mick laBriola

Performing for “Shabbat for the Soul” Friday service at Mt Zion Temple

Bat-Sheva Ofra Haza-Ashkenazi, known professionally as Ofra Haza (Hebrew: עפרה חזה‎; 19 November 1957 – 23 February 2000), was an Israelisinger, actress and Grammy Award-nominated recording artist, commonly known in the Western world as “The Israeli Madonna“, or “Madonna of the East”. Her voice has been described as a “tender” mezzo-soprano.

Of Yemenite-Jewish heritage, Haza’s music is known as a mixture of traditional and commercial singing styles, fusing elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration and dance-beat. She became successful in Europe and the Americas; during her singing career, she earned many platinum and gold discs. In Israel, Haza was an influential cultural figure who helped to popularize Mizrahi culture.

Bat-Sheva Ofra Haza was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to Mizrahi Jewish parents from Yemen who immigrated to Israel. She was the youngest of nine children (six sisters and two brothers) to Yefet and Shoshana Haza. They were raised in a Masorti household in the Hatikva Quarter, then an impoverished neighborhood of Tel Aviv.

Kenny Werner (born November 19, 1951) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and author.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 19, 1951 and then growing up in Oceanside, Long Island, Werner began playing and performing at a young age, first appearing on television at the age of 11. Although he studied classical piano as a child, he enjoyed playing anything he heard on the radio and improvisation was his true calling. In high school and his first years of college he attended the Manhattan School of Music as a classical piano major.

His aptitude for improvisation led him to the Berklee College of Music in 1970, where he met and studied with his first piano/spiritual teacher, Madame Chaloff. From Boston, Werner traveled to Brazil with the saxophonist Victor Assis Brasil. There he met Assis’s twin brother, Brazilian pianist Joao Assis Brasil. His studies with Joao and Madame Chaloff would lead to the writing of the book Effortless Mastery.

“Alegrías” is a festive flamenco style that belongs to “cantiñas” group (cantes de Cádiz).

Its copla or stanza is usually composed by four octosyllabic verses. This is also called “alegría” stanza. Its melody is festive and incites to dance it. Its rhythm is influenced by “soleá” metric but in a more quickly way.

It seems that this style comes from Navarre-Aragon “jota” and was established in Cádiz in french occupation and “Cortes de Cádiz” time. That’s the reason why its classic lyrics refers to Ebro river, “Virgen del Pilar” and Navarre.

It is widely believed that Enrique Buitrón was the one who set the current flamenco style of “alegrías” and Ignacio Espeleta who introduced the characteristic “tiriti, tran, tran …” This “palo” has been interpreted by well-known artists: Enrique Mellizo, “Pinini” Pericón de Cadiz, La Perla de Cadiz, Chato de la Isla, Aurelio Selles, “El Folli” and Chano Lobato.

Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles (18 November 1907 – 13 July 2003), known professionally as “Compay Segundo“, was a Cuban trovaguitarist, singer and composer.

Compay (meaning compadre) Segundo, so called because he was always second voice in his musical partnerships, was born in Siboney, Cuba, and moved to Santiago de Cuba at the age of nine. His first engagement was in the Municipal Band of Santiago de Cuba, directed by his teacher, Enrique Bueno. In 1934, after a spell in a quintet, he moved to Havana, where he also played the clarinet in the Municipal Band. He also learned to play the guitar and the tres, which became his usual instruments. Compay Segundo also invented the armónico, a seven-stringed guitar-like instrument, to fill the harmonic jump between the Spanish guitar and the tres. In the 1950s he became well known as the second voice and tres player in Los Compadres, a duo he formed with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo in 1947.

Los Compadres were one of the most successful Cuban duos of their time. Greater international fame came later, in 1997, with the release of the Buena Vista Social Club album, a hugely successful recording which won several Grammy awards. Compay Segundo appeared in the Wim Wenders film of the same title

Ignacy Jan Paderewski (Polish: [iɡˈnatsɨ ˈjan padɛˈrɛfskʲi]; 18 November [O.S. 6 November] 1860 – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composerwho became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation’s Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.

A favorite of concert audiences around the world, his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media, as possibly did his status as a freemason, and charitable work of his second wife, Helena Paderewska. During World War I, Paderewski advocated an independent Poland, including by touring the United States, where he met with President Woodrow Wilson, who came to support the creation of an independent Poland in his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which led to the Treaty of Versailles.

Shortly after his resignations from office, Paderewski resumed his concert career to recoup his finances and rarely visited the politically chaotic Poland thereafter, the last time being in 1924.

Imrat Khan (17 November 1935 – 22 November 2018) was an Indian sitar and surbahar player and composer. He was the younger brother of sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan.

Imrat Khan was born in Calcutta on 17 November 1935 into a family of musicians tracing its roots back for several generations, to the court musicians of the Mughal rulers. The training in music traditionally has been passed down from father to son for nearly 400 years. He belonged to Etawah gharana also known as Imdadkhani gharana of classical musicians. Imrat Khan’s father was Enayat Khan (1895–1938), recognised as a leading sitar and surbahar player of his time, as had been his grandfather, Imdad Khan (1848–1920), before him. Imrat Khan’s father died when Imrat was a child, so he was raised by his mother, Bashiran Begum and her father, singer Bande Hassan Khan. In 1944, the family moved with Vilayat Khan, Imrat’s older brother, to Bombay where both the brothers learned sitar-playing extensively from their uncle Wahid Khan. In 1952, Vilayat and Imrat moved in together in Calcutta. They performed together for many years. The two brothers were part of the first cultural delegation to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in 1956.