mick laBriola

Leo Kottke (born September 11, 1945) is an acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He overcame a series of personal obstacles, including partial loss of hearing and a nearly career-ending bout with tendon damage in his right hand, to emerge as a widely recognized master of his instrument. He resides in the Minneapolis area with his family.

Focusing primarily on instrumental composition and playing, Kottke also sings sporadically, in an unconventional yet expressive baritone described by himself as sounding like “geese farts on a muggy day”. In concert, Kottke intersperses humorous and often bizarre monologues with vocal and instrumental selections from throughout his career, played solo on six and twelve string guitars.

Born in Athens, Georgia, Kottke moved with his parents so frequently that he was raised in twelve different states. As a youth living in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he was influenced by folk and delta blues music, notably that of Mississippi John Hurt. Kottke learned to play trombone and violin before trying the guitar and developing his own unconventional picking style.

Mickey Hart (born Michael Steven Hartman, September 11, 1943) is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 until February 1971, and again from October 1974 until their final show in July 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann earned the nickname “the rhythm devils”.

Michael Steven Hartman was born in Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He was raised in suburban Inwood, New York by his mother, Leah, a drummer, gown maker and bookkeeper. His father Lenny Hart, a champion rudimental drummer, had abandoned his family when the younger Hart was a toddler. Although Hart (who was hyperactive and not academically inclined) became interested in percussion as a grade school student, his interest intensified after seeing his father’s picture in a newsreel documenting the 1939 World’s Fair. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a practice pad and a pair of snakewood sticks that belonged to his father. “From the age of ten,” he recalled, “all I did was drum.”

Victor Lemonte Wooten is an American bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He has been the bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since the group’s formation in 1988 and a member of the band SMV with two other bassists, Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller. From 2017 to 2019 he recorded as the bassist for the metal band Nitro.

He owns Vix Records, which releases his albums. He wrote the novel The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. He later released the book’s sequel, The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues, on February second, 2021.

Wooten is the recipient of five Grammy Awards. He won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times and is the first person to win the award more than once. In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Born to Dorothy and Elijah Wooten, Victor is the youngest of the five Wooten brothers; Regi, Roy, Rudy, and Joseph Wooten are all musicians. Regi began to teach Victor to play bass when he was two, and by the age of six, he was performing with his brothers in their family band, The Wooten Brothers Band. As a United States Air Force family, they moved often when Wooten was young. The family settled in Newport News, Virginia in 1972. Wooten graduated from Denbigh High School in 1982. While in high school, he and his brothers played in the country music venue at Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1987, he traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit friends that he made at the theme park. One of them was a studio engineer who introduced him to Béla Fleck, with whom he has often collaborated.

Oliver Theophilus Jones, OC CQ (born September 11, 1934 in Little Burgundy, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian jazz pianist, organist, composer and arranger.

Born to Barbadian parents, Oliver Jones began his career as a pianist at the age of five, studying with Mme Bonner in Little Burgundy’s Union United Church, made famous by Trevor W. Payne‘s Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir. He continued to develop his talent through his studies with Oscar Peterson‘s sister Daisy Peterson Sweeney starting at eight years old. In addition to performing at Union United Church when he was a child, he also performed a solo novelty act at the Cafe St. Michel as well as other clubs and theaters in the Montreal area. “I had a trick piano act, dancing, doing the splits, playing from underneath the piano, or with a sheet over the keys.”

He started his early touring in Vermont and Quebec with a band called Bandwagon, and in 1953–63 played mainly in the Montreal area, with tours in Quebec.

From 1964 to 1980 Jones was music director for the Jamaican calypso singer Kenny Hamilton, based out of Puerto Rico.

In late 1980 he teamed up with Montreal’s Charlie Biddle, working in and around local clubs and hotel lounges in Montreal. Jones was resident pianist at Charlie Biddle’s jazz club Biddles from 1981 to 1986. His first album, Live at Biddles recorded in 1983, was the first record on the Justin Time record label.

Roosevelt “Baby Face” Willette (September 11, 1933 – April 1, 1971) was an American hard bop and soul-jazz musician who played the Hammond organ.

He was born Roosevelt James Willett (no “e”), in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1933 according to researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc, though other sources state 1934 or 1937. According to the liner notes on his first Blue Note album, Grant’s First Stand, Willette was born in New Orleans.

