mick laBriola

This is the spot where possibly Christ was born. I was there in 1995. Very Carnival like.

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy’s thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bluge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

Raphael Homer “Ray” Bryant (December 24, 1931 – June 2, 2011) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.

Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1931. His mother was an ordained minister who had taught herself to play the piano; his father also played the piano and sang. His brothers were the bass player Tommy, drummer and singer Len, and Lynwood. Ray began playing the piano around the age of six or seven, following the example of his mother and his sister, Vera. Gospel influences in his playing came from being part of the church at this stage in his early life. He had switched from classical music to jazz by his early teens, and played the double bass at junior high school. He was first paid to play when he was 12: “I would play for dances, and they’d sneak me into bars. I’d get four or five bucks a night, which was good money then.” He turned professional aged 14, and immediately joined a local band led by Mickey Collins.

After three years working on and off in Collins’s band, Bryant toured with guitarist Tiny Grimes (1948–49). He was then a solo pianist based in Syracuse, New York for a year. After returning to Philadelphia, he played Dixieland in Billy Kretchmer’s club for around two years. He attracted more attention after becoming house pianist at the Blue Note club in Philadelphia in 1953. He was there until 1956, accompanying many leading players such as Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Sonny Stitt. Davis and Sonny Rollins both liked Bryant’s playing enough to record with him in New York in 1955: on Quintet/Sextet and Work Time, respectively.

Mohammed Rafi (24 December 1924 – 31 July 1980) was an Indian film playback singer. He is considered as one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Rafi was notable for his versatility and range of voice; his songs varied from fast peppy numbers to patriotic songs, sad numbers to highly romantic songs, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans to classical songs. He was known for his ability to mould his voice to the persona and style of the actor lip-syncing the song on screen in the movie. He received four Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award. In 1967, he was honored with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India. In 2001, Rafi was honoured with the “Best Singer of the Millennium” title by Hero Honda and Stardust magazine. In 2013, Rafi was voted for the Greatest Voice in Hindi Cinema in the CNN-IBN’s poll.

He recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and sang songs in many Indian languages as well as foreign languages, though primarily in Hindi–Urdu and Punjabi, over which he had a strong command. He recorded as many as 7,405 songs in many languages. He sang in many Indian languages – Konkani, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Magahi, Maithili, etc. Apart from Indian languages, he also sang songs in many foreign languages, including English, Farsi or Persian, Arabic, Sinhala, Creole and Dutch.

Irving Lee Dorsey (December 24, 1924 – December 1, 1986) was an American pop and R&B singer during the 1960s. His biggest hits were “Ya Ya” (1961) and “Working in the Coal Mine” (1966). Much of his work was produced by Allen Toussaint, with instrumental backing provided by The Meters.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Dorsey was a childhood friend of Fats Domino before moving to Portland, Oregon when he was ten years old. He served in the United States Navy in World War II and then began a career in prizefighting. Boxing as a featherweight in Portland in the early 1950s, he fought under the name Kid Chocolate and was not successful, fighting only one time and being knocked out in the second round. He returned to New Orleans in 1955, where he opened an auto repair business as well as singing in clubs at night.

His first recording was “Rock Pretty Baby/Lonely Evening” on Cosimo Mattasa’s Rex label, in 1958. This was followed by the Allen Toussaint-produced “Lottie Mo/Lover of Love”, for the small Valiant label in late 1960 (picked up by ABC Paramount in 1961). These efforts were unsuccessful, but around 1960 he was discovered by A&R man Marshall Sehorn, who secured him a contract with Fury Records, owned by Bobby Robinson. After meeting songwriter and record producer Allen Toussaint at a party, he recorded “Ya Ya“, a song inspired by a group of children chanting nursery rhymes. It went to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Although the follow-up “Do-Re-Mi” also made the charts, later releases on Fury were not successful. Dorsey returned to running his repair business, but also released singles on the Smash and Constellation labels in 1963 and 1964.

Warren “Baby” Dodds (December 24, 1898 – February 14, 1959) was a jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is regarded as one of the best jazz drummers of the pre-big band era, and one of the most important early jazz drummers. He varied his drum patterns with accents and flourishes, and he generally kept the beat with the bass drum while playing buzz rolls on the snare. Some of his early influences included Louis Cottrell, Sr., Harry Zeno, Henry Martin, and Tubby Hall. Dodds was among the first drummers to be recorded who improvised while performing.

“Baby” Dodds was the younger brother of clarinetist Johnny Dodds. His mother, who died when he was nine years old, taught him valuable lessons about persistence and putting one’s whole effort into endeavors, and he carried these with him through his career as a jazz drummer. He was born into a very musical family. His father and uncle played violin and his sister played harmonica. In addition, his father was religious and the family regularly sang hymns together. Dodds, in his autobiography The Baby Dodds Story, told the story of making his first drum: “I took a lard can and put holes in the bottom and turned it over and took nails and put holes around the top of it. Then I took some rounds out of my mother’s chairs and made drumsticks out of them”. At age 16, Dodds saved up enough money to buy his own drum set. Although Dodds had several paid teachers during his early years as a drummer, various jazz drummers around New Orleans also influenced him. He started playing in street parades around New Orleans with Bunk Johnson and his band and then got a job playing in Willie Hightower’s band, the American Stars. The band played in various venues around New Orleans, and Dodds recalls hearing many musicians along the way, including Buddy Bolden, John Robichaux, and Jelly Roll Morton. He played with several different outfits including those of Frankie Duson and Sonny Celestin, and he was part of the New Orleans tradition of playing jazz during funeral marches. Dodds describes this experience in his autobiography: “The jazz played after New Orleans funerals didn’t show any lack of respect for the person being buried. It rather showed their people that we wanted them to be happy”.

It was time for their close-up. Two days ago Jupiter and Saturn passed a tenth of a degree from each other in what is known a Great Conjunction. Although the two planets pass each other on the sky every 20 years, this was the closest pass in nearly four centuries. Taken early in day of the Great Conjunction, the featured multiple-exposure combination captures not only both giant planets in a single frame, but also Jupiter’s four largest moons (left to right) Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa — and Saturn’s largest moon Titan. If you look very closely, the clear Chilescope image even captures Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The now-separating planets can still be seen remarkably close — within about a degree — as they set just after the Sun, toward the west, each night for the remainder of the year.

James Timothy Hardin (December 23, 1941 – December 29, 1980) was an American folk musician and composer. He wrote the Top 40 hit “If I Were a Carpenter“, covered by, among others, Bobby Darin, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, The Four Tops, Robert Plant, Small Faces, Johnny Rivers, and Bert Jansch; his song “Reason to Believe” has also been covered by many artists, notably Rod Stewart (who had a chart hit with the song), Neil Young, and The Carpenters. Hardin is also known for his own recording career.

Hardin was born in Eugene, Oregon, and attended South Eugene High School. He dropped out of high school at age 18 to join the Marine Corps. Hardin is said to have discovered heroin while posted in Southeast Asia.

After his discharge he moved to New York City in 1961, where he briefly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was excluded owing to truancy and began to focus on his musical career by performing around Greenwich Village, mostly in a blues style.

After moving to Boston in 1963 he was discovered by the record producer Erik Jacobsen (later the producer for The Lovin’ Spoonful), who arranged a meeting with Columbia Records. In 1964 he moved back to Greenwich Village to record for his contract with Columbia. The resulting recordings were not released and Columbia terminated Hardin’s recording contract.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1965, he met actress Susan Yardley Morss (known professionally as Susan Yardley), and moved back to New York with her. He signed to the Verve Forecast label, and produced his first authorized album, Tim Hardin 1 in 1966 which contained “Reason To Believe” and the ballad “Misty Roses“, which received Top 40 radio play.

Tim Hardin 2 was released in 1967; it contained “If I Were a Carpenter“. A British tour was cut short after Hardin contracted pleurisy.

Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. (/ˈjɔːrmə ˈkaʊkənɛn/; YOR-mə KOW-kə-nen; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rockguitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bassist Jack Casady, and as of early 2019 has continued for 50 years. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #54 on its list of 100 Greatest Guitarists.

Jorma Kaukonen was born in Washington, D.C. to Beatrice Love (née Levine) and Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Sr. He had Finnish paternal grandparents and Russian Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side. He is the older brother of Peter Kaukonen. During his childhood, Jorma’s family lived in Pakistan, the Philippines and other locales as he followed his father’s State Department career from assignment to assignment before returning to the place of his birth. As a teenager in Washington, he and friend Jack Casady formed a band called The Triumphs, with Kaukonen on rhythm guitar and Casady on lead.

Kaukonen departed Washington for studies at Antioch College, where friend Ian Buchanan taught him fingerstyle guitar playing. Buchanan also introduced Kaukonen to the music of Reverend Gary Davis, whose songs have remained important parts of Kaukonen’s repertoire throughout his career.

In 1962, Kaukonen moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and enrolled at the University of Santa Clara. During this time, he gave guitar lessons at Benner Music Company in San Jose. He played as a solo act in coffee houses and accompanied Janis Joplin on acoustic guitar on the historic 1964 recording known as “The Typewriter Tapes” because of the obtrusive sound of Kaukonen’s first wife, Margareta, typing in the background.

