Svend Asmussen (28 February 1916 – 7 February 2017) was a Danish jazz violinist, known as “The Fiddling Viking”.^[1] A Swing style virtuoso, he played and recorded with many of the greats of Jazz, including Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Stephane Grappelli. He played publicly until 2010 when he had a blood clot, his career having spanned eight decades. Asmussen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, raised in a musical family, and started taking violin lessons at the age of 7. At age 16 he first heard recordings by jazz violin great Joe Venuti and began to emulate his style. He started working professionally as a violinist, vibraphonist, and singer at age 17, leaving his formal training behind for good. Early in his career he worked in Denmark and on cruise ships with artists such as Josephine Baker and Fats Waller. Asmussen later was greatly influenced by Stuff Smith, whom he met in Denmark. Asmussen played with Valdemar Eiberg and Kjeld Bonfils during World War II, during which time jazz had moved to the underground and served as a form of political protest.

NGC 5701 is a lenticular SB0-a-type galaxy in the constellation Virgo , approximately 68 million light years from the Milky Way. The galaxy was discovered on April 29, 1786 by the German-British astronomer William Herschel .

Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He was among the most influential early bebopmusicians, which included other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Gordon’s height was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), so he was also known as “Long Tall Dexter” and “Sophisticated Giant”. His studio and performance career spanned over 40 years.

Gordon’s sound was commonly characterized as being “large” and spacious and he had a tendency to play behind the beat. He was known for inserting musical quotes into his solos, with sources as diverse as “Happy Birthday” and well known melodies from the operas of Wagner. This is not unusual in jazz improvisation, but Gordon did it frequently enough to make it a hallmark of his style. One of his major influences was Lester Young. Gordon, in turn, was an early influence on John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Rollins and Coltrane then influenced Gordon’s playing as he explored hard bop and modal playing during the 1960s. Gordon was known for his genial and humorous stage presence. He was an advocate of playing to communicate with the audience, which was his musical approach as well. His improvisation was remarkably engaging and intelligent, but never gratuitously complex or unusual. It was always a conversation simultaneously delightful and intellectual. One of his idiosyncratic rituals was to recite lyrics from each ballad before playing it. A photograph by Herman Leonard of Gordon taking a smoke break at the Royal Roost in 1948 is one of the iconic images in jazz photography.Cigarettes were a recurring theme on covers of Gordon’s albums.

Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in the Bertrand Tavernier film Round Midnight(Warner Bros, 1986), and he won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist, for the soundtrack album The Other Side of Round Midnight (Blue Note Records, 1986). He also had a cameo role in the 1990 film Awakenings. In 2018, Gordon’s album Go (Blue Note, 1962) was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Chuck Wayne (February 27, 1923 – July 29, 1997) was a jazz guitarist. He came to prominence in the 1940s, and was among the earliest jazz guitarists to play in the bebop style. Wayne was a member of Woody Herman‘s First Herd, the first guitarist in the George Shearing quintet, and Tony Bennett‘s music director and accompanist. He developed a systematic method for playing jazz guitar.

Wayne was known for a bebop style influenced by saxophone players of his time, especially Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins. In an era when many guitarists used four-square, mandolin-style picking, with rigid up-down stroke articulation, Wayne developed a technique not widely adopted by others until decades later. He also developed a comprehensive approach to guitar chords and arpeggios – based on generic tetrad forms spanning all possible inversions, in varying degrees of open voicing. This highly analytic approach to the fretboard was later documented in a series of theory books, some released posthumously. Chuck Wayne was born Charles Jagelka in New York City to a Czechoslovakian family. As a boy he learned banjo, mandolin, and balalaika. In the early 1940s he began playing in jazz bands on 52nd Street. After two years in the Army, he returned to New York City, joined Joe Marsala‘s band, and settled in Staten Island (until a 1991 move to New Jersey). He changed his musical style after hearing Charlie Parker, recording with Dizzy Gillespie in 1945.

Freddie Keppard (sometimes rendered as Freddy Keppard) (February 27, 1889 – July 15, 1933) was an early jazz cornetist who once held the title of “King” in the New Orleans jazz scene. This title was previously held by Buddy Bolden and succeeded by Joe Oliver.

Keppard (pronounced in the French fashion, with relatively even accentuation and a silent d) was born in the Creole of Color community of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features NGC4826 — a spiral galaxy located 17 million light-years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair). This galaxy is often referred to as the “Black Eye”, or “Evil Eye”, galaxy because of the dark band of dust that sweeps across one side of its bright nucleus.

