Blog
March 14th 1951
According to Rootz Reggae & Kulcha magazine (2004), “Eugene Grey is yet another of the many genius guitarists of world class status that Jamaica has produced” playing professionally from the age of 14. Born in Green Island Jamaica in 1951, he went to Ruseas High School in 1963 where he started playing the harmonica in the School Band. After winning 1st place in the Pop and Mento competition in 1964, he taught himself to play the trombone, drums, piano and lastly the guitar, which he made.
Eugene has an eclectic style that combines Jazz, Reggae and Classical music. This style has led to him touring worldwide as lead guitarist with such artists as Grammy Award winners Burning Spear and Toots and The Maytals, Ras Tesfa, Culture, Fab 5, Irving Burgie and Kid Creole and The Coconuts. Other artists Eugene has performed with include Big Youth, The Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, America’s Singing Poet Steve DePass, West Africa’s Abdou M’Boup and Vieux Diop, Tony Cafresi and His Latin Orchestra, The Wailers, Burning Spear and The Skatalites. While with The Skatalites Mr. Grey performed with Charlie Palmieri and Arthur Blythe at New York’s club ‘Village Gate’. In 1992 Eugene performed with his group, POWER REGGAE as the opening act and backing band for Jamaica’s Gregory Issacs in Switzerland.
He has recorded on all of the albums by Kid Creole and The Coconuts including arranging the song “Haiti” on their 1994 project. Also, the album “Voice of the Rastaman” by Shanachie artist Ras Tesfa and on the 1995 album “Via Jo” by Triloka artist Vieux Diop from Senegal, West Africa. Mr. Grey composed and arranged an original piece “Song For Jah” which was featured on the album “Another One Gone” by Shanachie Records artist Safi Abdullah. He also arranged the 1993 Christmas album for one of Jamaica’s premier male singers, Vic Taylor. vAnother aspect of his career was performing as a member of the orchestra in several Off-Broadway plays and musicals such as “In A Pigs Valise” in 1989; “Pecong” in 1991 at Newark Symphony Hall and the Off Broadway Classical musical “Sally and Tom” at Castillo Theatre in 1995/96. He also was Musical Director for the Off-Broadway musical “Rasta” in 1995.
Eugene was commissioned to arrange 42 of the original songs of his longtime employer, Irving Burgie to market as a Broadway Musical review. These songs were made famous by Harry Belafonte 50 years ago. His arrangements garnered extensive praise from Cherry Lane Records.
His official debut release “Timeless” was nominated for a 2003 Reggaesoca Music Award. This instrumental album has enjoyed rave reviews as well as extensive airplay in the US, Canada and Jamaica. 2004 saw his performance at the Suntrust Jazz Brunch at Riverwalk in Fort Lauderdale which coincided with the release of his new project, “Shades of Grey” which was nominated for 2005 Reggaesoca Music Award. Later that same year Eugene was in England as Musical Director for Irving Burgie’s musical “Day-O”.
more...Shirley Scott (March 14, 1934 – March 10, 2002) was an American jazz organist.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Scott studied trumpet and piano in school. As a performer in the 1950s, she played the Hammond B-3 organ. Her recordings with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis included the hit “In the Kitchen”. Influenced by gospel and blues, she played soul jazz in the 1960s with Stanley Turrentine, who became her husband during the same decade; the couple divorced in 1971.
Although organ trios declined in popularity during the 1970s, they resurged in the 1980s and she recorded again. In the 1990s, she recorded as pianist in a trio and performed at venues in Philadelphia.
Scott won an $8 million settlement in 2000 against American Home Products, the manufacturers of the diet drug fen-phen. She died of heart failure in 2002. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Shirley Scott among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW1ugIujS-I
more...Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992.
Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before moving on to work in pop music and film scores. In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African-Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “The Eyes of Love” from the film Banning. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film In Cold Blood, making him the first African-American to be nominated twice in the same year. In 1971, he became the first African-American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. In 1995, he was the first African-American to receive the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the second most Oscar-nominated African-American, with seven nominations each.
