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Johnny Shuggie Otis (born Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr.; November 30, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter, recording artist, and multi-instrumentalist.

Otis’s composition “Strawberry Letter 23” as recorded by The Brothers Johnson topped the Billboard R&B chart and reached #5 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977. He achieved commercial success with his 1974 single “Inspiration Information” (from the album of the same title), reaching #56 on the R&B chart.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Otis is the son of rhythm and blues musician, bandleader, and impresarioJohnny Otis, who was of Greek descent, and his wife Phyllis Walker, who was of African American and Filipino descent.

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967) was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. He was the father of the blues musician Sam Carr. Nighthawk was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.

McCollum was born in Helena, Arkansas on November 30, 1909. He left home at an early age and became a busking musician. After a period traveling through southern Mississippi, he settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee, where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learned to play slide guitar and with whom he performed on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi.

Charles Frank Mangione (/ˌmændʒiˈoʊni/ MAN-jee-OH-nee; born November 29, 1940) is an American flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer. He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey‘s band in the 1960s, and later co-led the Jazz Brothers with his brother, Gap. He achieved international success in 1978 with his jazz-pop single “Feels So Good“. Mangione has released more than 30 albums since 1960.

Mangione was born and raised in Rochester, New York, United States. With his pianist brother Gap, they led the Mangione Brothers Sextet/Quintet, which recorded three albums for Riverside Records, before Mangione branched out into other work. One of Chuck’s compositions for the Mangione Brothers Sextet, “Something Different,” was recorded by Cannonball Adderley on his 1961 album African Waltz. He attended the Eastman School of Music from 1958 to 1963, then joined Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers, for which he filled the trumpet chair previously held by Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman, and Lee Morgan.

Billy Hart (born November 29, 1940) is an American jazz drummer and educator. He is known internationally for his work with Herbie Hancock‘s “Mwandishi” band in the early 1970s, as well as with Shirley Horn, Stan Getz, and Quest, among many others.

Hart was born in Washington, D.C. He grew up in close proximity of the Spotlite Club, where he first heard the music of Lee Morgan, Ahmad Jamal, and Miles Davis, among others.

Early on in his career he performed with Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, then with Buck Hill. Although he studied mechanical engineering at Howard University, he left school early to tour with Shirley Horn, whom Hart credits with accelerating his musical development. He was a sideman with the Montgomery Brothers(1961), Jimmy Smith (1964–1966), and Wes Montgomery (1966–68). Following Montgomery’s death in 1968, Hart moved to New York City, where he recorded with McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, and Pharoah Sanders (playing on his famed recording Karma in 1969), in addition to playing with Eddie Harris, Joanne Brackeen, and Marian McPartland.

John Mayall OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues and rock musician, songwriter and producer. In the 1960s, he formed John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.

Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1933, Mayall grew up in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport. He was the son of Murray Mayall, a guitarist and jazz enthusiast. From an early age he was drawn to the sounds of American blues players such as Lead Belly, Albert Ammons, Pinetop Smith and Eddie Lang, and taught himself to play the piano, guitars, and harmonica.

Mayall was sent to Korea as part of his national service, and during a period of leave bought his first electric guitar in Japan. Back in England, he enrolled at Manchester College of Art and started playing with a semi-professional band, the Powerhouse Four. After graduation, he obtained a job as an art designer, but continued to play with local musicians. In 1963, he opted for a full-time musical career and moved to London. His previous craft would be put to good use in the designing of covers for many of his coming albums.

This eagle ray glides across a cosmic sea. Officially cataloged as SH2-63 and LBN 86, the dark nebula is composed of gas and dust that just happens to appear shaped like a common ocean fish. The interstellar dust nebula appears light brown as it blocks and reddens visible light emitted behind it. Dark nebulas glow primarily in infrared light, but also reflect visible light from surrounding stars. The dust in dark nebulas is usually sub-millimeter chunks of carbon, silicon, and oxygen, frequently coated with frozen carbon monoxide and nitrogen. Dark nebulas are also known as molecular clouds because they also contain relatively high amounts of molecular hydrogen and larger molecules. Previously unnamed, the here dubbed Eagle Ray Nebula is normally quite dim but has been imaged clearly over 20-hours through dark skies in Chile.

