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Ray Drummond (born November 23, 1946 in Brookline, Massachusetts) is an American jazz bassist and teacher. He also has an MBA from Stanford University, hence his linkage to the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He can be heard on hundreds of albums and co-leads The Drummonds with Renee Rosnes and (not related) Billy Drummond.
Drummond has been a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, since 1980 with his wife, Susan, and his daughter, Maya.
He is the elder brother of David Drummond, who served as senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer of Google Inc., until his retirement in 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be2vHcWF0rg
more...John Alfred Mandel (November 23, 1925 – June 29, 2020) was an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. The musicians he worked with include Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Diane Schuur and Shirley Horn. He won five Grammy Awards – from 17 nominations; his first nomination was for his debut film score for the multi-nominated 1958 film I Want to Live! Mandel was born in the borough of Manhattan in New York City on November 23, 1925.
more...Manuel de Falla y Matheu, 23 November 1876 – 14 November 1946) was an Andalusian Spanish composer and pianist. Along with Isaac Albéniz, Francisco Tárrega, and Enrique Granados, he was one of Spain’s most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century. He has a claim to being Spain’s greatest composer of the 20th century, although the number of pieces he composed was relatively modest.
Falla was born Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu in Cádiz. He was the son of José María Falla, a Valencian, and María Jesús Matheu, from Catalonia. In 1889 he continued his piano lessons with Alejandro Odero and learned the techniques of harmony and counterpoint from Enrique Broca. At age 15 he became interested in literature and journalism and founded the literary magazines El Burlón and El Cascabel.
more...HAVANA (AP) — Pablo Milanés, the Latin Grammy-winning balladeer who helped found Cuba’s “nueva trova” movement and toured the world as a cultural ambassador for Fidel Castro’s revolution, has died in Spain, where he had been under treatment for blood cancer. He was 79.
One of the most internationally famous Cuban singer-songwriters, he recorded dozens of albums and hits like “Yolanda,” “Yo Me Quedo” (I’m Staying) and “Amo Esta Isla” (I Love This Island) during a career that lasted more than five decades.
“The culture in Cuba is in mourning for the death of Pablo Milanes,” Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz tweeted Monday night.
Milanés’ representatives issued a statement saying he had died early Tuesday in Madrid.
Pablo Milanés Arias (24 February 1943 – 22 November 2022) was a Cuban guitar player and singer. He was one of the founders of the Cuban nueva trova, along with Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola. His music, originating in the Trova, Son and other traditional styles of early 20th Century Cuban music, set him apart from the style of Silvio Rodríguez.
Pablo Milanés, widely known as Pablito, moved with his family from Bayamo to Havana in 1950. He studied in the Conservatorio Municipal de La Habana, at the time the most prestigious musical school in the country. His first public performance was in 1956. By age 15, he was active in “bohemian” musical circles in Havana, associated with the so-called “filin” musicians.
more...The galaxy merger Arp-Madore 417-391 steals the spotlight in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Arp-Madore catalogue is a collection of particularly peculiar galaxies spread throughout the southern sky, and includes a collection of subtly interacting galaxies as well as more spectacular colliding galaxies. Arp-Madore 417-391, which lies around 670 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus in the southern celestial hemisphere, is one such galactic collision. The two galaxies have been distorted by gravity and twisted into a colossal ring, leaving the cores of the two galaxies nestled side by side. Hubble used its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to capture this scene — the instrument is optimised to hunt for galaxies and galaxy clusters in the ancient Universe. Hubble’s ACS has been contributing to scientific discovery for 20 years, and throughout its lifetime it has been involved in everything from mapping the distribution of dark matter to studying the evolution of galaxy clusters. This image comes from a selection of Hubble observations designed to create a list of intriguing targets for follow-up observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, as well as other ground-based telescopes. Astronomers chose a list of previously unobserved galaxies for Hubble to inspect between other scheduled observations. Over time, this lets astronomers build up a menagerie of interesting galaxies while using Hubble’s limited observing time as fully as possible. [Image description: Two galaxies right of centre form a ring shape. The ring is narrow and blue, and the cores of the two galaxies form a bulge on the ring’s side. A bright, orange star lies above the ring. Two smaller spiral galaxies appear left of centre, as well as a few stars. The background is black and speckled with very small stars and galaxies.]
more...Max Romeo (born Maxwell Livingston Smith; 22 November 1944) is a Jamaican reggae and roots reggae recording musician who has achieved chart success in his home country and in the United Kingdom. He had several hits with the vocal group the Emotions. His song “Wet Dream” (1968) included overtly sexual lyrics and launched a new style of reggae.
