mick laBriola

Johnny Henry Smith II (June 25, 1922 – June 11, 2013) was an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist. He wrote “Walk, Don’t Run” in 1954. In 1984, Smith was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

During the Great Depression, Smith’s family moved from Birmingham, Alabama, where Smith was born, through several cities, ending up in Portland, Maine. Smith taught himself to play guitar in pawnshops, which let him play in exchange for keeping the guitars in tune. At thirteen years of age he was teaching others to play the guitar. One of Smith’s students bought a new guitar and gave him his old guitar, which became the first guitar Smith owned,

Michael John Kells Fleetwood (born 24 June 1947) is a British musician, songwriter and occasional actor. He is best known as the drummer, co-founder, and leader of the rock band Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood, whose surname was merged with that of the group’s bassist John “Mac” McVie to form the name of the band, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Fleetwood Mac in 1998.

Born in Redruth, Cornwall, Fleetwood lived in Egypt and Norway for much of his childhood. Choosing to follow his musical interests, Fleetwood travelled to London at the age of 15, eventually forming the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Bob Brunning. After several album releases and line-up changes, the group moved to the United States in 1974. Fleetwood then invited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to join. Buckingham and Nicks contributed to much of Fleetwood Mac’s later commercial success, including the celebrated album Rumours, while Fleetwood’s own determination to keep the band together was essential to the band’s longevity. Fleetwood has also enjoyed a solo career, published written works, and flirted briefly with acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuTzAha1t80

Derrick “Duckie” Simpson , born June 24, 1950 in Kingston , Jamaica , is a Jamaican reggae singer . He was one of the founders of Roots Reggae band Black Uhuru, who received reggae history’s first grammy in 1985. Duckie Simpson has almost always been in some of the Black Uhurus’s different constellations over the years, but has remained in the background and been the band’s “anchor” while others have taken the places as a lead singer.

Marvin “Smitty” Smith (born June 24, 1961) is an American jazz drummer and composer.

Marvin Smith was born in Waukegan, Illinois, where his father, Marvin Sr., was a drummer. “Smitty” was exposed to music at a young age, receiving formal musical training at the age of three.After graduating from Waukegan East High School, Smith attended Berklee, graduating in 1981. Smith has recorded 200 albums with various artists, as well as two solo albums. He also has toured with Sting, Dave Holland, Sonny Rollins, Willie Nelson and with Steve Coleman. He is a former member of The New York Jazz Quartet, and was the drummer for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno band, led by Kevin Eubanks, from January 30, 1995 to the show’s end on May 29, 2009. Smith was also the drummer for the Jay Leno Show band in 2009-2010.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8pdNTbPHxs&list=PLAC97F2F5B9EAB65A&index=1

Geoffrey Arnold Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He rose to prominence with the Yardbirds and after fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to a mainly instrumental style, with a focus on innovative sound, and his releases have spanned genres ranging from blues rock, hard rock, jazz fusion and a blend of guitar-rock and electronica.

Beck is considered among the greatest guitar players in history with Rolling Stone, upon whose cover he has appeared three times, describing him as “one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock”. He is often called a “guitarist’s guitarist”. Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck has not established or maintained the sustained commercial success of many of his contemporaries and bandmates. However, he has recorded with many artists.

Beck has earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times and Best Pop Instrumental Performance once. In 2014 he received the British Academy’s Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Beck has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).

Tangos Gitanos is one of a variety of musical styles found in the Spanish-speaking world called “tango.” Like the Tango Argentino, Tangos Gitanos roots lie in the way African and Caribbean music blended with Spanish music in 18th and 19th century Latin America. Similar to it’s South American cousin, Tango Gitano consists of a simple, easily varied harmonic and melodic structure over a four-count rhythm. Unlike other four-count patterns, the first beat is weak while the other three beats are strong. As Tangos became a part of flamenco in the 19th century, certain aspects of older flamenco forms were folded into it, including 12-count soleares letras re-shaped to fit the four count rhythmic pattern. Tangos of Granada shows traces of Moorish Zambras, while the Tango de Cádiz, Tanguillos, is a compound rhythm of triplets and duplets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG7hqN_fMB8

Robert C. Christie Hunter (born Robert Burns; June 23, 1941 – September 23, 2019) was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his work with the Grateful Dead. Born near San Luis Obispo, California, Hunter spent some time in his childhood in foster homes, as a result of his father’s abandoning his family, and took refuge in reading and writing. He attended the University of Connecticut for a year before returning to Palo Alto, where he became friends with Jerry Garcia. Garcia and Hunter began a collaboration that lasted through the remainder of Garcia’s life.

Garcia and others formed the Grateful Dead in 1965, and some time later began working with lyrics that Hunter had written. Garcia invited him to join the band as a lyricist, and Hunter contributed substantially to many of their albums, beginning with Aoxomoxoa in 1969. Over the years Hunter wrote lyrics to a number of the band’s signature pieces, including “Dark Star“, “Ripple“, “Truckin’“, “China Cat Sunflower“, and “Terrapin Station“. Hunter was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Grateful Dead in 1994, and is the only non-performer to be inducted as a member of a band.Upon his death, Rolling Stone described him as “one of rock’s most ambitious and dazzling lyricists”.

Hunter was born Robert Burns on June 23, 1941 in Arroyo Grande, California, near San Luis Obispo.

Sahib Shihab (born Edmund Gregory; June 23, 1925 – October 24, 1989) was an American jazz and hard bop saxophonist (baritone, alto, and soprano) and flautist. He variously worked with Luther Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Fletcher Henderson, Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke, John Coltrane and Quincy Jones among others.

He was born in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Edmund Gregory first played alto saxophone professionally for Luther Henderson aged 13, and studied at the Boston Conservatory, and to perform with trumpeter Roy Eldridge. He played lead alto with Fletcher Henderson in the mid-1940s.

He was one of the first jazz musicians to convert to Islam and changed his name in 1947. During the late 1940s, Shihab played with Thelonious Monk, and on July 23, 1951 he recorded with Monk (later issued on the album Genius of Modern Music: Volume 2). During this period, he also appeared on recordings by Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham and Benny Golson. The invitation to play with Dizzy Gillespie‘s big band in the early 1950s was of particular significance, as it marked Shihab’s switch to baritone.

George Allen Russell (June 23, 1923 – July 27, 2009) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and theorist. He is considered one of the first jazz musicians to contribute to general music theory with a theory of harmony based on jazz rather than European music, in his book Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (1953).

Russell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to a white father and a black mother, later the adopted only child of a nurse and a chef on the B & O Railroad, Bessie and Joseph Russell. Young Russell sang in the choir of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and listened to the Kentucky Riverboat music of Fate Marable. He made his stage debut at age seven, singing “Moon Over Miami” with Fats Waller.

Milton John Hinton (June 23, 1910 – December 19, 2000) was an American double bassist and photographer.

Regarded as the Dean of American jazz bass players, his nicknames included “Sporty” from his years in Chicago, “Fump” from his time on the road with Cab Calloway, and “The Judge” from the 1950s and beyond. Hinton’s recording career lasted over 60 years, mostly in jazz but also with a variety of other genres as a prolific session musician.

He was also a photographer of note, praised for documenting American jazz during the 20th Century.

Hinton was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States, the only child of Hilda Gertrude Robinson, whom he referred to as “Titter,” and Milton Dixon Hinton. He was three-months-old when his father left the family. He grew up in a home with his mother, his maternal grandmother (whom he referred to as “Mama”), and two of his mother’s sisters.