Leandro “Gato” Barbieri (November 28, 1932 – April 2, 2016) was an Argentine jazz tenor saxophonist who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and is known for his Latin jazz recordings of the 1970s. His nickname, Gato, is Spanish for “cat”.

Born to a family of musicians, Barbieri began playing music after hearing Charlie Parker‘s “Now’s the Time”. He played the clarinet and later the alto saxophone while performing with Argentine pianist Lalo Schifrin in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, while playing in Rome, he also worked with the trumpeter Don Cherry. By now influenced by John Coltrane‘s late recordings, as well as those from other free jazz saxophonists such as Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders, he began to develop the warm and gritty tone with which he is associated. In the late 1960s, he was fusing music from South America into his playing and contributed to multi-artist projects like Charlie Haden‘s Liberation Music Orchestra and Carla Bley‘s Escalator over the Hill. His score for Bernardo Bertolucci‘s 1972 film Last Tango in Paris earned him a Grammy Award and led to a record deal with Impulse! Records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1VGfyiLsDM

Gigi Gryce (born George General Grice Jr.; November 28, 1925 – March 14, 1983), later Basheer Qusim, was an American jazz saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator.

While his performing career was relatively short, much of his work as a player, composer, and arranger was quite influential and well-recognized during his time. However, Gryce abruptly ended his jazz career in the 1960s. This, in addition to his nature as a very private person, has resulted in very little knowledge of Gryce today. Several of his compositions have been covered extensively (“Minority“, “Social Call”, “Nica’s Tempo”) and have become minor jazz standards. Gryce’s compositional bent includes harmonic choices similar to those of contemporaries Benny Golson, Tadd Dameron and Horace Silver. Gryce’s playing, arranging, and composing are most associated with the classic hard bop era (roughly 1953–1965). He was a well-educated composer and musician, and wrote some classical works as a student at the Boston Conservatory. As a jazz musician and composer he was very much influenced by the work of Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. George General Gryce Jr. was born in Pensacola, Florida on November 28, 1925. Gryce died on March 14, 1983, of a heart attack after becoming increasingly ill. Before his death he reached out to his family again, and visited Pensacola for the first time in almost thirty years.

Lyle David Mays (November 27, 1953 – February 10, 2020) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and member of the Pat Metheny Group. Metheny and Mays composed and arranged nearly all of the group’s music, for which Mays won eleven Grammy Awards.

While growing up in rural Wisconsin, Mays had a lot of curiosity but had to learn many things all by himself due to a lack of available resources and information. He had four main interests: chess, mathematics, architecture, and music. His mother Doris played piano and organ, and his father Cecil, a truck driver, taught himself to play guitar by ear. His teacher allowed him to practice improvisation after the structured elements of the lesson were completed. At the age of nine, he played the organ at a family member’s wedding, and fourteen he began to play in church. During his senior year of high school, at summer national stage band camp in Normal, Illinois, he was introduced to jazz pianist Marian McPartland.

Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival and Filles de Kilimanjaro by Miles Davis (both recorded in 1968) were important influences. He attended the University of North Texas after transferring from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. He composed and arranged for the One O’Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger for the Grammy Award-nominated album Lab 75.

Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B.

Brecker was born on November 27, 1945, in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham to a musical family. His father Bob (Bobby) was a lawyer who played jazz piano, and his mother Sylvia was a portrait artist.

Randy described his father as “a semipro jazz pianist and trumpet fanatic. In school when I was eight, they only offered trumpet or clarinet. I chose trumpet from hearing Diz, Miles, Clifford, and Chet Baker at home. My brother (Michael Brecker) didn’t want to play the same instrument as I did, so three years later he chose the clarinet!”

Randy’s father, Bob, was also a songwriter and singer who loved to listen to recordings of the great jazz trumpet players such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. He took Randy and his younger brother Michael Brecker to see Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and many other jazz icons.

Brecker attended Cheltenham High School from 1959 to 1963 and then Indiana University from 1963 to 1966 studying with Bill Adam, David Baker and Jerry Coker and later moved to New York and performed with Clark Terry‘s Big Bad Band, the Duke Pearson and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.