mick laBriola

Henry Kaiser (born September 19, 1952) is an American guitarist and composer, known as an idiosyncratic soloist, a sideman, an ethnomusicologist, and a film score composer. Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the “second generation” of American free improvisers. He is married to Canadian artist Brandy Gale. He is the son of Henry J. Kaiser Jr. and the grandson of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.

In 1977, Kaiser founded Metalanguage Records with Larry Ochs (Rova Saxophone Quartet) and Greg Goodman. In 1979 he recorded With Friends Like These with Fred Frith, a collaboration which continued over the next 20 years. In 1983 they recorded Who Needs Enemies, and in 1987 the compilation album With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends? They joined with fellow experimental musicians John French, and English folk-rocker Richard Thompson to form French Frith Kaiser Thompson for two eclectic albums, Live, Love, Larf & Loaf (1987) and Invisible Means (1990). In 1999 Frith and Kaiser released Friends & Enemies, a compilation of their two Metalanguage albums along with additional material from 1984 and 1999.

Muhal Richard Abrams (born Richard Lewis Abrams; September 19, 1930 – October 29, 2017) was an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the free jazzmedium. He recorded and toured the United States, Canada and Europe with his orchestra, sextet, quartet, duo and as a solo pianist. His musical affiliations constitute a “who’s who” of the jazz world, including Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt, Anthony Braxton, and The Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Abrams’s mother, Edna, was born in Memphis. His father, Milton, was born in Alabama and moved with his parents to Chicago. Richard Lewis Abrams was born there, the second of nine children, on September 19, 1930. His father became a self-employed handyman; his mother was a housewife.

George Lowen Coxhill (19 September 1932 – 10 July 2012) known professionally as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist. He played soprano and sopranino saxophone.

Renowned Native American flutist and vocalist, powwow performer, multi-award recipient, and Lifetime Achievement Awardee, Robert Tree Cody (Maricopa/Dakota), peacefully departed on September 14, 2023. He graced this world for 72 years.

Enormous in stature, standing at an impressive height of 2.07 meters (6.79 feet), the indomitable “Tree” was among the trailblazers who disseminated traditional Native American singing and flute melodies across the globe. Over the course of his illustrious career, he launched eleven full-length albums through Canyon Records. He also contributed his artistry to numerous compilations and collaborative endeavors, featuring fellow artists such as Will Clipman, R. Carlos Nakai, Tony Redhouse, Hovia Edwards, Ruben Romero, and Janice Marie Johnson from A Taste of Honey.

Philip Gary “Flip” Sloan (né Schlein; September 18, 1945 – November 15, 2015), known professionally as P. F. Sloan, was an American singer and songwriter. During the mid-1960s, he wrote, performed, and produced many Billboard Top 20 hits for artists such as Barry McGuire, the Searchers, Jan and Dean, Herman’s Hermits, Johnny Rivers, the Grass Roots, the Turtles, and the Mamas and the Papas.

Sloan’s signature song is “Eve of Destruction,” a 1965 U.S. number one for McGuire. Many of his songs were written in collaboration with Steve Barri. Their partnership yielded two US Top Ten hits—Herman’s Hermits’ “A Must to Avoid” (1965) and Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man” (1966)—and the Turtles‘ “You Baby” (1966).

Sloan was born in New York City, United States, to an American father and a Romanian-born mother. His family moved to West Hollywood, California in 1957, where his father, a pharmacist, changed the family name from “Schlein” to “Sloan” after repeatedly being denied a liquor license for his store.

Emily Remler (September 18, 1957 – May 4, 1990) was an American jazz guitarist, active from the late 1970s until her death in 1990.

Born in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Remler began guitar at age ten. She listened to pop and rockguitarists like Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter. At the Berklee College of Music in the 1970s, she listened to jazz guitarists Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Herb Ellis, Pat Martino, and Joe Pass.

Remler settled in New Orleans, where she played in blues and jazz clubs, working with bands such as Four Play and Little Queenie and the Percolators before beginning her recording career in 1981. She was praised by jazz guitarist Herb Ellis, who referred to her as “the new superstar of guitar” and introduced her at the Concord Jazz Festival in 1978. Remler bore the scars of her longstanding opioid use disorder,which is believed to have contributed to her death. In May, 1990, she died of heart failure at the age of 32 at the Connells Point home of musician Ed Gaston, while on tour in Australia.

