mick laBriola

Donald “Duck” Dunn (November 24, 1941 – May 13, 2012) was an American bass guitarist, session musician, record producer, and songwriter. Dunn was notable for his 1960s recordings with Booker T. & the M.G.’s and as a session bassist for Stax Records. At Stax, Dunn played on thousands of records, including hits by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Bill Withers, Elvis Presley, and many others. In 1992, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Booker T. & the M.G.’s. He is ranked 40th on Bass Player magazine’s list of “The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time”.

Dunn was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His father nicknamed him “Duck” while watching Disney cartoons with him one day. Dunn grew up playing sports and riding his bike with another future professional musician, Steve Cropper.

Wild Bill Davis (November 24, 1918 – August 17, 1995) was the stage name of American jazz pianist, organist, and arranger William Strethen Davis. He is best known for his pioneering jazz electric organrecordings and for his tenure with the Tympany Five, the backing group for Louis Jordan. Prior to the emergence of Jimmy Smith in 1956, Davis (whom Smith had reportedly first seen playing organ in the 1930s) was the pacesetter among organists.

Davis was born in Glasgow, Missouri, and grew up in Parsons, Kansas. He first learned music from his father who was a professional singer. He received further musical training at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama, and at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. In his early career he took inspiration from Fats Waller and Art Tatum.

Theodore Shaw Wilson (November 24, 1912 – July 31, 1986) Austin, TX was an American jazz pianist. Described by critic Scott Yanow as “the definitive swing pianist”, Wilson’s piano style was gentle, elegant, and virtuosic.His style was highly influenced by Earl Hines and Art Tatum. His work was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. With Goodman, he was one of the first black musicians to perform prominently alongside white musicians. In addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the 1980s.

Buleria is a fast, energetic cante chico flamenco form that belongs to the Solea family. It was originally played as an upbeat ending to Solea or Alegria and eventually evolved into a distinct form in its own right. The letras of buleria are often humorous and laced with mockery and social commentary.

Buleria is most commonly played por media (on the fifth string in A phyrgian, relative to the capo), but can sometimes be heard in other keys. It is generally played at a very fast tempo, ranging from 200 to 260 beats per minute.

The compas of buleria is based on a twelve count pattern similar to solea. Like solea, this pattern emphasizes the 3, 6, 8, 10, and 12 beats, but in buleria, musical phrases begin on the 12 count:

12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

The most basic buleria marking progression uses just two chords: A and B♭. When accompanying a singer, the guitarist plays chords that follow the singer. When playing buleria as a solo piece, guitarists assemble rhythmic patterns, short chord progressions, and pre-composed or improvised falsetas to build a musical idea around a central theme.

John Alfred Mandel (November 23, 1925 – June 29, 2020) was an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. The musicians he worked with include Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Diane Schuur and Shirley Horn. He won five Grammy Awards, from 17 nominations; his first nomination was for his debut film score for the multi-nominated 1958 film I Want to Live!

Mandel was born in the borough of Manhattan in New York City on November 23, 1925. His father, Alfred, was a garment manufacturer who ran Mandel & Cash; his mother, Hannah (Hart-Rubin), had aimed to be an opera singer and discovered her son had perfect pitch at the age of five. His family was Jewish. They moved to Los Angeles in 1934, after his father’s business collapsed during the Great Depression. Mandel was given piano lessons, but switched to the trumpet and later the trombone.

Ray Drummond (born November 23, 1946 in Brookline, Massachusetts) is an American jazz bassist and teacher. He also has an MBA from Stanford University, hence his linkage to the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He can be heard on hundreds of albums and co-leads The Drummonds with Renee Rosnes and (not related) Billy Drummond.

Drummond has been a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, since 1980 with his wife, Susan, and his daughter, Maya.

He is the elder brother of David Drummond, who served as senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer of Google Inc., until his retirement in 2020.

Perry Miller (born November 22, 1941), known professionally as Jesse Colin Young, is an American singer and songwriter. He was a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s group the Youngbloods. After their dissolution in 1972, Young embarked on a solo career, releasing a series of albums through Warner Bros. Records, including Song for Juli (1973), Light Shine (1974), Songbird (1975) and the live album On the Road (1976). Young continued to release music in the 1980s with Elektra Records and Cypress Records, before deciding to release music through his personal label, Ridgetop Music, in 1993. After the Mount Vision Fire in 1995, Young relocated with his family to a coffee plantation in Hawaii, periodically releasing music. Young received a diagnosis of “chronic Lyme disease” in 2012, and decided to retire from music. He began performing again in 2016 with his son Tristan, releasing a new album Dreamers in 2019 through BMG.

Young’s song “Sunlight” was covered by Three Dog Night on their album Naturally (1970), and “Darkness, Darkness” by Robert Plant in 2002, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.

Perry Miller was born and raised in Queens, New York, to musical parents both originally from Lynn, Massachusetts.

Max Romeo (born Maxwell Livingston Smith; 22 November 1944) is a Jamaican reggae and roots reggae recording musician who has achieved chart success in his home country and in the United Kingdom. He had several hits with the vocal group the Emotions. His song “Wet Dream” (1968) included overtly sexual lyrics and launched a new style of reggae.

Born in St. D’Acre, St. Ann, Jamaica, Romeo left home at the age of 14 and worked on a sugar plantationoutside Clarendon, before winning a local talent competition when he was 18. This prompted a move to the capital, Kingston, in order to embark on a musical career.

Aston Francis Barrett CD (born 22 November 1946), often called “Family Man” or “Fams” for short, is a retired Jamaican musician and Rastafarian.

His strutting bass line on the 1969 instrumental track “The Liquidator,” by the Harry J. All Stars would end up serving as a direct template for the Staples Singers’ smash “I’ll Take You There” three years later.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Aston “Family Man” Barrett was one of the Barrett brothers (the other being the younger brother on drums Carlton “Carly” Barrett) who played with Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Hippy Boys and Lee Perry‘s The Upsetters. He was the bandleader of Marley’s backing band, as well as co-producer of the albums, and the man in charge of the overall song arrangements.

Ron McClure (born November 22, 1941) is an American jazz bassist.

McClure was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. He started on piano at age five, and later played accordion and bass. McClure studied privately with Joseph Iadone and, later, with Hall Overton and Don Sebesky. McClure attended the Hartt School of Music, graduating in 1963.

McClure worked in the Buddy Rich Sextet in 1963. He then joined Maynard Ferguson‘s big band and, afterwards, Herbie Mann in 1964; and then assumed the bass chair in the Wynton Kelly Trio vacated by Paul Chambers in 1965 (playing behind guitarist Wes Montgomery).