mick laBriola

William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mostly played in trios. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords, and trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines continues to influence jazz pianists today.

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1929, he was classically trained at Southeastern Louisiana University and the Mannes School of Music, in New York City, where he majored in composition and received the Artist Diploma. In 1955, he moved to New York City, where he worked with bandleader and theorist George Russell. In 1958, Evans joined Miles Davis‘s sextet, which in 1959, then immersed in modal jazz, recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time. During that time, Evans was also playing with Chet Baker for the album Chet.

In late 1959, Evans left the Miles Davis band and began his career as a leader, with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, a group now regarded as a seminal modern jazz trio. In 1961, ten days after finishing an engagement at the New York Village Vanguard jazz club, LaFaro died in a car accident. After months of seclusion, Evans reemerged with a new trio, featuring bassist Chuck Israels.

In 1963, Evans recorded Conversations with Myself, a solo album using the unconventional technique of overdubbing himself. In 1966, he met bassist Eddie Gómez, with whom he worked for 11 years.

Many of Evans’s compositions, such as “Waltz for Debby“, have become standards, played and recorded by many artists. Evans received 31 Grammynominations and seven awards, and was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. Evans grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, the son of Harry and Mary Evans (née Soroka). His father was of Welsh descent and ran a golf course; his mother was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry and descended from a family of coal miners. The marriage was stormy because of the father’s heavy drinking, gambling, and abuse. Bill had a brother, Harry (Harold), two years his senior, to whom he was very close. On September 15, 1980, Evans, who had been in bed for several days with stomach pains at his home in Fort Lee, was accompanied by Joe LaBarbera and Verchomin to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where he died that afternoon. The cause of death was a combination of peptic ulcer, cirrhosis, bronchial pneumonia, and untreated hepatitis.^[10] Evans’s friend Gene Lees described Evans’s struggle with drugs as “the longest suicide in history.

Malcolm Earl “Mal” Waldron (August 16, 1925 – December 2, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He started playing professionally in New York in 1950, after graduating from college. In the following dozen years or so Waldron led his own bands and played for those led by Charles Mingus, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy, among others. During Waldron’s period as house pianist for Prestige Recordsin the late 1950s, he appeared on dozens of albums and composed for many of them, including writing his most famous song, “Soul Eyes“, for Coltrane. Waldron was often an accompanist for vocalists, and was Billie Holiday‘s regular accompanist from April 1957 until her death in July 1959.

A breakdown caused by a drug overdose in 1963 left Waldron unable to play or remember any music; he regained his skills gradually, while redeveloping his speed of thought. He left the U.S. permanently in the mid-1960s, settled in Europe, and continued touring internationally until his death.

In his 50-year career, Waldron recorded more than 100 albums under his own name and more than 70 for other band leaders. He also wrote for modern ballet, and composed the scores of several feature films. As a pianist, Waldron’s roots lay chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s, but with time he gravitated more towards free jazz. He is known for his dissonant chord voicings and distinctive later playing style, which featured repetition of notes and motifs.

Mal Waldron was born in New York City on August 16, 1925, to West Indian immigrants. His father was a mechanical engineer who worked on the Long Island Rail Road.  The family moved to Jamaica, Queens when Mal was four years old. Waldron’s parents discouraged his initial interest in jazz, but he was able to maintain it by listening to swing on the radio. Waldron had classical piano lessons from the age of around seven until he was about 16. He then became inspired to play jazz on tenor saxophone when he heard Coleman Hawkins‘ 1939 recording of “Body and Soul“, but bought an alto saxophone, unable to afford a tenor. He played alto for local bands that performed for “dances, bar mitzvahs, Spanish weddings”, frequently taking over the pianist’s role when other musicians took their solo.

Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode’s Galaxy) is a grand design spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away, with a diameter of 90,000 light years, in the constellation Ursa Major. Due to its proximity to our galaxy, large size, and active galactic nucleus (which harbors a 70 million M_☉ supermassive black hole), Messier 81 has been studied extensively by professional astronomers. The galaxy’s large size and relatively high brightness also makes it a popular target for amateur astronomers. Galaxy M 81, located in the Constellation Ursa Major at 12 million AL from the Milky Way. It is a spiral galaxy, relatively modest since its diameter is only 87000 light-years. It is in gravitational interaction with its neighbor M 82.
This picture was taken by Team ARO in South Portugal from 07/03/21 to 12/05/21 in Remote from France.

From the early hours after midnight on August 13, the 30 second exposure of the night sky over Busko-Zdroj, Poland records the colorful and bright trail of a Perseid meteor. Seen near the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower it flashes from lower left to upper right. The hurtling grain of cosmic sand, a piece of dust from periodic comet Swift-Tuttle, vaporized as it passed through planet Earth’s atmosphere at almost 60 kilometers per second. Just above and right of center, well beyond the stars of the Milky Way, lies the island universe known as M31 or the Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object easily visible to the naked-eye, about 2.5 million light-years away. The visible meteor trail begins only about 100 kilometers above Earth’s surface, though. It points back to the meteor shower radiant in the constellation Perseus off the lower left edge of the frame. Follow this bright perseid meteor trail below and left to the stars of NGC 869and NGC 884, thedouble star cluster in Perseus.

