mick laBriola

Leslie West (born Leslie Abel Weinstein; October 22, 1945 – December 23, 2020) was an American rock guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He was best known as a founding member and co-lead vocalist of the hard rock band Mountain. West was born on October 22, 1945 in New York City to Jewish parents, but grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and in East Meadow, New York, Forest Hills, New York, and Lawrence, New York. After his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West. His musical career began with the Vagrants, an R&B/blue-eyed soul-rock band influenced by the likes of the Rascals that was one of the few teenage garage rock acts to come out of the New York metropolitan area itself (as opposed to the Bohemian Greenwich Village scene of artists, poets, and affiliates of the Beat Generation, which produced bands like The Fugs and The Velvet Underground). The Vagrants had two minor hits in the Eastern United States; 1966’s “I Can’t Make a Friend” and a cover of Otis Redding‘s “Respect” the following year.

Douglas Clare Fischer (October 22, 1928 – January 26, 2012 Durand, Michigan) was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University (from which, five decades later, he would receive an honorary doctorate), he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group the Hi-Lo’s in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Donald Byrd and Dizzy Gillespie, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the Latin jazz standard “Morning“, and the jazz standard “Pensativa“. Consistently cited by jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock as a major influence (“I wouldn’t be me without Clare Fischer”), he was nominated for eleven Grammy Awards during his lifetime, winning for his landmark album, 2+2 (1981), the first of Fischer’s records to incorporate the vocal ensemble writing developed during his Hi-Lo’s days into his already sizable Latin jazz discography; it was also the first recorded installment in Fischer’s three-decade-long collaboration with his son Brent. Fischer was also a posthumous Grammy winner for ¡Ritmo! (2012) and for Music for Strings, Percussion and the Rest (2013).

Beginning in the early 1970s, Fischer embarked on a parallel (and far more lucrative) career, eventually becoming a much sought-after arranger, providing orchestral “sweeteners” for pop and R&B artists such as Rufus (with Chaka Khan), Prince (a regular client from 1984 onwards, and by far Fischer’s most frequent in pop music), Robert Palmer, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson and many others.

Franz Liszt (German: [ˈlɪst]; Hungarian: Liszt Ferencz, in modern usage Liszt Ferenc [ˈlist ˈfɛrɛnt͡s];^{[n 1]} 22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, and organist of the Romantic era. He was additionally a philanthropist, Hungarian nationalist, and Franciscan tertiary.

Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist.^[1] He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.

A prolific composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School (German: Neudeutsche Schule). He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work that influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated 20th-century ideas and trends. Among Liszt’s musical contributions were the symphonic poem, developing thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and radical innovations in harmony.

Tango as flamenco style has a couplet, composed by 3 or 4 eight-syllable verses. It is considered as one of the most basic flamenco styles.

There are different variations: the tango of Badajoz, Cádiz, Jerez, Triana and Malaga. Theories indicate that the origin of this genre would be between Cadiz and Seville. From there it deployed to America, where later Río de la Plata tango was created. It is possible that “tango flamenco” comes from ancient songs of the 19th century. These changed gradually and reached its present form.

It is a 4/4 singing that can be performed in any of the tonalities. Its first performers were El Mellizo and Aurelio Selles (Cádiz). El Titi and Pastora Pavón “la Niña de los Peines” (Sevilla). The Mojama and Frijones (Jerez). La Pirula, La Repompa and El Pillayo in Malaga and Cadiz.

Elvin Richard Bishop (born October 21, 1942) is an American blues and rock music singer, guitarist, bandleader, and songwriter. An original member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of that group in 2015 and the Blues Hall of Fame in his own right in 2016. Bishop feels that the limitations of his voice have helped his songwriting.