His mother was a missionary who played the piano in the church where his father was a minister. As a result, his musical roots were in gospel. Willette became involved in music by playing the piano for various gospel groups, and accompanied his sisters Dorothy and Georgia, who toured and recorded as the Willett Sisters. He spent his early career travelling across the United States, Canada and Cuba, as pianist with the bands of King Kolax, Joe Houston, Johnny Otis and Big Jay McNeely, among others.

He made his first recording as Baby Face Willette (“Wake Up, Get Out” b/w “Cool Blues”) in Los Angeles in 1952, but soon moved to Chicago and married. He recorded tracks including “Can’t Keep From Lovin’ You” and “Why” for Vee-Jay Records that year, but they were not released until late 1955. He played in both rhythm and blues and jazz bands, playing piano before switching to organ around 1958. His organ playing was inspired by Jimmy Smith‘s work, though Willette’s style is more heavily influenced by gospel, blues and soul jazz than Smith’s. Willette was also a professional hairdresser. Before his time in New York City, he was based out of Milwaukee, playing with his vocalist wife Jo Gibson at clubs such as The Flame Club, The Pelican Club, The Moonglow and Max’s among others.

Roy Ayers (born September 10, 1940 LA,CA) is an American funk, soul, and jazz composer, vibraphone player, and music producer. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Polydor Records beginning in the 1970s, during which he helped pioneer jazz-funk. He is a key figure in the acid jazz movement, and has been dubbed “The Godfather of Neo Soul”. He is best known for his compositions “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”, “Searchin”, and “Running Away”. At one time, he was said to have more sampled hits by rappers than any other artist.

William B. Lawsha, better known as Prince Lasha (/ləˈʃeɪ/), (September 10, 1929 – December 12, 2008)^[1] was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flautist, and clarinetist.

He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he came of age studying and performing alongside fellow I.M. Terrell High School students John Carter, Ornette Coleman, King Curtis, Charles Moffett, and Dewey Redman.

Lasha moved to California during the 1950s. In the 1960s, he was active in the burgeoning free jazz movement, of which his Fort Worth cohort Ornette Coleman was a pioneer. Lasha recorded with Eric Dolphy (Iron Man and Conversations, both in 1963) and the Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet featuring McCoy Tyner (Illumination!, also in 1963).

Roy James Brown (September 10, 1920 or 1925 – May 25, 1981 Kinder, LA) was an American R&B singer, songwriter and musician, who had a significant influence on the early development of rock and roll and the direction of R&B. His original song and hit recording “Good Rockin’ Tonight” has been covered by many artists including Wynonie Harris, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Joe Ely, Ricky Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pat Boone, James Brown, the Doors, and the rock group Montrose. Brown was one of the first popular R&B singers to perform songs with a gospel-steeped delivery, which was then considered taboo by many churches. In addition, his melismatic, pleading vocal style influenced notable artists such as B.B. King, Bobby Bland, Elvis Presley, Jackie Wilson, James Brown and Little Richard.

In flamenco a tango (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtaŋɡo]) is one of the flamenco palos closely related in form and feeling to the rumba flamenca. It is often performed as a finale to a flamenco tiento. Its compás and llamada are the same as that of the farruca and share the farruca’s lively nature. However, the tango is normally performed in the A Phrygian mode. In some English sources the flamenco tango is written with an -s; “the tangos is…”

The flamenco tango is distinct from the flamenco rumba primarily through the guitar playing. In Rumba the guitar flows more freely, whereas in Tangos the accents on beats 2, 3 & 4 are marked clearly with heavy strumming.

Tangos is only vaguely related to Argentine tango, and objectively they only share compás binario or double stroke rhythm. The fact that Argentine tango is one of the first couple dances in America has led historians to believe that both could be based in a minuet-style European dance, therefore sharing a common ancestor, while those who compare the present day forms do not see them as related.

David Sánchez (born 9 September 1968 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) is a Grammy-winning jazz tenor saxophonist from Puerto Rico.

Sanchez took up the conga when he was eight and started playing tenor saxophone at age 12. His earliest influences were Afro-Caribbean and danzabut also European and Latin classical. At 12 Sanchez attended La Escuela Libre de Musica, which emphasized formal musical studies and classical European styles and was much taken with a Miles Davis album, Basic Miles, featuring John Coltrane, as well as Lady in Satin, a 1958 album by Billie Holiday with strings, arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis. Sanchez considered a college career in psychology but auditioned at Berklee and Rutgers University. Sanchez chose Rutgers because he got a better scholarship and was near New York which was Sanchez’ goal. While at Rutgers, Sanchez studied with Kenny Barron, Ted Dunbar, and John Purcell.