mick laBriola

Surprisingly reminiscent of The Great Nebula in Orion, The Great Turkey Nebula spans this creative field of view. Of course if it were the Orion Nebula it would be our closest large stellar nursery, found at the edge of a large molecular cloud a mere 1,500 light-years away. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula is visible to the eye as the middle “star” in the sword of Orion the Hunter, a constellation now rising in planet Earth’s evening skies. Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the Orion Nebula sculpt its ridges and cavities seen in familiar in telescopic images. Much larger than any bird you might be cooking, this Great Turkey Nebula was imagined to be similar in size to the Orion Nebula, about 13 light-years across. Stay safe and well.

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock, November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. Known as “the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll“, she rose to prominence as part of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before launching a successful career as a solo performer. She is noted for her energetic stage presence, powerful vocals, world-famous legs, and career longevity.

Turner began her recording career as a featured singer with Ike Turner‘s Kings of Rhythm under the name “Little Ann” on “Boxtop” in 1958. Her introduction to the public as Tina Turner began in 1960 with the hit single “A Fool in Love“. She married Ike Turner in 1962. The duo went on to become “one of the most formidable live acts in history” and released notable hits such as “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine“, “River Deep – Mountain High“, the Grammy-winning “Proud Mary“, and “Nutbush City Limits“. Raised a Baptist, she became an adherent of Nichiren Buddhism in 1973, crediting the spiritual chant of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with helping her to endure during difficult times. Ike & Tina Turner disbanded in 1976, ending both their personal and their musical partnership; they divorced in 1978. In her 1986 autobiography, I, Tina: My Life Story, Turner revealed that she had been subjected to domestic violence.

In the 1980s, Turner launched “one of the greatest comebacks in music history” as a solo artist. Her 1983 single “Let’s Stay Together” was followed by the release of her fifth solo album, Private Dancer (1984), which became a worldwide success. The album contained the hit song “What’s Love Got to Do with It“, which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, and it became her first and only Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit. At the time, aged 44, she became the oldest female solo artist to top the Hot 100 chart. Turner’s chart success continued with “Better Be Good to Me“, “Private Dancer“, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)“, “Typical Male“, “The Best“, “I Don’t Wanna Fight“, and “GoldenEye“. During her Break Every Rule World Tour, she set a then-Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience (180,000) for a solo performer. Her final Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour is one of the highest-grossing tours of all time. In 1993, What’s Love Got to Do with It, a biographical film adapted from Turner’s autobiography, was released with an accompanying soundtrack album. Turner also acted in the films Tommy (1975), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome(1985), and Last Action Hero (1993).

Having sold over 100 million records, Turner is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She has received 12 Grammy Awards, which include eight competitive awards, three Grammy Hall of Fame awards, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She was the first black artist and first female to cover Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone ranked her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Ike Turner in 1991, and is a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. A resident of Küsnacht in Switzerland since 1994, she gained Swiss citizenship in 2013 and relinquished her American citizenship later that year.

Robert Andrew Kreinar (November 26, 1937 – July 16, 2012 Pittsburg, PA), known as Bob Babbitt, was a Hungarian–American bassist, most famous for his work as a member of Motown Records‘ studio band, the Funk Brothers, from 1966 to 1972, as well as his tenure as part of MFSB for Philadelphia International Records afterwards. Also in 1968, with Mike Campbell, Ray Monette and Andrew Smith he formed the band Scorpion, which lasted until 1970. He is ranked number 59 on Bass Player magazine’s list of “The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time”.

Babbitt traded off sessions with original Motown bassist James Jamerson. When Motown moved to Los Angeles, Babbit went in the opposite direction and ended up in New York; while making occasional trips to Philadelphia. In this new city he worked on recordings for Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, Gloria Gaynor, Robert Palmer, and Alice Cooper. During this time his most notable successes were “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight & the Pips and “The Rubberband Man” by The Spinners.

The Pittsburgh-born Babbitt’s most notable bass performances include “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” by Stevie Wonder, “War” by Edwin Starr, “The Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” and “Inner City Blues” by Marvin Gaye, “Band Of Gold” by Freda Payne, “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” by The Temptations and “Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely” by The Main Ingredient.[1]

He participated in hundreds of other hits, including “Little Town Flirt” by Del Shannon, “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce, and “Scorpio” by Dennis Coffey & the Detroit Guitar Band. He played on the Jimi Hendrix album Crash Landing. He also played bass on Cindy Bullens‘ 1978 album, Desire Wire. He accepted an offer from Phil Collins to perform on his album of Motown and 1960s soul classics, Going Back, and also appeared in Collins’ Going Back – Live At Roseland Ballroom, NYC concert DVD. He appeared on stage in an episode of American Idol, backing up Jacob Lusk’s performance of “You’re All I Need To Get By” for AI’s Motown Week in March 2011.

