mick laBriola

Lewis Nash (born December 30, 1958) is an American jazz drummer. According to Modern Drummer magazine, Nash has one of the longest discographies in jazz and has played on over 400 records, earning him the honor of Jazz’s Most Valuable Player by the magazine in its May 2009 issue.

In 2012, The Nash Jazz Club,] opened in Phoenix, AZ. Named after Lewis Nash by Jazz in AZ 501(c)(3), The Nash Jazz Club is dedicated to performances and educational programs that promote jazz education.

In 2017, Nash joined the jazz studies faculty at Arizona State University, where he was named the Bob and Gretchen Ravenscroft Professor of Practice in Jazz. In early 2021, the Lewis Nash Scholarship Endowment was created by the university to be awarded annually to a deserving ASU undergraduate or graduate jazz performance student.

Nash is noted for his adaptability to a vast array of genres, as evidenced by his performances with such different musicians as Tommy Flanagan and Don Pullen. Nash has made 5 recordings as bandleader: Rhythm is My Business (1989), It Don’t Mean a Thing (2003 Japanese import) and Stompin’ at the Savoy (2005 Japanese import), Lewis Nash and the Bebop All-Stars featuring Frank Wess (2008 Japanese Import), and The Highest Mountain (2012). In 2008, Nash became part of The Blue Note 7, a septet formed that year in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfq88ggwz_Q

James Jones (June 2, 1930 – August 2, 2012) was an American singer-songwriter who moved to New York City while a teenager. According to Allmusicjournalist Steve Huey, “best known for his 1960 R&B smash, ‘Handy Man‘, Jones sang in a smooth yet soulful falsetto modeled on the likes of Clyde McPhatter and Sam Cooke.”

Jones was born in Birmingham, Alabama. His first job in the entertainment industry was as a tap dancer. He joined a doo-wop group named the Berliners in 1954. They later changed their name to Sparks of Rhythm. In 1955 Jones co-wrote “Handy Man“, which was recorded by the Sparks of Rhythm in 1956 (after Jones left the group). After recording with other groups, Jones went solo and, in 1959, teamed up with Otis Blackwell who reworked “Handy Man” which Jones recorded on the MGM subsidiary Cub Records.

“Caracoles” is a flamenco style with origin in “cantiñas” dancing, more specifically in an “cantiña” called “La caracolera”. It was developped at the end of the 19th century in Madrid. Singers used to add some lyrics and melodic verses to “caracoles” or simply merge it with other “cantinas”. José de Sanlúcar is considered as first singer who magnified this singing, before Antonio Chacón spreaded it. Later, other singers such as El Niño de Almaden, kept this flamenco style. Currently this singing is rarely used.

Yvonne Marianne Elliman (born December 29, 1951) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress who performed for four years in the first cast of the stage musical Jesus Christ Superstar. She scored a number of hits in the 1970s and achieved a US #1 hit with “If I Can’t Have You“. The song also reached #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart and number 4 in the UK Chart. Her cover of Barbara Lewis‘s “Hello Stranger” went to #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and “Love Me” was also #5, giving her 3 top 10 singles. After a long hiatus in the 1980s and 1990s, during which time she dedicated herself to her family, she made a comeback album as a singer-songwriter in 2004.

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single “As Tears Go By” and became one of the lead female artists during the British Invasion in the United States.

Born in Hampstead, London, Faithfull began her career in 1964 after attending a Rolling Stones party, where she was discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham. Her debut album Marianne Faithfull (1965) (released simultaneously with her album Come My Way) was a commercial success followed by a number of albums on Decca Records. From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity was further enhanced by her film roles, such as those in I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname(1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), and Hamlet (1969). However, her popularity was overshadowed by personal problems in the 1970s. During that time she was anorexic, homeless, and a heroin addict.

Richard Clare Danko (December 29, 1943 – December 10, 1999)was a Canadian musician, bassist, songwriter, and singer, best known as a founding member of the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

During the 1960s, Danko performed as a member of the Hawks, backing Ronnie Hawkins and then Bob Dylan. Then, between 1968 and 1977, Danko and the Hawks, now called the Band, released seven studio albums before breaking up. Beginning with the group’s reformation in 1983 and up until his death, Danko participated in the Band’s partial reunion.

Matthew Tyler Murphy (December 29, 1929 – June 15, 2018),known as Matt “Guitar” Murphy, was an American blues guitarist. He was associated with Memphis Slim, The Blues Brothers and Howlin’ Wolf.

Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, and was educated in Memphis, Tennessee, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel. Murphy learned to play guitar when he was a child. In 1948, Murphy moved to Chicago, where he joined the Howlin’ Wolf Band, which at the time featured Little Junior Parker. In 1952, Murphy recorded with Little Junior Parker and Ike Turner, resulting in the release, “You’re My Angel”/“Bad Women, Bad Whiskey”(Modern 864), credited to Little Junior Parker and the Blue Flames.

Murphy worked often with Memphis Slim, including on his debut album At the Gate of Horn (1959). Murphy recorded two albums and many singles with Chuck Berry and was also featured in works by Koko Taylor, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Buddy Guy, Etta James, and Otis Rush. He also performed with Willie Dixon. Freddie King is said to have once admitted that he based his “Hide Away” (1960) on Murphy’s playing.

Mosley was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. He played trombone in high school and then joined Alphonse Trent‘s territory band, playing with him from 1926 to 1933. Following this he played with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra (1934), Claude Hopkins (1934–35), Fats Waller, and Louis Armstrong with the Luis Russell Orchestra (1936–37), in addition to playing with his own groups. After this Mosley settled in New York City.

Mosley spent most of his career on trombone, but also invented an instrument called the slide saxophone, which had both the slide portion of a trombone and a saxophone mouthpiece. The instrument is prominently featured in his 1940 recording The Man with the Funny Little Horn.

Michel Petrucciani  28 December 1962 – 6 January 1999) was a French jazz pianist. From birth he had osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. He became one of the most accomplished jazz pianists of his generation despite his health condition and very short life span.

Michel Petrucciani came from an Italo-French family (his grandfather was from Naples) with a musical background. His father Tony played guitar, his brother Louis played bass, and his brother Philippe also plays the guitar. Michel was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. The disease caused his bones to fracture over 100 times before he reached adolescence and kept him in pain throughout his entire life. “I have pain all the time. I’m used to having hurt arms,” he said. In Michel’s early career, his father and brother occasionally carried him because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects he considered his disability an advantage, as he got rid of distractions like sports that other boys tended to become involved in. And he hints that his disability was helpful in other parts of his life. He said: “Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary.”

Lonnie Liston Smith Jr. (born December 28, 1940) is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with such jazz artists as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of albums widely regarded as classics in the fusion, smooth jazz and acid jazz genres.

Smith was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, United States to a musical family; his father was a member of Richmond Gospel music group The Harmonizing Four, and he remembered groups such as the Swan Silvertones and the Soul Stirrers (featuring a young Sam Cooke) as regular visitors to the house when he was a child. He studied piano, tuba and trumpet in high school and college before receiving a B.S.in music education from Morgan State University in Baltimore in 1961. Smith has cited Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis as major influences in his youth. While still a teenager, Smith became well known locally as a backing vocalist as well as pianist in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Edmund Leonard Thigpen (December 28, 1930 – January 13, 2010) was an American jazz drummer, best known for his work with the Oscar Petersontrio from 1959 to 1965. Thigpen also performed with the Billy Taylor trio from 1956 to 1959.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Thigpen was raised in Los Angeles, California, and attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon and Chico Hamilton also attended. After majoring in sociology at Los Angeles City College, Thigpen returned to East St. Louis for one year to pursue music while living with his father who had been playing with Andy Kirk‘s Clouds of Joy.^[2] His father, Ben Thigpen, was a drummer who played with Andy Kirk for sixteen years during the 1930s and 1940s.

Thigpen first worked professionally in New York City with the Cootie Williams orchestra from 1951 to 1952 at the Savoy Ballroom. During this time he played with musicians such as Dinah Washington, Gil Mellé, Oscar Pettiford, Eddie Vinson, Paul Quinichette, Ernie Wilkins, Charlie Rouse, Lennie Tristano, Jutta Hipp, Johnny Hodges, Dorothy Ashby, Bud Powell, and Billy Taylor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbDusdip7Y

Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl “Fatha“ Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, “one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz”.

The trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (a member of Hines’s big band, along with Charlie Parker) wrote,

The piano is the basis of modern harmony. This little guy came out of Chicago, Earl Hines. He changed the style of the piano. You can find the roots of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, all the guys who came after that. If it hadn’t been for Earl Hines blazing the path for the next generation to come, it’s no telling where or how they would be playing now. There were individual variations but the style of … the modern piano came from Earl Hines.

The pianist Lennie Tristano said, “Earl Hines is the only one of us capable of creating real jazz and real swing when playing all alone.” Horace Silver said, “He has a completely unique style. No one can get that sound, no other pianist”. Erroll Garner said, “When you talk about greatness, you talk about Art Tatum and Earl Hines”.

Count Basie said that Hines was “the greatest piano player in the world”. Earl Hines was born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, 12 miles from the center of Pittsburgh, in 1903. His father, Joseph Hines, played cornet and was the leader of the Eureka Brass Band in Pittsburgh, and his stepmother was a church organist.

Candombe originated in Uruguay between the 18th and 19th century, developed by Africans and their descendants that were taken to South America through the slave trade. The birthplace was Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, in the Rio de la Plata region. From there, it also spread into neighboring Argentina.

Initially, candombe was the name given to the dances performed by black artists that incorporated African and European elements.

By the late 19th century, the black community in Montevideo formed comparsas. These are groups of singers, musicians and dancers that perform outdoors in carnivals and other festivities. Comparsas of various types and musical genres are found widely throughout Spain and Hispanic America.

Eventually, Uruguayan carnival comparsas became integrated, combining people of all races and ethnicities. However, Uruguayan carnival comparsas kept the barrel drums and certain dance movements rooted in African traditions. The drum section normally includes 40-80 players.