mick laBriola

The arms of the spiral galaxy M74 are studded with rosy pink regions of fresh star formation in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. M74 — also known as the Phantom Galaxy — lies around 32 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pisces, and is a familiar sight for Hubble.The beautiful reddish blooms that spread throughout M74 are huge clouds of hydrogen gas which are made to glow by the ultraviolet radiation from hot, young stars embedded within them. These regions — which astronomers refer to as H II regions — mark the location of recent star formation and are an important target for both space- and ground-based telescopes. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, which collected the data in this image, even has a filter designed to pick out only this specific red wavelength of light! The data in this image come from a set of observations exploring the evolution of local spiral galaxies such as M74, which aim to gain insights into the history of star formation in these spirals. To do this astronomers examined star clusters to date the different parts of spiral galaxies, enabling them to understand how the galaxies assembled over time. They also explored the distribution of dust in spiral galaxies; this dust is visible in this image as the dark threads winding along the spiral arms of M74. Aside from their quest to understand the history of spiral galaxies, astronomers also observed M74 to complement observations from other telescopes. Combining observations of the same object from different telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum gives astronomers far more insight than observations from a single telescope would. Hubble’s observations also paved the way for future instruments; M74 was one of the first targets of the powerful new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Links Image B Image C

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009 Gary,IN) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the “King of Pop“, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres; through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated dance moves such as the moonwalk, to which he gave the name, as well as the robot. He is the most awarded individual music artist in history.

The eighth child of the Jackson family, Jackson made his professional debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 (later known as the Jacksons). Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown Records. He became a solo star with his 1979 album Off the Wall. His music videos, including those for “Beat It“, “Billie Jean“, and “Thriller” from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an artform and promotional tool. He helped propel the success of MTV and continued to innovate with videos for the albums Bad (1987), Dangerous(1991), and HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995). Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, while Bad was the first album to produce five U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles.

From the late 1980s, Jackson became a figure of controversy and speculation due to his changing appearance, relationships, behavior, and lifestyle. In 1993, he was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend. The lawsuit was settled out of civil court; Jackson was not indicted due to lack of evidence. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges. The FBI found no evidence of criminal conduct on Jackson’s behalf in either case. In 2009, while preparing for a series of comeback concerts, This Is It, Jackson died from an overdose of propofol administered by his personal physician, Conrad Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter.

Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 400 million records worldwide. He had 13 Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era) and was the first artist to have a top-ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades. He is regarded by the RIAA as the highest-selling individual music artist of all time worldwide. His honors include 15 Grammy Awards, 6 Brit Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and 39 Guinness World Records, including the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time”. Jackson’s inductions include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice), the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Dance Hall of Fame (the only recording artist to be inducted), and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. In 2016, his estate earned $825 million, the highest yearly amount for a celebrity ever recorded by Forbes. On June 25, 2009, less than three weeks before the first This Is It show was due to begin in London, with all concerts sold out, Jackson died from cardiac arrest, caused by a propofol and benzodiazepine overdose.

Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed “Bird” or “Yardbird“, was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was an extremely fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker’s tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. He was known for the very clear, sweet and articulate notes he could produce from the saxophone.

Parker acquired the nickname “Yardbird” early in his career on the road with Jay McShann. This, and the shortened form “Bird”, continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as “Yardbird Suite“, “Ornithology“, “Bird Gets the Worm”, and “Bird of Paradise”. Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.

Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, at 852 Freeman Avenue, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, near Westport and later – in high school – near 15th and Olive St. to Charles Parker Sr. and Adelaide “Addie” Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African-American background. He attended Lincoln High School in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, just before joining the local musicians’ union and choosing to pursue his musical career full-time. His childhood sweetheart and future wife, Rebecca Ruffin, graduated from Lincoln High School in June 1935.

Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his high school band where he studied under Bandmaster Alonzo Lewis. His mother purchased a new alto saxophone around the same time. His father was often required to travel for work, but provided some musical influence because he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit. He later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways. Parker’s mother Addie worked nights at the local Western Union office. His biggest influence at that time was a young trombone player named Robert Simpson, who taught him the basics of improvisation.

Daughter, sister, wife, mom & LMFT therapist. Happy Birthday to my stunning daughter.

The Pleiades also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky.

Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146, the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide. Climbing high in northern summer night skies, it’s located some 4,000 light years away toward the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Like other star forming regions, it stands out in red, glowing, hydrogen gas excited by young, hot stars, and dust-reflected starlight at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud. In fact, the bright star found near the center of this nebula is likely only a few hundred thousand years old, powering the nebular glow as it clears out a cavity in the molecular cloud’s star forming dust and gas. A 29 hour long integration with a small telescope from Ayr, Ontario, Canada resulted in this exceptionally deep color view tracing tantalizing features within and surrounding the dusty stellar nursery.

Alice Coltrane (née McLeod; August 27, 1937 – January 12, 2007), also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was an American jazzmusician and composer, and in her later years a swamini. An accomplished pianist and one of the few harpists in the history of jazz, she recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other record labels. She was married to jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, with whom she performed in 1966–1967. One of the foremost exponents of spiritual jazz, her eclectic music proved widely influential both within and outside the world of jazz.

Coltrane’s professional music career slowed from the mid 1970s as she became more dedicated to her religious education. She founded the Vedantic Center in 1975 and the Shanti Anantam Ashram in California in 1983, where she served as spiritual director. On July 3, 1994, Swamini rededicated and inaugurated the land as Sai Anantam Ashram. During the 1980s and 1990s, she recorded several albums of Hindu devotional songs before returning to jazz in the 2000s.

Coltrane was born Alice McLeod on August 27, 1937, in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in a musical household. Her mother, Anna McLeod, was a member of the choir at her church; her half-brother, Ernest Farrow, became a jazz bassist; and her younger sister, Marilyn McLeod, became a songwriter at Motown. With the encouragement of her father, Alice McLeod pursued music and started to perform in various clubs around Detroit, until moving to Paris in the late 1950s. She studied classical music, and also jazz with Bud Powell in Paris, where she worked as the intermission pianist at the Blue Note Jazz Club in 1960. It was there that McLeod appeared on French television in a performance with Lucky Thompson, Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke.