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W. C. Handy

November 16, 2021

William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958 Florence, AL) was a composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style (Delta blues) with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.

Handy was an educated musician who used elements of folk music in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from various performers.

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World Fusion with Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Ségal

November 16, 2021

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Daily Roots with Carlton Livingston

November 16, 2021

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The Cozmos with UGC 11537

November 15, 2021

This astronomical portrait from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope showcases an edge-on view of the majestic spiral galaxy UGC 11537. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has captured the tightly wound spiral arms swirling around the heart of UGC 11537 at infrared and visible wavelengths, showing both the bright bands of stars and the dark clouds of dust threading throughout the galaxy.  UGC 11537 is 230 million light-years away in the constellation Aquila, and lies close to the plane of the Milky Way. Being so close to the starry band of the Milky Way means that foreground stars from our own galaxy have crept into the image — the two prominent stars in front of UGC 11537 are interlopers from within the Milky Way. These bright foreground stars are surrounded by diffraction spikes — imaging artifacts caused by starlight interacting with Hubble’s inner structure.  This image came from a set of observations designed to help astronomers weigh supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. The combination of Hubble’s sharp-eyed observations and data from ground-based telescopes allowed astronomers to make detailed models of the mass of stars in these galaxies, which in turn helps constrain the mass of supermassive black holes.

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Kevin Eubanks

November 15, 2021

Kevin Tyrone Eubanks (born November 15, 1957) is an American jazz and fusion guitarist and composer. He was the leader of The Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno from 1995 to 2010. He also led the Primetime Band on the short lived The Jay Leno Show.

Eubanks was born into a musical family. His older brother, Robin Eubanks, is a trombonist, and his younger brother Duane Eubanks is a trumpeter.Two cousins are also musicians, the late bassist David Eubanks and the pianist Charles Eubanks. Kevin studied violin and trumpet before settling on the guitar.

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William Edward “Little Willie” John

November 15, 2021

William EdwardLittle WillieJohn (November 15, 1937 – May 26, 1968) was an American R&B singer who performed in the 1950s and early 1960s. He is best known for his successes on the record charts, with songs such as “All Around the World” (1955), “Need Your Love So Bad” (1956), “Talk to Me, Talk to Me” (1958), “Leave My Kitten Alone” (1960), “Sleep” (1960), and his number-one R&B hitFever” (1956). An important figure in R&B music of the 1950s, he faded into obscurity in the 1960s and died while serving a prison sentence for manslaughter. John was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

John was born in Cullendale, Arkansas on November 15, 1937. He was one of ten children born to Lillie (née Robinson) and Mertis John. Many sources erroneously give his middle name as Edgar. His family moved to Detroit, Michigan, when he was four, so that his father could find factory work. In the late 1940s, the eldest children, including Willie, formed a gospel singing group. Willie also performed in talent shows, which brought him to the notice of Johnny Otis and, later, the musician and producer Henry Glover. After seeing him sing with the Paul “Hucklebuck” Williams orchestra, Glover signed him to a recording contract with King Records in 1955. He was nicknamed “Little Willie” for his short stature.

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Jerome Richardson

November 15, 2021

Jerome Richardson (November 15, 1920 – June 23, 2000) was an American jazz musician, tenor saxophonist, and flute player, who also played soprano sax, alto sax, baritone sax, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto flute and piccolo. He played with Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, Kenny Burrell, and later with Earl Hines‘ small band.

Richardson was born in Oakland, California, United States, and died in Englewood, New Jersey of heart failure at the age of 79.

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World Music with Orquestra Afrosinfônica

November 15, 2021

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Daily Roots with Sugar Minot

November 15, 2021

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The Cozmos with Sh2-157

November 14, 2021

The Lobster Claw Nebula, Sh2-157, is an emission nebula in constellations of Cassiopeia and Cepheus at a distance of 8,000 light years.
The two arcs representing the pincers are thought to be the consequence of a Wolf Rayet star that belongs to the open cluster Markarian 50.
Also note, at the top right of the nebula, the presence of the open cluster NGC7510 located at 11400 Al from us.

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Buckwheat Zydeco

November 14, 2021

Stanley Dural Jr. (November 14, 1947 – September 24, 2016), better known by his stage name Buckwheat Zydeco, was an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He was one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group was formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band (“Ils Sont Partis” being French for “They have left”), but they often performed as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.

The New York Times said: “Stanley ‘Buckwheat’ Dural leads one of the best bands in America. A down-home and high-powered celebration, meaty and muscular with a fine-tuned sense of dynamics…propulsive rhythms, incendiary performances.” USA Today called him “a zydeco trailblazer.”Buckwheat Zydeco performed with famous musicians such as Eric Clapton (with whom he also recorded), U2 and the Boston Pops. The band performed at the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics to a worldwide audience of three billion people. Buckwheat performed for President Clinton twice, celebrating both of his inaugurations. The band appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, CNN, The Today Show, MTV, NBC News, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

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George Cables

November 14, 2021

George Andrew Cables (born November 14, 1944) is an American jazz pianist and composer.

Cables was born in New York City, United States. He was initially taught piano by his mother. He then studied at the High School of Performing Arts and later at Mannes College (1963–65). He formed the Jazz Samaritans at the age of 18, a band that included Billy Cobham, Steve Grossman, and Clint Houston. Cables’ early influences on piano were Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock.

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Ellis Marsalis

November 14, 2021

Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. (November 14, 1934 – April 1, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and educator. Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of the musical Marsalis family, when sons Branford and Wynton became popular musicians. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Marsalis was the son of Florence Marie (née Robertson) and Ellis Marsalis Sr., a businessman and social activist.Marsalis and his wife Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis had six sons: Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya, and Jason. Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason also became jazz musicians. Ellis III is a poet and photographer.