Bishop was born in Glendale, California, the son of Mylda (Kleege) and Elvin Bishop, Sr. He grew up on a farm near Elliott, Iowa. His family moved to Tulsa when he was 10. There he attended Will Rogers High School, winning a full scholarship to the University of Chicago as a National Merit Scholar. He moved to Chicago in 1960 to attend the university, where he majored in physics. In 1963, Bishop met harmonica player Paul Butterfield in the neighborhood of Hyde Park, joined Butterfield’s blues band, and remained with them for five years. Bishop was originally Butterfield’s only guitarist, but was later joined by Mike Bloomfield, who largely took over the lead guitar role for the band’s classic first two albums. After Bloomfield departed, the Butterfield Band’s third album, The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, took its name from Bishop’s nickname and his renewed role as lead guitarist. Bishop recorded a fourth album, In My Own Dream, with Butterfield, his last with the band, in 1968.

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (/ɡɪˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality provided one of bebop’s most prominent symbols. In the 1940s, Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione, and balladeer Johnny Hartman.

Scott Yanow wrote, “Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time, Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up being similar to those of Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis‘s emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy’s style was successfully recreated [….] Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time”.

Carlos Wesley “Don” Byas (October 21, 1912 – August 24, 1972) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, associated with Swing and bebop. He played with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others, and also led his own band. He lived in Europe for the last 26 years of his life.

Byas was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States. Both of Byas’ parents were musicians. His mother played the piano, and his father, the clarinet. Byas began his musical education in the European classical tradition, learning to play violin, clarinet and alto saxophone, which he played until the end of the 1920s.

Benny Carter, who played many instruments, was his idol at this time. Byas started to perform in local orchestras at the age of 17, with Bennie Moten, Terrence Holder and Walter Page. He founded and led his own college band, Don Carlos and His Collegiate Ramblers, during 1931–1932, at Langston College, Oklahoma. Byas switched to the tenor saxophone after he moved to the West Coast, and played with several Los Angeles bands. In 1934, he took part in a West coast tour of Bert Johnson’s Sharps and Flats. He worked in Lionel Hampton‘s band at the Paradise Club in 1935, along with the reed player and arranger Eddie Barefield and trombonist Tyree Glenn. He also played with Buck Clayton, Lorenzo Flennoy and Charlie Echols.

Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017 Gainsville, FL) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. He was the lead vocalist and guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch, and was also a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.

Petty recorded a number of hit singles with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist. His hit singles with the Heartbreakers include “Don’t Do Me Like That” (1979), “Refugee” (1980), “The Waiting” (1981), “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (1985) and “Learning to Fly” (1991). Petty’s hit singles as a solo act include “I Won’t Back Down” (1989), “Free Fallin’” (1989), and “You Don’t Know How It Feels” (1994). In his career, he sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

He died of an accidental drug overdose on October 2, 2017, one week after the end of the Heartbreakers’ 40th Anniversary Tour.

Eddie Harris (October 20, 1934 – November 5, 1996) was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ. His best-known compositions are “Freedom Jazz Dance”, popularized by Miles Davis in 1966, and “Listen Here.”

Harris was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois, United States. His father was from Cuba and his mother from Mississippi. He studied music under Walter Dyett at DuSable High School, as had many other successful Chicago musicians (such as Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Clifford Jordan, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, Julian Priester, and Bo Diddley and others). He later studied music at Roosevelt University, by which time he was proficient on piano, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone. While in college, he performed professionally with Gene Ammons.

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (September 20, c. 1890 – July 10, 1941 NOLA), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazzpianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz’s first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition “Jelly Roll Blues“, published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre.

Morton also wrote “King Porter Stomp“, “Wolverine Blues“, “Black Bottom Stomp“, and “I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say”, the last being a tribute to New Orleans musicians from the turn of the 20th century.

Morton’s claim to have invented jazz in 1902 was criticized. Music critic Scott Yanow wrote, “Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth…Morton’s accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth.” Gunther Schuller says of Morton’s “hyperbolic assertions” that there is “no proof to the contrary” and that Morton’s “considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation”