mick laBriola

Poncho Sánchez (born Ildefonso Sanchez, October 30, 1951 Loredo, TX) is an American conguero(conga player), Latin jazz band leader, and salsa singer. In 2000, he and his ensemble won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album for their work on the Concord Picante album Latin Soul. Sanchez has performed with artists including Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaría, Hugh Masekela, Clare Fischer, and Tower of Power.

In 1975, Sanchez’s idol, vibraphonist Cal Tjader, invited him to perform a set with his band. Seeing the young man’s talent, Tjader hired Sanchez for a week before officially making him a full member of the ensemble. Sanchez played a crucial role as conguero for several years until Tjader’s death in 1982.

Before he died, Tjader suggested that Concord Records founder Carl Jefferson sign Sanchez and his soon-to-be-formed group under the Concord Picante label. Tjader’s wishes were honored, and the first two records were composed and arranged by long-time Tjader collaborator Clare Fischer. Sanchez went on to produce 19 albums for the label, eventually garnering a Grammy for his work.

AllMusic described Sanchez as “among the most influential percussionists in jazz.” He has been performing frequently in venues varying in size from concert halls to local jazz festivals. His 2005 CD, Do It!, features the funk band Tower of Power on two tracks, as well as South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela.

Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956 Wilmington, DE) was an American jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash,leaving behind four years’ worth of recordings. His compositions “Sandu”, “Joy Spring”, and “Daahoud” have become jazz standards. Brown won the DownBeat magazine Critics’ Poll for New Star of the Year in 1954; he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1972.

One of the most notable developments during Brown’s period in New York was the formation of Art Blakey‘s Quintet, which would become the Jazz Messengers. Blakey formed the band with Brown, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, and Curley Russell, and recorded the quintet’s first album live at the Birdlandjazz club. During one of the rehearsal sessions, fellow trumpeter Miles Davis listened and joked about Clifford Brown’s technical ability to play the trumpet. The live recording session ultimately spanned two days with multiple takes needed on only a couple of the tunes.

A week at Club Harlem in May 1952 featured alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and Brown. Brown later noted that Parker was impressed by his playing, saying privately to the young trumpeter “I don’t believe it.”

Just before the formation of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, journalist Nat Hentoff and Brown interviewed for a DownBeat article titled “Clifford Brown – the New Dizzy”.

The Cuban Music Institute confirmed the death of Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal, renowned trumpeter of the Buena Vista Social Club, on October 28 via a statement on its Facebook page.

Born in 1933, Mirabal was a towering figure in Cuban music, dedicating over 70 years to his career. He was the founder of the Orquesta Tropicana and performed with prominent ensembles, including the Orquesta Casino, Cabaret Parisién Orchestra, Hotel Nacional Orchestra, ICRT Orchestra, Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, and both the National Revolutionary Militia and Army ceremonial bands. He was celebrated for his virtuosity on the trumpet.

Throughout his career, Mirabal collaborated with international artists like salsa star Oscar D’León, who coined the nickname “El Guajiro de Cuba” during a 1980 visit to Havana. Mirabal was an early member of the Afro-Cuban All Stars and rose to global prominence with Buena Vista Social Club, earning a Grammy in 1998 for the group’s debut album, which became the best-selling Cuban record in history. Mirabal also appeared in Wim Wenders’ documentary Buena Vista Social Club, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999.

In 2004, British label World Circuit Records released Buena Vista Social Club Presents Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal, marking his solo debut.

Willem Bernard “Pim” Jacobs (29 October 1934 – 3 July 1996) was a Dutch jazz pianist, composer and television presenter.

Jacobs was born on 29 October 1934 in Hilversum, the Netherlands. His parents were artistic. He started playing the piano at the age of six. His brother, Ruud, was born in 1938 and became a jazz bassist. Pim and Ruud formed a trio with drummer Wessel Ilcken in 1954. The band grew with the addition of guitarist Wim Overgaauw and Ilcken’s wife, Rita Reys. The trio recorded with Herbie Mann in 1956.Following Ilcken’s death in 1957, Pim Jacobs and Reys performed as a duo or trio with Overgaauw, and married in 1960. They often recorded and played jazz festivals in Europe and New Orleans, “their typical program featuring arrangements of vocal music standards as well as bebop material”. He also composed film music.

Peter Allen Greenbaum (29 October 1946 – 25 July 2020), known professionally as Peter Green, was an English blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. Green founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 after a stint in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and quickly established the new band as a popular live act in addition to a successful recording act, before departing in 1970. Green’s songs, such as “Albatross“, “Black Magic Woman“, “Oh Well“, “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)” and “Man of the World“, appeared on singles charts, and several have been adapted by a variety of musicians.

Green was a major figure in the “second great epoch” of the British blues movement. Eric Claptonpraised his guitar playing, and B.B. King commented, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” His trademark sound included string bending, vibrato, emotionally expressive tone, and economy of style.

In June 1996, Green was voted the third-best guitarist of all time in Mojo magazine. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked him at number 58 in its list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. Green’s tone on the instrumental “The Supernatural” was rated as one of the 50 greatest of all time by Guitar Player in 2004.

