mick laBriola

A major winter storm is heading for Minnesota’s North Shore today — Thursday, Nov. 10 — with gale warnings up for western Lake Superior and waves reaching as high as 12 feet.

It’s just the kind of weather the iron ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sailed through out of the Twin Ports as it headed for its tragic end, 47 years ago on Nov. 10, 1975.

In memory of that fateful voyage, Split Rock Lighthouse northeast of Two Harbors will mark the anniversary tonight with its annual ceremony, including tolling a bell 29 times for the crew of the Fitzgerald, and then once more.

“They call it the muster of the last watch,” said Hayes Scriven, lighthouse site manager for the Minnesota Historical Society. “Usually when all the crew members go down on a ship they do this muster. So that still kind of recognizes them, that they’re here for their watch. And it’s our way of kind of paying respect to the people that had perished on the ship. And then we added a 30th bell toll for all the sailors that were lost on the Great Lakes.”

The ceremony is scheduled to start at about 4:30 p.m. today. It’s outdoors, and the weather is expected to be blustery: The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for the area through noon Friday. The ceremony will also stream on YouTube.

Scriven said the observance also includes lighting the lighthouse beacon at Split Rock.

It went out of official service in 1969 after nearly 60 years of guiding ships through what was once called “the most dangerous piece of water in the world.” The state acquired the site in 1971, eventually turning it into a museum and visitor landmark near Two Harbors, as well as a surrounding state park.

The landmark has been restored to its original operating condition, and the beacon will be lit Thursday night for a couple hours, shining across the November waves.

“We’ve kind of restored it back to its 1910 operation. We still run everything with a hand crank. Every two hours we need to rotate the crank again to make sure the lens is still spinning,” Scriven said. “It’s a third-order Fresnel lens with a 1,000 watt incandescent bulb in there. So it’s kind of like a big theater light that shines out 22 miles over the lake”.

Russell Charles Means (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012) was an Oglala Lakota activist for the rights of Native Americans, libertarian political activist, actor, musician, and writer. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968 and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.

Means was active in international issues of indigenous peoples, including working with groups in Central and South America and with the United Nations for recognition of their rights. He was active in politics at his native Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and at the state and national level.

Beginning an acting career in 1992, he appeared on numerous television series and in several films, including The Last of the Mohicans and Pocahontas and released his own music CD. Means published his autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread in 1995.

Bobby Rush (born Emmett Ellis Jr. in Homer, Louisiana on November 10, 1933) is an American blues musician, composer, and singer. His style incorporates elements of blues, rap, and funk.

Rush has won twelve Blues Music Awards and in 2017, at the age of 83, he won his first Grammy Award for the album Porcupine Meat. He is inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, and Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame.

Rush is the son of Emmett and Mattie Ellis. His father was a pastor whose guitar and harmonica playing provided early musical influences. As a young child he began experimenting with music using a sugarcane syrup bucket and a broom-wire diddley bow. Around 1947, he and the family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where his father took on the pastorate of a church and was a farmer.

It was here that Rush would become friends with Elmore James, the slide player Boyd Gilmore (James’s cousin), and the piano player Johnny “Big Moose” Walker; eventually forming a band to support his singing and harmonica and guitar playing. His band, Bobby Rush and the Four Jivers, consisted of Gilmore, Walker, Pinetop Perkins, and Robert Plunkett. Through Gilmore, Rush became friends with Clarksdale musician Ike Turner.

Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographer Chris Kelsey wrote: “Few free-jazz drummers play with a tenth of Cyrille’s grace and authority. His energy is unflagging, his power absolute, tempered only by an ever-present sense of propriety.”

Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, into a Haitian family. He began studying science at St. John’s University, but was already playing jazz in the evenings and switched his studies to the Juilliard School. His first drum teachers were fellow Brooklyn-based drummers Willie Jones and Lenny McBrowne; through them, Cyrille met Max Roach. Nonetheless, Cyrille became a disciple of Philly Joe Jones.

His first professional engagement was as an accompanist of singer Nellie Lutcher, and he had an early recording session with Coleman Hawkins. Trumpeter Ted Curson introduced him to pianist Cecil Taylor when Cyrille was 18.

Hubert Laws (born November 10, 1939) is an American flutist and saxophonist with a career spanning over 40 years in jazz, classical, and other music genres. Laws is one of the few classical artists who has also mastered jazz, pop, and rhythm-and-blues genres, moving effortlessly from one repertory to another.