Jones was the producer, with Michael Jackson, of Jackson’s albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987), as well as the producer and conductor of the 1985 charity song “We Are the World“, which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time. Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on the South Side of Chicago on March 14, 1933, the son of Sarah Frances (née Wells), a bank officer and apartment complex manager, and Quincy Delight Jones Sr., a semi-professional baseball player and carpenter from Kentucky. Jones’ paternal grandmother was an ex-slave in Louisville, and Jones would later discover that his paternal grandfather was Welsh. With the help of the author Alex Haley in 1972 and Latter-day Saint researchers in Salt Lake City, Jones discovered that his mother’s ancestors included James Lanier, a relative of poet Sidney Lanier. Jones said, “He had a baby with my great-grandmother [a slave], and my grandmother was born there [on a plantation in Kentucky]. We traced this all the way back to the Laniers, the same family as Tennessee Williams.” Learning that the Lanier immigrant ancestors were French Huguenots who had court musicians among their ancestors, Jones attributed some of his musicianship to them.
more...
Robert Pete Williams (March 14, 1914 – December 31, 1980) was an American Louisiana blues musician. His music characteristically employed unconventional structures and guitar tunings, and his songs are often about the time he served in prison. His song “I’ve Grown So Ugly” has been covered by Captain Beefheart, on his album Safe as Milk (1967), and by The Black Keys, on Rubber Factory (2004).
Williams was born in Zachary, Louisiana, to a family of sharecroppers. He had no formal schooling, and spent his childhood picking cotton and cutting sugar cane. In 1928, he moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and worked in a lumberyard. At the age of 20, Williams fashioned a crude guitar by attaching five copper strings to a cigar box, and soon after bought a cheap, mass-produced one. Williams was taught by Frank and Robert Metty, and was at first chiefly influenced by Peetie Wheatstraw and Blind Lemon Jefferson. He began to play for small events such as Church gatherings, fish fries, suppers, and dances. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Williams played music and continued to work in the lumberyards of Baton Rouge.
more...The stunning Atoms for Peace galaxy was given its nickname due to its superficial resemblance to an atomic nucleus, surrounded by the loops of orbiting electrons. “Atoms for Peace” was the title of a speech given by President Eisenhower in 1953, in an attempt to rebrand nuclear power as a tool for working toward global peace. Somewhat ironically this galaxy has had anything but a peaceful past — it was formed in a catastrophic merger between two smaller galaxies nearly 1 Gyr ago. Distance: 220 Million ly
more...Stephen Scott (born March 13, 1969) in is an American jazz pianist. Scott played piano from the age of five. While attending New York’s High School of the Performing Arts he was introduced to jazz by alto saxophonist Justin Robinson, in particular the music of Wynton Kelly and Red Garland. Later, he took private lessons at the Juilliard School of Music.
In 1986 he received the Young Talent Award from the National Association of Jazz Educators and within the year was hired as accompanist to Betty Carter. Scott was soon playing with bands led by Kenny Barron, Terence Blanchard, Ron Carter, Lou Donaldson, Benny Golson, Craig Handy, Roy Hargrove, the Harper Brothers, Joe Henderson (appearing on the Grammy-winning tribute to Billy Strayhorn, Lush Life, Jon Hendricks, Bobby Hutcherson, Victor Lewis, appearing on Eeeyyess!, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins and Bobby Watson.
more...Richard Allen “Blue“ Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock and funk trumpeter and composer who recorded albums as leader and sideman for Riverside, Blue Note, and Mainstream Records.
Mitchell was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He began playing trumpet in high school, where he acquired his nickname, Blue. After high school, he played in the rhythm and blues ensembles of Paul Williams, Earl Bostic, and Chuck Willis. After returning to Miami, he was discovered by Cannonball Adderley, with whom he recorded for Riverside Records in New York in 1958.
He then joined the Horace Silver Quintet, playing with tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Roy Brooks. Mitchell stayed with Silver’s group until the band’s break-up in 1964, after which he formed a group with members from the Silver quintet, substituting the young pianist Chick Corea for Silver and replacing Brooks, who had fallen ill, with drummer Al Foster. This group produced a number of records for Blue Note. It disbanded in 1969, after which Mitchell joined and toured with Ray Charles until 1971.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTO0hVDH3pM
more...Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925) is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 75 years he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a father of modern jazz drumming. “Snap Crackle” was a nickname given to him in the 1950s.
He has led bands such as the Hip Ensemble. His albums Fountain of Youth and Whereas were nominated for a Grammy Award. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1999. His son Graham Haynes is a cornetist; his son Craig Holiday Haynes and grandson Marcus Gilmore are both drummers.