In 2003, Babbitt played on Marion James‘ album, Essence, on Soulfood Records, and amongst others playing on the record were Beegie Adair, Reese Wynans, Jack Pearson (The Allman Brothers), and drummer Chucki Burke.

He was added to the Music City Walk of Fame on June 5, 2012.

Bob Babbitt died on July 16, 2012, aged 74, from brain cancer

Born 11-26-1924 died 2-6-2013

Sharp was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1924. His family had settled there because Kansas was, during slavery times, a free state. Sharp’s great-grandmother was a slave and he remembers her telling him stories about lying on the floor while cannonballs blasted through the cabin. The Great Depression soon followed, and Sharp’s parents sent him to live with relatives in Los Angeles while they went to New York to seek their fortune.

Sharp’s father was a concert tenor who won several small roles in Broadway shows but never hit it big. However, their social life was rich; they lived in an apartment building in Harlem with fellow residents Duke Ellington, Walter White, Roy Wilkins and artist Aaron Douglas. It was the peak of the Harlem Renaissance, and poet Langston Hughes was a family friend; Orson Welles had recently staged his famous Black Macbeth at the nearby Lafayette Theater. Sharp, a piano player and singer, penned “Unchain My Heart” in 1960 and Ray Charles turned it into an American sensation in 1961. An energetic cover of the song by Joe Cocker made it popular again in 1987.

Sharp received just $50 for the lyrics when he sold them to musician and composer Teddy Powell, who insisted on shared writing credits. Sharp then used the money to supplement a drug habit. In 1963, Sharp sold his remaining writer’s share to Powell for $1,000. Sharp sued Powell for the rights to the song a year later and, after a seven-year legal battle, the suit was settled.

Nesuhi Ertegun (Turkish spelling: Nesuhi Ertegün; November 26, 1917 – July 15, 1989) was a Turkish-American record producer and executive of Atlantic Records and WEA International. Born in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, Nesuhi and his family, including his younger brother Ahmet, moved to Washington, D.C., in 1935 with their father Munir Ertegun, who was appointed the Turkish Ambassador to the United States that year.

From an early age, Nesuhi’s primary musical interest was jazz. He had attended concerts in Europe before his family moved to the United States. While living at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., he promoted jazz concerts during 1941-1944. When his father died in 1944, and the rest of his family returned to Turkey, Nesuhi moved to California, where he married Jazz Man Record Shop owner Marili Morden and helped run the shop as well as establishing the Crescent Records label. After purchasing Jazz Man Records, he discontinued Crescent and issued traditional jazz recordings on Jazz Man until 1952. At Jazz Man, Nesuhi produced classic Kid Ory revival recordings in 1944 and 1945, plus other recordings by Pete Daily and Turk Murphy.

Smudging Thanksgiving Ceremony 2020
Commemorating todays NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING,
Created by the Wampanoag First Nation People of New England/Massachusetts and what the white people call THANKSGIVING.
As a young adult free spirit, my community would smudge our cabins/homes as a way to cleanse since the days I lived in Colorado. But it was Amos Owen, Dakota Medicine man at Prairie Island, who really taught me the power of smudging.
2020 the transformative year of incredible challenges, devastation and political turmoil. Let us purify our homes and spirit in preparation of tomorrow and begin the Healing of COVID and the Healing in Our Hearts and move forward with the power of our Ancestors and Loved Ones to a New and Vibrant Future United as One People of Mother Earth! And Give Thanks each and everyday we are here alive, living and breathing!

Some of the most stunning views of our sky occur at sunset, when sunlight pierces the clouds, creating a mixture of bright and dark rays formed by the clouds’ shadows and the beams of light scattered by the atmosphere. Astronomers studying the nearby galaxy IC 5063 are tantalized by a similar effect in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In this case, a collection of narrow bright rays and dark shadows is seen beaming out of the blazingly bright center of the active galaxy, shooting across at least 36,000 light-years. Astronomers have traced the rays back to the galaxy’s core, the location of an active supermassive black hole. The black hole is feeding on infalling material, producing a powerful gusher of light from superheated gas near it. Although the researchers have developed several plausible theories for the lightshow, the most intriguing idea suggests that the shadows are being cast into space by an inner tube-shaped ring, or torus, of dusty material surrounding the black hole. IC 5063 resides 156 million light-years from Earth.

November 25th 1939

Lew Woodall meandered a long and winding pathway before finding his way to jazz. After playing rock, top forty, beach, and blues earlier in his career and ceasing to play completely for a period of 12 years; he has recorded 4 jazz CDs since he began playing jazz gigs in 2000. His 2008 and 2009 CDs Simply Cooking and Simply Cooking II, Second Time Around are produced and distributed by Paolo Piangiarelli of Philology Jazz Records. On these two albums, Lew is joined by renowned bebop pianist, Hod O’Brien, bassist, Tom Harbeck, and drummer, Joel Lubliner. In 2006, Lew released Texas Trip which was recorded in Dallas and features old friend, John Bryant (former drummer for Ray Charles) and Dallas/Fort Worth Hammond B3 organ master, Tommy Young. Lew’s first jazz CD, Kiss You Momma was released in 2002. On this album, Lew shares lead guitar honors with renowned jazz player, guitarist, Royce Campbell. They are joined by Matt Kendrick on bass and Lubliner on drums.

Lew’s path to playing jazz may have been winding; but his path to loving jazz was short and direct. He was born in Bassett, Virginia on November 25, 1939. When he was 2 years old, his mother died and he and his sister went to live with grandparents in neighboring Patrick County. Living a farm life without the benefit of indoor plumbing or electricity did not deter Lew from developing an ear for jazz. He remembers, as a 5-year old, scanning the dial of the old dry-cell battery powered radio in search of jazz and Latin stations and listening to Glen Miller and others playing jazz in the forties. Music was a big part of Lew’s childhood. One grandfather played the banjo and the other played the fiddle. He fondly remembers spending summer nights at the tobacco barn with his grandfather and enjoying the impromptu jams as neighbors gathered around with a variety of musical instruments.

Nat Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz trumpeter. He was the younger brother of saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, whom he supported and played with for many years. Adderley’s composition “Work Song” (1960) is a jazz standard, and also became a success on the pop charts after singer Oscar Brown Jr. wrote lyrics for it.

Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley was born in Tampa, Florida, but moved to Tallahassee when his parents were hired to teach at Florida A&M University. His father played trumpet professionally in his younger years, and he passed down his trumpet to Cannonball. When Cannonball picked up the alto saxophone, he passed the trumpet to Nat, who began playing in 1946. He and Cannonball played with Ray Charles in the early 1940s in Tallahassee and in amateur gigs around the area.

Paul Desmond (born Paul Emil Breitenfeld, November 25, 1924 – May 30, 1977) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer, best known for his work with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for composing that group’s biggest hit, “Take Five“. He was one of the most popular musicians to come out of the cool jazz scene.

In addition to his work with Brubeck, he led several groups and collaborated with Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Jim Hall, and Ed Bickert. After years of chain smoking and poor health, Desmond succumbed to lung cancer in 1977 after a tour with Brubeck.

Desmond was born Paul Emil Breitenfeld in San Francisco, California, in 1924, the son of Shirley (née King) and Emil Aron Breitenfeld.^[1] His grandfather Sigmund Breitenfeld was, according to an obituary, born in Austria in 1857. Sigmund Breitenfeld, a medical doctor, emigrated to New York City with his wife Hermine (born Hermine Lewy) at the end of the 19th century, and the Breitenfelds raised their four children (including Desmond’s father Emil) with no religion.

Edward Riley Boyd (November 25, 1914 – July 13, 1994) was an American blues pianist, singer and songwriter, best known for his recordings in the early 1950s, including the number one R&B chart hit “Five Long Years“.

Boyd was born either on Stovall’s Plantation, near Clarksdale, Mississippi, or on Frank Moore’s Plantation, near Stovall, Mississippi. He learned to play the guitar and the piano. His piano playing was influenced by the styles of Roosevelt Sykes and Leroy Carr.

Boyd moved to the Beale Street district of Memphis, Tennessee, in 1936, where he played with his group, the Dixie Rhythm Boys. He then joined the Great Migration of African Americans north to the factories of Chicago in 1941. He recorded for Bluebird Records, accompanying such musicians as Sonny Boy Williamson, Jazz Gillum, Muddy Waters, and Tampa Red, before making his first recordings under his own name, in 1947.

He decided to produce his own recordings, and took two demos to Joe Brown at J.O.B. Records, who agreed to re-record the tracks. In May 1952 he recorded “Five Long Years“, which became a huge hit, topping the Billboard R&B chart for seven weeks late in the year. He signed with Parrot Records, which then sold his contract to Chess Records. Boyd had two further hits for Chess in 1953, “24 Hours” and “Third Degree” (co-written by Willie Dixon), both of which reached number three on the R&B chart.

Donald “Duck” Dunn (November 24, 1941 – May 13, 2012) was an American bass guitarist, session musician, record producer, and songwriter. Dunn was notable for his 1960s recordings with Booker T. & the M.G.’s and as a session bassist for Stax Records. At Stax, Dunn played on thousands of records, including hits by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Bill Withers, Elvis Presley and many others. In 1992, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Booker T. & the M.G.’s. He is ranked number 40 on Bass Player magazine’s list of “The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time”.

Dunn was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His father nicknamed him “Duck” while watching Disney cartoons with him one day. Dunn grew up playing sports and riding his bike with another future professional musician, Steve Cropper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfdPNMaBWI0