mick laBriola

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.

Leopoldo F. Fleming (born September 16, 1939 in Puerta de Tierra, Puerto Rico) is an American jazz musician (percussion, composition, arrangement).

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Fleming, who came from a family of musicians, grew up first in Puerto Rico, from 1947 on Saint Thomas and from 1951 in New York City. He played congas as a child; his father taught him Latin rhythms. At the age of 15 he accompanied dancers as a percussionist. Shortly afterwards he played in a Latin big band led by Red Dixon and Jesse DeVore.

In 1965, Hugh Masekela brought him into Miriam Makeba’s accompanying trio, in which he worked until the mid-1970s. He toured internationally with Makeba and was also involved in their albums such as Click Song and Pata Pata. Since 1971 he was also a member of Nina Simone’s band, with whom he worked until the 1980s. He also worked as a theater musician. He was musical director of LeRoi Jones’ Slaveship in Brooklyn; In this production by Gilbert Moses he appeared with Archie Shepp. He also composed for the American children’s television series Vegetable Soup.

Earl Klugh born September 16, 1953) is an American acoustic guitarist and composer. He has won one Grammy award and thirteen nominations. Klugh was awarded the “1977 Best Recording Award For Performance and Sound” for his album “Finger Painting” by “Swing Journal” a Japanese jazz magazine.

At the age of six, Klugh commenced training on the piano until he switched to the guitar at the age of ten. At the age of thirteen, Klugh was captivated by the guitar playing of Chet Atkins when Atkins made an appearance on the Perry Como Show. Klugh was a performing guest on several of Atkins’ albums. Atkins, reciprocating as well, joined Earl on his Magic In Your Eyes album. Klugh also appeared with Atkins on several television programs, including Hee Haw and a 1994 TV special titled “Read my Licks”. Klugh was also influenced by Bob James, Ray Parker Jr, Wes Montgomery and Laurindo Almeida. His sound is a blend of these jazz, pop and rhythm and blues influences, forming a potpourri of sweet contemporary music original to only him.

Charlie Lee Byrd (September 16, 1925 – December 2, 1999) was an American jazz guitarist. Byrd was best known for his association with Brazilian music, especially bossa nova. In 1962, he collaborated with Stan Getz on the album Jazz Samba, a recording which brought bossa nova into the mainstream of North American music.

Byrd played fingerstyle on a classical guitar.

Charlie Byrd was born in 1925 in Suffolk, Virginia, and grew up in the borough of Chuckatuck. His father, a mandolinist and guitarist, taught him how to play the acoustic steel guitar at age 10. Byrd had three brothers, Oscar, Jack, and Gene “Joe” Byrd, who was a bass player. In 1942, Byrd entered the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and played in the school orchestra. In 1943, he was drafted into the United States Army, saw combat in World War II, and was stationed in Paris in 1945. There he played in an Army Special Services band and toured occupied Europe in the all-soldier production G.I. Carmen.

After the war, Byrd returned to the United States and studied composition and jazz theory at the Harnett National Music School in Manhattan, New York City. During this time, he began playing a classical guitar. After moving to Washington, D.C., in 1950, he studied classical guitar with Sophocles Papas for several years. In 1954, he became a pupil of the Spanish classical guitarist Andrés Segovia and spent time studying with him in Italy.

Byrd’s earliest and greatest influence was the gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, whom he saw perform in Paris.

Robert Waltrip Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005)  was an American cabaret singer and pianist, who interpreted songs by popular composers from the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Richard A. Whiting, Vernon Duke, Noël Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.

Short also championed African-American composers of the same period such as Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, presenting their work not in a polemical way, but as simply the obvious equal of that of their white contemporaries.

Short’s dedication to his great love – what he called the “Great American Song” – left him equally adept at performing the witty lyrics of Bessie Smith‘s “Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)” or Gershwin and Duke’s “I Can’t Get Started“. Short stated his favorite songwriters were Ellington, Arlen and Kern, and he was instrumental in spearheading the construction of the Ellington Memorial in New York City. He was a friend of Tom Jobim and was present during the composer’s final days in New York City.

Short was born in Danville, Illinois, where two of his school classmates were Dick Van Dyke and Donald O’Connor.  He began performing piano in dance halls and saloons, and as a busker, after leaving home at age 11 for Chicago with his mother’s permission.

Arvell Shaw (September 15, 1923 – December 5, 2002) was an American jazz double-bassist, best known for his work with Louis Armstrong.

He was born on September 15, 1923 in St. Louis, Missouri.  Shaw learned to play tuba in high school, but switched to bass soon after. In 1942 he worked with Fate Marable on riverboats traveling on the Mississippi River, then served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945.  After his discharge he played with Armstrong in his last big band, from 1945 to 1947.  Shaw and Sid Catlett then joined the Louis Armstrong All-Stars until 1950, when Shaw broke off to study music.  He returned to play with Armstrong from 1952 to 1956,  and performed in the 1956 musical, High Society.

Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderley (September 15, 1928 – August 8, 1975) was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s.

Adderley is perhaps best remembered for the 1966 soul jazz single “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” which was written for him by his keyboardist Joe Zawinul and became a major crossover hit on the pop and R&B charts. A cover version by the Buckinghams, who added lyrics, also reached No. 5 on the charts. Adderley worked with Miles Davis, first as a member of the Davis sextet, appearing on the seminal records Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959), and then on his own 1958 album Somethin’ Else. He was the elder brother of jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley, who was a longtime member of his band.

Julian Edwin Adderley was born on September 15, 1928, in Tampa, Florida to high school guidance counselor and cornet player Julian Carlyle Adderley and elementary school teacher Jessie Johnson.Elementary school classmates called him “cannonball” (i.e., “cannibal”) after his voracious appetite. In July 1975, Adderley suffered a stroke from a cerebral hemorrhage and died four weeks later, on August 8, 1975, at St. Mary Methodist Hospital in Gary, Indiana. He was 46 years old. He was survived by his wife Olga James Adderley, parents Julian C. and Jessie L. Adderley, and brother Nat Adderley. He was buried in the Southside Cemetery, Tallahassee.