Steve Marcus (September 18, 1939 – September 25, 2005) was an American jazz saxophonist.

Marcus was born in The Bronx, New York, United States. He studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, between 1959 and 1961. He gained experience playing in the bands of Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann and Larry Coryell from 1963 to 1973.^[1] His first album as a leader included an arrangement of the Beatles‘ song, “Tomorrow Never Knows“. He worked with jazz drummer Buddy Rich for the last twelve years of Rich’s life. After Rich died, Marcus led the band and renamed it Buddy’s Buddies.

His song “Half a Heart” (1968) has a riff very similar to the famous saxophone riff of “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty (recorded in 1977, released in 1978).

Marcus died in September 2005 in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Earl Charles Barrington May (September 17, 1927 – January 4, 2008) was an American jazz bassist. He was “one of the most prodigious and prolific bassists of the postwar era”.

May was born in New York City on September 17, 1927. As a child, he played the drums, and changed to the acoustic bass at the age of 14.^[1] He “played left-handed on an instrument strung for a right-handed player”.

Until 1951, May had a job in insurance while playing in clubs at night. During this period, he played with Miles Davis, Lester Young, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, and Mercer Ellington. He was also taught by Charles Mingus in the early 1950s. Through most of the 1950s he played in a trio with Billy Taylor, and also worked in the late 1950s with John Coltrane and Chet Baker.

Lalgudi Gopala Jayaraman (17 September 1930 – 22 April 2013) was an Indian Carnatic violinist, vocalist and composer. He is commonly grouped with M.S. Gopalakrishnan and T.N.Krishnan as part of the violin-trinity of Carnatic Music. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2001.

His disciples included his two children Lalgudi G. J. R. Krishnan, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, his sister Lalgudi Srimathi Brahmanandam, former composer-conductor of All India Radio’s Vadya Vrinda National Orchestra P. Purnachander Rao, renowned musician S P Ramh (grandson of Shri. G.N. Dandapani Iyer), renowned Harikatha exponent Vishaka Hari, leading carnatic vocalist Saketharaman, Vittal Ramamurthy, Dr. N. Shashidhar, Film Music Composer Girishh G, Padma Shankar, Kanchan Chandran, Raghuram Hosahalli, renowned violinist from London – Shri A.G.A.Gnanasundaram, Srinivasamurthy, Pakkala Ramdas, Sankari Krishnan, Yamini Ramesh, Mumbai Shilpa, Shreya Devnath, Krithika Natarajan, Salem Sisters, the leading Vainika Srikanth Chary and the Academy Award-nominated Bombay Jayashri Ramnath.

Eugene McDuff (September 17, 1926 – January 23, 2001), known professionally as “Brother” Jack McDuffor “Captain” Jack McDuff, was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the 1960s, often performing with an organ trio. He is also credited with giving guitarist George Benson his first break.

Born Eugene McDuffy in Champaign, Illinois, McDuff began playing bass, appearing in Joe Farrell’s group.Encouraged by Willis Jackson in whose band he also played bass in the late 1950s, McDuff moved to the organ and began to attract the attention of Prestige while still with Jackson’s group. McDuff soon became a bandleader, leading groups featuring a young George Benson on guitar, Red Holloway on tenor saxophone and Joe Dukes on drums.

McDuff recorded many classic albums on Prestige, including his debut solo Brother Jack in 1960; The Honeydripper (1961), with tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest and guitarist Grant Green; Brother Jack Meets The Boss (1962), featuring Gene Ammons; Screamin’ (1962), with alto saxophonist Leo Wright and guitarist Kenny Burrell; and Brother Jack McDuff Live! (1963), featuring Holloway and Benson, which includes his biggest hit, “Rock Candy”. Despite health problems, McDuff continued working and recording throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and he toured Japan with Atsuko Hashimoto in 2000. “Capt’n” Jack McDuff, as he later became known, died of heart failure at the age of 74 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His first wife, the former Dink Dixon, died in the early 1980s. McDuff leaves his second wife Kathy and her two children.