mick laBriola

“Soleá” is a flamenco singing style. “The Andonda”, a gypsy singer, was the first reference of this style. She was married with the singer “El Fillo”, who died in Sevilla in 1878. Oldest documents date from the 1850s, referring it as “La Soledad”. Sometimes as “soleá granaina”. In any case, these adjectives denote that this was very different from the current style. “Soleá” dancing is performed by an only dancer with great expressiveness. Movements can be typically feminine and are accompanied by “zapateado”. Dancer also draws attention moving his hips with seriousness and rudeness. Although “soleá” rhythm is heavy and slow, measure is similar to “bulerías” and “alegrías” (with other character). Considering music theory, rhythm would start on the pulse that is marked as 3, as way of following the lyrics of the song. Therefore, it would be a three beat rhythm with a changed accent, better said, a twelve pulse rhythm: 3+2+2+2+3.

Main “soleá” styles:

• Soleá de Triana.
• Soleá de Cádiz.
• Soleá de Jerez de la Frontera.
• Soleá de Alcalá de Guadaíra.
• Soleá de Utrera.
• Soleá de Córdoba.
• Soleá apolá (combines “polo” with “soleá”).
• Soleá por “bulería”s (harmony from “soleá” and rhythm from “bulería”).
• Soleá Grande (with four verses).
• Soleá de Cambio.
• Soleá Corta.
• Soleariya.
• Soleá de preparación (starting soleá).
• Soleá de Zurraque (typical of potters).

Babs Gonzales (October 27, 1919 – January 23, 1980 Newark, NJ), born Lee Brown, was an American bebop vocalist, poet, and self-published author His books portrayed the jazz world that many black musicians struggled in, portraying disk jockeys, club owners, liquor, drugs, and racism. “There are jazz people whose influence can be described as minor,” wrote Val Wilmer, “yet who are well-known to musicians and listeners alike … You’d have to be hard-pressed to ignore the wealth of legend that surrounds Babs Gonzales.” Jazz writer Jack Cooke explained that Gonzales “assumed the role of spokesman for the whole hipster world… [becoming] something more than just a good and original jazz entertainer: the incarnation of a whole social group.”

The Roches were an American vocal trio of sisters Maggie, Terre and Suzzy Roche, from Park Ridge, New Jersey.

In the late 1960s, eldest sister Maggie (October 26, 1951 – January 21, 2017) and middle sister Terre (pronounced “Terry”, born April 10, 1953) attended Park Ridge High School, but dropped out of school to tour as a duo. Maggie wrote most of the songs, with Terre contributing to a few. The sisters got a break when Paul Simonbrought them in as backup singers on his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. They got his assistance (along with an appearance by the Oak Ridge Boys) on their only album as a duo, Seductive Reasoning (1975).

William Earl “Bootsy” Collins (born October 26, 1951) is an American bass guitarist and singer.

Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s, and later with Parliament-Funkadelic, Collins established himself as one of the leading names and innovators in funk with his driving basslines and humorous vocals. He later formed his own P-Funk side project known as Bootsy’s Rubber Band. He was a frequent collaborator with other musicians from a variety of genres, including dance music (Deee-Lite‘s “Groove Is in the Heart“), electronic big beat (Fatboy Slim‘s “Weapon of Choice“), and alternative metal (Praxis), among others. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Collins number 4 in its list of the 50 greatest bassists of all time.

Collins was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 26, 1951. He said that his mother nicknamed him “Bootsy”. “I asked her why,” he explained to a journalist, “and she just said, ‘Because you looked like a Bootsy.’ I left it at that.”

His brother Phelps “Catfish” Collins (1943–2010) was also a musician. He and Bootsy were once part of James Brown’s backing band, The Pacemakers.

Milton Nascimento (Portuguese pronunciation: [‘miwtõ nasiˈmẽtu]; born October 26, 1942), also known as Bituca, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

He has toured across the world. Nascimento has won five Grammy Awards, including Best World Music Album in 1997.

