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Vincent Anthony Guaraldi /ɡəˈrældi/ (July 17, 1928 – February 6, 1976), born Vincent Anthony Dellaglio, was an American jazz pianist noted for his innovative compositions and arrangements and for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip including their signature melody, “Linus and Lucy” and the holiday standard, “Christmas Time Is Here“. He is also known for his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader‘s 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. His 1962 composition “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of a sudden heart attack at age 47 in February 1976 moments after finishing a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California.
Guaraldi was born in San Francisco’s North Beach area, a place that became very important to his blossoming musical career. His last name changed to “Guaraldi” after his mother, Carmella (née Marcellino; 1908–1999), divorced his biological father (whose last name was Dellaglio) and married Tony Guaraldi, who adopted the boy. Growing up, Guaraldi was influended by both of his maternal uncles, Joe and Maurice “Muzzy” Marcellino, both of whom headed jazz big bands in San Francisco for many years. He graduated from Lincoln High School, briefly attended San Francisco State College, and served in the United States Army as a cook in the Korean War.
Guaraldi’s first recording was an unreleased demo made with Tom Hart in mid-1951. His first official recording was made in November 1951 with Cal Tjader‘s Mambo Trio. The songs—”Chopsticks Mambo,” “Vibra-Tharpe,” “Three Little Words” and “Lullaby of the Leaves”—were released in December 1953 on the 10-inch LP record, The Cal Tjader Trio. By summer 1954, Guaraldi had formed his first trio, with Eddie Duran (guitar) and Dean Reilly (double bass), and regularly performing as the as house band at the hungry i jazz club in San Francisco, backing singer Faith Winthrop.
Guaraldi died suddenly on February 6, 1976, at age 47 after suffering a massive heart attack. The evening before, he had dined at Mendelson’s home and was reportedly not feeling well, complaining of indigestion-like chest discomfort. “He was about to do his first cruise. He’d be able to play Peanuts music on the ship, and he was excited about that. We talked about the cruise and the Peanuts shows, and I said that I didn’t know what the next one would be yet, but that we wouldn’t start until he got back. But he also said he wasn’t feeling well, and had gone to see the doctor. The doctor thought Vince might have a diaphragmatic hernia, and that they might have to deal with it.
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HAIR presented by Theatre 55 will open tonight at Caponi Park only 6 performances July 16, 17 18, 23, 24 and 25th 2021. This is music concert not the theatrical version. Fri & Sat 7pm Sun 3pm
more...This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spectacular galaxy NGC 2442. This galaxy was host to a supernova explosion, known as SN2015F, that was created by a white dwarf star. The white dwarf was part of a binary star system and syphoned mass from its companion, eventually becoming too greedy and taking on more than it could handle. This unbalanced the star and triggered runaway nuclear fusion that eventually led to an intensely violent supernova explosion. SN2015F was spotted in March 2015 in the galaxy named NGC 2442, nicknamed the Meathook Galaxy owing to its extremely asymmetrical and irregular shape. The supernova shone brightly for quite some time and was easily visible from Earth through even a small telescope until later that summer.
more...Bola Sete (born Djalma de Andrade) (July 16, 1923 – February 14, 1987) was a Brazilian guitarist. Sete played jazz with Vince Guaraldi and Dizzy Gillespie.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Bola Sete’s name means “Seven Ball”. In snooker, which is fairly popular in Brazil, the seven ball is the only black ball on the table (like the eight ball in pool), and Bola got this nickname when he was the only black member of a small jazz group.
Sete studied guitar at the Conservatory of Rio. He started performing with his own sextet and local samba groups while he was a student. His early influences were guitarists Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel, George Van Eps, and Oscar Moore of the Nat King Cole Trio. He admired the big bands that were touring South America at that time, led by Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey, and Woody Herman.
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Verdiales are a Flamenco music style, and song form belonging to cante chico.
Originating in Almogía, near the Spanish port of Málaga in Andalucía, it is based upon the fandango. For this reason, the verdiales are sometimes known as fandangos de Málaga.
Normally played in the key of E phrygian (key of C major with his fifth sharp) and rarely in A minor, the verdiales have a 12-count rhythm similar to the soleares, and bulerías.
more...Along the tail of the arachnalogical constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower. In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across this gorgeous telescopic portrait. Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the upper edge of the scene. That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule’s bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away.
more...Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946 Tuscon, AZ) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, and Latin. She has earned 10 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award. Many of her albums have been certified gold, platinum or multiplatinum in the United States and internationally. She has also earned nominations for a Tony Award and a Golden Globe award. She was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Recording Academy in 2011 and also awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Recording Academy in 2016. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. On July 28, 2014, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities. In 2019, she received a star jointly with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their work as the group Trio. Ronstadt was among five honorees who received the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements.
