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Babs Gonzales (October 27, 1919 – January 23, 1980), born Lee Brown, was an American bebopvocalist, poet, and self-published author. His books portrayed the jazz world that many black musicians struggled in, portraying disk jockeys, club owners, liquor, drugs, and racism. “There are jazz people whose influence can be described as minor,” wrote Val Wilmer, “yet who are well-known to musicians and listeners alike … You’d have to be hard-pressed to ignore the wealth of legend that surrounds Babs Gonzales.” Jazz writer Jack Cooke explained that Gonzales “assumed the role of spokesman for the whole hipster world… [becoming] something more than just a good and original jazz entertainer: the incarnation of a whole social group.”

Gonzales was born Lee Brown in Newark, New Jersey, United States. He was raised solely by his mother Lottie Brown alongside two brothers. Of his nickname, Gonzales explained, “my brothers are basketball players… there was a basketball star in America named Big Babbiad, and so they were called Big Babs, Middle Babs, and I’m Little Babs.” As a young man, Gonzales worked as band boy for swing bandleader Jimmie Lunceford, after which he relocated to Los Angeles. To circumvent racial segregation, Gonzales wore a turban and used the pseudonym Ram Singh, passing as an Indian national.

While not as formulaic as sevillanap, alegria dance accompaniment does have a set of distinct “song parts” which, in more traditional arrangements, are often assembled in a predictable order. Many of the same principles apply to solo instrumental arrangements as well.

Structure and Compas

The basic structure of alegria por baile (“for dance”) can be schematized like this:

• Intro
• Copla (verse) & Falseta (guitar melody)
• Footwork
• Silencio
• Castellana
• Escobilla
• Buleria

Within this basic schema, sections can be rearranged, doubled, or eliminated altogether.

The compas of alegria is based in 12s and, like solea, is accented on the 3, 6, 8, 10, and 12 beats:

William Earl “Bootsy” Collins (born October 26, 1951 Cincinnati, OH) is an American bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, and record producer.

Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s before joining the Parliament-Funkadeliccollective, Collins established himself as one of the leading names and innovators in funk with his driving basslines and humorous vocals. He later formed his own P-Funk side project known as Bootsy’s Rubber Band. He was a frequent collaborator with other musicians from a variety of genres, including dance music (Deee-Lite‘s “Groove Is in the Heart“), electronic big beat (Fatboy Slim‘s “Weapon of Choice“), and alternative metal (Praxis), among others. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Collins number 4 in its list of the 50 greatest bassists of all time.

Eddie Henderson (born October 26, 1940) is an American jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of pianist Herbie Hancock‘s Mwandishi band, going on to lead his own electric/fusion groups through the decade. Henderson earned his medical degree and worked a parallel career as a psychiatrist and musician, turning back to acoustic jazz by the 1990s.

Henderson was born in New York City on October 26, 1940. At the age of nine he was given an informal lesson by Louis Armstrong, and he continued to study the instrument as a teenager in San Francisco, where he grew up, after his family moved there in 1954, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Henderson was influenced by the early fusion work of jazz musician Miles Davis, who was a friend of his parents. They met in 1957 when Henderson was aged seventeen.

Charles Daly Barnet (October 26, 1913 – September 4, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.

His major recordings were “Skyliner”, “Cherokee“, “The Wrong Idea”, “Scotch and Soda”, “In a Mizz”, and “Southland Shuffle”.

Barnet was born in New York City, the son of Charline (Daly) and Willard Barnet. His parents divorced when he was two, and he was raised by his mother and her grandparents. His grandfather was Charles Frederick Daly, a vice-president for the New York Central Railroad, banker, and businessman.

Barnet attended boarding schools, both in the New York and Chicago areas. He learned to play piano and saxophone as a child. He often left school to listen to music and to try to gain work as a musician. Although his family wanted him to become a lawyer, he chose to be a musician instead.

James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazzsaxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.

Heath was born in Philadelphia on October 25, 1926. His father, an auto mechanic, played the clarinet, performing on the weekends. His mother sang in a church choir. The family frequently played recordings of big band jazz groups around the house. Heath’s sister was a pianist, while his brothers were bassist Percy Heath (older) and drummer Albert Heath (his youngest sibling).

Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro; October 25, 1902 – March 26, 1933) was an American musician who is credited as the father of jazz guitar. During the 1920s, he gave the guitar a prominence it previously lacked as a solo instrument, as part of a band or orchestra, and as accompaniment for vocalists. He recorded duets with guitarists Lonnie Johnson and Carl Kress and jazz violinist Joe Venuti, and played rhythm guitar in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and was the favoured accompanist of Bing Crosby. The son of an Italian-American instrument maker, Lang was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up with violinist Joe Venuti. His first instrument was violin when he was seven. He performed on violin in 1917 and became a member of a trio. In 1920, he dropped the violin for banjo and worked with Charlie Kerr, then Bert Estlow, Vic D’Ippolito, and Billy Lustig‘s Scranton Siren Orchestra. A few years later, he dropped the banjo for guitar when he became a member of the Mound City Blue Blowers led by Red McKenzie. He recorded one of the first solos in 1924 on “Deep 2nd Street Blues”. His performances with McKenzie’s band drew attention, and he found many jobs as a freelance guitarist. Before Lang, the guitar hadn’t been a prominent instrument in jazz bands and dance orchestras. Lang suffered from occasional laryngitis, chronic sore throat, and digestion problems. After a doctor recommended a tonsillectomy, Crosby urged Lang to have the operation. Assured that the operation was routine, Lang entered Park West Hospital in Manhattan, but he never awoke from the surgery. He died at the age of thirty in 1933. The cause of his death is uncertain.

An Israeli ensemble blending Arabic music. This is a cross-cultural peace collaboration

a cosmic bridge of stars, gas, and dust currently stretches over 75,000 light-years and joins them. The bridge itself is strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. As further evidence, the face-on spiral galaxy on the right, also known as NGC 3808A, exhibits many young blue star clusters produced in a burst of star formation. The twisted edge-on spiral on the left (NGC 3808B) seems to be wrapped in the material bridging the galaxies and surrounded by a curious polar ring. Together, the system is known as Arp 87. While such interactions are drawn out over billions of years, repeated close passages will ultimately create one merged galaxy. Although this scenario does look unusual, galactic mergers are thought to be common, with Arp 87 representing a stage inthis inevitable process. The Arp 87 dancing pair are about 300 million light-years distant toward the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The prominent edge-on spiral galaxy at the far left appears to be a more distant background galaxy and not involved in the on-going merger.

Odean Pope (born October 24, 1938) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Pope was raised in Philadelphia, where he learned from Ray Bryant while young. Early in his career, at Philadelphia’s Uptown Theater, Pope played behind a number of noted rhythm and blues artists including James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

Willie James Mabon (October 24, 1925 – April 19, 1985) was an American R&B singer, songwriter, pianist, and harmonica player. He had two number one hits on the Billboard R&B chart, “I Don’t Know” in 1952 and “I’m Mad” in 1953.

Mabon was born and brought up in the Hollywood district of Memphis, Tennessee. He moved to Chicago in 1942, by which time he had become known as a singer and pianist. He formed a group, the Blues Rockers, and in 1949 began recording for Aristocrat Records and then Chess Records.

Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and occasionally imitations of trains and fox hunts.

Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia. His father, a farmer, taught him to play basic blues harp as a youth. He sustained injuries to his eyes and went blind by the time he was 16, which prevented him from doing farm work, and was forced to play music in order to earn a living. Terry played “Campdown Races” to the plow horses which improved the efficiency of farming in the area. He began playing blues in Shelby, North Carolina. After his father died, he began playing with Piedmont blues–style guitarist Blind Boy Fuller.When Fuller died in 1941, Terry established a long-standing musical relationship with Brownie McGhee, and they recorded numerous songs together. The duo became well known among white audiences during the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, including for collaborations with Styve Homnick, Woody Guthrie and Moses Asch, producing classic recordings for Folkways Records (now Smithsonian/Folkways).