Milton Nascimento was born in Rio de Janeiro. His mother, Maria Nascimento, was a maid. As a baby, Nascimento was adopted by a couple who were his mother’s former employers; Josino Brito Campos, a bank employee, mathematics teacher and electronic technician and Lília Silva Campos, a music teacher and choir singer. When he was 18 months old, Nascimento’s biological mother died, and he moved with his adoptive parents to the city of Três Pontas, in the state of Minas Gerais.

Eddie Henderson (born October 26, 1940) is an American jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of pianist Herbie Hancock‘s Mwandishi band, going on to lead his own electric/fusion groups through the decade. Henderson earned his medical degree and worked a parallel career as a psychiatrist and musician, turning back to acoustic jazz by the 1990s.

Henderson was born in New York City on October 26, 1940. At the age of nine he was given an informal lesson by Louis Armstrong, and he continued to study the instrument as a teenager in San Francisco, where he grew up, after his family moved there in 1954, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Charles Daly Barnet (October 26, 1913 – September 4, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.

His major recordings were “Skyliner”, “Cherokee“, “The Wrong Idea”, “Scotch and Soda”, “In a Mizz”, and “Southland Shuffle”.

Barnet was born in New York City, the son of Charline (Daly) and Willard Barnet. His parents divorced when he was two, and he was raised by his mother and her grandparents. His grandfather was Charles Frederick Daly, a vice-president for the New York Central Railroad, banker, and businessman.

Barnet attended boarding schools, both in the New York and Chicago areas. He learned to play piano and saxophone as a child. He often left school to listen to music and to try to gain work as a musician. Although his family wanted him to become a lawyer, he chose to be a musician instead.

Bassam Saba (26 October 1958 – 4 December 2020) was a Lebanese musician and a promoter of Arabic music in the west. He was a co-founder of the New York Arabic Orchestra and the director of Lebanon’s national conservatory of music. He died of complications from COVID-19 in Beirut, Lebanon on December 4, 2020.

Saba was born on 26 October 1958, in Tripoli, Lebanon. His father, Antoine Saba, worked for an oil company. His mother, Delena Saba, was a homemaker. His family was musical, and his older siblings taught him to play the nay. At the outset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1976 he went to Paris to study music at the Conservatoire Municipal des Gobelins in Paris, where he earned his BA in Western Classical Music and Flute Performance, and the Gnessin School in Moscow, where he received a master’s degree in Western Flute Performance and Music Education. He then moved to the United States and settled in Northport, New York.

Earl Cyril Palmer (October 25, 1924 – September 19, 2008) was an American drummer. Considered one of the inventors of rock and roll, he is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Palmer was one of the most prolific studio musicians of all time and played on thousands of recordings, including nearly all of Little Richard‘s hits, all of Fats Domino‘s hits, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” by the Righteous Brothers, and a long list of classic TV and film soundtracks. According to one obituary, “his list of credits read like a Who’s Who of American popular music of the last 60 years”.

Georges Bizet Alexandre César Léopold Bizet; 25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire.

During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were abandoned. Neither of his two operas that reached the stage in this time—Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth—were immediately successful.

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, during which Bizet served in the National Guard, he had little success with his one-act opera Djamileh, though an orchestral suite derived from his incidental music to Alphonse Daudet‘s play L’Arlésienne was instantly popular. The production of his final opera, Carmen, was delayed because of fears that its themes of betrayal and murder would offend audiences. After its premiere on 3 March 1875, Bizet was convinced that the work was a failure; he died of a heart attack three months later, unaware that it would prove a spectacular and enduring success.

Bizet’s marriage to Geneviève Halévy was intermittently happy and produced one son. After his death, his work, apart from Carmen, was generally neglected. Manuscripts were given away or lost, and published versions of his works were frequently revised and adapted by other hands. He founded no school and had no obvious disciples or successors. After years of neglect, his works began to be performed more frequently in the 20th century. Later commentators have acclaimed him as a composer of brilliance and originality whose premature death was a significant loss to French musical theatre.