mick laBriola

Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, she rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes, who became Motown‘s most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world’s best-selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best-charting female group in US history, with a total of twelve number-one hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including, “Where Did Our Love Go“, “Baby Love“, “Come See About Me“, and “Love Child“.

Following departure from the Supremes in 1970, Ross embarked on a highly successful, globally ground-breaking solo career in music, television, film and stage. Ross’ eponymous debut solo album that same year, featured the U.S. number-one hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and music anthem “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)”. It was followed with her second solo album, Everything Is Everything, which spawned her first UK number-one single “I’m Still Waiting“. She continued her successful solo career by mounting elaborate record-setting world-wide concert tours, starring in a number of highly watched prime-time television specials and releasing hit albums like Touch Me in the Morning (1973), Mahogany (1975) and Diana Ross (1976) and their number-one hit singles, “Touch Me in the Morning“, “Theme from Mahogany” and “Love Hangover“, respectively. Ross further released numerous top-ten hits into the 1970s, 80s and 90s. She achieved two more US number-one singles, “Upside Down” (1980) and “Endless Love” (1981), as well as UK number-one hit “Chain Reaction” (1986) and UK number-two hit “When You Tell Me You Love Me” (1991). In 2019, Ross made history by charting four more number-ones on the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart in just two years with remixes ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough 2017’ in January 2018, ‘I’m Coming Out/Upside Down 2018’ in August that year and ‘The Boss 2019’ in April 2019.

Ross has also ventured into acting, with a Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated performance in the film Lady Sings the Blues(1972); she recorded its soundtrack, which became a number one hit on the U.S. album chart. She also starred in two other feature films, Mahogany(1975) and The Wiz (1978), later acting in the television films Out of Darkness (1994), for which she also was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and Double Platinum (1999).

Ross was named the “Female Entertainer of the Century” by Billboard in 1976. She is the only female artist to have number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist, as the other half of a duet, as a member of a trio, and as an ensemble member. Billboard ranked her as 28th greatest Hot 100 artist of all time. Ross ranks among the Top 5 artists on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart from 1955 to 2018 when combining her solo and Supremes’ hits. She had a top 10 UK hit in every one of the last five decades, and sang lead on a top 75 hit single at least once every year from 1964 to 1996 in the UK, a period of 33 consecutive years and a record for any performer. In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Supremes. Guinness Book of World Records recognized her success in the United States and United Kingdom for having more hits than any female artist in the charts, with a career total of 70 hit singles with her work with the Supremes and as a solo artist. She was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Lewis Barry Tabackin (born March 26, 1940) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and flutist. He is married to pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi with whom he has co-led large ensembles since the 1970s. Tabackin started learning flute at age 12, followed by tenor saxophone at age 15. He has cited Al Cohn and Coleman Hawkins as influences on saxophone, while his flute role models include classical players such as William Kincaid, Julius Baker, and Jean-Pierre Rampal. Tabackin studied flute at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and also studied music with composer Vincent Persichetti. In 1962 he graduated from the Conservatory and after serving with the U.S. Army worked with Tal Farlow. He also worked with Chuck Israels in New York City  and a band that included Elvin Jones, Donald Byrd, and Roland Hanna. Later he was a member of The Dick Cavett Show band and The Tonight Show Band with Doc Severinsen. He moved from New York to California with The Tonight Show in 1972.^[2] During this time he played with Shelly Manneand Billy Higgins.

Donald Orlando “Duck” Bailey (March 26, 1933 – October 15, 2013) was an American jazz drummer. Bailey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 26, 1933. He was largely self-taught as a drummer.

Bailey got his big break in the jazz world and he is probably best known as the drummer in the trio of jazz organist Jimmy Smith from 1956 to 1964 and also for his work with The Three Sounds on Blue Note Records. While based in Los Angeles, Bailey also worked as a sideman for musicians including Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Hampton Hawes, Kenny Burrell, and Red Mitchell. In the mid-1970s, Bailey moved to Japan, where he lived for five years.

His album Blueprints of Jazz Vol.3 featured Charles Tolliver (trumpet), George Burton (piano), and Odean Pope (tenor saxophone), and was issued by Talking House Records in 2008. His playing also featured on the soundtracks of the films Buck and the Preacher and Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me.Bailey performed around the San Francisco Bay Area until his late seventies and moved to Montclair, California, shortly before his death at age 80 in October 2013. He had suffered from asthma, seizures, and back problems.

James Moody (March 26, 1925 – December 9, 2010) was an American jazz saxophone and flute player and very occasional vocalist, playing predominantly in the bebop and hard bop styles.

