mick laBriola

Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music in 1997 and in 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, especially performing jazz standards on his 1990s albums.

Hargrove was the bandleader of the progressive group the RH Factor, which combined elements of jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul, and gospel music. Its members have included Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, Pino Palladino, James Poyser, Jonathan Batiste, and Bernard Wright. His longtime manager was Larry Clothier.

Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan Hargrove and Jacklyn Hargrove. When he was 9, his family moved to Dallas, Texas. He took lessons on trumpet and was discovered by Wynton Marsalis when Marsalis visited the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. One of his most profound early influences was a visit to his junior high school by saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman, who performed as a sideman in Ray Charles‘s Band.

When Ruben Angel “Cachete” Maldonado died Friday, January 11 (2020), Puerto Rico lost a giant. The visionary, master drummer, educator, and co-founder of the groundbreaking groups, Batacumbele, and Los Majaderos was 67.

According to his widow, Carmín Colón, “The teacher of teachers continues in our hearts. He was a person well given to music, culture, people and liked to teach. He left a very large legacy for this country.” Also, she revealed Maldonado died in peace with a characteristic smile on his face.

Maldonado was born on October 16, 1951, in Barrio Obrero in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He grew up in the street called Calle Cortijo (named after Rafael Cortijo). His father, (Ruben), was a bassist in several bands, and his sister and aunt were vocalists.  

Initially, Maldonado studied the bass and the piano, but he naturally gravitated to percussion. He studied under Julio César “Maco” Rivera, a master drummer well versed in the art of Afro-Cuban drumming, who taught Maldonado the rudiments of the congas, bongos, timbales, and other hand drums. Also, he introduced him to the batá drums and the Yoruba sacred ceremonial rituals of Orisha.

According to an interview with Maldonado in the newspaper, El Nuevo Dia, the nickname “Cachete” is a reference to Maldonado’s prominent cheeks!

In Puerto Rico, he performed with Johnny El Bravo and Danny Gonzalez. In the 1970s, he relocated to New York, where he studied with Carlos “Patato’ Valdés, Julito Collazo, and performed with the group,  La Conspiración. This led to a collaboration with the pianist Larry Harlow and the highly acclaimed record “Hommy.” Also, tours of North and South America. 

In 1973 he traveled to Cuba with the group, Tipica ’73, as part of a cultural exchange program. There, he immersed himself in Afro-Cuban percussion. Shortly after that, he joined Gato Barbieri’s band and played with “El Gato” for four years. The experience opened doors for “Cachete” in the jazz community. 

Carlos C. Muñoz, better known as Carli Munoz or Carli Muñoz (born October 16, 1948), is a self-taught Puerto Rican jazz and rock pianist, best known for touring with the Beach Boys in the 1970s.

Although born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Muñoz’ music of choice was jazz.

At age 16, Muñoz travelled to New York City with a rock band he co-founded with Jorge Calderon called The Living End, AKA: Space, which for 18 months served as a house band at a New York club. Muñoz later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked with Wilson Pickett, Jan and Dean, the Association, George Benson, Charles Lloyd, Chico Hamilton, Wayne Henderson, Les McCann, Peter Cetera and Evie Sands.

From 1970 through 1981, Muñoz toured with the Beach Boys, playing Hammond B3 and piano.^[1][2] Following his return to Puerto Rico in 1985, Muñoz stayed out of the spotlight. In December 1998, he opened a restaurant, Carli Cafe Concierto, where he performs jazz music. He often returns to the mainland to perform and record.

Joseph Lee “Big Joe” Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over four decades, he recorded the songs “Baby Please Don’t Go“, “Crawlin’ King Snake” and “Peach Orchard Mama”, among many others, for various record labels, including Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige and Vocalion. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.

The blues historian Barry Lee Pearson (Sounds Good to Me: The Bluesman’s Story, Virginia Piedmont Blues) described Williams’s performance:

When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield’s “blues night” at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music I have ever heard. 

Born in Oktibbeha County, a few miles west of Crawford, Mississippi, Williams as a youth began wandering across the United States busking and playing in stores, bars, alleys and work camps. In the early 1920s he worked in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels revue. He recorded with the Birmingham Jug Band in 1930 for Okeh Records.

