mick laBriola

Charles Edward “Cow Cow” Davenport (April 23, 1894 – December 3, 1955) was an American boogie-woogie and piano blues player as well as a vaudeville entertainer. He also played the organ and sang.

Davenport, who also made recordings under the pseudonyms of Bat The Humming Bird, George Hamilton and The Georgia Grinder, is a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

He was born in Anniston, Alabama, United States, one of eight children. Davenport started to play the piano at age 12. His father objected strongly to his musical aspirations and sent him to a theological seminary, where he was expelled for playing ragtime.

Davenport’s career began in the 1920s when he joined the K.G. Barkoot Traveling Carnival. His initial profile came as accompanist to blues musiciansDora Carr and Ivy Smith. Davenport and Carr performed as a vaudeville act as “Davenport & Co”, and he performed with Smith as the “Chicago Steppers”. He also performed with Tampa Red. Davenport recorded for many record labels, and was a talent scout and artist for Vocalion Records. Davenport suffered a stroke in 1938 and lost movement in his hands. He was washing dishes when he was found by the jazz pianist Art Hodes. Hodes assisted in his rehabilitation and helped him find new recording contracts.

Performing for Friday Shabbat Service at Mt Zion Temple in St Paul. 630pm

Howard Pyle Wyeth (April 22, 1944 – March 27, 1996), also known as Howie Wyeth, was an American drummer and pianist. Wyeth is remembered for work with the saxophonist James Moody, the rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, the electric guitarist Link Wray, the rhythm and blues singer Don Covay, and the folk singer Christine Lavin. Best known as a drummer for Bob Dylan, he was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.

Wyeth was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. His mother Caroline Pyle, Howard Pyle’s niece, was interested in the Wyeth family, flirted with some of them, and married Nathaniel C. Wyeth. He had four brothers, John, David, N. Convers, and Andrew, and one sister, Melinda who died very young. A fifth brother (the oldest), Newell died with his grandfather in 1945 when their car stalled on a railroad crossing near their home and they were struck by a milk train. Wyeth married once, to Rona Morrow, and later divorced. Catherine Wheeler was his partner for seventeen years, from his mid-thirties on.

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was an American jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the extent of his work in this short period, but also by his impeccable timekeeping and virtuosic improvisations. He was also known for his bowed solos. Chambers recorded about a dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, and over 100 more as a sideman, especially as the anchor of trumpeter Miles Davis‘s “first great quintet” (1955–63) and with pianist Wynton Kelly (1963–68).

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 22, 1935, to Paul Lawrence Chambers and Margaret Echos. He was brought up in Detroit, Michigan following the death of his mother. He began playing music with several of his schoolmates on the baritone horn. Later he took up the tuba. “I got along pretty well, but it’s quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn’t like the instrument that much”.

Joe Cuba (April 22, 1931 – February 15, 2009), was an American conga drummer of Puerto Rican descent widely regarded as the “Father of Latin Boogaloo“.

Joe Cuba (birth name: Gilberto Miguel Calderón) was born in Harlem, New York, United States. Cuba’s parents moved from Puerto Rico to New York City in the late 1920s, and settled in Spanish Harlem, a Latino community located in Manhattan. Cuba was raised in an apartment building, where his father had become the owner of a candy store, located on the ground floor (street level floor). His father had organized a stickball club called the Young Devils. Stickball was the main sport activity of the neighborhood. After Cuba broke a leg he took up playing the conga and continued to practice with the conga between school and his free time. Eventually, he graduated from high school and joined a band.

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer, and bandleader. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and composers in history,^[1] with a career spanning three decades and collaborations with other jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Herbie Hancock.

Mingus’s compositions continue to be played by contemporary musicians ranging from the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition. In 1993, the Library of Congress acquired Mingus’s collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as “the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library’s history”.

Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona. His father, Charles Mingus Sr., was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Mingus Junior was largely raised in the Watts area of Los Angeles. His maternal grandfather was a Chinese British subject from Hong Kong, and his maternal grandmother was an African-American from the southern United States. Mingus was the great-great-great-grandson of the family’s founding patriarch who was, by most accounts, a German immigrant. His ancestry included German American, African American, and Native American.

Alfred James Ellis (April 21, 1941 – September 23, 2021), known as Pee Wee Ellis due to his diminutive stature, was an American saxophonist, composer, and arranger. With a background in jazz, he was a member of James Brown‘s band in the 1960s, appearing on many of Brown’s recordings and co-writing hits like “Cold Sweat” and “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud“. He also worked with Van Morrison.

In the 2014 biographical movie Get on Up about James Brown, Ellis is played by Tariq Trotter. Ellis resided in England for the last 30 years of his life.

Ellis was born on April 21, 1941 in Bradenton, Florida to his mother Elizabeth and his father Garfield Devoe Rogers, Jr. His father left when he was a young boy, and In 1949, his mother married Ezell Ellis, an organizer of musicians for local dance bands.^[2] The family settled in Lubbock, Texas, “a highly segregated town”, according to Ellis who gained his nickname “Pee Wee” from musicians staying at the family home. In 1955, a white woman insisted on dancing with his step-father, but interracial mixing enraged a man watching who stabbed him. Ezell Ellis, an African American, died because a hospital refused to treat him based on the colour of his skin.

Locksley Wellington Hampton (April 21, 1932 – November 18, 2021) was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger. As his nickname implies, Hampton’s main instrument was slide trombone, but he also occasionally played tuba and flugelhorn.

Locksley Wellington Hampton was born on April 21, 1932, in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. Laura and Clarke “Deacon” Hampton raised 12 children, taught them how to play musical instruments and set out with them as a family band. The family first came to Indianapolis in 1938. The Hamptons were a very musical family in which mother, father, eight brothers, and four sisters, all played instruments. His sisters included Dawn Hampton and Virtue Hampton Whitted. Slide Hampton is one of the few left-handed trombone players. As a child, Hampton was given the trombone set up to play left-handed, or backwards; and as no one ever dissuaded him, he continued to play this way.

At the age of 12, Slide played in his family’s Indianapolis jazz band, The Duke Hampton Band. By 1952, at the age of 20, he was performing at Carnegie Hall with the Lionel Hampton Band. He played with the Buddy Johnson‘s R&B band from 1955 to 1956, then became a member of Maynard Ferguson‘s band (1957–1959), where he played and arranged, providing excitement on such popular tunes as “The Fugue,” “Three Little Foxes” and “Slides Derangement.” In 1958, he recorded with trombone masters on the classic release of Melba Liston, Melba Liston and Her ‘Bones. As his reputation grew, he soon began working with bands led by Art Blakey, Tadd Dameron, Barry Harris, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, and Max Roach.

James Mundell Lowe (April 21, 1922 – December 2, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist who worked often in radio, television, and film, and as a session musician.

He produced film and TV scores in the 1970s, such as the Billy Jack soundtrack and music for Starsky and Hutch, and worked with André Previn‘s Trio in the 1990s.

The son of a Baptist minister, Lowe grew up on a farm in Shady Grove, Mississippi, near Laurel. He started playing guitar when he was eight years old, with his father and sister acting as his first teachers. When he was thirteen, he began running away from home to play in bands. Occasionally his father would find him, bring him home, and warn him about the dangers of whiskey. At sixteen, Lowe worked in Nashville on the Grand Ole Opry radio program. He was a member of the Jan Savitt orchestra before serving in the military during World War II.

At basic training, he became friends with John Hammond, who organized weekend jam sessions. He performed in an Army dance band while in Guadalcanal. After his discharge, he called Hammond, looking for work, and Hammond sent him to Ray McKinley.^[1] He spent two years with McKinley’s big band in New York City. He joined the Benny Goodman orchestra, then worked intermittently for the next few years at Café Societyand other clubs in New York.

In 1950, he was hired by NBC as a staff musician. He and Ed Shaughnessy were members of the Today Show band for over ten years. Lowe acted in an episode of the Armstrong Circle Theatre television show that included Walter Matthau and live music by Doc Severinsen.