Moody had an unexpected hit with “Moody’s Mood for Love,” a 1952 song written by Eddie Jefferson that used as its melody an improvised solo that Moody had played on a 1949 recording of “I’m in the Mood for Love.” Moody adopted the song as his own, recording it with Jefferson on his 1956 album Moody’s Mood for Love and performing the song regularly in concert, often singing the vocals himself.

James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia, and was raised by his (single) mother, Ruby Hann Moody Watters. He had a brother, Louis.^[2]Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, he was attracted to the saxophone after hearing George Holmes Tate, Don Byas, and various saxophonists who played with Count Basie. He later also took up the flute.

Joseph Edward Filippelli (March 26, 1915 – August 17, 2001), known professionally as Flip Phillips, was an American jazz tenor saxophone and clarinet player. He is best remembered for his work with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts from 1946 to 1957. Phillips recorded an album for Verve when he was in his 80s. He performed in a variety of genres, including mainstream jazz, swing, and jump blues.

During the 1930s, Phillips played clarinet in a restaurant in Brooklyn. After that he was a member of bands led by Frankie Newton, Red Norvo, Benny Goodman, and Wingy Manone. He was a regular soloist for the Woody Herman band in the middle 1940s and for the next ten years performed with Jazz at the Philharmonic. He retired to Florida, but after fifteen years he returned to music, recording again and performing into his 80s.

He recorded extensively for Clef in the 1940s and 1950s, including a 1949 album of small-group tracks under his leadership with Buddy Morrow, Tommy Turk, Kai Winding, Sonny Criss, Ray Brown, and Shelly Manne. He accompanied Billie Holiday on her 1952 album Billie Holiday Sings.

This red-hued cloud of gas is named Abell 24, and is located in the constellation of Canis Minor (The Lesser Dog). It is something known as a planetary nebula — a burst of gas and dust created when a star dies and throws its outer layers into space. Despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The term was coined by William Herschel, who also famously discovered Uranus; in a time of low-resolution astronomy, these nebulous objects appeared to resemble giant planets swimming in a dark cosmos.  A Sun-like star spends most of its life converting hydrogen into helium in its core. In its twilight years the star runs out of fuel and becomes unbalanced; it can no longer resist the inward crush of gravity and the core begins to collapse. The temperature in the core rises dramatically while the cooler outer layers expand, causing the entire star to bloat into a red giant. When the Sun begins its transformation into a red giant it will expand to completely engulf the innermost planets and possibly also the Earth, growing to over 250 times its current radius! Strong winds then expel the gaseous outer layers of the star, forming a shell of gas that spreads out into the vastness of space. The red giant’s venting atmosphere will eventually expose its hot, luminous remnant core, which will emit fierce ultraviolet radiation and ionise the surrounding gas. This image shows the faint nebulous glow of a stellar swansong — the bright remnant of a long-dead star. Taken with the VLT’s FORS (FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph) instrument, this image is part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an initiative to produce images of scientifically interesting and visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations.

Sir Elton Hercules John CH Kt CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer. Collaborating with lyricist Bernie Taupin since 1967 on more than 30 albums, John has sold over 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits in the UK Singles Chart and US Billboard Hot 100, including seven number ones in the UK and nine in the US, as well as seven consecutive number-one albums in the US. His tribute single “Candle in the Wind 1997“, rewritten in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also produced records and occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford F.C. from 1976 to 1987 and from 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary life president of the club.

Raised in the Pinner area of Greater London, John learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology, an R&B band with whom he played until 1967. He met his longtime musical partner Taupin in 1967, after they both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years, they wrote songs for artists including Lulu, and John worked as a session musician for artists including the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969, John’s debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970, his first hit single, “Your Song“, from his second album, Elton John, became his first top ten in both the UK and the US. His most commercially successful period, 1970–1976, included Honky Château (1972), Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player(1973), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) and his first Greatest Hits compilation — the latter two listed among the best-selling albums worldwide. John has also had success in musical films and theatre, composing for The Lion King and its stage adaptation, Aida and Billy Elliot the Musical.

John has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards; including for Outstanding Contribution to Music; two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 49th on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists, and third overall, behind the Beatles and Madonna. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to music and charitable services” in 1998.

John has been involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and a year later he began hosting his annual Academy Awards Party, which has since become one of the biggest high-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over £300 million. John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012. John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005; they married after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in 2014. Presenting John with France’s highest civilian award, the Legion d’honneur, in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron called him a “melodic genius” and praised his work on behalf of the LGBT community. In 2018, John embarked on a three-year farewell tour.

