mick laBriola

Bennie Ross “Hank” Crawford, Jr. (December 21, 1934 – January 29, 2009 Memphis, TN) was an American alto saxophonist, pianist, arranger and songwriter whose genres ranged from R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, and soul jazz. Crawford was musical director for Ray Charles before embarking on a solo career releasing many well-regarded albums for labels such as Atlantic, CTI and Milestone.

When Crawford left Ray Charles in 1963 to form his own septet, he had already established himself with several albums for Atlantic Records. From 1960 until 1970, he recorded twelve LPs for the label, many while balancing his earlier duties as Ray’s director. He released such pre-crossover hits as “Misty“, “The Peeper”, “Whispering Grass“, and “Shake-A-Plenty”.

He also has done musical arrangement for Etta James, Lou Rawls, and others. Much of his career has been in R&B, but in the 1970s he had several successful jazz albums, with I Hear a Symphony reaching 11 on Billboard‘s Jazz albums list and 159 for Pop albums.

Friday December 20th Hiddur Tefillah Shabbat Service 630pm at Mt Zion St Paul. Music with Jennifer Struss-Klein, Tami Morse, mick laBriola and more.

Alan Parsons OBE (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician and record producer.

Parsons was the sound engineer on albums including the Beatles‘ Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be(1970), Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), and the eponymous debut album by Ambrosia in 1975. Parsons’s own group, the Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also been commercially successful. He has been nominated for 14 Grammy Awards, with his first win occurring in 2019 for Best Immersive Audio Album for Eye in the Sky (35th Anniversary Edition).

Soleá from Alcala

It is a slower and much more solemn version of this style. It was created by Joaquín el de la Paula, a Sevillian from Alcala de Guadaira and a former soldier in the American-Spanish War. Coming back from the war, he began to sing. It is believed that he came back with certain physical characteristics that provided his soleares, which he could never record, with its typical peacefulness. Juan Talega, the nephew of the former, is another great figure of this style. He became famous at the peak of his life.

Édith Giovanna Gassion (19 December 1915 – 10 October 1963), known as Édith Piaf ), was a French entertainer best known for performing songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres. She is widely regarded as France’s greatest popular singer and one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th century.

Piaf’s music was often autobiographical, and she specialized in chanson réaliste and torch ballads about love, loss and sorrow. Her most widely known songs include “La Vie en rose” (1946), “Non, je ne regrette rien” (1960), “Hymne à l’amour” (1949), “Milord” (1959), “La Foule” (1957), “L’Accordéoniste” (1940), and “Padam, padam…” (1951).

Having begun her career touring with her father at age fourteen, her fame increased during the German occupation of France and in 1945, Piaf’s signature song, “La Vie en rose” (‘life in pink‘) was published. She became France’s most popular entertainer in the late 1940s, also touring Europe, South America and the United States, where her popularity led to eight appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Piaf continued to perform, including several series of concerts at the Paris Olympia music hall, until a few months before her death in 1963 at age 47. Her last song, “L’Homme de Berlin”, was recorded with her husband in April 1963. Since her death, several documentaries and films have been produced about Piaf’s life as a touchstone of French culture.

Kermit Ruffins (born December 19, 1964) is an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer from New Orleans. He has been influenced by Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan and says that the highest note he can hit on trumpet is a high C. He often accompanies his songs with his own vocals. Most of his bands perform New Orleans jazz standards though he also composes many of his own pieces. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Ruffins is an unabashed entertainer who plays trumpet with a bright, silvery tone, sings with off-the-cuff charm and never gets too abstruse in his material.”

Leonard “Lenny” White III (December 19, 1949 – present NY,NY) is a fusion jazz drummer best known for his innovative contributions to the genre, in which he set musical standards that continue to influence musicians today. Throughout the course of his career, White was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s, and he has played with the likes of Miles Davis and Al Di Meola. White has been called “one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion”.

Though most popular in the earlier years of his career, White has received various awards, including three Grammys and one Latin Grammy, and has continued to receive recognition in more recent years. His song Algorithm Takedown won Best Song at the Cannes World Film Festival in 2023.

Robert Henry Timmons (December 19, 1935 – March 1, 1974 Philadelphia, PA) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He was a sideman in Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers for two periods (July 1958 to September 1959; February 1960 to June 1961), between which he was part of Cannonball Adderley‘s band. Several of Timmons’ compositions written when part of these bands – including “Moanin’“, “Dat Dere“, and “This Here” – enjoyed commercial success and brought him more attention. In the early and mid-1960s he led a series of piano trios that toured and recorded extensively.

Timmons was strongly associated with the soul jazz style that he helped initiate. This link to apparently simple writing and playing, coupled with drug and alcohol addiction, led to a decline in his career. Timmons died, aged 38, from cirrhosis. Several critics have commented that his contribution to jazz remains undervalued.

Henry Roeland “Roy” Byrd (December 19, 1918 – January 30, 1980), better known as Professor Longhair or “Fess” for short, was an American singer and pianist who performed New Orleans blues. He was active in two distinct periods, first in the heyday of early rhythm and blues and later in the resurgence of interest in traditional jazz after the founding of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1970. His piano style has been described as “instantly recognizable, combining rumba, mambo, and calypso”.

Music journalist Tony Russell (in his book The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray) wrote that “The vivacious rhumba-rhythmed piano blues and choked singing typical of Fess were too weird to sell millions of records; he had to be content with siring musical offspring who were simple enough to manage that, like Fats Domino or Huey “Piano” Smith. But he is also acknowledged as a father figure by subtler players like Allen Toussaint and Dr. John.