Haynes was born in the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts. His younger brother, Michael E. Haynes, would become an important leader in the black community of Massachusetts, working with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, representing Roxbury in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and for forty years serving as pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church, where King had been a member while he pursued his doctoral degree at Boston University.
Haynes made his professional debut in 1944 in his native Boston and began his full-time professional career in 1945. From 1947 to 1949 he worked with saxophonist Lester Young, and from 1949 to 1952 was a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker‘s quintet. He also recorded at the time with pianist Bud Powell and saxophonists Wardell Gray and Stan Getz. From 1953 to 1958 he toured with singer Sarah Vaughan and recorded with her.
more...Otis Verries Hicks, known as Lightnin’ Slim (March 13, 1913 – July 27, 1974), was an American Louisiana blues musician, who recorded for Excello Records and played in a style similar to its other Louisiana artists. The blues critic ED Denson ranked him as one of the five great bluesmen of the 1950s, along with Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson.
According to most sources, Otis Hicks was born on a farm outside St. Louis, Missouri, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc stated, on the basis of his draft card, that he was born in Good Pine, Louisiana. He moved to Baton Rouge at the age of thirteen. Taught guitar by his older brother Layfield, Slim was playing in bars in Baton Rouge by the late 1940s.
His first recording was “Bad Luck Blues” (“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all”), released by J. D. “Jay” Miller‘s Feature Records in 1954. It was Miller, who had a penchant for picking colourful artists’ names, who christened him “Lightnin’ Slim”. Slim then recorded for Excello Records for twelve years, starting in the mid-1950s, often collaborating with his brother-in-law Slim Harpo and with the harmonica player Lazy Lester.
more...One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth’s sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode’s galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81’s bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweepingcosmic dust lanes. Some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features though. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter betweenM81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. M81’s faint, dwarf irregular satellite galaxy, Holmberg IX, can be seen just below the large spiral. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy — 11.8 million light-years.
more...Alwin Lopez Jarreau (March 12, 1940 – February 12, 2017) was an American singer and musician. His 1981 album Breakin’ Away spent two years on the Billboard 200 and is considered one of the finest examples of the Los Angeles pop and R&B sound. The album won Jarreau the 1982 Grammyfor Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. In all, he won seven Grammy Awards and was nominated for over a dozen more during his career.
Jarreau also sang the theme song of the 1980s television series Moonlighting, and was among the performers on the 1985 charity song “We Are the World.” Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on March 12, 1940, the fifth of six children. His father was a Seventh-day Adventist Church minister and singer, and his mother was a church pianist. Jarreau and his family sang together in church concerts and in benefits, and Jarreau and his mother performed at PTA meetings.
more...Hugh Lawson (March 12, 1935 – March 11, 1997), was an American jazz pianist from Detroit who worked with Yusef Lateef for more than 10 years.
Inspired by Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes and Bill Evans, Lawson first gained recognition for his work with Yusef Lateef from 1957 onwards. He recorded with Harry “Sweets” Edison (1962), Roy Brooks, and Lateef again on several occasions in the 1960s. In 1972, he performed with “The Piano Choir” (Strata-East), a group with seven pianists including Stanley Cowell and Harold Mabern. He went on to tour with Charles Mingus in 1975 and 1977 and made recordings with Charlie Rouse (1977), George Adams, and as a leader.
Lawson died of colon cancer in White Plains, NY, March 11, 1997, at the age of 61.
more...Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 – January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song “San Francisco Bay Blues“.
Fuller was born in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta. He was sent by his mother to live with foster parents when he was a young child, in a rural setting where he was badly mistreated. Growing up, he worked at numerous jobs: grazing cows for ten cents a day; working in a barrel factory, a broom factory, and a rock quarry; working on a railroad and for a streetcar company; shining shoes; and even peddling hand-carved wooden snakes. By the age of 10, he was playing the guitar in two techniques, which he described as “frailing” and “picking.”
In the 1920s he lived in southern California, where he operated a hot-dog stand and was befriended by Douglas Fairbanks. He worked briefly as a film extra in The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and East of Suez. In 1929 he settled in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, where he worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad for many years as a fireman, spike driver, and maintenance-of-way worker. He married, and he and his wife, Gertrude, had a family. During World War II, he worked as a shipyard welder, but when the war ended he found it increasingly difficult to secure employment. Around the early 1950s, Fuller began to consider the possibility of making a living as a musician.
more...Don Drummond (12 March 1932 – 6 May 1969) was a Jamaican ska trombonist and composer. He was one of the original members of The Skatalites, and composed many of their tunes.
