mick laBriola

The large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. Its shape perhaps fitting of the Valentine’s Day, this heart glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: excited hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the nebula’s center. In the heart of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust pillars with their energetic light and winds. The open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of the mythological Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia).

Latifa Bint Alaya El Arfaoui (Arabic: لطيفة بنت عليه العرفاوي  pronunciation: [ɫɑˈt̪ˤiːfæ bɪnt ʕælɛi̯jæ (e)l.ʕɑrˤˈfɛːwi]; born February 14, 1961), better known as Latifa (Arabic: لطيفة), is a Tunisian pop singer and former actress.

Latifa Bint Alaya El Arfaoui was born in Manouba, Tunisia.

In 1983, shortly after her father died, Latifa and her family took a trip to Egypt to rest and mourn. While there, she met composer Baligh Hamdi, who advised her to move to Egypt to benefit her career. However Latifa wanted to concentrate on her education, and returned to Tunisia to finish her high school final exams. For financial reasons, she was unable to return to Egypt, so attended college in Tunisia, studying Dutch literature for a year and a half. Her family decided to pay for her to go to Egypt, so she quit college in Tunisia and joined the Arab Academy of Music in Egypt, where she completed her bachelor degree. She is preparing for her master’s degree.

While at the Academy, she was discovered by composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab, who had heard her on the radio. At the time she was primarily performing long Tarab songs, but soon began a change of direction working with composer Ammar El Sherei and poet Abdulwahab Muhammed, who she met during her first visit to Egypt.

Merl Saunders (February 14, 1934 – October 24, 2008) was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ. Born in San Mateo, California, United States, Saunders attended Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. In his first band in high school was singer Johnny Mathis. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1957. He worked as musical director of the Billy Williams Revue and served in a similar capacity in Oscar Brown Jr.‘s off-Broadway show, Big Time Buck White.

Dwike Mitchell (born Ivory Mitchell Jr.; February 14, 1930 – April 7, 2013) was an American piano player and teacher. He began his career as pianist for the Lionel Hampton Orchestra before joining Willie Ruff to form The Mitchell-Ruff Duo jazz group.

Mitchell was born and raised in Dunedin, Florida. He began playing piano around the age of three after his father, who had a job driving a garbage truck, brought home an old piano discarded by its owner. With the help of his mother, who made him play exercises and scales, and a cousin, who had been taking piano lessons herself, Mitchell soon displayed an exceptional aptitude for the instrument. He began performing in public at the age of five. His mother, a soloist in her church choir, needed an accompanist and gave the job to her young son. Before long he was playing for the entire Sunday morning service, a role he would continue to perform through the age of seventeen. He attended Pinellas High School.

Samuel Gene Maghett (February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969), known as Magic Sam, was an American Chicago blues musician. He was born in Grenada County, Mississippi, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter. After moving to Chicago at the age of 19, he was signed by Cobra Records and became well known as a bluesman after the release of his first record, “All Your Love”, in 1957. He was known for his distinctive tremolo guitar playing.

The stage name Magic Sam was devised by Sam’s bass player and childhood friend Mack Thompson at Sam’s first recording session for Cobra, as an approximation of “Maghett Sam”. The name Sam was using at the time, Good Rocking Sam, was already being used by another artist.

Maghett moved to Chicago in 1956, where his guitar playing earned him bookings at blues clubs on the West Side. He recorded singles for Cobra Records from 1957 to 1959, including “All Your Love” and “Easy Baby”. They did not reach the record charts but had a profound influence, far beyond Chicago’s guitarists and singers. Together with recordings by Otis Rush and Buddy Guy (also Cobra artists), the Westside Sound was a manifesto for a new kind of blues. Around this time Magic Sam worked briefly with Homesick James Williamson. Magic Sam gained a following before being drafted into the U.S. Army. He served six months in prison for desertion and received a dishonorable discharge.

