mick laBriola

Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the “Sentimental Gentleman of Swing” because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. His theme song was “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You“. His technical skill on the trombone gave him renown among other musicians. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s. He is best remembered for standards such as “Opus One“, “Song of India“, “Marie”, “On Treasure Island”, and his biggest hit single, “I’ll Never Smile Again“. Dorsey died on November 26, 1956, at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, a week after his 51st birthday. He had begun taking sleeping pills regularly at this time, causing him to become heavily sedated; he choked to death in his sleep after having eaten a large meal. Jimmy Dorsey led his brother’s band until his own death from throat cancer the following year. At that point, trombonist Warren Covington became leader of the band with Jane Dorsey’s blessing as she owned the rights to her late husband’s band and name.

Born in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. was the second of four children born to Thomas Francis Dorsey Sr., a bandleader, and Theresa (née Langton) Dorsey.

Performing at Mt Zion Temple November 18th 2022 630pm for Shabbat for the Soul

Cindy Blackman Santana (born November 18, 1959), sometimes known as Cindy Blackman, is an American jazz and rock drummer. Blackman has recorded several jazz albums as a bandleader and has performed with Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Ron Carter, Sam Rivers, Cassandra Wilson, Angela Bofill, Buckethead, Bill Laswell, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Henderson and Joss Stone.

Born November 18, 1959, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, her mother and grandmother were classical musicians and her uncle a vibist. When Cindy was a child, her mother took her to classical concerts.

Hank Ballard (born John Henry Kendricks; November 18, 1927 – March 2, 2003) was an American singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of The Midnightersand one of the first rock and roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s. He played an integral part in the development of the genre, releasing the hit singles “Work With Me, Annie” and answer songs “Annie Had a Baby” and “Annie’s Aunt Fannie” with his Midnighters. He later wrote and originally recorded (in 1959) “The Twist” which was notably covered a year later by Chubby Checker, this second version spreading the popularity of the dance. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Born John Henry Kendricks in Detroit, Michigan, he and his brother, Dove Ballard, grew up and attended school in Bessemer, Alabama, after the death of their father.

Donald Eugene Cherry (November 18, 1936 – October 19, 1995) was an American jazz trumpeter. Cherry had a long association with free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, which began in the late 1950s. He also performed alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler.

In the 1970s, Cherry became a pioneer in world fusion music, drawing on traditional African, Middle Eastern, and Hindustani music. He was a member of the ECMgroup Codona, along with percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. AllMusic called him “one of the most influential jazz musicians of the late 20th century.”

Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to a mother of Choctaw descent and an African-American father. His mother and grandmother played piano and his father played trumpet. His father owned Oklahoma City’s Cherry Blossom Club, which hosted performances by Charlie Christian and Fletcher Henderson. In 1940, Cherry moved with his family to Los Angeles, California.

Tango flamenco is a lively four count cante chico palo characterized by a heavily accented rhythm and clear, sharply defined rasgueado. It is very similar to the flamenco rumba. The two forms are distinguished primarily by the guitar: in tango, the beat is crisply marked by the tocaor(guitar player), in rumba the guitar is played in a more continuous, rolling manner.

Tango flamenco has no musically discernable relationship to Argentine tango (a common point of linguistic confusion), though both forms are the result of multiple trans-atlantic exchanges in the colonial era. Tango flamenco has, however, a distinctly flamenco character. As tango became part of the flamenco repertoire in the 19th century, elements of older flamenco forms were folded into it, including letras from twelve-count solea, which were re-shaped to fit tango’s four count compas.

Tango is usually played either por media (on the fifth string in A phyrgian, relative to the capo) or por arriba (on the fifth string in E phyrgian, relative to the capo). Its compas is a simple four-count, with accents on the 2, 3, and 4:

November 17th

Lyrically-gifted veteran guitarist/composer/band leader Jaime Valle has refused to allow his growing success of the last several years slow him down. No mold decorates Valle’s frequent treks from Tutto Mare in UTC on Wednesdays to the U. S. Grant Hotel downtown on Saturdays, to La Jolla’s Lime Leaf Grill on numerous Thursdays or Fridays, as well as an occasional jaunt up to Nieman’s or to the Coyote Bar in Carlsbad (and countless casual gigs all over San Diego county) in between.

Valle also holds forth for Sunday brunches at Sally’s in downtown San Diego and admits that he enjoys the rapartee of playing with bassists such as Chris Conner and Bob Magnusson since both have spent time in the company of musical heavyweights whose influence informs their work and makes the job of creating “duo music” an exercise in versatility.

