mick laBriola

Orville J. Rhodes, better known as Red Rhodes or O. J. Rhodes(December 30, 1930 – August 20, 1995), was an American pedal steel guitarist. His mother taught him to play the Dobro at the age of five, but at the age of fifteen he switched to the steel guitar. He was a boxer and an oil company engineer before he settled into music.He moved to Los Angeles in 1960 and became a session musician.

Rhodes played pedal steel on many country rock, pop and rockalbums with The Monkees, Michael Nesmith, James Taylor, The Beach Boys, Seals and Crofts, The Byrds, The Carpenters, Spanky and Our Gang, and many other groups, as part of the Wrecking Crewstudio musicians. He is most often remembered for his work with former Monkee Michael Nesmith on Nesmith’s solo albums in the early 1970s. Rhodes is also credited with the “other-worldly” effects he created with pedal steel on The Ventures futuristic album The Ventures in Space in 1964.

In the late 1970s Rhodes shifted his focus from performing to guitar electronics at his Royal Amplifier Service shop in Hollywood, California. There Rhodes modified amplifiers and created his custom Velvet Hammer guitar pickupsfor James Burton, Clarence White, Gerald Ray and other influential guitarists. His shop staff included future instrument makers David Schecter, Michael Tobias and Bill Chapin.

Lewis Nash (born December 30, 1958) is an American jazzdrummer. According to Modern Drummer magazine, Nash has one of the longest discographies in jazz and has played on over 400 records, earning him the honor of Jazz’s Most Valuable Player by the magazine in its May 2009 issue.

Nash is noted for his adaptability to a vast array of genres, as evidenced by his performances with such different musicians as Tommy Flanagan and Don Pullen. Nash has made 5 recordings as bandleader: Rhythm is My Business (1989), It Don’t Mean a Thing(2003 Japanese import) and Stompin’ at the Savoy (2005 Japanese import), Lewis Nash and the Bebop All-Stars featuring Frank Wess(2008 Japanese Import), and The Highest Mountain (2012). In 2008, Nash became part of The Blue Note 7, a septet formed that year in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8SlQjwitC0

Richard Clare Danko (December 29, 1943 – December 10, 1999) was a Canadian musician, bassist, songwriter, and singer, best known as a founding member of the Band.

During the 1960s, Danko performed as a member of the Hawks, backing Ronnie Hawkins and then Bob Dylan. Then, between 1968 and 1977, Danko and the Hawks, now called the Band, released seven studio albums before breaking up. Beginning with the group’s reformation in 1983 and up until his death, Danko participated in the Band’s partial reunion.

Matthew Tyler Murphy (December 29, 1929 – June 15, 2018), known as Matt “Guitar” Murphy, was an American blues guitarist. He was associated with Memphis Slim, The Blues Brothers and Howlin’ Wolf.

Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, and was educated in Memphis, Tennessee, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel. Murphy learned to play guitar when he was a child.

In 1948, Murphy moved to Chicago, where he joined the Howlin’ Wolf Band, which at the time featured Little Junior Parker. In 1952, Murphy recorded with Little Junior Parker and Ike Turner, resulting in the release, “You’re My Angel”/“Bad Women, Bad Whiskey”(Modern 864), credited to Little Junior Parker and the Blue Flames.

Murphy worked often with Memphis Slim, including on his debut album At the Gate of Horn (1959). Murphy recorded two albums and many singles with Chuck Berry and was also featured in works by Koko Taylor, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Buddy Guy, Etta James, and Otis Rush. He also performed with Willie Dixon. Freddie King is said to have once admitted that he based his “Hide Away” (1960) on Murphy’s playing.

Joseph Salvatore Lovano (born December 29, 1952) is an American jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. He has earned a Grammy Award and several mentions on Down Beat magazine’s critics’ and readers’ polls. He is married to jazz singer Judi Silvano with whom he records and performs. Lovano was a longtime member of a trio led by drummer Paul Motian.

Lovano was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, to Sicilian-American parents; his father was the tenor saxophonist Tony (“Big T”) Lovano.His father’s family came from Alcara Li Fusi in Sicily, and his mother’s family came from Cesarò, also in Sicily. In Cleveland, Lovano’s father exposed him to jazz throughout his early life, teaching him the standards, as well as how to lead a gig, pace a set, and be versatile enough to find work. Lovano started on alto saxophone at age six and switched to tenor saxophone five years later. John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sonny Stitt were among his earlier influences. After graduating from Euclid High School in 1971, he went to Berklee College of Music, where he studied under Herb Pomeroyand Gary Burton. Lovano received an honorary doctor of music degree from the college in 1998.

Michel Petrucciani (French pronunciation: ​[miʃɛl petʁutʃani]; Italian: [petrutˈtʃaːni]; 28 December 1962 – 6 January 1999) was a French jazz pianist. From birth he had osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. He became one of the most accomplished jazz pianists of his generation despite his health condition.

Michel Petrucciani came from an Italo-French family (his grandfather was from Naples) with a musical background. His father Tony played guitar, his brother Louis played bass, and his brother Philippe also plays the guitar. Michel was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. The disease caused his bones to fracture over 100 times before he reached adolescence and kept him in pain throughout his entire life. “I have pain all the time. I’m used to having hurt arms,” he said. In Michel’s early career, his father and brother occasionally carried him because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects he considered his disability an advantage, as he got rid of distractions like sports that other boys tended to become involved in. And he hints that his disability was helpful in other parts of his life. He said: “Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary.

Charles Neville (December 28, 1938 – April 26, 2018) was an American R&B and jazz musician best known as part of The Neville Brothers. Known onstage as “Charlie the horn man”, his saxophone playing helped earn the group a Grammy Award for best pop instrumental performance.

The second oldest of the four Neville brothers, Charles Neville was born in New Orleans on December 28, 1938 to Arthur Lanon Neville Sr. and Amelia (Landry) Neville and was raised in the Calliope housing project with his musical brothers, Art, Aaron, and Cyril. Their uncle, George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry, was lead singer of the Mardi Gras Indian group The Wild Tchoupitoulas. Charles left home when he was 15 to play saxophone with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrel Show. When back in New Orleans, he played in the house band at the Dew Drop Inn.

He served in the Navy from 1956 to 1958 and discovered the music scene on Beale Street while stationed in Memphis, Tennessee, later touring with B.B. King and Bobby (Blue) Bland.

Edmund Leonard Thigpen (December 28, 1930 – January 13, 2010) was an American jazz drummer, best known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965. Thigpen also performed with the Billy Taylor trio from 1956 to 1959.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Thigpen was raised in Los Angeles, California, and attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon and Chico Hamilton also attended. After majoring in sociology at Los Angeles City College, Thigpen returned to East St. Louis for one year to pursue music while living with his father who had been playing with Andy Kirk‘s Clouds of Joy. His father, Ben Thigpen, was a drummer who played with Andy Kirk for sixteen years during the 1930s and 1940s.

Thigpen first worked professionally in New York City with the Cootie Williams orchestra from 1951 to 1952 at the Savoy Ballroom. During this time he played with musicians such as Dinah Washington, Gil Mellé, Oscar Pettiford, Eddie Vinson, Paul Quinichette, Ernie Wilkins, Charlie Rouse, Lennie Tristano, Jutta Hipp, Johnny Hodges, Dorothy Ashby, Bud Powell, and Billy Taylor.

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

Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl “Fatha“ Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983 Duquesne, Pennsylvania), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, “one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz”.

The trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (a member of Hines’s big band, along with Charlie Parker) wrote, “The piano is the basis of modern harmony. This little guy came out of Chicago, Earl Hines. He changed the style of the piano. You can find the roots of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, all the guys who came after that. If it hadn’t been for Earl Hines blazing the path for the next generation to come, it’s no telling where or how they would be playing now. There were individual variations but the style of … the modern piano came from Earl Hines.”

The pianist Lennie Tristano said, “Earl Hines is the only one of us capable of creating real jazz and real swing when playing all alone.” Horace Silversaid, “He has a completely unique style. No one can get that sound, no other pianist”. Erroll Garner said, “When you talk about greatness, you talk about Art Tatum and Earl Hines”.

Count Basie said that Hines was “the greatest piano player in the world.