mick laBriola

Desmond Dekker (16 July 1941 – 25 May 2006) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer-songwriter and musician. Together with his backing group The Aces (consisting of Wilson James and Easton Barrington Howard), he had one of the earliest international reggae hits with “Israelites” (1968). Other hits include “007 (Shanty Town)” (1967), “It Mek” (1969) and “You Can Get It If You Really Want” (1970).

Desmond Adolphus Dacres was born in Saint Andrew Parish (Greater Kingston), Jamaica, on 16 July 1941. Dekker spent his formative years in Kingston. From a young age he regularly attended the local church with his grandmother and aunt. This early religious upbringing, as well as Dekker’s enjoyment of singing hymns, led to a lifelong religious commitment. Following his mother’s death, he moved to the parish of St. Mary and later to St. Thomas. While at St. Thomas, Dekker embarked on an apprenticeship as a tailor before returning to Kingston, where he became a welder. His workplace singing had drawn the attention of his co-workers, who encouraged him to pursue a career in music.

In 1961 he auditioned for Coxsone Dodd (Studio One) and Duke Reid (Treasure Isle), though neither audition was successful. The unsigned vocalist then auditioned for Leslie Kong‘s Beverley’s record label and was awarded his first recording contract.

Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. (/ˈdʒeɪdər/ JAY-dər; July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) was an American Latin Jazzmusician, often described as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, especially small group modern jazz, even as he continued to perform music of Afro jazz, the Caribbean, México and Latin America.

Tjader played the vibraphone primarily, but was accomplished on the drums, bongos, congas, timpani, and the piano. He worked with many musicians from several cultures. He is often linked to the development of Latin rock and acid jazz. Although fusing Jazz with Latin music is often categorized as “Latin Jazz”, Tjader’s works swung freely between both styles. His Grammy award in 1980 for his album La Onda Va Bien capped off a career that spanned over forty years. Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. was born July 16, 1925, in St. Louis[3] to touring Swedish American vaudevillians. His father tap danced and his mother played piano, a husband-wife team going from city to city with their troupe to earn a living. When he was two, Tjader’s parents settled in San Mateo, California, and opened a dance studio. His mother (who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist) instructed him in classical piano and his father taught him to tap dance. He performed around the Bay Area as “Tjader Junior”, a tap-dancing wunderkind. He performed a brief non-speaking role dancing alongside Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in the film The White of the Dark Cloud of Joy.

Bola Sete (born Djalma de Andrade; July 16, 1923 – February 14, 1987) was a Brazilian guitarist who played jazz with Vince Guaraldi and Dizzy Gillespie.

Born Djama de Andrade in Rio de Janeiro, Sete was the only son of a family with seven children. His nickname means “Seven Ball”. In snooker, which is fairly popular in Brazil, the seven ball is the only black ball on the table (like the eight ball in pool). Bola got this nickname when he was the only black member of a small jazz group.

Sete’s family were poor and often struggled with finding food. Every member of the family played a musical instrument and would often play together. Sete first began playing music when he found a Cavaquinho in his home. With the help of his Uncle, he taught himself to play and eventually got his own instrument. For Christmas in 1932, he was gifted his first guitar.

At age 10, Sete was fostered by an affluent married couple who sent him to school and introduced him to classical music. He later began performing in a semi-professional group that played Brazilian folk music and samba. When World War II started, Sete’s foster parents sent him into hiding in the Brazlilian interior to avoid military conscription. He returned to Rio after the end of the war.

Sete’s foster parents wanted him to pursue a career in law, but he was set on becoming a musician and began studying guitar at the National School of Music in Rio. He then moved to a conservatory in Sao Paolo where the guitar teachers were superior. While studying, he started performing with local samba groups and his own sextet. His early influences were guitarists Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel, George Van Eps, and Oscar Moore of the Nat King Cole Trio. He admired the big bands that were touring South America at that time, led by Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey, and Woody Herman.

Joseph Arthurlin Harriott (15 July 1928 – 2 January 1973) was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone. Initially a bebopper, he became a pioneer of free-form jazz. Born in Kingston, Harriott moved to the United Kingdom as a working musician in 1951 and lived in the country for the rest of his life. He was part of a wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who arrived in Britain during the 1950s, including Dizzy Reece, Harold McNair, Harry Beckett and Wilton Gaynair.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Harriott was educated at Alpha Boys School, an orphanage in the city. At Alpha he learned to play the clarinet, the instrument that was assigned to him shortly before his tenth birthday. He took up the baritone and tenor saxophone while performing with local dance bands, before settling on the alto saxophone. Harriott arrived in London in the summer of 1951, aged 23, as a member of Ossie Da Costa’s band. British subjects did not require work permits or immigration visas at that time. When the band had completed their tour, Harriott decided to stay in London. He caught the attention of London’s jazz scene while sitting in at the Feldman Club on Oxford Street on 26 August 1951.