Versatile is a term that captures Jaime Valle’s professional outlook. He carves out a ferocious weekly schedule, playing Latin jazz and straight-ahead jazz. He books several local clubs. And he writes music for movies and for commercials. “Those are jingles,” he notes, “some people call them that, or worse, but the trick is to make these little tunes rise to the level of listenable songs that hook you.” He chuckles when he says these words. Valle is a musician whose infectious good taste and well- acknowledged sense of humor on stage attract new admirers to his ever-expanding fan base.

“We have had full houses at the Grant Grill pretty much ongoing now for three or four years and these people come to hear my band smoke, see? This is serious business,” he adds. “Saturday night crowds do not want wallpaper music. They want dynamite, nitroglycerine, the musical equivalent of the hydrogen bomb. Our fans in San Diego are the greatest anywhere. They love a good time. My band ‘Equinox’ is there in living color to blast off and let them have it.”

Jaime Valle’s playing exists in living color – as concocted by a manic combination of guitarist Jimmy Raney, comedian Sid Cesar, and choreographer Tito Puente. When Valle gets cranked up, he’s likely to dance across the enclosed stage at the Grant Grill, rooted on by veteran bartenders, Jerry and Bubba, as well as a swirling throng pressing the stage railings with their gyrating salsa steps and vocal enthusiasm. “All in a Saturday night’s job,” he claims. “The energy is there, you can touch it.” Valle pauses, quiet with calm inflection. “The energy is everywhere people are happy, full of life, and just plain hip. Our job as musicians is to play the best music possible and make sure that folks feel it. If we do that, they get their money’s worth. I try to make certain the whole room gets more than they expect. I want to send people into the streets dancing. I want them exhausted by the sheer joy of being with us doing our thing to the max – dig it?” Valle arches his eyebrow and you know you dig precisely what he means.

David Werner Amram III (born November 17, 1930) is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of orchestral, chamber, and choral works, many with jazz flavorings. He plays piano, French horn, Spanish guitar, and pennywhistle, and sings.

Amram was born in Philadelphia, the son of legal scholar Philip Werner Amram. He studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1948–1949, and earned a bachelor’s degree in European history from George Washington University in 1952. In 1955 he enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied under Dimitri Mitropoulos, Vittorio Giannini, and Gunther Schuller. Under Schuller he studied French horn.

Jack Owens (November 17, 1904 – February 9, 1997) was an American blues singer and guitarist, from Bentonia, Mississippi.

Owens was born L. F. Nelson. His mother was Celia Owens; his father was George Nelson, who abandoned his family when Jack was 5 or 6 years old. After that time, he was raised by the Owens family with his maternal grandfather, the father of eight children, according to the 1910 census, two of whom shared the Nelson name. (This does not account for two more children born after that census.) While very young, Owens learned some chords on the guitar from his father and an uncle. He also learned to play the fife, fiddle, and piano while still a child, but his chosen instrument was the guitar.

Diana Jean Krall OC OBC (born November 16, 1964) is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, including over six million in the US. On December 11, 2009, Billboard magazine named her the second greatest jazz artist of the decade (2000–2009), establishing her as one of the best-selling artists of her time.

Krall is the only jazz singer to have had eight albums debuting at the top of the Billboard Jazz Albums. To date, she has won three Grammy Awards and eight Juno Awards. She has also earned nine gold, three platinum, and seven multi-platinum albums.

Hubert Charles Sumlin (November 16, 1931 – December 4, 2011) was a Chicago blues guitarist and singer, best known for his “wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic suspensions” as a member of Howlin’ Wolf‘s band. He was ranked number 43 in Rolling Stone‘s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

Sumlin was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and raised in Hughes, Arkansas. He got his first guitar when he was eight years old. As a boy, he met Howlin’ Wolf by sneaking into a performance.

Wolf relocated from Memphis to Chicago in 1953, but his longtime guitarist Willie Johnson chose not to join him. In Chicago, Wolf hired the guitarist Jody Williams, but in 1954 he invited Sumlin to move to Chicago to play second guitar in his band. Williams left the band in 1955, leaving Sumlin as the primary guitarist, a position he held almost continuously (except for a brief spell playing with Muddy Waters around 1956) for the remainder of Wolf’s career. According to Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf sent him to a classical guitar instructor at the Chicago Conservatory of Music to learn keyboards and scales. Sumlin played on the album Howlin’ Wolf (called the “rocking chair album”, with reference to its cover illustration), which was named the third greatest guitar album of all time by Mojo magazine in 2004.