Michael Ponti (29 October 1937 – 17 October 2022) was a German-American classical pianist. He was the first to record the complete piano works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. He made more than 80 recordings, around 50 of rarely played concertos from the Romantic period, often the only recording of these works at the time. He played and recorded chamber music with his Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio.

John Haley “Zoot” Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985 Englewood, CA) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the “Four Brothers” sax section of Woody Herman‘s big band, afterward enjoying a long solo career, often in partnership with fellow saxmen Gerry Mulligan and Al Cohn.

Richard Bona (born 28 October 1967) is a Cameroon-born American multi-instrumentalist and singer.

Bona Penda Nya Yuma Elolo was born in Minta, Cameroon, into a family of musicians, which enabled him to start learning music from a young age. His grandfather was a griot – a West African singer of praise and storyteller – and percussionist, as his mother was a singer. When he was four years old, Bona started to play the balafon. At the age of five, he began performing at his village church. Not being wealthy, Bona made many of his own instruments: including flutes and guitars (with cords strung over an old motorcycle tank).

His talent was quickly noticed, and he was often invited to perform at festivals and ceremonies. Bona began learning to play the guitar at the age of 11, and in 1980, aged just 13, he assembled his first ensemble for a French jazz club in Douala. The owner befriended him and helped him discover jazz music, in particular that of Jaco Pastorius, which inspired Bona to switch his focus to the electric bass.

Bona emigrated to Germany at the age of 22 to study music in Düsseldorf, soon relocating to France, where he furthered his studies in music.

While in France, he regularly played in various jazz clubs, sometimes with players such as Manu Dibango, Salif Keita, Jacques Higelin and Didier Lockwood.

In 1995, Bona left France and established himself in New York, where he still lives and works. In New York he played bass guitar with artists including Joe Zawinul, Larry Coryell, Michael and Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, George Benson, Branford Marsalis, Chaka Khan, Bobby McFerrin, and Steve Gadd.

Tuck Andress is a guitarist born October 25, 1952 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Best known as half of the guitar/vocal duo, Tuck & Patti. Considered one of the finest guitarists in the world, his masterful fingerpicking technique allows him to sound as if three separate guitars are playing at once.

Tuck Andress and his wife, Patti Cathcart Andress,(Tuck and Patti) have released several albums on the Windham Hill label, as well as on Epic Records and 33rd Street Records. The duo has been very successful with multiple albums hitting the top ten on the Contemporary Jazz Charts.

Andress used to be a session performer for The Gap Band.

His neice is singer-songwriter Annie Clark who performs under the name St. Vincent.

Keith Anderson CD (28 October 1944 – 27 March 2020), better known by the stage name Bob Andy, was a Jamaican reggae vocalist and songwriter. He was widely regarded as one of reggae’s most influential songwriters.

Bob Andy was one of the founding members of The Paragons, along with Tyrone Evans and Howard Barrett, with John Holt later joining briefly before being replaced by Vic Taylor. Andy left after Holt rejoined and worked for Studio One delivering records and songwriting before embarking on a solo career.

His first solo hit record in 1967, “I’ve Got to Go Back Home”, was followed by “Desperate Lover”, “Feeling Soul”, “Unchained”, and “Too Experienced”. He also composed songs for other reggae artists, including “I Don’t Want to See You Cry” for Ken Boothe, and “Feel Like Jumping”, “Truly”, and “Melody Life” for Marcia Griffiths. He had several hits in the late 1960s, including “Going Home”, “Unchained”, “Feeling Soul”, “My Time”, “The Ghetto Stays in the Mind”, and “Feel the Feeling”. Some of these, and his 1992 hit, “Fire Burning”, have come to be regarded as reggae standards and several have been covered several times by other artists.

In the early 1970s, he recorded with Marcia Griffiths as Bob and Marcia, initially for Studio One, but later under producer “Harry J” Johnson‘s tutelage.They had a major hit in the UK with “Young, Gifted and Black” (with orchestral backing added for the UK market) and spent time there promoting it, touring with Elton John and Gilbert O’Sullivan. When the tour ended they were still not getting any money, and were told by people in England that Harry J had got the cash. They returned to Jamaica. Andy said “when we left Jamaica, Harry J did not have a studio. When we came back, he had a studio and a brand new Benz.”

Glen Moore (born October 28, 1941) is an American jazz bassist, who occasionally performs on piano, flute and violin.

Moore was born in Portland, Oregon, United States. His performing career began at age 14 with the Young Oregonians in Portland, where he met and played with Native American saxophonist, Jim Pepper. He graduated with a degree in History and Literature from the University of Oregon. His formal bass instruction started after college with Jerome Magil in Portland, James Harnett in Seattle, Gary Karr in New York, Plough Christenson in Copenhagen, Ludwig Streicher in Vienna and Francois Rabbath in Hawaii. His main instrument is an upright bass which was made by Klotz in Tyrol around 1715. He mostly plays it in a personal unique tuning, using a low and a high C string.

Moore is a founding member of Oregon, but worked also regularly with Rabih Abou-Khalil, Vasant Rai, Nancy King and Larry Karush.