mick laBriola

Steven Haworth Miller (born October 5, 1943) is an American musician. He is the founder and only remaining original member of the Steve Miller Band, which he founded in 1966, and is the principal songwriter, lead singer, harmonicist, keyboardist, and one of the guitarists. He began his career in bluesand blues rock and evolved to a more pop-oriented arena rock genre during the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, releasing popular singles and albums. Miller was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Famein 2016.

Born in Milwaukee, Miller received his first exposure to music from his mother, Bertha, whom he described as a remarkable jazz-influenced singer, and his father, George, a physician known as “Sonny” who, in addition to his profession as a pathologist, was a jazz enthusiast and an accomplished amateur recording engineer. Guitar virtuoso Les Paul and his musical partner Mary Ford were regular visitors at the Miller house. The Millers were the best man and the matron of honor at the December 1949 Paul/Ford wedding. Paul became Steve’s godfather. Les Paul heard Steve, who was six, on a wire recording made by Dr. Miller, “banging away” on a guitar given to him by his uncle, Dr. K. Dale Atterbury. Paul encouraged Miller to continue with his interest in the guitar… and “perhaps he will be something one day.”

James Blanton (October 5, 1918 – July 30, 1942) was an American jazz double bassist. Blanton is credited with being the originator of more complex pizzicato and arco bass solos in a jazz context than previous bassists. Nicknamed “Jimmie,” Blanton’s nickname is usually misspelled as “Jimmy,” including by Duke Ellington. Blanton left university in 1938 to play full-time in St Louis with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra. Blanton joined Duke Ellington‘s band in October 1939 when the Ellington Orchestra came to St. Louis for a residence and the band became enamored with Blanton’s playing at local late-night jam sessions. Ellington offered Blanton the job the same night he met him. On November 22 of that year, Blanton and Ellington recorded two tracks – “Blues” and “Plucked Again” – which were the first commercially recorded piano–bass duets. Further duet recordings were made in 1940, and Blanton was also featured in orchestra tracks. In May 1940, the band recorded hits such as “Jack the Bear” and “KoKo” which featured Blanton’s chops. He was soon the talk of the town everywhere the Ellington Orchestra went. He was extremely dedicated to his craft, always practicing. He formed relationships with bass players of local symphonies when on the road. He developed an especially close friendship with tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, who had also recently joined the Ellington Orchestra. During the Summer of 1941, while the Ellington band was performing the landmark musical “Jump for Joy,” Blanton began to show symptoms of tuberculosis. His condition progressively worsened through the fall of 1941, and in November he was forced to leave the band and seek full-time medical care. Blanton died on July 30, 1942, at a sanatorium in Duarte, California, aged 23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoA5PUoR3w

Friday October 4th 2024 6pm. Music with Inbal Sharett-Singer, Jayson Rodovsky, Jeff Bailey, Pete Whitman and mick laBriola.

Edgar Gómez (born October 4, 1944) is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist, known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio from 1966 to 1977.

Gómez moved with his family from Puerto Rico at a young age to New York, where he was raised. He started on double bass in the New York City school system at the age of eleven and at age thirteen went to the New York City High School of Music & Art. He played in the Newport Festival Youth Band (led by Marshall Brown) from 1959 to 1961, and graduated from Juilliard in 1963.

He has played with musicians such as Gerry Mulligan, Marian McPartland, Paul Bley, Tania Maria, Steps Ahead, and Chick Corea. He spent a total of eleven years with the Bill Evans Trio, which included performances in the United States, Europe and Asia, as well as dozens of recordings.

His career mainly consists of working as an accompanist, a position suited for his quick reflexes and flexibility. In addition to working as a studio musician for many famous jazz musicians, he has recorded as a leader for Columbia Records, Projazz and Stretch. Many of his recent recordings as a leader are co-led by the jazz pianist Mark Kramer.

Steve Swallow (born October 4, 1940 Fairlawn, NJ) is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar.

In the early 1970s, Swallow switched exclusively to electric bass guitar, of which he prefers the five-string variety. He was first introduced to the electric bass while doing a music trade show with Gary Burton and trying a Gibson EB-2. Along with Monk Montgomery and Bob Cranshaw, Swallow was among the first jazz bassists to do so (with much encouragement from Roy Haynes, one of Swallow’s favorite drummers). He plays with a pick (made of copper by Hotlicks), and his style involves intricate solos in the upper register. He was one of the early adopters of the high C string on a bass guitar.

From 1974 to 1976, Swallow taught at the Berklee College of Music. He contributed several of his compositions to the Berklee students who assembled the first edition of The Real Book. He later recorded an album, Real Book, with the picture of a well-worn, coffee-stained book on the cover.

In 1978, Swallow became a member of Carla Bley‘s band. He was Bley’s romantic partner from the 1980s until her death in 2023. He toured extensively with John Scofield in the early 1980s, and has returned to this collaboration several times over the years.

Swallow has consistently won the electric bass category in DownBeat yearly polls, both Critics’ and Readers’, since the mid-1980s. His compositions have been covered by, among others, Jim Hall (who recorded his very first tune, “Eiderdown”), Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Stan Getz and Gary Burton. Swallow’s instruments are built by Harvey Citron.

Most of the world first heard Rumba Flamenca via the Gypsy Kings in songs like Bamboleo and Volare. In Spain, Rumba Flamenca has come in and out of style since Niña de los Peines first recorded a Rumba in 1918. Since then, artists such as El Chaqueta, Chano Lobato and Miguel Vargas Jiménez (Bambino) have become closely associated with the form. Thanks to the Gypsy Kings and their countless imitators, and to recordings like Paco de Lucia’s Entre Dos Aguas, Rumba Flamenca has become essentially a two guitar form, with one guitar playing a solo melody while the other plays the harmony with the characteristic rumba rasgueado pattern, this often assisted with bass and percussion. 

Ronald Wayne Laws (born October 3, 1950) is an American jazz and smooth jazz saxophonist, and singer. He is the younger brother of jazz flutist Hubert Laws, jazz vocalist Eloise Laws and the older brother of Debra Laws.

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, United States, Laws is the fifth of eight children. He started playing the saxophone at the age of 11.

He attended Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, for two years.

In 1971, Laws journeyed to Los Angeles, California to embark upon a musical career. He started off by performing with trumpeter Hugh Masekela. In 1972, Laws joined the band Earth, Wind & Fire, where he played saxophone and flute on their album Last Days and Time. After 18 months working with Earth, Wind and Fire, he decided to become a solo artist. In 1975, Laws issued his debut album entitled Pressure Sensitive on Blue Note Records. The album reached No. 25 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart. In 1976, Laws went on to release his second LP Fever. The album reached No. 13 on the Billboard Top Soul LPs chart.

Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters‘ R&B song “The Twist“, and the pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song “Pony Time“. His biggest UK hit, “Let’s Twist Again“, was released one year later (in 1962); that year, he also popularized the song “Limbo Rock“, originally a previous-year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics, and its trademark Limbo dance, as well as other dance styles such as The Fly. In September 2008, “The Twist” topped Billboard‘s list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained in an August 2013 update of the list.

Stephen Michael Reich (better-known as Steve Reich, born October 3, 1936) is an American composer who is known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich’s work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, “Music as a Gradual Process”, by stating, “I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.” For example, his early works experiment with phase shifting, in which one or more repeated phrases plays slower or faster than the others, causing it to go “out of phase.” This creates new musical patterns in a perceptible flow.

His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, as on the early compositions It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), and the use of simple, audible processes, as on Pendulum Music (1968) and Four Organs (1970). The 1978 recording Music for 18 Musicians would help entrench minimalism as a movement. Reich’s work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains (1988).

Reich’s style of composition has influenced many contemporary composers and groups, especially in the United States. Writing in The Guardian, music critic Andrew Clements suggested that Reich is one of “a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history”.

Earle Lavon “Von” Freeman Sr. (October 3, 1923 – August 11, 2012) was an American hard bop jazztenor saxophonist. Freeman enlisted into the Navy during World War II and was trained at Camp Robert Smalls in Chicago. “All the great musicians ended up at Great Lakes”, he recalled. “It was an incubator for the best and the brightest lights in the jazz world at that time, and the musical jam sessions were simply phenomenal.” After training, he was sent to Hawaii as part of the Hellcats stationed at Barbers Point Naval Air Station in a band that starred Harry “Pee Wee” Jackson, the trumpeter from Cleveland whose nickname was Gabriel.The Hellcats were frequent winners of the islands’ competitive Battle of the Bands competitions and included musicians who had formerly played in bands fronted by Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Lucky Millinder, Les Hite, Count Basie, Fats Waller, and Tiny Bradshaw. After his return to Chicago, where he remained for the duration of his career, Freeman played with his brothers George on guitar and Eldridge “Bruz” Freeman on drums at the Pershing Hotel Ballroom. Various leading jazzmen such as Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie played there with the Freemans as the backing band. In the early 1950s, Von played in Sun Ra‘s band.