mick laBriola

Michael Ponti (29 October 1937 – 17 October 2022) was a German-American classical pianist. He was the first to record the complete piano works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. He made more than 80 recordings, around 50 of rarely played concertos from the Romantic period, often the only recording of these works at the time. He played and recorded chamber music with his Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio.

John Haley “Zoot” Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985 Englewood, CA) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the “Four Brothers” sax section of Woody Herman‘s big band, afterward enjoying a long solo career, often in partnership with fellow saxmen Gerry Mulligan and Al Cohn.

Richard Bona (born 28 October 1967) is a Cameroon-born American multi-instrumentalist and singer.

Bona Penda Nya Yuma Elolo was born in Minta, Cameroon, into a family of musicians, which enabled him to start learning music from a young age. His grandfather was a griot – a West African singer of praise and storyteller – and percussionist, as his mother was a singer. When he was four years old, Bona started to play the balafon. At the age of five, he began performing at his village church. Not being wealthy, Bona made many of his own instruments: including flutes and guitars (with cords strung over an old motorcycle tank).

His talent was quickly noticed, and he was often invited to perform at festivals and ceremonies. Bona began learning to play the guitar at the age of 11, and in 1980, aged just 13, he assembled his first ensemble for a French jazz club in Douala. The owner befriended him and helped him discover jazz music, in particular that of Jaco Pastorius, which inspired Bona to switch his focus to the electric bass.

Bona emigrated to Germany at the age of 22 to study music in Düsseldorf, soon relocating to France, where he furthered his studies in music.

While in France, he regularly played in various jazz clubs, sometimes with players such as Manu Dibango, Salif Keita, Jacques Higelin and Didier Lockwood.

In 1995, Bona left France and established himself in New York, where he still lives and works. In New York he played bass guitar with artists including Joe Zawinul, Larry Coryell, Michael and Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, George Benson, Branford Marsalis, Chaka Khan, Bobby McFerrin, and Steve Gadd.

Tuck Andress is a guitarist born October 25, 1952 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Best known as half of the guitar/vocal duo, Tuck & Patti. Considered one of the finest guitarists in the world, his masterful fingerpicking technique allows him to sound as if three separate guitars are playing at once.

Tuck Andress and his wife, Patti Cathcart Andress,(Tuck and Patti) have released several albums on the Windham Hill label, as well as on Epic Records and 33rd Street Records. The duo has been very successful with multiple albums hitting the top ten on the Contemporary Jazz Charts.

Andress used to be a session performer for The Gap Band.

His neice is singer-songwriter Annie Clark who performs under the name St. Vincent.

Keith Anderson CD (28 October 1944 – 27 March 2020), better known by the stage name Bob Andy, was a Jamaican reggae vocalist and songwriter. He was widely regarded as one of reggae’s most influential songwriters.

Bob Andy was one of the founding members of The Paragons, along with Tyrone Evans and Howard Barrett, with John Holt later joining briefly before being replaced by Vic Taylor. Andy left after Holt rejoined and worked for Studio One delivering records and songwriting before embarking on a solo career.

His first solo hit record in 1967, “I’ve Got to Go Back Home”, was followed by “Desperate Lover”, “Feeling Soul”, “Unchained”, and “Too Experienced”. He also composed songs for other reggae artists, including “I Don’t Want to See You Cry” for Ken Boothe, and “Feel Like Jumping”, “Truly”, and “Melody Life” for Marcia Griffiths. He had several hits in the late 1960s, including “Going Home”, “Unchained”, “Feeling Soul”, “My Time”, “The Ghetto Stays in the Mind”, and “Feel the Feeling”. Some of these, and his 1992 hit, “Fire Burning”, have come to be regarded as reggae standards and several have been covered several times by other artists.

In the early 1970s, he recorded with Marcia Griffiths as Bob and Marcia, initially for Studio One, but later under producer “Harry J” Johnson‘s tutelage.They had a major hit in the UK with “Young, Gifted and Black” (with orchestral backing added for the UK market) and spent time there promoting it, touring with Elton John and Gilbert O’Sullivan. When the tour ended they were still not getting any money, and were told by people in England that Harry J had got the cash. They returned to Jamaica. Andy said “when we left Jamaica, Harry J did not have a studio. When we came back, he had a studio and a brand new Benz.”

Glen Moore (born October 28, 1941) is an American jazz bassist, who occasionally performs on piano, flute and violin.

Moore was born in Portland, Oregon, United States. His performing career began at age 14 with the Young Oregonians in Portland, where he met and played with Native American saxophonist, Jim Pepper. He graduated with a degree in History and Literature from the University of Oregon. His formal bass instruction started after college with Jerome Magil in Portland, James Harnett in Seattle, Gary Karr in New York, Plough Christenson in Copenhagen, Ludwig Streicher in Vienna and Francois Rabbath in Hawaii. His main instrument is an upright bass which was made by Klotz in Tyrol around 1715. He mostly plays it in a personal unique tuning, using a low and a high C string.

Moore is a founding member of Oregon, but worked also regularly with Rabih Abou-Khalil, Vasant Rai, Nancy King and Larry Karush.

Philip Catherine (born 27 October 1942) is a Belgian jazz guitarist.

Philip Catherine was born in London, England, to an English mother and Belgian father, and was raised in Brussels, Belgium. His grandfather was a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra. Catherine started on guitar in his teens, and by seventeen he was performing professionally at local venues.

He released his debut album, Stream, in 1972. During the next few years, he studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston and with Mick Goodrick and George Russell. In 1976, he and guitarist Larry Coryellrecorded and toured as an acoustic duo. The same year, when Jan Akkerman abruptly left Focus, Catherine replaced him in the band. The following year, he recorded with Charles Mingus, who dubbed him “Young Django”. In the early 1980s, he toured briefly with Benny Goodman. He was in trio with Didier Lockwood and Christian Escoudé, then in a trio with Chet Baker. During the 1990s, he recorded three albums with trumpeter Tom Harrell.

Babs Gonzales (October 27, 1919 – January 23, 1980Newark, NJ), 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.