Ronstadt has released 24 studio albums and 15 compilation or greatest hits albums. She charted 38 US Billboard Hot 100 singles. Twenty-one of those singles reached the top 40, ten reached the top 10, and one reached number one (“You’re No Good“). Her success however did not translate across the Atlantic to the UK. Although Ronstadt’s duets, “Somewhere Out There” with James Ingram and “Don’t Know Much” with Aaron Neville, peaked at numbers 8 and 2 respectively in 1987 and 1989, the single “Blue Bayou” was her only solo single to reach the UK Top 40.[18][19] She has charted 36 albums, ten top-10 albums, and three number 1 albums on the US Billboard Pop Album Chart.
more...Robert Clifford Brown (July 15, 1910 – November 6, 1966), known professionally as Washboard Sam, was an American blues musician and singer. Brown’s date and place of birth are uncertain; many sources state that he was born in 1910 in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest that he was born in 1903 or 1904, in Jackson, Tennessee, on the basis of Social Security information. He was reputedly the half-brother of Big Bill Broonzy. He moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1920s, performing as a street musician with Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon. He moved to Chicago in 1932, performing regularly with Broonzy and other musicians, including Memphis Slim and Tampa Red, in many recording sessions for Lester Melrose of Bluebird Records. In 1935, he began recording in his own right for both Bluebird and Vocalion Records, becoming one of the most popular Chicago blues performers of the late 1930s and 1940s, selling numerous records and playing to packed audiences. He recorded over 160 tracks in those decades. His strong voice and songwriting talent overcame his stylistic limitations.
By the 1950s, his audience had begun to shrink, largely because he had difficulty adapting to the new electric blues. His final recording session, for RCA Victor, was in 1949. He retired from music for several years and became a Chicago police officer. He recorded a session in 1953 with Broonzy and Memphis Slim. Samuel Charters included Brown’s “I’ve Been Treated Wrong” on the compilation album The Country Blues for Folkways Recordsin 1959. Brown made a modest and short-lived comeback as a live performer in the early 1960s.
more...Joseph Rudolph “Philly Joe” Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was an American jazz drummer .
As a child, Jones appeared as a featured tap dancer on The Kiddie Show on the Philadelphia radio Station WIP. He was in the US Army during World War II. In 1947 he became the house drummer at Café Society in New York City, where he played with the leading bebop players of the day including Tadd Dameron. Jones toured and recorded with Miles Davis Quintet from 1955 to 1958—a band that became known as “The Quintet” (along with Red Garland on piano, John Coltrane on sax, and Paul Chambers on bass). Davis acknowledged that Jones was his favorite drummer, and stated in his autobiography that he would always listen for Jones in other drummers.
From 1958 Jones worked as a leader, but continued to work as a sideman with other musicians, including Bill Evans and Hank Mobley. Evans, like Davis, also openly stated that Jones was his all-time favorite drummer.
more...Sadik Hakim (born Forrest Argonne Thornton; July 15, 1919 – June 20, 1983) was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Forrest Argonne Thornton was born on July 15, 1919 in Duluth, Minnesota. The name Argonne came from the World War I battle. He was taught music by his grandfather and played locally before moving to Chicago.
In Chicago in 1944, Hakim was heard by the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, who took him to New York to be the pianist in his band. He appeared on some Charlie Parker recordings for Savoy Records in the following year. He toured with another saxophonist, Lester Young from 1946 to 1948, including for recordings. He changed his name to Sadik Hakim, a Muslim formulation, in 1947.
“In the 1950s Hakim played in Canada with Louis Metcalf, toured with James Moody (1951–4), and was a member of Buddy Tate‘s orchestra (1956–60).” Hakim’s debut recording as a leader was in 1962, on an album for Charlie Parker Records that was shared with Duke Jordan. “Around 1966 he moved to Montreal, where he played in nightclubs. He toured Europe for a year, played in a trio at a festival in Duluth (1976), and then returned to New York; he toured Japan in 1979–80.”
Hakim returned to recording as a leader in 1973, laying down material that was released by CBC, Progressive, SteepleChase, and Storyville Records.[3] Hakim claimed that he wrote “Eronel”, which is usually thought of as a Thelonious Monk composition.
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