mick laBriola

Keith Richard Godchaux (July 19, 1948 – July 23, 1980) was a pianist best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead from 1971 to 1979.

Godchaux was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Concord, California, a regional suburban center within the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. He began piano lessons at age five at the instigation of his father (a semi-professional musician) and subsequently played Dixieland and cocktail jazz in professional ensembles as a teenager. According to Godchaux, “I spent two years wearing dinner jackets and playing acoustic piano in country club bands and Dixieland groups…I also did piano bar gigs and put trios together to back singers in various places around the Bay Area…[playing] cocktail standards like ‘Misty‘ the way jazz musicians resentfully play a song that’s popular – that frustrated space… I just wasn’t into it… I was looking for something real to get involved with – which wouldn’t necessarily be music”. He met and married former FAME Studios session vocalist Donna Jean Thatcher in November 1970; their son Zion, of the band BoomBox, was born in 1974.

Godchaux sustained massive head injuries in an auto accident while being driven home on his birthday by noted tie-dye artist Courtenay Pollock (who was hosting the Godchauxs at his home in San Geronimo, California as they worked with their new band) in July 1980. Shortly before the accident, he professed to Pollock that he was “the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life.”^[14] He died at the age of 32 on July 23, 1980, four days after his birthday

1936 – 1996

An excellent hard bop trumpeter, Carmell Jones would probably have been much better-known today if he had not moved to Europe in the mid-’60s at the height of his career.

In 1960, after two years in the army and two years at the University of Kansas as a music education and trumpet major, Carmell left the midwest and became a studio musician in California. He recorded with artists such as Sammy Davis, Jr, Bob Hope, and Nelson Riddle. During this chapter in the Carmell Jones success story, he was being compared to Clifford Brown and Fats Navarro.

Carmell developed a close association with Bud Shank as a member of his quintet. He recorded with many other notables and most importantly, he recorded his first album under his own name and contract with Pacific Jazz – The Remarkable Carmell Jones. Thinking back about those days, Carmell said, “I’ve probably played with all of the bands that you’ve heard of.” Jones recorded a couple of albums as a leader for Pacific Jazz and made records with Bud Shank, Harold Land, Curtis Amy, and most significantly Gerald Wilson’s Orchestra (1961-1963).

Jones toured with Horace Silver for a year (1964-1965), recording the original version of “Song for My Father” with Silver before moving to Berlin. He was invited by Joachim Berendt, the German jazz critic who had heard Jones while in Kansas City, to go to Germany to play and record.

Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. He is noted for his work with Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Bradford became the second recipient of the Festival of New Trumpet Music‘s Award of Recognition.

Bobby Lee Bradford’s life began in Mississippi; he and his family then moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1946. He moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1953 where he reunited with Ornette Coleman, whom he had previously known in Texas. Bradford subsequently joined Coleman’s ensemble, but was drafted into the U.S. Air Force and replaced by Don Cherry.

Mthutuzeli Dudu Pukwana (18 July 1938 – 30 June 1990) was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist (although not known for his piano playing).

Dudu Pukwana was born in Walmer Township, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He grew up studying piano in his family, but in 1956 he switched to alto sax after meeting tenor sax player Nikele Moyake. In 1962, Pukwana won first prize at the Johannesburg Jazz Festival with Moyake’s Jazz Giants (1962 Gallo/Teal). In his early days he also played with Kippie Moeketsi. Chris McGregor then invited him to join the pioneering Blue Notes sextet,^[2]where he played along with Mongezi Feza, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo. Although the Blue Notes are often considered McGregor’s group, Pukwana was initially the principal composer and all the group members had pivotal roles.

Thomas Sylvester Allen, 18th July 1931, Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A – 30th August 1988, Solano County, California, U.S.A). War are best remembered for the Seventies hits, ‘Low Rider’, ‘The Cisco Kid’, ‘The World Is A Ghetto’ and ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’, however, the group’s roots were originally conceived a decade earlier. ‘Papa’ Dee Allen died of a heart attack which struck him onstage in 1988. Lee Oskar said of him ‘Papa Dee Allen does have one of my harmonicas in his grave. He died of a brain haemorrhage on stage. I dropped the last harp I used with him on stage into his grave.

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

Federico Arístides Soto Alejo (June 30, 1930 – February 4, 2008), better known as Tata Güines, was a Cuban percussionist, bandleader and arranger. He was widely regarded as a master of the conga drum, and alongside Carlos “Patato” Valdés, influential in the development of contemporary Afro-Cuban music, including Afro-Cuban jazz. He specialized in a form of improvisation known as descarga, a format in which he recorded numerous albums throughout the years with Cachao, Frank Emilio Flynn, Estrellas de Areito, Alfredo Rodríguez and Jane Bunnett, among others. In the 1990s he released two critically acclaimed albums as a leader: Pasaporte and Aniversario. His composition “Pa’ gozar” has become a standard of the descarga genre.

Arístides Soto was born in Güines, a town east of Havana in the former province of Havana in Cuba, on June 30, 1930. He grew up with his parents and his seven siblings, leaving school after year 4 to work as a shoeshiner and paperboy. His mother, María de los Ángeles Soto, took care of the house, while his father José Alejo Vasallo “Joseíto” was a cane worker. He was exposed to music from a young age; Joseíto played the tres in the Sexteto Partagás and used to jam with Arsenio Rodríguez, who lived nearby. Tata made his first bongó-like drums out of a sausage jar and a carton of milk in order to join them on percussion.

Jalacy “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as “I Put a Spell on You“, he sometimes used macabre props onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock. He received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the 1989 indie film Mystery Train.

Hawkins was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. At the age of 18 months, Hawkins was put up for adoption and shortly thereafter was adopted and raised by Blackfoot Indians.