Drummond was born at the Jubilee Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, to Doris Monroe and Uriah Drummond. He was educated at Kingston’s Alpha Boys School, where he later taught his younger schoolmate Rico Rodriguez to play the trombone.
His musical career began in 1950 with the Eric Dean’s All-Stars where he performed jazz. He continued into the 1960s with others, including Kenny Williams.
After performing jazz for a decade, Drummond began performing ska and in 1964 Don joined The Skatalites. With Drummond’s politicized conversion to the Rastafari movement, other band members followed his lead. He became a household name in Jamaica, before suffering mental problems. He was rated by pianist George Shearing to be among the world’s top five trombone players.
In 1965 Drummond was convicted of the murder of his longtime girlfriend, Anita “Marguerita” Mahfood, an exotic rhumba dancer and singer, on 1 January 1965. He was ruled criminally insane and imprisoned at Bellevue Asylum, Kingston, where he remained until his death four years later. The official cause of death was “natural causes”, possibly heart failure caused by malnutrition or improper medication, but other theories were put forward; some of his colleagues believed it was a government plot against the Kingston musical scene, and some believed that he was killed by gangsters as revenge for the murder of Mahfood. Heather Augustyn, author of a biography of Drummond published in 2013 claimed to have proved that Drummond’s death was caused by his medications.
more...Charles Phillip Thompson (March 21, 1918 – June 16, 2016) was an American swing and bebop pianist, organist, composer, and arranger.
Thompson was born in Springfield, Ohio, on March 21, 1918. His father was a minister and his stepmother played the piano. “He first studied violin and briefly played tenor saxophone, but took up piano as a teenager.” He moved with his family to Parsons, Kansas, in the southeastern part of the state. Later Thompson attended a Kansas City high school.
By the age of twelve, Thompson was playing private parties with Bennie Moten and his band in Colorado Springs, Colorado. During this time Count Basie played off and on with Moten’s band. During a show Basie called the young Thompson up to play. He was dubbed Sir Charles Thompson by Lester Young.
Thompson chiefly worked with small groups, including the Coleman Hawkins/Howard McGhee sextet in 1944–1945. Throughout the 1940s he played and recorded with Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis and J.C. Heard, among others. He played with Lucky Millinder‘s big band in 1946, and under Illinois Jacquet in 1947–48 and 1952.
He worked freelance, principally on organ, for much of the 1950s. He played with Parker again in 1953 and recorded with Vic Dickenson and Buck Clayton in 1953–54. Thompson worked with Earl Bostic in the late 1950s before heading his own quartet in 1959.
more...Alegrías (Spanish pronunciation: [aleˈɣɾi.as]) is a flamenco palo or musical form, which has a rhythm consisting of 12 beats. It is similar to Soleares. Its beat emphasis is as follows: 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 [8]9 [10] 11 [12]. Alegrías originated in Cádiz. Alegrías belongs to the group of palos called Cantiñas and it is usually played in a lively rhythm (120-170 beats per minute). The livelier speeds are chosen for dancing, while quieter rhythms are preferred for the song alone.
One of the structurally strictest forms of flamenco, a traditional dance in alegrías must contain each of the following sections: a salida (entrance), paseo (walkaround), silencio (similar to an adagio in ballet), castellana (upbeat section) zapateado (Literally “a tap of the foot”) and bulerías. This structure though, is not followed when alegrías are sung as a standalone song (with no dancing). In that case, the stanzas are combined freely, sometimes together with other types of cantiñas.
more...More Posts
- World Music with Edmar Castañeda
- Daily Roots with Lee Perry & Mad Professor
- The Cosmos with PLCK G308.3-20.2
- Herbie Mann
- Bennie Green Day
- Alton Purnell Day
- World Music with Hariprasad Chaurasia
- Daily Roots with the Tamlins
- The Cosmos with Arp 244
- Richard Davis Day
- Bernard Addison Day
- Bessie Smith Day
- World Fusion with Sa Ding Ding
- Daily Roots with King Tubby
- The Cosmos with M81
- Gene Ammons Day
- Shorty Rogers Day
- World Music with Seydu
- Daily Roots with Scientist
- The Cosmos with Arp 142