mick laBriola

Eugene Edward “Snooky” Young (February 3, 1919 – May 11, 2011 Dayton, OH) was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known for his mastery of the plunger mute, with which he was able to create a wide range of sounds.

Young was lead trumpeter of the Jimmie Lunceford band from 1939 to 1942. He played with Count Basie (three stints totalling eight years), Gerald Wilson and Lionel Hampton, among others, and was an original member of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band.

His longest engagement was with NBC, where, as a studio trumpeter, he joined The Tonight Show Band in 1967 and remained with them until 1992, when the band was replaced by a new, smaller group.

He was part of the touring ensemble, the “Now Generation Brass”, that traveled with Doc Severinsen, which included other jazz greats such as reed man Lew Tabackin, drummer Ed Shaughnessy, saxophonist & arranger Tommy Newsom as well as singer Robert Ozn. Young went on to performing live concert dates, corporate events, and headlining shows in the main rooms of Las Vegas. The one nighters usually occurred on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, as Severinsen was committed to The Tonight Show on weeknights.

John Watson Jr. (February 3, 1935 – May 17, 1996), often known professionally as

Johnny “Guitar” Watson, was an American musician. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, his recording career spanned 40 years, and encompassed rhythm and blues, funk and soul music.

Watson recorded throughout the 1950s and 1960s with some success. His 1954 instrumental single “Space Guitar” was the first of his recordings to showcase his electric guitar playing. His creative self-reinvention in the 1970s, with funk overtones, saw Watson have hits with “Ain’t That a Bitch” and “Superman Lover”. His highest charting single was 1977’s “A Real Mother for Ya”.

Lillian Hardin Armstrong (née Hardin; February 3, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader. She was the second wife of Louis Armstrong, with whom she collaborated on many recordings in the 1920s.

Her compositions include “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue”, “Don’t Jive Me”, “Two Deuces”, “Knee Drops”, “Doin’ the Suzie-Q”, “Just for a Thrill” (which was a hit when revived by Ray Charles in 1959), “Clip Joint”, and “Bad Boy” (a hit for the Jive Bombers in 1957). Armstrong was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2014.

Alphonso Johnson (born February 2, 1951 Philadelphia) is an American jazz bassist active since the early 1970s. Johnson was a member of the jazz fusion group Weather Report from 1973 to 1975, and has performed and recorded with numerous high-profile rock and jazz acts including Santana, Phil Collins, members of the Grateful Dead, Steve Kimock, and Chet Baker.

Graham William Nash OBE (born 2 February 1942) is an English-Americanmusician, singer and songwriter. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Nash is a photography collector, a published photographer, and digital image printing pioneer. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997 and as a member of the Hollies in 2010. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours List for services to music and to charity.

Nash holds four honorary doctorates, including one from the New York Institute of Technology, one in music from the University of Salford in 2011 and one in fine arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sonny Stitt (born Edward Hammond Boatner Jr.; February 2, 1924 – July 22, 1982 Boston) was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording more than 100 albums. He was nicknamed the “Lone Wolf” by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern because of his tendency to rarely work with the same musicians for long despite his relentless touring and devotion to the craft. Stitt was sometimes viewed as a Charlie Parker mimic, especially earlier in his career, but gradually came to develop his own sound and style, particularly when performing on tenor saxophone and even occasionally baritone saxophone.

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Growing up in the Midwest, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He studied at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in The Crisis magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in the creative community in Harlem. His first poetry collection, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926. Hughes eventually graduated from Lincoln University.

In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and published short story collections, novels, and several nonfiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement gained traction, Hughes wrote an in-depth weekly opinion column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender.

Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American jazz keyboardist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders in 1960, after which its name was shortened to “The Crusaders” in 1971. He remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991, and also the 2003 reunion album Rural Renewal.

Beginning in the late 1960s, he saw a successful solo career and guested on several recordings by other acts, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Michael Franks, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Anita Baker, and the Supremes. Sample incorporated gospel, blues, jazz, latin, and classical forms into his music.