Joseph Satriani (born July 15, 1956) is an American rock guitarist, composer, songwriter, and guitar instructor. Early in his career, he worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, including Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick. Satriani went on to have a successful solo music career, starting in the late 1980s. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over 10 million albums, making him the bestselling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.

In 1988, Satriani was recruited by Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for his first solo tour. Satriani briefly toured with Deep Purple, joining shortly after another departure of Ritchie Blackmore from the band in November 1993. He has worked with a range of guitarists during the G3 tour, which he founded in 1995. Satriani has been the guitarist for the supergroup Chickenfoot since joining the band in 2008.

Satriani was born in Westbury, New York of Italian descent. His paternal grandparents were from Piacenza and Bobbio, while his maternal grandparents were from Bari. He was raised Roman Catholic.He was inspired to play guitar at age 14, after hearing of the death of Jimi Hendrix. Satriani heard the news during football practice, where he then announced to his coach that he was quitting to become a guitarist.

Joseph Rudolph “Philly Joe” Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was an American jazz drummer.

As a child, Jones appeared as a featured tap dancer on The Kiddie Show on the Philadelphia radio station WIP. He was in the US Army during World War II.

In 1947 he became the house drummer at Café Society in New York City, where he played with the leading bebop players of the day, including Tadd Dameron. From 1955 to 1958, Jones toured and recorded with Miles Davis Quintet — a band that became known as “The Quintet” (along with Red Garland on piano, John Coltrane on sax, and Paul Chambers on bass). Davis acknowledged that Jones was his favorite drummer,^[3] and stated in his autobiography that he would always listen for Jones in other drummers.

From 1958, Jones worked as a leader, but continued to work as a sideman with other musicians, including Bill Evans and Hank Mobley. Evans, like Davis, also openly stated that Jones was his all-time favorite drummer.

James Beck Gordon (July 14, 1945 – March 13, 2023) was an American musician, songwriter, and convicted murderer. Gordon was a session drummer in the late 1960s and 1970s and was the drummer in the blues rock supergroup Derek and the Dominos.

In 1983, in a psychotic episode associated with undiagnosed schizophrenia, Gordon murdered his mother and was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison, remaining incarcerated until his death in 2023.

Gordon was raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles and attended Grant High School. He passed up a music scholarship to UCLA in order to begin his professional career in 1963, at age 17, backing the Everly Brothers. He went on to become one of the most sought-after recording session drummers in Los Angeles. The protégé of studio drummer Hal Blaine, Gordon performed on many notable recordings in the 1960s, including Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys (1966); Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, by Gene Clark (1967); The Notorious Byrd Brothers, by the Byrds (1968); and the hit “Classical Gas“, by Mason Williams (1968). At the height of his career Gordon was reportedly so busy as a studio musician that he flew back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas every day to do two or three recording sessions and then returned in time to play the evening show at Caesars Palace.

Alan Dawson (July 14, 1929 – February 23, 1996) was an American jazz drummer and percussion teacher based in Boston. Dawson was born in Marietta, Pennsylvania and raised in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he played with the Army Dance Band while stationed at Fort Dix from 1951 to 1953. During his tenure, Dawson explored the post-bop era by performing with pianist Sabby Lewis. After being discharged from the army, Dawson toured Europe with Lionel Hampton.

In early 1960, he was based in Boston for a regular engagement with John Neves, bass, and Leroy Flander, piano.

Dawson was an early teacher of drummers Tony Williams and Joseph Smyth, known for his work with the Sawyer Brown country music group. Other students included Terri Lyne Carrington, Julian Vaughn, Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Smith, Kenwood Dennard, Gerry Hemingway, Jeff Sipe, Billy Kilson, Joe Farnsworth, Bob Gullotti, and many others. Dawson began teaching at Berklee College of Music in 1957. He suffered a ruptured disc in 1975 which led to him halting his touring schedule, to leave Berklee and limit his teaching to his home in Lexington, Massachusetts.