Marsalis played saxophone during high school but switched to piano while studying classical music at Dillard University, graduating in 1955. He later attended graduate school at Loyola University New Orleans. In the 1950s and 1960s he worked with Ed Blackwell, Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, and Al Hirt. During the 1970s, he taught at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. His students have included Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Donald Harrison, Kent Jordan, Marlon Jordan, and Nicholas Payton.

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Aaron Copland

November 14, 2021

Aaron Copland (/ˈkplənd/, KOHP-lənd; November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as “the Dean of American Composers”. The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as “populist” and which the composer labeled his “vernacular” style. Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man and Third Symphony. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.

After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland traveled to Paris, where he first studied with Isidor Philipp and Paul Vidal, then with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste. Determined upon his return to the U.S. to make his way as a full-time composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission and did some teaching and writing. However, he found that composing orchestral music in the modernist style, which he had adopted while studying abroad, was a financially contradictory approach, particularly in light of the Great Depression. He shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik (“music for use”), music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, and Mexico, formed an important friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chávez and began composing his signature works.

During the late 1940s, Copland became aware that Stravinsky and other fellow composers had begun to study Arnold Schoenberg‘s use of twelve-tone (serial) techniques. After he had been exposed to the works of French composer Pierre Boulez, he incorporated serial techniques into his Piano Quartet(1950), Piano Fantasy (1957), Connotations for orchestra (1961) and Inscape for orchestra (1967). Unlike Schoenberg, Copland used his tone rows in much the same fashion as his tonal material—as sources for melodies and harmonies, rather than as complete statements in their own right, except for crucial events from a structural point of view. From the 1960s onward, Copland’s activities turned more from composing to conducting. He became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U.S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records.

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World Fusion with Joce Mienniel · Aram Lee · Minwang Hwang

November 14, 2021

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Daily Roots with Johnny Clarke

November 14, 2021

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Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial 11-10-1975

November 13, 2021

LAKE SUPERIOR – Forty-six years ago today, the Edmund Fitzgerald was caught in the grip of a deadly storm on Lake Superior.

Investigators would later say the Mighty Fitz’s course had put her in the “worst possible place” amid the monstrous waves of that November gale.

When she sank with all 29 souls aboard on Nov. 10, 1975, the big freighter’s story quickly became the Great Lake’s most well-known shipwreck.

The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and thousands of other ships, to be memorialized

The annual Great Lakes Memorial takes place Sunday at the Mariners’ Church of Detroit. Rev. Jeffrey Hubbard describes the event’s significance and its roots in a 1975 shipwreck.

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The Cozmos with Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P)

November 13, 2021

Returning along its 6.4 year orbit, periodic comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) is caught in this telescopic frame from November 7. Sweeping past background stars in the constellation Gemini the comet’s dusty tail stretches toward the upper right to Upsilon Geminorum. Also known as Pollux, Beta Geminorum, Gemini’s brightest star, shines just off the upper left edge of the field-of-view. Churyumov-Gerasimenko reached its 2021 perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on November 2. At perigee, its closest approach to planet Earth on November 12, this comet was about 0.42 astronomical units away, though it remains too faint to be seen by eye alone. The well-studied comet was explored by robots from planet Earth during its last trip through the inner solar system. It’s now famous as the final resting place for the historic Rosetta spacecraft and Philae lander.

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Tabu Ley Rochereau

November 13, 2021

Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabu (13 November 1940 – 30 November 2013), better known as Tabu Ley Rochereau, was a leading African rumba singer-songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was the leader of Orchestre Afrisa International, as well as one of Africa’s most influential vocalists and prolific songwriters. Along with guitarist Dr Nico Kasanda, Tabu Ley pioneered soukous (African rumba) and internationalised his music by fusing elements of Congolese folk music with Cuban, Caribbean and Latin American rumba. He has been described as “the Congolese personality who, along with Mobutu, marked Africa’s 20th century history.” He was dubbed “the African Elvis” by the Los Angeles Times. After the fall of the Mobutu regime, Tabu Ley also pursued a political career. His musical career ran parallel to the other great Congolese rhumba bandleader and rival Franco Luambo Makiadi who ran the band TPOK Jazz throughout the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s.

During his career, Tabu Ley composed up to 3,000 songs and produced 250 albums.

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

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Idris Muhammad

November 13, 2021

Idris Muhammad (Arabic: إدريس محمد‎; born Leo Morris; November 13, 1939 – July 29, 2014 NOLA) was an American jazz drummer who recorded with Ahmad Jamal, Lou Donaldson, Pharoah Sanders, Bob James, and Tete Montoliu. Muhammad had an extensive and varied career performing across jazz, funk, R’n’B and soul genres.

Born Leo Morris in New Orleans, Idris Muhammad grew up in the city’s 13th Ward in a home next door to a dry cleaner’s shop. He later would claim the sound of the shop’s steam presser influenced his hi-hat technique. Growing up, he spent time with fellow New Orleanians The Neville Brothers. Although interested in other instruments, he showed early talent as a percussionist, playing in a Mardi Gras parade at age 9.Muhammad asked Paul Barbarin to teach him to read music but Barbarin, who thought he was already so talented, declined.

At just 14 Muhammad began his professional career by performing with The Hawketts on their iconic recording “Mardi Gras Mambo”. Two years later, in 1956, he played drums on Fats Domino’s recording of “Blueberry Hill

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