Born in St. D’Acre, St. Ann, Jamaica, Romeo left home at the age of 14 and worked on a sugar plantation outside Clarendon, before winning a local talent competition when he was 18. This prompted a move to the capital, Kingston, in order to embark on a musical career.
more...Perry Miller (born November 22, 1941), known professionally as Jesse Colin Young, is an American singer and songwriter. He was a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s group the Youngbloods. After their dissolution in 1972, Young embarked on a solo career, releasing a series of successful albums through Warner Bros. Records, including Song for Juli (1973), Light Shine (1974), Songbird (1975) and the live album On the Road (1976). Young continued to release music in the 1980s with Elektra Records and Cypress Records, before deciding to release music through his personal label, Ridgetop Music, in 1993. After the Mount Vision Fire in 1995, Young relocated with his family to a coffee plantation in Hawaii, periodically releasing music. Young received a diagnosis of “chronic Lyme disease” in 2012, and decided to retire from music. He began performing again in 2016 with his son Tristan, releasing a new album Dreamers in 2019 through BMG.
Young’s song “Sunlight” was covered by Three Dog Night on their album Naturally (1970), and “Darkness, Darkness” by Robert Plant in 2002, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
Perry Miller was born and raised in Queens, New York, to musical parents both originally from Lynn, Massachusetts. His mother was a violinist and singer with perfect pitch, while his father was a Harvard educated accountant. Both of his parents had a passion for classical music, and encouraged Young to play, and he learned piano from a young age. In 1959, Young won a scholarship to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he studied classical guitar; however, he was expelled from the strict academy.
more...Ron McClure (born November 22, 1941) is an American jazz bassist.
McClure was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. He started on piano at age five, and later played accordion and bass. McClure studied privately with Joseph Iadone and, later, with Hall Overton and Don Sebesky. McClure attended the Hartt School of Music, graduating in 1963.
McClure worked in the Buddy Rich Sextet in 1963. He then joined Maynard Ferguson‘s big band and, afterwards, Herbie Mann in 1964; and then assumed the bass chair in the Wynton Kelly Trio vacated by Paul Chambers in 1965 (playing behind guitarist Wes Montgomery).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HI7z4BL_SE
more...James Minter Knepper (November 22, 1927 – June 14, 2003) was an American jazz trombonist. In addition to his own recordings as leader, Knepper performed and recorded with Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, Gil Evans, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin, and, most famously, Charles Mingus in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Knepper died in 2003 of complications of Parkinson’s disease.
Knepper was born in Los Angeles, California, United States, the second son of a nurse and a police officer. His parents divorced shortly after his birth, and his mother had to take her abusive husband to court in order to get child support. He and his older brother, Robert, were sent to several boarding and military schools, Page Military Academy and St. John’s Military Academy, while their mother worked. He picked up his first instrument, an alto horn, at the age of six while he was a pupil there. His first teacher persuaded him to put aside the alto and pick up the trombone because, as he said, he had a “trombone mouth”. He played his first professional gigs in Los Angeles, and traveled to Spokane, Washington, at the age of 15. He graduated high school, and later attended classes at Los Angeles Community College.
more...Stars can make beautiful patterns as they age — sometimes similar to flowers or insects. NGC 6302, the Butterfly Nebula, is a notable example. Though its gaseous wingspan covers over 3 light-years and its estimated surface temperature exceeds 200,000 degrees C, the aging central star of NGC 6302, the featured planetary nebula, has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in visible and ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This sharp close-up was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope and is processed here to show off remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula, highlighting in particular light emitted by oxygen (shown as blue), hydrogen (green), and nitrogen (red). NGC 6302 lies about 3,500 light-years away in thearachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). Planetary nebulas evolve from outer atmospheres of stars like our Sun, but usually fade in about 20,000 years.
more...
Alphonse Lee Mouzon (November 21, 1948 – December 25, 2016) was an American jazz fusion drummer and the owner of Tenacious Records, a label that primarily released Mouzon’s recordings. He was a composer, arranger, producer, and actor. He gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Mouzon, of African, French, and Blackfoot descent, was born on November 21, 1948, in Charleston, South Carolina. He received his first musical training at Bonds-Wilson High School, and moved to New York City upon graduation. He studied drama and music at the City College of New York, as well as medicine at Manhattan Medical School. He continued receiving drum lessons from Bobby Thomas, the drummer for jazz pianist Billy Taylor. He played percussion in the 1968 Broadwayshow Promises, Promises, and he then worked with pianist McCoy Tyner. He spent a year as a member of the jazz fusion band, Weather Report. After that Mouzon signed as a solo artist to the Blue Note label in 1972.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZ70TvliA8
more...Carlos Manuel “Charlie” Palmieri (November 21, 1927 – September 12, 1988) was an American bandleader and musical director of salsa music. He was known as the “Giant of the Keyboards”.
