bartholomew’s other hit songs as a composer include “I Hear You Knocking“, “Blue Monday“, “I’m Walkin’“, “My Ding-a-Ling“, and “One Night“. He was a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Raphael Homer “Ray” Bryant (December 24, 1931 – June 2, 2011) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.

Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1931. His mother was an ordained minister who had taught herself to play the piano; his father also played the piano and sang. His brothers were the bass player Tommy, drummer and singer Len, and Lynwood. Ray began playing the piano around the age of six or seven, following the example of his mother and his sister, Vera. Gospel influences in his playing came from being part of the church at this stage in his early life. He had switched from classical music to jazz by his early teens and played the double bass at junior high school. He was first paid to play when he was 12: “I would play for dances, and they’d sneak me into bars. I’d get four or five bucks a night, which was good money then.” He turned professional aged 14, and immediately joined a local band led by Mickey Collins.

Warren “Baby” Dodds (December 24, 1898 – February 14, 1959) was an American jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is regarded as one of the best jazz drummers of the pre-big band era. He varied his drum patterns with accents and flourishes, and he generally kept the beat with the bass drum while playing buzz rolls on the snare. Early influences included Louis Cottrell, Sr., Dave Perkins, and Tubby Hall. Dodds was among the first drummers to be recorded improvising while performing. In many of his recordings, Dodds had to use a wood block rather than a drum set because of the nature of the recording technology. It was therefore difficult to hear Dodds’ original style from early recordings, such as his 1923 sessions with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. Dodds did, however, begin recording again in 1940, and by this time, the technology was able to show his talent on the drum set. Dodds is perhaps the first jazz drummer to record unaccompanied: in 1945 he recorded two solos for Circle Records, and the next year recorded a series of solos and reminiscences for Folkways Records. On his part of the record, Dodds discusses his drumming techniques and his drumset and playing examples of techniques. This record gives an idea of what Dodds would have sounded like in his prime had the recording technology been what it is today. In 1954, he played for a Natty Dominique recording session which also featured bassman Israel Crosby and pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong.

José Greco (né Costanzo Greco; December 23, 1918 – December 31, 2000) was an Italian-born American flamenco dancer and choreographer known for popularizing Spanish dance on the stage and screen in America mostly in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cyro Baptista (born December 23, 1950) is a Brazilian-born percussionist in jazz and world music. He creates many of the percussion instruments he plays.

Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Baptista arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with a scholarship to Creative Music Studioin Woodstock, New York.

During the 1980s, he worked on films with John Zorn and appeared on Zorn’s albums in the 1990s. Also in the ’90s, he appeared on albums by Marisa Monte, Holly Cole, and Cassandra Wilson. In 1997 he released his first solo album, Vira Loucos, with cover versions of music by Heitor Villa-Lobos. The album was recorded with Marc Ribot and Nana Vasconcelos and released by Avant, a label owned by Zorn. He was a member of Zorn’s band Dreamers.

Esther Phillips (born Esther Mae Washington; December 23, 1935 – August 7, 1984 Galveston, TX) was an American singer, best known for her R&B vocals. She rose to prominence in 1950, scoring several major R&B hits including “Double Crossing Blues” and “Mistrustin’ Blues” under the moniker “Little Esther”. In the 1960s, she achieved chart success with the country song “Release Me” and recorded in the pop, jazz, blues and soul genres. Phillips received a Grammy nomination for her single “Home Is Where the Hatred Is” in 1973 and her disco recording of “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” was a major hit in 1975. She died from liver and kidney failure due to long-term drug abuse in 1984.

Phillips died at UCLA Medical Center in Carson, California, in 1984, at the age of 48, from liver and kidney failure due to long-term drug abuse. Her funeral services were conducted by Johnny Otis.

Alberto Hemsi (27 June 1898 – 8 October 1975) was a composer of the 20th century classical era. His work in the field of ethnomusicology and integration of Sephardic melodies has been noted as parallel to Béla Bartók‘s collection of traditional Hungarian music and consequent integration to his music.

Hemsi was born in 1898 in Turgutlu in the Ottoman Empire to a family of Sephardic Jews. From an early age, Alberto’s parents detected a keen sensitivity and interest in music, especially during prayers sung in synagogue, and decided to send him to stay with his uncle in Smyrne (now Izmir). Hemsi studied at the school of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (A.I.U.) from 1908 to 1913. At the A.I.U., he studied flute, trombone, cornet, and the clarinet, but his true passions were for the piano and for composition.