Hubert Laws, Jr. was born November 10, 1939, in the Studewood section of Houston, Texas, the second of eight children to Hubert Laws, Sr. and Miola Luverta Donahue. Many of his siblings also entered the music industry, including saxophonist Ronnie and vocalists Eloise, Debra, and Johnnie Laws. He began playing flute in high school after volunteering to substitute for the school orchestra’s regular flutist. He became adept at jazz improvisation by playing in the Houston-area jazz group the Swingsters, which eventually evolved into the Modern Jazz Sextet, the Night Hawks, and The Crusaders. At the age of 15, he was a member of the early Jazz Crusaders while in Texas (1954–60), and also played classical music during those years.

Brazilian singer Gal Costa, one of the most influential artists in Brazil’s Tropicalia movement of the 1960s, died on Wednesday. She was 77 years old. Her death was confirmed by her press team to CNN affiliate CNN Brasil. Gal Costa’s official Instagram account also published a short statement Wednesday morning along with a black and white photo of the singer. “It is with deep sadness and a broken heart that we inform the death of singer Gal Costa this Wednesday morning, November 9th, in São Paulo. Details on her wake and funeral will be shared at a later date. We appreciate everyone’s caring thoughts during this very difficult time.” The cause of death was not confirmed by her press team, according to CNN Brasil. The singer had been recovering from a nasal surgical procedure over the last three weeks, according to a press release, CNN Brasil reported. Gal Costa (born Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos, 26 September 1945 – 9 November 2022) was a Brazilian singer of popular music. She was a principal figure of the tropicalia music scene in Brazil in the late 1960s and appeared on the acclaimed compilation Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses (1968).

November 9th 1977 Jamie has built a strong reputation throughout the UK and overseas, as a dynamic jazz guitarist and teacher. His playing has been heard at a long list of clubs and festivals, such as Ronnie Scott’s, The Vortex, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Oliver’s, Manchester Jazz Festival, NQ Jazz (Manchester), Birmingham Jazz, Wakefield Jazz, Sheffield Jazz, Leeds Jazz, RNCM, Stavanger Trad Festival (part of Mai Jazz), Scarborough Jazz Festival, The Blue Lamp (Aberdeen), Benningan’s (Londonderry/Derry), Bonington Theatre (Nottingham), and Lincoln Drill Hall amongst many others.

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Jamie appears frequently with drummer Sebastiaan DeKrom’s resident trio at the legendary Troubadour club in London’s Earl’s Court, usually alongside organist Pete Whittaker, or regular bassists Jeremy Brown and Steve Watts. Meanwhile, his collaboration with fellow guitarist Sam Dunn is a recurrent feature of Ronnie’s Scott’s ‘Two For The Road’ duo series. Jamie has also been privileged to work on a more occasional basis with many other excellent jazz musicians, among them Baptiste Herbin, Wayne Escoffery, Sheryl Bailey, John Stowell, John Goldsby, Bart DeFoort, Roni Ben-Hur, Steve Fishwick, Alan Barnes, Tori Freestone, and Richard Iles.

Jesse Davis (born November 9th, 1965) is an American jazz saxophonist. He began as a student in Ellis Marsalis‘s New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. After graduating, Davis embarked on a productive jazz career, recording eight albums on the Concord Jazz label, alongside collaborations with such artists as Jack McDuff and Illinois Jacquet. Davis has studied music at Northeastern Illinois University, and in 1989 he received a “Most Outstanding Musician award” from Down Beat magazine.

Kenny Cox (November 8, 1940 – December 19, 2008) was a jazz pianist performing in the post bop, hard bop and bebop mediums. Cox was pianist for singer Etta Jones during the 1960s and was also a member of a quintet led by trombonist George Bohannon. By the end of the late 1960s he had formed his own Kenny Cox and the Contemporary Jazz Quintet, which recorded two albums for Blue Note Records before the end of the decade. Cox has appeared as a contributor on various albums, and has also performed live with such musicians as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Eddie Harris, Jackie McLean, Roy Haynes, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Dorham, Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Roy Brooks, Charles McPherson, and Curtis Fuller. During the 1980s he formed the Detroit-based Guerilla Jam Band, a group which performed with Regina Carter, James Carter, Tani Tabbal, and Craig Taborn. Cox was responsible for the short-lived Strata Records.

He died in his Detroit home of lung cancer at the age of 68.