Aretha Louise Franklin (March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018 Memphis, TN) was an American singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, and civil rights activist. Franklin began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister. At the age of 18, she embarked on a secular-music career as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While Franklin’s career did not immediately flourish, she found acclaim and commercial success after signing with Atlantic Records in 1966. Hit songs such as “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)“, “Respect“, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman“, “Chain of Fools“, “Think“, and “I Say a Little Prayer” propelled her past her musical peers. By the end of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin had come to be known as the “Queen of Soul“.

Franklin continued to record acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967), Lady Soul (1968), Spirit in the Dark (1970), Young, Gifted and Black (1972), Amazing Grace (1972), and Sparkle (1976) before experiencing problems with her record company. Franklin left Atlantic in 1979 and signed with Arista Records. She appeared in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers before releasing the successful albums Jump to It(1982), Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985), and Aretha (1986) on the Arista label. In 1998, Franklin returned to the Top 40 with the Lauryn Hill-produced song “A Rose Is Still a Rose“; later, she released an album of the same name which was certified gold. That same year, Franklin earned international acclaim for her performance of “Nessun dorma” at the Grammy Awards where she filled in at the last minute for Luciano Pavarotti, who canceled his appearance after the show had already begun. In a widely noted performance, she paid tribute to 2015 honoree Carole King by singing “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center Honors.

Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries, and 20 number-one R&B singles. Besides the foregoing, Franklin’s well-known hits also include “Ain’t No Way“, “Call Me“, “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)“, “Spanish Harlem“, “Rock Steady“, “Day Dreaming“, “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)“, “Something He Can Feel“, “Jump to It“, “Freeway of Love“, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who“, and “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” (a duet with George Michael). She won 18 Grammy Awards, including the first eight awards given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (1968–1975). Franklin is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

Franklin received numerous honors throughout her career. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1987, she became the first female performer to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She also was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2012. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her number one on its list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” and number nine on its list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”.^[9] The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019 awarded Franklin a posthumous special citation “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades”. In 2020, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 – November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.

He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later was a regular in pianist Keith Jarrett‘s band for about a decade (c. 1967–1976). Motian began his career as a bandleader in the early 1970s. Perhaps his two most notable groups were a longstanding trio of guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, and the Electric Bebop Band where he worked mostly with younger musicians on interpretations of bebopstandards with the 1993 album Paul Motian and the Electric Bebop Band.

Motian was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He is of Armenian descent. After playing guitar in his childhood, Motian began playing the drums at age 12, eventually touring New England in a swing band. During the Korean War he joined the Navy.

Motian became a professional musician in 1954, and briefly played with pianist Thelonious Monk. He became well known as the drummer in pianist Bill Evans‘s trio (1959–64), initially alongside bassist Scott LaFaro and later with Chuck Israels.

Subsequently, he played with pianists Paul Bley (1963–64) and Keith Jarrett (1967–76). Other musicians with whom Motian performed and/or recorded in the early period of his career included Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Joe Castro, Arlo Guthrie (Motian performed briefly with Guthrie in 1968–69, including at Woodstock), Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, and Don Cherry. Motian subsequently worked with musicians such as Marilyn Crispell, Bill Frisell, Leni Stern, Joe Lovano, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Alan Pasqua, Bill McHenry, Stéphan Oliva, Frank Kimbrough, Eric Watsonand many more.

Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.

Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase “eighty-eight tuned drums” to describe Taylor’s style. He has been referred to as being “like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings”.

Taylor was raised in the Corona, Queens neighborhood of New York City. As an only child to a middle-class family, Taylor’s mother encouraged him to play music at an early age. He began playing piano at age six and went on to study at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor majored in composition and arranging. During his time there, he also became familiar with contemporary European art music. Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen notably influenced his music.

“Sweet Emma” Barrett (March 25, 1897, New Orleans, Louisiana – January 28, 1983) was an American, self-taught jazz pianist and singer who worked with the Original Tuxedo Orchestra between 1923 and 1936, first under Papa Celestin, then William Ridgely. She also worked with Armand Piron, John Robichaux, Sidney Desvigne, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Born March 25, 1897 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her father was Capt. William B. Barrett, whom she said fought for the North in the Civil War. At the age of 7 she began to play the piano. In the early 1920s, Barrett joined Oscar Celestin‘s Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra. In 1928, when the Celestin’s band split, she intermittently played music with Bebe Ridgeley’s Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra for the next 10 years.

