mick laBriola

Garnett Silk (born Garnet Damion Smith; 2 April 1966 – 9 December 1994) was a Jamaican reggae musician and Rastafarian, known for his diverse, emotive, powerful and smooth voice. During the early 1990s he was hailed as a rising talent, however his career was ended by his early death in 1994, while attempting to save his mother from her burning house.

Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), Wash DC was an American R&B and soul singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of successes, earning him the nicknames “Prince of Motown” and “Prince of Soul”.

Larry Coryell (born Lorenz Albert Van DeLinder III; April 2, 1943 Galveston, TX – February 19, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist.

Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges; April 2, 1942 –Lawton, OK  November 13, 2016) was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling records during his 60-year career that spanned multiple genres, including rock and roll, country, gospel, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, southern rock, blues rock, folk, surf and the Tulsa Sound.

Booker Little Jr. (April 2, 1938 – October 5, 1961) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He appeared on many recordings in his short career, both as a sideman and as a leader. Little performed with Max Roach, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy and was strongly influenced by Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown. He died aged 23.

Booker Little Jr. was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Booker, a Pullman porter who was a trombonist, and his wife Ophelia Little, who was a church organist. He also was the brother of Helena, Vivian, and Vera Little(Vera later sung with the London Opera Company). From a musically inclined family, Little naturally gravitated towards music. Like his father, he attempted to learn the trombone but instead choose clarinet at the age of 12. At 14, he finally settled on trumpet as his band director urged him play that instrument. In 1952, Little attended Manassas High School where he would begin his development on trumpet and later graduate. Being in Memphis, Little was able to develop his talent with contemporaries such as Phineas Newborn Jr., George Coleman, Frank Strozier, and his cousin Louis Smith. He was performing with Newborn on a casual basis by his mid-teens.

After graduating, he moved to Chicago, Illinois to continue his studies at the Chicago Conservatory in 1954.At the conservatory, he continued to study trumpet but also incorporated studies in composition, theory, and orchestration with a minor in piano. After years of physical pain, Little died of complications resulting from uremia on October 5, 1961, in New York City at the age 23. He was survived by his wife, two sons Booker T. III and Larry Cornelius, and two daughters Cornelia and Ana Dorsey.

Irving Sidney “Duke” Jordan (April 1, 1922 – August 8, 2006) was an American jazz pianist.

Jordan was born in New York and raised in Brooklyn where he attended Boys High School. An imaginative and gifted pianist, Jordan was a regular member of Charlie Parker‘s quintet during 1947–48, which also featured Miles Davis. He participated in Parker’s Dial sessions in late 1947 that produced “Dewey Square”, “Bongo Bop”, “Bird of Paradise”, and the ballad “Embraceable You“. These performances are featured on Charlie Parker on Dial.

Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter from the early 1920s to the late 1950s. After twenty years of working as a nurse, Hunter resumed her singing career in 1977.

Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Laura Peterson, who worked as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, a Pullman porter. Hunter said she never knew her father. She attended Grant Elementary School, off Auction Street, which she called Auction School, in Memphis. She attended school until around age 15.

People credit the famous flamenco singer Pepe Marchena for creating the Colombiana(or Colombina) in 1931. The guitarist Ramon Montoya accompanied Marchena in recordings of the Colombiana the following year. Colombianas are in a major mode and follow a 4-beat compás similar to the Rumba.

Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville; March 31, 1908 – April 6, 1999) was an American musician, one of jazz‘s early vibraphonists, known as “Mr. Swing”. He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His recordings included “Dance of the Octopus”, “Bughouse”, “Knockin’ on Wood”, “Congo Blues”, and “Hole in the Wall”. Red Norvo was born in Beardstown, Illinois, United States. His career began in Chicago with a band called “The Collegians” in 1925. He played with many other bands, including an all-marimba band on the vaudevillecircuit, and the bands of Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, and Woody Herman.

Major Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953), better known as Big Maceo Merriweather, was an American pianist and blues singer. He was mainly active in Chicago through the 1940s.

Born in Newnan, Georgia, he was a self-taught pianist. In the 1920s, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, to begin his music career. He moved to Chicago in 1941, where he made the acquaintance of Tampa Red.R ed introduced him to Lester Melrose of RCA Victor and its subsidiary label Bluebird Records, who signed Merriweather to a recording contract.