NGC4826 is known by astronomers for its strange internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this galaxy and the gas in its inner regions are rotating in opposite directions, which might be related to a recent merger. New stars are forming in the region where the counter rotating gases collide.  This galaxy was first discovered in 1779 by the English astronomer Edward Pigott.

Mitch Ryder (born William Sherille Levise, Jr.; February 26, 1945) is an American musician who has recorded more than 25 albums over more than four decades.

Ryder is noted for his gruff, wailing singing style and his dynamic stage performances. He was influenced by his father, a musician. As a teenager, Ryder sang backup with a black soul-music group known as the Peps, but racial animosities interfered with his continued presence in the group.

Ryder formed his first band, Tempest, when he was at Warren High School, and the group gained some notice playing at a Detroit soul music club called The Village. Ryder next appeared fronting a band named Billy Lee & The Rivieras, which had limited success until they met songwriter / record producer Bob Crewe. Crewe renamed the group Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, and they recorded several hit records for his DynoVoice Records and New Voice labels in the mid to late 1960s, most notably “Devil with a Blue Dress On“, their highest-charting single at number four, as well as “Jenny Take a Ride!”, which reached number 10 in 1965, and “Sock It to Me, Baby!”, a number six hit in 1967. The Detroit Wheels were John Badanjek on drums, Mark Manko on lead guitar, Joe Kubert (not to be confused with the comic book illustrator Joe Kubert) on rhythm guitar, Jim McCarty (not to be confused with the Yardbirds drummer of the same name) on lead guitar and Jim McAllister on bass.

John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003 Kingsland, AR) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Much of Cash’s music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his career. He was known for his deep, calm bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band characterized by train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark all-black stage wardrobe which earned him the nickname “The Man in Black“.

Born to poor cotton farmers in Kingsland, Arkansas, Cash rose to fame in the burgeoning rockabilly scene in Memphis, Tennessee, after four years in the Air Force. He traditionally began his concerts by simply introducing himself, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”, followed by “Folsom Prison Blues“, one of his signature songs. Alongside “Folsom Prison Blues”, his other signature songs include “I Walk the Line“, “Ring of Fire“, “Get Rhythm“, and “Man in Black“. He also recorded humorous numbers like “One Piece at a Time” and “A Boy Named Sue“, a duet with his future wife June called “Jackson” (followed by many further duets after their wedding), and railroad songs such as “Hey, Porter“, “Orange Blossom Special“, and “Rock Island Line“.During the last stage of his career, he covered songs by contemporary rock artists of the time; his most notable covers were “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, “Rusty Cage” by Soundgarden, and “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode.

Cash is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His genre-spanning music embraced country, rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel sounds. This crossover appeal earned him the rare honor of being inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American pianist and singer-songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records.

Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955 five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold. The Associated Press estimates that during his career, the artist “sold more than 110 million records and the Grammy organization states that Domino landed 37 songs in the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 throughout his career, including 11 that peaked inside the Top 10″.

His humility and shyness may be one reason his contribution to the genre has been overlooked. The significance of his work was great however; Elvis Presley declared Domino to be “the real king of rock ‘n’ roll” and once announced that Domino “was a huge influence on me when I started out”. Four of Domino’s records were named to the Grammy Hall of Fame for their significance: “Blueberry Hill“, “Ain’t It A Shame“, “Walking to New Orleans” and “The Fat Man“. “The Fat Man” “is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies”. Antoine Domino Jr. was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, the youngest of eight children born to Antoine Caliste Domino (1879–1964) and Marie-Donatille Gros (1886–1971). The Domino family was of French Creole background, and Louisiana Creole was his first language.

David Pell (February 26, 1925 – May 7, 2017) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and record producer. He was best known for leading a cool jazz octet in the 1950s.

Pell played in his teens with the big bands of Tony Pastor, Bob Astor, and Bobby Sherwood. In the 1940s he moved to California, where he played on Bob Crosby‘s radio show in 1946 and became a member of Les Brown‘s band from 1947 to 1955.

In 1953, he began working with his own ensembles, mostly as an octet with Pell on tenor saxophone, another saxophone (either a baritone or an alto), trumpet, trombone, guitar, and a piano-bass-drums rhythm section). Among the octet players were Pepper Adams, Benny Carter, Mel Lewis, Red Mitchell, Marty Paich, Art Pepper and, early his career, John Williams. These ensembles recorded in the 1950s for Atlantic, Kapp, Coral, Capitol, and RCA Victor. Pell also worked as a sideman for Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, Benny Goodman, and Gene Krupa. He produced music in the 1950s and 1960s for Tops, Uni and Liberty; among his credits were singles by Gary Lewis & the Playboys.