In 1947, she accepted a steady job at Happy Landing, a local club in Pecaniere, Louisiana, but it was her recording debut in 1961, with her own album in the Riverside Records New Orleans: The Living Legends series, that brought her recognition. Although most of the songs on the album were instrumentals, others featured vocals by Barrett that the liner notes described as her first recordings as a vocalist.

NGC 604 is an H II region inside the Triangulum Galaxy. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 11, 1784. It is among the largest H II regions in the Local Group of galaxies; at the galaxy’s estimated distance of 2.7 million light-years, its longest diameter is roughly 1,520 light years (~460 parsecs) (14.38031 exameters), over 40 times the size of the visible portion of the Orion Nebula.

Paul Brownlee McCandless Jr. (born March 24, 1947) is an American multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the American jazz group Oregon. He is one of the few jazz oboists. He also plays bass clarinet, English horn, flute and soprano saxophone.

Paul Brownlee McCandless Jr. was born into a musical family. His father (who was also an oboe and English horn player) taught him clarinet, his mother piano, and he attended the Manhattan School of Music. In 1971 he auditioned with the New York Philharmonic playing English horn and was a finalist. McCandless has released a series of records of his own compositions with bands he led, including All the Mornings Bring (Elektra/Asylum, 1979), Navigator (Landslide, 1981), Heresay (Windham Hill, 1988), Premonition (Windham Hill, 1992). With Oregon, he has recorded over twenty albums, as well as several albums with Paul Winter.

In 1996, McCandless won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He also won Grammys in 2007 and 2011 with the Paul Winter Consort for Best New Age Album and in 1993 for Al Jarreau‘s album Heaven and Earth. His performance on Oregon’s album 1000 Kilometers was nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo in 2009. He won the Down Beat Critics’ Poll for Best Established Combo, the Deutscher Schallplatten Preis for his album Ectopia, and the Arbeitskreis Jazz im Bundesverband der Phonographishen Wirtschaft Gold Record Award.

Lee Oskar (born 24 March 1948) is a Danish harmonica player, notable for his contributions to the sound of the rock-funk fusion group War, which was formed by Howard E. Scott and Harold Brown, his solo work, and as a harmonica manufacturer. He continues to play with 3 other original War band members, Harold Brown, Howard Scott and B.B. Dickerson, under the name LowRider Band.

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1948, Oskar was six years old when a family friend gave him his first harmonica. “I came from an area where every kid on the block had a harmonica”, he remembers. He grew up listening to Danish radio, enjoying all types of music and cites Ray Charles as the biggest influence from that period. When he was 17, Oskar decided that the United States was where a harmonica player should make his career. So he moved to New York at the age of 18 with little more than a harmonica in his pocket. With no money, Oskar played harmonica in the streets of New York. Eventually arriving in Los Angeles, via Toronto and San Francisco, Oskar soon met and joined forces with Eric Burdon who had recently disbanded The Animals and was searching for new collaborators. Together, the harmonica-playing Dane (born Lee Oskar Levitin) and the British blues-rock singer made the rounds of the L.A. clubs, eventually hooking up with the soon-to-be members of War. Burdon agreed to the novel idea of pairing up Oskar’s harmonica with Charles Miller‘s saxophone to form a horn section. This team-up set War apart from the start, giving Oskar room to display the full spectrum of his improvisational prowess. Oskar’s harmonica magic was always a vital element in War’s music and performances. Oskar continued with War for 24 years non-stop. At the end of 1992, during the time of dispute over the WAR trademark, Oskar took a few years to continue his solo career and to focus on his Lee Oskar Harmonica manufacturing.

Boogie Bill Webb (March 24, 1924 – August 22, 1990) was an American Louisiana blues and rhythm-and-blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. His music combined Mississippi country blues with New Orleans R&B. His best-known recordings are “Bad Dog” and “Drinkin’ and Stinkin'”. Despite a lengthy (albeit intermittent) career, Webb released only one album.

Webb was born in Jackson, Mississippi. His got his first guitar at the age of eight, made from a cigar box and strung with screen wire. His greatest influence was Tommy Johnson. With a real guitar obtained when he was a teenager, he won a talent show in 1947. He subsequently appeared briefly in the musical film The Jackson Jive. He moved to New Orleans in 1952. In New Orleans Webb became friends with Fats Domino and was thus introduced to Dave Bartholomew and obtained a recording contract with Imperial Records, for which Domino and Bartholomew recorded. In 1953 Webb released his debut single, “Bad Dog,” a noncommercial slice of country boogie-woogie. Frustrated by lack of recognition, Webb relocated to Chicago, where he worked in factories. There he met and played with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, and Chuck Berry.