David Van Cortlandt Crosby (born August 14, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964. Bob Dylan gave the band their first number one hit in April 1965 with “Mr. Tambourine Man“. Crosby appeared on the Byrds’ first five albums and produced the original lineup’s 1973 reunion album. In 1967 he joined Buffalo Springfield on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival, which contributed to his dismissal from the Byrds. He subsequently formed Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1968 with Stephen Stills (of Buffalo Springfield) and Graham Nash of the Hollies. After the release of their debut album CSN won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1969. Neil Young joined the group for live appearances, their second concert being Woodstock, before recording their second album Déjà Vu. Meant to be a group that could collaborate freely, Crosby and Nash recorded three gold albums in the 1970s, while the core trio of CSN remained active from 1976 until 2016. CSNY reunions took place in each decade from the 1970s through the 2000s.

Songs Crosby wrote or co-wrote include “Lady Friend“, “Why“, and “Eight Miles High” with the Byrds and “Guinnevere“, “Wooden Ships“, “Shadow Captain”, and “In My Dreams” with Crosby, Stills & Nash. He wrote “Almost Cut My Hair” and the title track “Déjà Vu” for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s 1970 album. He is known for his use of alternative guitar tunings and jazz influences. He has released six solo albums, five of which have charted. Additionally he formed a jazz influenced trio with his son James Raymond and guitarist Jeff Pevar in CPR. Crosby’s work with the Byrds and CSN(Y) has sold over 35 million albums.

Crosby has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: once for his work in the Byrds and again for his work with CSN. Five albums to which he contributed are included in Rolling Stone‘s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, three with the Byrds and two with CSN(Y). He is outspoken politically and has been depicted as emblematic of the 1960s’ counterculture.^[3][4][5]

Crosby is the subject of the 2019 documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, which was produced by Cameron Crowe.

Frank “Son” Seals (August 13, 1942 – December 20, 2004) was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. In 2009, Seals was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Seals was born in Osceola, Arkansas, where his father, Jim “Son” Seals, owned a small juke joint, called the Dipsy Doodle Club. He began performing professionally by the age of 13, first as a drummer with Robert Nighthawk and later as a guitarist. At age 16, he began to play at the T-99, a local upper-echelon club, with his brother-in-law Walter “Little Walter” Jefferson. He played there with prominent blues musicians, including Albert King, Rufus Thomas, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker, and Rosco Gordon. Their varying styles contributed to the development of Seals’s own playing techniques. While playing at the T-99, he was also introduced to country–western music by Jimmy Grubbs, who occasionally asked Seals to play the drums or guitar with his group. At the age of 19, Seals formed his own band, Son Seals and the Upsetters, to fill in at the Rebel Club, in Osceola.^[6]The band members were Johnny Moore (“Old Man Horse”) on piano; Alvin Goodberry on drums, guitar, bass, or piano; Little Bob Robinson on vocals; and Walter Lee “Skinny Dynamo” Harris on piano. Shortly thereafter, a man from Little Rock, Arkansas, came to find “Little Walter” for a gig at his club, but when Walter turned it down the offer went to Seals.

In 1971, Seals moved to Chicago. His career took off after he was discovered by Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records at the Flamingo Club on Chicago’s South Side. His debut album, The Son Seals Blues Band, was released in 1973. The album included “Your Love Is Like a Cancer” and “Hot Sauce”. It was followed by Midnight Son (1976) and Live and Burning (1978). Seals released several albums in the next two decades, all but one on Alligator Records, including Chicago Fire (1980), Bad Axe (1984), Living in the Danger Zone (1991), Nothing but the Truth (1994) and Live: Spontaneous Combustion (1996). He received W.C. Handy Awards in 1985, 1987, and 2001.

Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith (August 14, 1909 – September 25, 1967), better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist. He is well known for the song “If You’re a Viper” (the original title was “You’se a Viper”).

Smith was, along with Stéphane Grappelli, Michel Warlop, Svend Asmussen, Ray Nance and Joe Venuti, one of jazz music’s preeminent violinists of the swing era.

He was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, United States in 1909, and studied violin with his father. Smith cited Louis Armstrong as his primary influence and inspiration to play jazz, and like Armstrong, was a vocalist as well as instrumentalist. In the 1920s, he played in Texas as a member of Alphonse Trent‘s band. After moving to New York City he performed regularly with his sextet at the Onyx Club starting in 1935, and also with Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and later, Sun Ra.After being signed to Vocalion Records in 1936, he had a hit with “I’se a Muggin'” and was billed as Stuff Smith and His Onyx Club Boys. He recorded for Vocalion in 1936, Decca in 1937, and Varsity in 1939–1940.

He is featured in several numbers on the Nat King Cole Trio album, After Midnight.

Part of Smith’s performance at what is considered the first outdoor jazz festival, the 1938 Carnival of Swing on Randall’s Island, turned up unexpectedly on audio engineer William Savory‘s discs, which were self-recorded off the radio at the time, then long-sequestered. Some newsreel footage survived but no audio of the festival was thought to have survived until the discs were acquired in 2012 by Loren Schoenberg, executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

Smith was critical of the bebop movement, although his own style represented a transition between swing and bebop. He is credited as being the first violinist to use electric amplification techniques on a violin. He was one of the writers of the song “It’s Wonderful” (1937), which was often performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald throughout their careers. Smith moved to Copenhagen in 1965, performed actively in Europe, and died in Munich in 1967. He is buried at Klakring Cemetery in Jutland, Denmark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SWnTqVxs10