mick laBriola

John Jenkins (January 3, 1931 – July 12, 1993) was an American jazz saxophonist.

Born in Chicago, Jenkins initially studied clarinet in high school but switched to saxophone after six months on the instrument. He played in jam sessions led by Joe Segal at Roosevelt College from 1949-1956. He played with Art Farmer in 1955 and led his own group in Chicago later that year. In 1957, he played with Charles Mingus and recorded two albums as a leader. He played as a sideman with Johnny Griffin, Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Paul Quinichette, Clifford Jordan, Sahib Shihab, and Wilbur Ware in the late 1950s and early 1960s,^[2] but essentially dropped out of music after 1962, aside from a few dates with Gloria Coleman.

After leaving the jazz world he worked as a messenger in New York and dabbled in jewelry; he sold brass objects at street fairs in the 1970s. After 1983, he began practicing again and playing live on street corners; shortly before he died he played with Clifford Jordan.

erbert Horatio Nichols (January 3, 1919 – April 12, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote the jazz standard “Lady Sings the Blues“. Obscure during his lifetime, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.

He was born in San Juan Hill, Manhattan, New York, United States, to parents from St. Kitts and Trinidad, and grew up in Harlem. During much of his career, he took work as a Dixieland musician while also pursuing the more adventurous kind of jazz he preferred. He is best known today for program music that combines bop, Dixieland, and music from the Caribbean with harmonies from Erik Satie and Béla Bartók. Nichols died of leukemia in New York City at the age of 44.

Fred White, a drummer for Earth, Wind & Fire, has died, according to an announcement from the band and his family. He was 67.

Fred White’s brother, Earth, Wind & Fire founding member Verdine White, said in a social media post on Monday that he “is now drumming with the angels!” Verdine White remembered his brother as an “amazing and talented family member” and a “child protégé.”

She was the lead vocalist on all three of the Pointer Sisters’ Top 40 hits in the group’s early years, and she helped define its pop sound in the 1980s.

Anita Pointer, the sweet and occasionally sultry lead vocalist on many hits of her family band the Pointer Sisters in the 1970s and ’80s, died on Saturday at home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 74.

The cause was cancer, her publicist, Roger Neal, said.

The Pointer Sisters occupied a middle point in pop history between the doo-wop innocence of the Ronettes and the stilettoed girl power of Destiny’s Child.

Anita’s voice had a lot to do with that. She sang with the speed and flavor of molasses. Though she commanded the virtuosity to trill prettily, she tended to sing too softly to sound overpowering. In “Slow Hand,” a love song with a soft-focus music video that reached No. 2 on the pop charts in 1981, Anita cooed.

https://youtu.be/J7dIP02zmic

Troy Andrews (born January 2, 1986), also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is an American musician, producer, actor and philanthropist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known as a trombone and trumpet player but also plays drums, organ, and tuba. He has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews III and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill. Andrews began playing trombone at age four, and since 2009 has toured with his own band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. Andrews was born to James Andrews Jr. and Lois Andrews in New Orleans and grew up in the culturally vibrant Treméneighborhood, steeped in New Orleans jazz, R&B and music-related traditions such as second line parades. Andrews’ family have deep roots in the music scene of New Orleans – his grandfather was musician Jessie Hill, his great-uncle Walter “Papoose” Nelson played with Fats Domino, and Andrews’ mother Lois Nelson Andrews was a regular grand marshal of jazz funerals and second-line parades in New Orleans, where she routinely encouraged young musicians and was known as the “Mother of Music” and “Queen of the Tremé”. Andrews’ father James Andrews Jr., a member of the Bayou Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Club, would frequently invite musician friends to visit their home. Other musical family members include his brother James Andrews III and cousins Glen David Andrews and the late Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill.

Ari Brown (born February 1, 1944) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and pianist. Brown grew up in Chicago and attended Wilson College, where he met musicians such as Jack DeJohnette, Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, and Joseph Jarman. He played piano in R&B and soul outfits into the 1960s, then switched to saxophone in 1965. He joined the AACM in 1971, and also played with The Awakening in the early 1970s. In 1974 he lost several teeth in a car crash, and temporarily switched to piano again until he recovered. He played sax later in the 1970s with McCoy Tyner, Don Patterson, and Sonny Stitt. In the 1980s, he worked with Lester Bowie, Von Freeman, Bobby Watson, and Anthony Braxton, and in 1989 he became a member of Kahil El’Zabar‘s trio.

Frank L. Marocco (January 2, 1931 – March 3, 2012) was an American piano-accordionist, arranger and composer. He was recognized as one of the most recorded accordionists in the world.

Born in Joliet, Illinois Frank Marocco grew up in Waukegan, near Chicago. At the age of seven years, his parents enrolled him in a six-week beginner class for learning to play the accordion.

Seydou Koné (French pronunciation: ​[sɛdu kɔne]; born January 1, 1953, in Dimbokro), better known by his stage name Alpha Blondy, is an Ivorian reggaesinger and international recording artist. Many of his songs are politically and socially motivated, and are mainly sung in his native language Dyula, French and English, though he occasionally uses other languages, for example, Arabic or Hebrew.

Milton Jackson (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999 Detroit, MI), nicknamed “Bags“, was an American jazzvibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solos as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his penchant for collaborating with hard bop and post-bop players.

Bulee “Slim” Gaillard (January 9, 1911 – February 26, 1991 Santa Clara, Cuba), also known as McVouty, was an American jazz singer and songwriter who played piano, guitar, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone.

Xavier Cugat (Catalan: [ʃəβiˈe kuˈɣat]; 1 January 1900 – 27 October 1990) was a Spanish musician and bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a leading figure in the spread of Latin music. In New York City he was the leader of the resident orchestra at the Waldorf–Astoria before and after World War II. He was also a cartoonist and a restaurateur. The personal papers of Xavier Cugat are preserved in the Biblioteca de Catalunya.