mick laBriola

Mu Cephei is a very large star. An M-class supergiant some 1500 times the size of the Sun, it is one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye, and even one of the largest in the entire Galaxy. If it replaced the Sun in our fair Solar System, Mu Cephei would easily engulf Mars and Jupiter. Historically known as Herschel’s Garnet Star, Mu Cephei is extremely red. Approximately 2800 light-years distant, the supergiant is seen near the edge of reddish emission nebula IC 1396 toward the royal northern constellation Cepheus in this telescopic view. Much cooler and hence redder than the Sun, this supergiant’s light is further reddened by absorption and scattering due to intervening dust within the Milky Way. A well-studied variable star understood to be in a late phase of stellar evolution, Mu Cephei is a massive star too, destined to ultimately explode as a core-collapse supernova.

Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.

Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He then worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. In the mid-1950s, Horace Silver and Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers, a group that the drummer was associated with for the next 35 years. The group was formed as a collective of contemporaries, but over the years the band became known as an incubator for young talent, including Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, Curtis Fuller, Chuck Mangione, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Cedar Walton, Woody Shaw, Terence Blanchard, and Wynton Marsalis. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz calls the Jazz Messengers “the archetypal hard bop group of the late 50s.”

Blakey was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1981). Posthumously, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 1998 and 2001). He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Blakey was born on October 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, probably to a single mother who died shortly after his birth; her name is often cited as Marie Roddicker, or Roddericker, although Blakey’s own 1937 marriage license shows her maiden name to have been Jackson. His biological father was Bertram Thomas Blakey, originally of Ozark, Alabama, whose family migrated northward to Pittsburgh sometime between 1900 and 1910. Blakey’s uncle, Rubi Blakey, was a popular Pittsburgh singer, choral leader, and teacher who attended Fisk University.

NGC 4565 (also known as the Needle Galaxy or Caldwell 38) is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It lies close to the North Galactic Pole and has a visual magnitude of approximately 10. It is known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile. First recorded in 1785 by William Herschel, it is a prominent example of an edge-on spiral galaxy.

NGC 4565 is a giant spiral galaxy more luminous than the Andromeda Galaxy. Much speculation exists in literature as to the nature of the central bulge. In the absence of clear-cut dynamical data on the motions of stars in the bulge, the photometric data alone cannot adjudge among various options put forth. However, its exponential shape suggested that it is a barred spiral galaxy. Studies with the help of the Spitzer Space Telescope not only confirmed the presence of a central bar but also showed a pseudobulge within it as well as an inner ring.

Ed Volker, aka Zeke (born October 10, 1948) is a singer, songwriter and keyboard player from New Orleans, Louisiana, and a founding member of the legendary New Orleans band, The Radiators. Volker is a prolific songwriter who has written hundreds of songs, including the majority of The Radiators’ original material, as well as many other songs that he reserves for his solo act.

Ed Volker on keys/vocals, Peter Ostroushko mandolin/violin, mick laBriola percussion & congas

John Edward Prine October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter of country-folk music. Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine was known for his signature blend of humorous lyrics about love, life, and current events, as well as serious songs about melancholy tales from his life. His songs would often have elements of social commentary and satire. He was active as a composer, recording artist, live performer, and occasional actor from the early 1970s until his death.

Born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar at age 14. He attended classes at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music. After serving in West Germany with the U.S. Army, he returned to Chicago in the late 1960s, where he worked as a mailman, writing and singing songs first as a hobby and then as a club performer. A member of Chicago’s folk revival, a laudatory review by critic Roger Ebert built Prine’s popularity. Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson heard Prine at Steve Goodman‘s insistence, and Kristofferson invited Prine to be his opening act. Prine released his eponymous debut album with Atlantic Records in 1971, which was widely acclaimed. The album is today hailed as one of the best singer-songwriter albums of all time.

The acclaim Prine earned from his first LP led to three more albums for Atlantic. His 1975 record Common Sense was his first to chart on the Billboard U.S. Top 100. He then recorded three albums with Asylum Records. In 1981, he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent label which released all of his music up until his death. His final album, 2018’s The Tree of Forgiveness, debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, his highest ranking on the charts.

Prine struggled with health issues throughout his life, surviving cancer twice. He passed away from complications caused by COVID-19 in 2020. Earlier the same year, Prine received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Prine was the son of William Mason Prine, a tool-and-die maker, and Verna Valentine (Hamm), a homemaker, both originally from Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.

Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. (October 10, 1928 – January 17, 2021), known as Junior Mance, was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Mance was born in Evanston, Illinois. When he was five years old, Mance started playing piano on an uprightin his family’s home in Evanston.

Charlie Parker encouraged Mance to move to New York, which he did after saving money from working nearly a year at the Bee Hive. In 1954, Mance was asked to record with Dinah Washington after Wynton Kelly was drafted. Mance toured with Washington over the next two years and learned accompaniment technique from Washington’s arranger, Jimmy Jones. EmArcy released two LPs, Dinah Jams and Jam Session, from a live session recorded August 14–15, 1954 in Los Angeles with Mance, Washington, Clifford Brown, Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson, Herb Geller, Harold Land, Richie Powell, Keter Betts, George Morrow, and Max Roach.

In 1956, Mance joined Cannonball Adderley’s first civilian band, along with Nat Adderley, Sam Jones, and Jimmy Cobb.^[8] They made several recordings for EmArcy/Mercury over the next two years. Dinah Washington hired this group to back her on In the Land of Hi-Fi, and Mance also recorded sessions with Johnny Griffin, James Moody, and Wilbur Ware for Argo Records and Riverside during this period.