mick laBriola

The North America Nebula is a large emission nebula that can be found in the constellation of the swan: Cygnus. Just like most other famous nebulae in the night sky, NGC 7000 got its name from its shape, which reminds us of of the continent of North America. Central America is also part of it, it actually makes the most popular section of this object: The Cygnus Wall.

Object Designation: NGC 7000, Sh2-117, Caldwell 20

Also known as: The North America Nebula

Constellation: Cygnus

Object Type: Emission Nebula

Distance: 2,600 light-years away

Magnitude: 4

Discovered in: 1786 by William Herschel

Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker (19 August 1939 – 6 October 2019) was an English drummer, composer, songwriter, and a co-founder and occasional vocalist of the rock band Cream. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of “rock’s first superstar drummer”, for a style that melded jazz and African rhythmsand pioneered both jazz fusion and world music.

Baker gained early fame as a member of Blues Incorporated and the Graham Bond Organisation, both times alongside bassist Jack Bruce, with whom Baker would often clash. In 1966, Baker and Bruce joined guitarist Eric Clapton to form Cream, which achieved worldwide success but lasted only until 1968, in part due to Baker’s and Bruce’s volatile relationship. After briefly working with Clapton in Blind Faith and leading Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Baker spent several years in the 1970s living and recording in Africa, often with Fela Kuti, in pursuit of his long-time interest in African music. Among Baker’s other collaborations are his work with Gary Moore, Masters of Reality, Public Image Ltd, Hawkwind, Atomic Rooster, Bill Laswell, jazz bassist Charlie Haden, jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and Ginger Baker’s Energy.

Baker’s drumming is regarded for its style, showmanship, and use of two bass drums instead of the conventional one. In his early days, he performed lengthy drum solos, most notably in the Cream song “Toad“, one of the earliest recorded examples in rock music. Baker was an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Cream in 1993, of the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2008, and of the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2016. Baker was noted for his eccentric, often self-destructive lifestyle, and he struggled with heroin addiction for many years. He was married four times and fathered three children.

Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwise dark large molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away. Born in that region only a few million years ago, the massive young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association sculpt the fantastic shapes and power the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas. With image data from the Chilescope Observatory, a false-color Hubble palette was used to create this gorgeous wide-field image and shows emission from sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in red, green, and blue hues. The field of view spans about four full Moons, corresponding to about 150 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188.

Curtis Jones (August 18, 1906 – September 11, 1971) was an American blues pianist. Jones was born in Naples, Texas, United States, to sharecropping parents, and played guitar whilst young but switched to piano after a move to Dallas. He often played guitar on one or two songs on his albums and at live performances. In 1936 he relocated to Chicago, where he recorded between 1937 and 1941 on Vocalion, Bluebird, and OKeh. Among his best-known tunes from these recordings were the hit “Lonesome Bedroom Blues” and the song “Tin Pan Alley”. His “Decoration Blues” though unissued at the time, was recorded by Sonny Boy Williamson I in 1938. World War II interrupted his recording career, which he did not resume until 1953, when a single of his, “Wrong Blues”/”Cool Playing Blues”, was released on Parrot, featuring L. C. McKinley on guitar.

Jones’s first album appeared in 1960 on Bluesville, by which time he had become a noted performer on the Chicago folk music scene. A solo album was released in 1962, by which time Jones had moved to Europe. He lived there and in Morocco for the rest of his life. He made further albums in the UK, including one in 1968 that featured Alexis Korner on guitar.

One of Jones’ songs, “Highway 51 Blues“, was included on Bob Dylan‘s 1962 debut album, Bob Dylan. Jones died of heart failure in Munich, Germany, in 1971, at the age of 65.

Donald Douglas Lamond Jr. (August 18, 1920 – December 23, 2003) was an American jazz drummer.

Born in Oklahoma City, Lamond attended the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in the early 1940s, and played with Sonny Dunham and Boyd Raeburn at the outset of his career. In 1944, he performed baritone saxophone and drums on Charlie Parker’s ‘’The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948’’ and he took over Dave Tough‘s spot in Woody Herman‘s big band First Herd in 1945, where he remained until the group disbanded at the end of 1946. In 1947, he briefly freelanced with musicians including Charlie Parker, and then returned to duty under Herman in his Second Herd, where he remained until its 1949 dissolution. In the 1950s and 1960s Lamond found work as a session musician, recording in a wide variety of styles. He performed and recorded with Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Johnny Smith, Benny Goodman, Ruby Braff, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Guarnieri, Jack Teagarden, Quincy Jones, George Russell, Count Basie, Lee Wiley (where he performed drums and guitar on her 1956 album ‘’West of the Moon’’ and Bob Crosby among others. He recorded as a bandleader in 1962 with a tentet which included Doc Severinsen. Later in the 1960s he played with George Wein‘s Newport Festival band. In the 1970s, he worked with Red Norvo, Maxine Sullivan, and Bucky Pizzarelli, and also put together his own swing group late in the decade, which recorded in 1977 and 1982. He also recorded a quartet album in 1981 with his wife, Terry Lamond, singing.

Antonio Salieri (18 August 1750 – 7 May 1825) was an Italian classical composer, conductor, and teacher. He was born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, and spent his adult life and career as a subject of the Habsburg monarchy.

Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to develop and shape many of the features of operatic compositional vocabulary, and his music was a powerful influence on contemporary composers.

Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Habsburg court, a post he held from 1774 until 1792, Salieri dominated Italian-language opera in Vienna. During his career he also spent time writing works for opera houses in Paris, Rome, and Venice, and his dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe during his lifetime. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for music at the court chapel and attached school. Even as his works dropped from performance, and he wrote no new operas after 1804, he still remained one of the most important and sought-after teachers of his generation, and his influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna’s musical life. Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart were among the most famous of his pupils. Salieri’s music slowly disappeared from the repertoire between 1800 and 1868 and was rarely heard after that period until the revival of his fame in the late 20th century. This revival was due to the fictionalized depiction of Salieri in Peter Shaffer‘s play Amadeus (1979) and its 1984 film version. The death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791 at the age of 35 was followed by rumors that he and Salieri had been bitter rivals, and that Salieri had poisoned the younger composer, yet this has been proven false, and it is likely that they were, at least, mutually respectful peers.