mick laBriola

Soleares is perhaps the most important toque in the study of the Flamenco guitar. Soleares epitomizes the heart and soul of Flamenco music, embodying its vital core: rhythm and harmony. In fact, the rhythmic structure (‘compas’) plays such a central role, that when a guitarist truly masters the compas, he or she is well on the road toward becoming a skilled virtuoso in the art of Flamenco guitar. In Andalusia, the region of Spain where Flamenco got its start, every student of the Flamenco guitar begins with its study. Furthermore, Soleares is a foundational toque; many other toques have developed from its inspiration.  As a guitarist, learn to dominate this toque, absorbing its powerful momentum into your very bones. If it takes driving your friends and family nearly mad with hearing you play, do so, for it is the very nature of Flamenco music.

With respect to its origins, the roots of Soleares are uncertain and controversial, as so often is the case in Flamenco and other traditional art forms. The Triana district of Sevilla was probably the most influential center of its development. Other locations, however, have influenced Soleares, giving it their own distinctive flavors. Some historians claim that Canas and Polos are the oldest forms, others suggest that Soleares was earlier than those, claiming that its heritage came from more lighthearted toques which were used as accompaniments for dances. Today, however, the Toque por Soleares is solemn and majestic, rich in passion, whether used as a guitar solo, or as an accompaniment to song or dance.

The origin of the word ‘Soleares’ comes from the word ‘solea,’ whose origin is probably a corruption of ‘soledad,’ which means ‘solitude’ or ‘loneliness.’ The melancholy coplas (song-verses) of the cante can be ironically philosophical or romantic, but with the overarching themes of tragedy, desolation and death.

• Compas 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (accent on bold numbers)
• Originated in the mid 1800s
• Share the same compas as Allegris and Buleria
• Use the Phrygian Mode  in E major or A major tonalities
• Has regional variants from Cadiz, Seville, Cordoba, Jerez and others

Eddie Palmieri (born December 15, 1936) is an American Grammy Award-winning pianist, bandleader, musician, and composer of Puerto Rican ancestry. He is the founder of the bands La Perfecta, La Perfecta II, and Harlem River Drive.

Palmieri’s parents moved to New York from Ponce, Puerto Rico, in 1926 and settled in the South Bronx, a largely Jewish neighborhood. There, he and his elder brother Charlie Palmieri were born. He accompanied Charlie and participated in many talent contests when he was eight years old.

Palmieri continued his education in the city’s public school system where he was constantly exposed to jazz music. He took piano lessons and performed at Carnegie Hall at the age of eleven. Influenced by Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner, and inspired by his older brother, he determined to someday form his own band — which he accomplished in 1950 when he was fourteen years old. During the 1950s, Palmieri played in several bands including Tito Rodríguez‘s.

Curtis DuBois Fuller (December 15, 1932 – May 8, 2021) was an American jazz trombonist. He was a member of Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengersand contributed to many classic jazz recordings.

Fuller was born in Detroit on December 15, 1932. His father had emigrated from Jamaica and worked in a Ford automobile factory, but he died from tuberculosis before his son was born. His mother, who had moved north from Atlanta, died when he was 9. He spent several years in an orphanage run by Jesuits. He developed a passion for jazz after one of the nuns there brought him to see Illinois Jacquet and his band perform, with J. J. Johnson on trombone.

Barry Doyle Harris (December 15, 1929 – December 8, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. He was an exponent of the bebop style.

Edwin LeMar “Buddy” Cole (December 15, 1916 – November 5, 1964), was a jazz pianist, organist, orchestra leader, and composer. He played behind a number of pop singers, including Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby.

Cole was born in Irving, Illinois, on December 15, 1916 and the family moved to California when he was two. One of his two sisters – Bertie – played for silent movies and Buddy would watch as a little boy. At the age of ten, he deputised on the theater piano for someone who had not turned up. He started his musical career in the theater playing between movies and his first keyboard job was as theater organist at Los Angeles’ Figueroa Theater. He was recruited to be part of Gil Evans‘s band at the age of 19. In Hollywood in the second half of the 1930s Cole played in dance bands, including those led by Alvino Rey and Frankie Trumbauer. He married Yvonne King, member of the King Sisters, in 1940 and they had two daughters, Christine and Cathleen. They divorced in 1953. He married Regina Woodruff (known as Clare) on November 12, 1955 in Las Vegas but they separated on July 6, 1956 prior to a divorce on September 20 the same year.As soon as the divorce became final, Cole and Clare remarried in Los Angeles on November 12, 1957. From the 1940s, his main work was as a studio musician, utilising piano, electric organ, celeste, harpsichord and Novachord.

Phineas Newborn Jr. (December 14, 1931 – May 26, 1989) was an American jazz pianist, whose principal influences were Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Bud Powell.

Newborn was born in Whiteville, Tennessee, and came from a musical family: his father, Phineas Newborn Sr., was a drummer in blues bands, and his younger brother, Calvin, a jazz guitarist. He studied piano as well as trumpet, and tenor and baritone saxophone.

Before moving on to work with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, and others, Newborn first played in an R&B band led by his father on drums, with his brother Calvinon guitar, Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch and future Hi Records star Willie Mitchell. The group was the house band at the now famous Plantation Inn Club in West Memphis, Arkansas, from 1947 to 1951, and recorded as B. B. King‘s band on his first recordings in 1949, as well as the Sun Records sessions in 1950. They left West Memphis in 1951 to tour with Jackie Brenston as the “Delta Cats” in support of the record “Rocket 88“, recorded by Sam Phillips and considered by many to be the first ever rock & roll record (it was the first Billboard No. 1 record for Chess Records).

Leo Wright (December 14, 1933 in Wichita Falls, Texas – January 4, 1991 in Vienna) was an American jazz musician who played alto saxophone, flute and clarinet. He played with Charles Mingus, Booker Ervin, John Hardee, Kenny Burrell, Johnny Coles, Blue Mitchell and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1950s, early 1960s and in the late 1970s. Relocating to Europe in 1963, Wright settled in Berlin and later Vienna. During this time he performed and recorded primarily in Europe, using European musicians or fellow American expatriates, such as Kenny Clarke and Art Farmer. He died of a heart attack in 1991 at the age of 57.

Cecil Payne (December 14, 1922 – November 27, 2007) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist born in Brooklyn, New York. Payne also played the alto saxophone and flute. He played with other prominent jazz musicians, in particular Dizzy Gillespie and Randy Weston, in addition to his solo work as bandleader.

Payne received his first saxophone aged 13, asking his father for the instrument after hearing “Honeysuckle Rose” performed by Count Basie with Lester Youngsoloing. Payne took lessons from a local alto sax player, Pete Brown. He studied at Boys High School, Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Payne began his professional recording career with J. J. Johnson on the Savoy label in 1946. During that year he also began playing with Roy Eldridge, through whom he met Dizzy Gillespie. His earlier recordings would largely fall under the swing category, until Gillespie hired him. Payne stayed on board until 1949, heard performing solos on “Ow!” and “Stay On It”. In the early 1950s, he found himself working with Tadd Dameron, and worked with Illinois Jacquet from 1952 to 1954. He then started freelance work in New York City and frequently performed during this period with Randy Weston, whom Payne worked with until 1960. Payne was still recording regularly for Delmark Records in the 1990s, when he was in his seventies, and indeed on into the new millennium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS7RbZyWDsI

Clark Virgil Terry Jr (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator.

He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–51), Duke Ellington (1951–59), Quincy Jones (1960), and Oscar Peterson (1964–96). He was with The Tonight Show Band on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1972. His career in jazz spanned more than 70 years, during which he became one of the most recorded jazz musicians, appearing on over 900 recordings. Terry also mentored Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Dianne Reeves, and Terri Lyne Carrington.

Terry was born to Clark Virgil Terry Sr. and Mary Terry in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 14, 1920. He attended Vashon High School and began his professional career in the early 1940s, playing in local clubs. He served as a bandsman in the United States Navy during World War II. His first instrument was valve trombone.

Judge Kenneth Peterson (December 13, 1964 – May 17, 2020), known professionally as Lucky Peterson, was an American musician who played contemporary blues, fusing soul, R&B, gospeland rock and roll. He played guitar and keyboards. Music journalist Tony Russell, in his book The Blues – From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray has said, “he may be the only blues musician to have had national television exposure in short pants. Peterson’s father, bluesman James Peterson, owned a nightclub in Buffalo called The Governor’s Inn. The club was a regular stop for fellow bluesmen such as Willie Dixon. Dixon saw a five-year-old Lucky Peterson performing at the club and, in Peterson’s words, “Took me under his wing.” Months later, Peterson performed on The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show and What’s My Line?. Millions of people watched Peterson sing “1-2-3-4”, a cover version of “Please, Please, Please” by James Brown. At the time, Peterson said “his father wrote it”. Around this time he recorded his first album, Our Future: 5 Year Old Lucky Peterson, for Today/Perception Records and appeared on the public television show, Soul!

Majida El Roumi Baradhy (Arabic: ماجدة الرومي برادعي; born 13 December 1956) is a Lebanese soprano singer and United NationsGoodwill Ambassador. Majida El Roumi Al Baradhy was born on 13 December 1956 in Kfarshima. He father, Halim El Roumi, was from a Melkite Christian family from Tyre, South Lebanon, and her mother was Egyptian. Her father was born in Tyre in 1919 but later moved to Haifa, Palestine at the age of two with his whole family to avoid the hardships of World War I. Kfarshima is also home to many Lebanese singers, musicians and poets like Philimon Wehbe, Melhem Barakat and Issam Rajji. The El Roumi residence was a meeting place for many cultural figures as he worked with many singers. He is accredited with having discovered many well-known artists, mainly the Lebanese star Fairuz.