Palmieri’s parents migrated to New York from Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1926, and settled down in the South Bronx where Palmieri was born. As a child, Palmieri taught himself to play the piano by ear. He attended the public school system. At age seven, his father enrolled him at The Juilliard School, where he took piano lessons. By the time Palmieri was 14 years old, he and his five-year-old brother, Eddie, participated in many talent contests, often winning prizes. It was at this time that his godfather introduced him to the music of the Latin bands – an experience which inspired him to become a musician.
In 1943, when still only 16 years old and still in high school, he made his professional debut as a piano player for the Osario Selasie Band. He graduated from high school in 1946, and immediately went to play for various bands. He made his recording debut with the song “Se Va La Rumba” as a member of the Rafael Muñiz Band.
more...Nouhad Wadie’ Haddad (Arabic: نهاد وديع حداد, Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [nʊhæːd wædiːʕ ħædːæːd]; born November 21, 1934), known as Fairuz (Arabic: فيروز, Arabic pronunciation: [fajruːz]; also spelled Fairouz, Feyrouz or Fayrouz), is a Lebanese singer. She is considered by many as one of the leading vocalists and most famous singers in the history of the Arab world. Fairuz is considered the musical icon of Lebanon and is popularly known as “the soul of Lebanon”.
Fairuz began her musical career as a teenager at the national radio station in Lebanon in the late 1940s as a chorus member. Her first major hit, “Itab”, was released in 1952 and made her an instant star in the Arab world. In the summer of 1957, Fairuz held her first live performance at the Baalbeck International Festival where she was awarded with the honor of “Cavalier”, the highest medal for artistic achievement by Lebanese president Camille Chamoun. Fairuz’s fame spread throughout the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s, leading her to perform outside of Lebanon in various Arab capitals, including Damascus, Amman, Cairo, Rabat, Algiers, and Tunis.
She has received multiple tokens of recognition and awards throughout her career including the Key to the Holy City awarded by the Jerusalem Cultural Committee, the Jordanian Medal of Honor presented by King Hussein of Jordan, the French Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, the Highest Artistic Distinction, awarded by Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Throughout the years, she headlined at the most important venues in the world such as Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and United Nations General Assembly Lobby in New York, the Olympia and Salle Pleyel in Paris, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens.
In a career spanning over six decades, Fairuz has recorded nearly 1500 songs, released more than 80 albums, performed in 20 musicals and sold over 150 million records worldwide, making her the highest selling Middle-Eastern artist of all time and one of the best-selling music artists in the world.
more...Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969), nicknamed “Hawk” and sometimes “Bean”, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained: “there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn”. Hawkins biographer John Chilton described the prevalent styles of tenor saxophone solos prior to Hawkins as “mooing” and “rubbery belches.” Hawkins cited as influences Happy Caldwell, Stump Evans, and Prince Robinson, although he was the first to tailor his method of improvisation to the saxophone rather than imitate the techniques of the clarinet. Hawkins’ virtuosic, arpeggiated approach to improvisation, with his characteristic rich, emotional, and vibrato-laden tonal style, was the main influence on a generation of tenor players that included Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, Vido Musso, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, and Don Byas, and through them the later tenormen, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Ike Quebec, Al Sears, Paul Gonsalves, and Lucky Thompson. While Hawkins became known with swing music during the big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.
Fellow saxophonist Lester Young, known as the “President of the Tenor Saxophone,” commented, in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review: “As far as I’m concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the president, first, right? As far as myself, I think I’m the second one.” Miles Davis once said: “When I heard Hawk, I learned to play ballads.”
Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, United States, in 1904. He was named Coleman after his mother Cordelia’s maiden name. There is record of Hawkins’ parents’ first child, a girl, being born in 1901 and dying at the age of two.
more...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf2Q68-Mlqk
more...Sh2 -119 is a diffuse nebula in the constellation Cygnus .It locates about 2 degrees west of the North America Nebula , or 9 degrees west of the bright star Deneb ; it appears to envelop the fifth- magnitude star 68 Cygni . It can be observed with a medium power amateur telescope and shows very well in long exposure photographs.
Its shape appears similar to two shells that are arranged east and west of 68 Cygni; the eastern part is the most extensive. In the southern part, thin filaments and cocoons of dark nebulosities are visible , contrasting strongly both with the glow of the nebula and with the rich background star field. The distance of Sh2-119 is estimated at 2200 light years from us.
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