His career was cut short when he suddenly died of a heart attack in December 1969. He was 32 years old. Magic Sam was buried in the Restvale Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. He was survived by his wife, Georgia Maghett. In February 1970, the Butterfield Blues Band played at a benefit concert for Magic Sam, at Fillmore West in San Francisco. Also on the bill were Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite and Nick Gravenites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vU287HFEvk

King Floyd (February 13, 1945 – March 6, 2006) was a New Orleans soul singer and songwriter, best known for his Top 10 hit from 1970, “Groove Me“.

King Floyd III was born in New Orleans in 1945. His musical career started as a singer at the Sho-Bar on Bourbon Street. Following a stint in the army, Floyd went to California, where he joined up with record producer Harold Battiste. His debut album, A Man In Love, featuring songs co-written with Dr. John, failed to make an impact on the charts. Floyd returned to New Orleans in 1969 and worked for the Post Office. James Brown made a discovery out of King Floyd, because of the screams, tells, grunts, and other panting noises that were similar to Brown’s vocal style. In 1970, Wardell Quezergue, an arranger of R&B scores, persuaded Floyd to record “Groove Me” with Malaco Records in Jackson, Mississippi. Jean Knight recorded her hit, “Mr. Big Stuff,” in the same sessions.

Moreira Chonguiça is a Mozambican jazz saxophonist. In 2010 he started a jazz festival, Morejazz, in Maputo; artists invited to play at the festival also hold master-classes at the Eduardo Mondlane University of the city. In June 2010 his group The Moreira Project opened the Standard Bank Jazz Festival in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. He collaborated with Manu Dibangoon the album M & M, which was released in 2017.

Wardell Gray (February 13, 1921 – May 25, 1955) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods.

Gray was born in Oklahoma City, the youngest of four children. He spent his early childhood years in Oklahoma, before he and his family moved to Detroit in 1929.

In early 1935, Gray began attending Northeastern High School, then transferred to Cass Technical High School, noted for having Donald Byrd, Lucky Thompson and Al McKibbon as alumni. He left in 1936, before graduating. Advised by his brother-in-law Junior Warren, as a teenager he started on the clarinet, but after hearing Lester Young on record with Count Basie, he was inspired to switch to tenor saxophone.

Gray was still working regularly despite his drug problems, and when Benny Carter was engaged in May 1955 to provide the band at the opening of the Moulin Rouge Hotel, he called on Gray. Gray attended rehearsals but was absent when the club opened on May 25. The next day he was found on a stretch of desert on the outskirts of Las Vegas dead with a broken neck.

Raymond Daniel Manzarek Jr. (born Manczarek; February 12, 1939 – May 20, 2013) was an American keyboardist and singer, best known as a member of the Doors from 1965 to 1973, which he co-founded with singer and lyricist Jim Morrison.

Manzarek was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 as a member of the Doors. He was a co-founding member of Nite City from 1977 to 1978, and of Manzarek–Krieger from 2001 until his death in 2013. USA Today defined him as “one of the best keyboardists ever”.

Raymond Daniel Manczarek Jr. was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. He was born to parents of Polish descent, Helena Kolenda (1918–2012) and Raymond Manczarek Sr. (1914–1987).

Omar Hakim (born February 12, 1959) is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer, producer, arranger and composer. He has worked with Weather Report, David Bowie, Foo Fighters, Sting, Madonna, Dire Straits, Journey, Kate Bush, George Benson, Miles Davis, Daft Punk, Mariah Carey, The Pussycat Dolls, David Lee Roth and Celine Dion.

Hakim was born in New York City on February 12, 1959. His father, Hasaan Hakim, was a trombonist. Omar started playing the drums at the age of five, and first performed in his father’s band four or five years later.

William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955 Salem, Ill) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles.

According to music critic Chris Brazier, “Laswell’s pet concept is ‘collision music’ which involves bringing together musicians from wildly divergent but complementary spheres and seeing what comes out.” The credo of one record label run by Laswell which typifies much of his work is “Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted”. Although his bands may be credited under the same name and often feature the same roster of musicians, the styles and themes explored on different albums can vary dramatically. Material began as a noisy dance music band, but later albums concentrated on hip hop, jazz, or spoken word readings by William S. Burroughs. Most versions of the band Praxis have included guitarist Buckethead, but they have explored different permutations on albums.