Carlos Pedrell (16 October 1878 – 9 March 1941) was a Uruguayan composer, guitarist and educator. Pedrell was born in Minas, Uruguay; he was the nephew of the Spanish guitarist and composer Felipe Pedrell. Initially, he studied harmony at Montevideo before he went to Spain to study with his uncle. He then worked in Paris at the Schola Cantorum under Vincent d’Indy.

He returned to South America in 1906. Much of his career was spent in Argentina, where he taught at the National University of Tucumán and served as an inspector of schools in Buenos Aires. He returned to Paris in 1921 and died in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.

Performing tonight for Shabbat for the Soul with Kim Salisbury

Lionel Frederick Cole (October 15, 1931 – June 27, 2020) was an American jazz singer and pianist whose recording career spanned almost 70 years. He was the brother of musicians Nat King Cole, Eddie Cole, and Ike Cole, father of Lionel Cole, and uncle of Natalie Cole and Carole Cole.

Freddy Cole was born to Rev. Edward J. Coles and Perlina (Adams) Coles, and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. His brothers Nat King Cole (1919–1965), Eddie (1910–1970), and Ike (1927–2001) also each pursued careers in music. He began playing piano at the age of six, and continued his musical education at the Roosevelt Institute in Chicago. He moved to New York in 1951, where he studied at the Juilliard School of Music before completing a master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Dr. Natesan Ramani (15 October 1934 – 9 October 2015), commonly known as N. Ramani or N. Flute Ramani, was an Indian Carnatic flautist. He was awarded the Madras Music Academy‘s Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 1996. Ramani is also credited with introducing the long flute into Carnatic music.

Ramani was born in Tiruvarur, a city in Tamil Nadu which is honored by its association with the Trinity of Carnatic music. Ramani was born into a family of flautists. Ramani first learnt music from his grandfather, Sri Aazhiyur Narayanaswami Iyer, a well known flute artist and singer himself.Aware of young Ramani’s keen interest in the Carnatic flute, Ramani’s initiation to Carnatic music began at the age of five.

Ramani performed his first concert at the age of 8. The turning point in Ramani’s career was when he became a disciple of his maternal uncle and eminent flautist, the late T. R. Mahalingam (known more commonly as “Flute Mali”), who first popularised the Carnatic flute in Indian music. By the age of 11 years, his first concert was held at Singaravelavar Temple, Sikkil, near Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. His mother Smt Sarathambal was instrumental in bringing him to notice. She accompanied him for his concerts when he was studying at Boys High School Tiruvarur. Ramani accompanied his guru T. R. Mahalingam in a concert for the first time. N Ramani is related to Sikkil Sisters, his contemporary flute-playing duo.

MacHouston “Mickey” Baker (October 15, 1925 – November 27, 2012) was an American guitarist, best known for his work as a studio musician and as part of the recording duo Mickey & Sylvia.

Baker was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His mother was black, and his father, whom he never met, was believed to be white.

In 1936, at the age of 11, Baker was put into an orphanage. He ran away frequently, and had to be retrieved by the staff from St. Louis, New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Eventually the orphanage quit looking for him, and at the age of 16 he stayed in New York City. He found work as a laborer and then a dishwasher. But after hanging out in the pool halls of 26th Street, he gave up work to become a full-time pool shark.

Victoria Regina Spivey (October 15, 1906 – October 3, 1976), sometimes known as Queen Victoria, was an American blues singer and songwriter. During a recording career that spanned 40 years, from 1926 to the mid-1960s, she worked with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, Lonnie Johnson, and Bob Dylan. She also performed in vaudeville and clubs, sometimes with her sister Addie “Sweet Peas” (or “Sweet Pease”) Spivey (August 22, 1910 – 1943), also known as the Za Zu Girl. Among her compositions are “Black Snake Blues” (1926), “Dope Head Blues” (1927), and “Organ Grinder Blues” (1928). In 1962 she co-founded Spivey Records.

Born in Houston, Texas, she was the daughter of Grant and Addie (Smith) Spivey. Her father was a part-time musician and a flagman for the railroad; her mother was a nurse. She had two sisters, both of whom also sang professionally: Addie “Sweet Peas” (or “Sweet Pease”) Spivey (August 22, 1910 – 1943), who recorded for several major record labels between 1929 and 1937, and Elton Island Spivey Harris (1900–1971).

Soleares is often referred to as the mother of all flamenco forms because so many other important forms are derived from it. It may be more accurate to think of soleares as the most flamenco of flamenco forms. All the elements of soleares, including its 12-count compás with an irregular beat structure, its Andalusian cadence, and its melodic and melissmatic gestures are unique to flamenco. Soleares first evolved in the late 18th Century from a dance form called Jaleo. As it evolved through the 19th Century, it took on a more solemn, cante jondo character, probably due to its inclusion in the Cafés Cantantes as a featured song and flamenco dance. Various forms of soleares developed associated with different cities and individuals. At the beginning of the 20th Century new forms were derived from soleares, including bulerías and soleá por bulerías. A common belief is that the word soleares is derived from the Spanish word soledad, or sorrow. Sorrowful, unrequited love is a main theme of the letras, along with other bittersweet lamentations.

Justin David Hayward (born 14 October 1946, in Swindon, Wiltshire) is an English musician best known as songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the rock band The Moody Blues. Hayward became the group’s principal lead guitarist and vocalist over the 1967–1974 period, and the most prolific songwriter and composer of several international hit singles for the band.

Hayward wrote singles for the Moody Blues including “Nights in White Satin“, “Tuesday Afternoon“, “Voices in the Sky“, “Never Comes the Day“, “Question“, “The Story in Your Eyes“, “Driftwood“, “The Voice“, “Blue World“, “Your Wildest Dreams“, “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” and “English Sunset“; in all, writing 20 of the group’s 27 post-1967 singles. He also has a solo career. His first album outside the Moody Blues, Blue Jays, a collaboration with John Lodge, reached the UK top five in 1975. The single “Blue Guitar”, recorded with 10cc as the backing band, reached the UK top ten in 1975, and his 1978 recording of “Forever Autumn” from Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds reached the UK top five. In 2018, Hayward was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues.

Pandit Nikhil Ranjan Banerjee (14 October 1931 – 27 January 1986) was an Indian classical sitarist of the Maihar Gharana. A student of the legendary Baba Allauddin Khan, Pandit Nikhil Banerjee was known for his technical virtuosity and clinical execution. Along with Pandit Ravi Shankarand Ustad Vilayat Khan, he emerged as one of the leading exponents of the sitar. He was a recipient of the Indian civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.

Nikhil Banerjee was born on 14 October 1931 in a Bengali Brahmin family, in Calcutta. His father, Jitendranath Banerjee, was an amateur sitarist and Banerjee was fascinated by his father’s playing. Although he wanted to try his hand at an instrument as early as the age of four, he was discouraged by his father and grandfather. At the age of five, however, they relented and he acquired a small sitar, initially learning under his father. Banerjee grew into a child prodigy. He won an all-India sitar competition and became the youngest musician employed by All India Radioat the age of nine. Jitendranath approached Mushtaq Ali Khan to take Nikhil as a disciple, but only learned from this master for a few short weeks. Instead Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury, the zamindar of Gouripur in present-day Bangladesh, became responsible for much of his early training. He also had considerable training under Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra, before he went under the discipleship of Ustd. Allauddin Khan.

Duško Gojković (Serbian Cyrillic: Душко Гојковић; born 14 October 1931) is a Bosnian jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger.

Gojković was born in Jajce (ex-Yugoslavia, now in Bosnia-Herzegovina). He studied at the Belgrade Music Academy from 1948 to 1953. He played trumpet in dixieland bands and joined the big band of Radio Belgrade when he was eighteen. He moved to West Germany and first recorded as a member of the Frankfurt Allstars in 1956. He spent the next four years as a member of Kurt Edelhagen‘s orchestra.

In these years, Gojković played with Chet Baker, Stan Getz, and Oscar Pettiford. In 1958, he performed at Newport Jazz Festival and drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In 1961, Gojkovic received a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music, where he studied with Herb Pomeroy