mick laBriola

The Passing of Bassist Nabil Totah… Nabil Marshall Totah, 5 April 1930-August 15th 2012, Ramallah, Jordan. As a child, ‘Nobby’ Totah played violin and piano. Relocating to the USA in 1944, he studied political science before deciding on a career in music.

Taking up the bass in 1953, just as he engaged in military service, he played in army bands and then with Hampton Hawes and Toshiko Akiyoshi. These engagements occurred while he was in Japan and on his return to the USA the following year, he played briefly with Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker and then began long intermittent spells in small groups led by with Gene Krupa and by Johnny Smith.

Also during the 50s, Totah played with a wide range of artists including Eddie Costa, Tal Farlow, Bobby Jaspar, Herbie Mann, Zoot Sims, George Wallington and Phil Woods. During the next decade, he worked in bands led by Benny Goodman, Bobby Hackett, Max Kaminsky, Lee Konitz and Hazel Scott. Concurrent with these activities, Totah also led his own small groups using as sidemen a distinguished array of musicians, including Pepper Adams and Horace Parlan. A solid and reliable accompanist, Totah has always subordinated his role to the needs of the musicians he supports and has accordingly built a very high reputation within the jazz fraternity.

Billy Bland (April 5, 1932 – March 22, 2017) was an American R&B singer and songwriter.

Bland, the youngest of 19 children, first sang professionally in 1947 in New York City, and sang with a group called The Bees in the 1950s on New Orleans‘s Imperial Records. In 1954, “Toy Bell” by the group caused some unrest by veering into the dirty blues genre. Dave Bartholomew brought them to New Orleans, where they recorded a song he had written and recorded twice before: firstly in 1952 for King Records as “My Ding-a-Ling,” and later that year for Imperial as “Little Girl Sing Ting-A-Ling.” Bland later pursued a solo career.

In 1960, Bland heard Titus Turner recording the song “Let the Little Girl Dance” in the studio, and demonstrated for Turner how to sing it (along with guitarist Mickey Baker and other session musicians). The event was recorded by record producer Henry Glover, and was eventually released as a single. The tune was a hit in the US, peaking at number 11 on the US Billboard R&B chart. and number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Bland had two other minor hits that year, “Harmony” (U.S. Hot 100 number 91) and “You Were Born to Be Loved” (U.S. Hot 100 number 94). He recorded until 1963 for Old Town, and then quit the music industry.

• Entrada: when the dancer comes on stage
• Llamada: from the verb “llamar,” to call. The dancer calls to the other people on stage that something is about to happen, for example a new verse or section of footwork
• Desplante: a “display,” a short section of footwork
• Letras: dance that traditionally accompanies passages of singing. Chord progressions suggesting the letra may be included even when a singer is not present.
• Escobilla: long passages of footwork (though not too long – in buleria in particular this is frowned upon)
• Cierre: a closing dance pattern, often one moving across the stage

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as “the father of South African jazz“. Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such as “Soweto Blues” and “Bring Him Back Home“. He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 with his version of “Grazing in the Grass“.

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was born in the township of KwaGuqa in Witbank (now called Emalahleni), South Africa, to Thomas Selena Masekela, who was a health inspector and sculptor and his wife, Pauline Bowers Masekela, a social worker. His younger sister Barbara Masekela is a poet, educator and ANCactivist. As a child, he began singing and playing piano and was largely raised by his grandmother, who ran an illegal bar for miners. At the age of 14, after seeing the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing the trumpet. His first trumpet was bought for him from a local music store by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the anti-apartheid chaplain at St. Peter’s Secondary School now known as St. Martin’s School (Rosettenville).

The nebula, dubbed Pa 30, appears in the same sky direction now as a bright “guest star” did in the year 1181. Although Pa 30’s filaments look similar to that created by a nova (for example GK Per), and a planetary nebula (for example NGC 6751), some astronomers now propose that it was created by a rare type of supernova: a thermonuclear Type Iax, and so is (also) named SN 1181. In this model, the supernova was not the result of the detonation of a single star, but rather a blast that occurred when two white dwarf stars spiraled together and merged. The blue dot in the center is hypothesized to be a zombie star, the remnant white dwarf that somehow survived this supernova-level explosion. The featured image combines images and data obtained with infrared (WISE), visible (MDM, Pan-STARRS), and X-ray (Chandra, XMM) telescopes. Future observations and analyses may tell us more.

James Harrell McGriff (April 3, 1936 – May 24, 2008) was an American hard bop and soul-jazz organistand organ trio bandleader.

Born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, McGriff started playing piano at the age of five and by his teens had also learned to play vibes, alto sax, drums and upright bass. He played bass in his first group, a piano trio. When he joined the United States Army, McGriff served as a military policeman during the Korean War. He later became a police officer in Philadelphia for two years.

Music kept drawing McGriff’s attention away from the police force. His childhood friend, organist Jimmy Smith, had begun earning a substantial reputation in jazz for his Blue Note albums (the two played together once in 1967) and McGriff became entranced by the organ sound while Richard “Groove” Holmes played at his sister’s wedding. Holmes went on to become McGriff’s teacher and friend and they recorded together on two occasions in 1973 for two Groove Merchant records.

McGriff bought his first Hammond B-3 organ in 1956, spent six months learning the instrument, then studied at New York’s Juilliard School. He also studied privately with Milt Buckner, Jimmy Smith, and Sonny Gatewood. He was influenced by the energy and dynamics of organist Buckner and the diplomatic aplomb of Count Basie, and by local organists such as Howard “The Demon” Whaley and Austin Mitchell.

Rocco Scott LaFaro (April 3, 1936 – July 6, 1961) was an American jazz double bassist known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio. LaFaro broke new ground on the instrument, developing a countermelodic style of accompaniment rather than playing traditional walking basslines, as well as virtuosity that was practically unmatched by any of his contemporaries. Despite his short career, he remains one of the most influential jazz bassists, and was ranked number 16 on Bass Player magazine’s top 100 bass players of all time.

Lafaro was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of a big band musician. LaFaro was five when his family moved to Geneva, New York. He started playing piano in elementary school, bass clarinet in middle school, and tenor saxophone when he entered high school. He took up double bass at 18 before entering college because learning a string instrument was required of music education majors. After three months at Ithaca College, he concentrated on bass. He played in groups at the College Spa and Joe’s Restaurant on State Street in downtown Ithaca.

LaFaro died in an automobile accident on July 6, 1961, in Seneca, New York, on U.S. Route 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua, four days after accompanying Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival. According to Paul Motian, the death of LaFaro left Bill Evans “numb with grief”, “in a state of shock”, and “like a ghost”. Obsessively he played “I Loves You Porgy“, a tune that had become synonymous with him and LaFaro. Evans stopped performing for several months.

Homesick James (April 30, 1910 – December 13, 2006) was an American blues musician known for his mastery of the slide guitar. He worked with his cousin, Elmore James, and with Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Homesick James was born in Somerville, Tennessee, United States, the son of Cordellia Henderson and Plez Williamson Rivers, who were both musicians. The year of his birth is uncertain. He stated that he was born in 1905, 1910, or 1914, while his union records give 1924. His actual birth name has given as James Williamson or John Henderson.

Little is known about his early life. He developed a self-taught style of slide guitar through playing at local dances in his teens. He claimed to have played with Yank Rachell, Sleepy John Estes, Blind Boy Fuller, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Big Joe Williams, among others, and to have been acquainted with Robert Johnson. He also claimed to be the older cousin of Elmore James, to have bought James his first guitar, and to have taught him how to play slide. However, some of these claims are unconfirmed.

James Wesley “Bubber” Miley (April 3, 1903 – May 20, 1932) was an American early jazz trumpet and cornet player, specializing in the use of the plunger mute.

Miley was born in Aiken, South Carolina, United States, into a musical family. At the age of six, he and his family moved to New York City where, as a child, he occasionally sang for money on the streets, and later, at the age of 14, studied to play the trombone and cornet.

In 1920, after having served in the Navy for 18 months, he joined a jazz formation named the Carolina Five, and remained a member for the next three years, playing small clubs and boat rides all around New York City. After leaving the band at the age of 19, Miley briefly toured the Southern States with a show titled The Sunny South, and then joined Mamie Smith‘s Jazz Hounds, replacing trumpeter Johnny Dunn. They regularly performed in clubs around New York City and Chicago. While touring in Chicago, he heard King Oliver‘s Creole Jazz Band playing and was captivated by Oliver’s use of mutes. Soon Miley found his own voice by combining the straight and plunger mute with a growling sound. Miley’s alcoholism terminally affected his life. On May 20, 1932, at the age of 29, he died of tuberculosis, on Welfare Island, now Roosevelt Island, in New York City. Miley lived just a little longer than his contemporary, jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, whose life was also cut short due to alcohol abuse.