Esther Phillips (born Esther Mae Jones; December 23, 1935 – August 7, 1984) was an American singer, best known for her R&B vocals. She also performed pop, country, jazz, blues and soul music.

She was born Esther Mae Jones in Galveston, Texas. Her parents divorced when she was an adolescent, and she divided her time between her father, in Houston, and her mother, in the Wattssection of Los Angeles. She was brought up singing in church and was reluctant to enter a talent contest at a local blues club, but her sister insisted. A mature singer at the age of 14, she won the amateur talent contest in 1949 at the Barrelhouse Club, owned by Johnny Otis. Otis was so impressed that he recorded her for Modern Records and added her to his traveling revue, the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, billed as Little Esther. She later took the surname Phillips, reportedly inspired by a sign at a gas station.

Her first hit record was “Double Crossing Blues“, with the Johnny Otis Quintette and the Robins (a vocal group), released in 1950 by Savoy Records, which reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. She made several hit records for Savoy with the Johnny Otis Orchestra, including “Mistrusting Blues” (a duet with Mel Walker) and “Cupid’s Boogie”, both of which also went to number 1 that year. Four more of her records made the Top 10 in the same year: “Misery” (number 9), “Deceivin’ Blues” (number 4), “Wedding Boogie” (number 6), and “Far Away Blues (Xmas Blues)” (number 6). Few female artists performing in any genre had such success in their debut year.

Frank Morgan (December 23, 1933 – December 14, 2007) was a jazz saxophonist with a career spanning more than 50 years. He mainly played alto saxophone but also played soprano saxophone. He was known as a Charlie Parker successor who primarily played bebop and ballads.

Frank Morgan was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1933, but spent most of his childhood living with his grandmother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin while his parents were on tour. Morgan’s father Stanley was a guitarist with Harlan Leonard and the Rockets and The Ink Spots, and his mother, Geraldine, was a 14-year-old student when she gave birth to him. Morgan took up his father’s instrument at an early age, but lost interest the moment he saw Charlie Parker take his first solo with the Jay McShann band at the Paradise Theater in Detroit, Michigan. Stanley introduced them backstage, where Parker offered Morgan advice about starting out on the alto sax, and they met at a music store the following day. Morgan, seven years old at the time, assumed they’d be picking out a saxophone, but Parker suggested he start on the clarinet to develop his embouchure. Morgan practiced on the clarinet for about two years before acquiring a soprano sax, and finally, an alto. Morgan moved to live with his father (by that time divorced) in Los Angeles, California at the age of 14, after his grandmother caught him with marijuana. As a teenager Morgan had opportunities to jam with the likes of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray on Sunday afternoons at the Crystal Tearoom. When he was just 15 years old, Morgan was offered Johnny Hodges‘s spot in Duke Ellington‘s Orchestra, but Stanley deemed him too young for touring. Instead he joined the house band at Club Alabam where he backed vocalists including Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker. That same year he won a television talent-show contest, the prize of which was a recording session with the Freddy Martin Orchestra, playing “Over the Rainbow” in an arrangement by Ray Conniff, with vocals by Merv Griffin. Morgan attended Jefferson High School during the day, where he played in the school big band that also spawned jazz greats Art Farmer, Ed Thigpen, Chico Hamilton, Sonny Criss, and Dexter Gordon. Morgan stayed in contact with Parker during these years, finding himself in jam sessions at Hollywood celebrities’ homes when Parker visited L.A. In 1952, Morgan earned a spot in Lionel Hampton‘s band, but his first arrest in 1953 prevented him from joining the Clifford Brown and Max Roach quintet (that role went instead to Harold Land, and later, Sonny Rollins). He made his recording debut on February 20, 1953 with Teddy Charles and his West Coasters in a session for Prestige Records. This sextet featured short-lived tenor player Wardell Gray and was included on the 1983 posthumous release Wardell Gray Memorial Volume 1. On November 1, 1954, Morgan cut five tracks with the Kenny Clarke Sextet for Savoy Records, four of which were released with Clarke billed as the leader, with “I’ve Lost Your Love” credited to writer Milt Jackson as leader. Morgan recorded an all-star date with Wild Bill Davis and Conte Candoli on January 29, 1955 and participated in a second recording session on March 31, 1955 with Candoli, Wardell Gray, Leroy Vinnegar and others, which were combined and released in 1955 as Morgan’s first album, Frank Morgan, by GNP Crescendo Records. Later releases also included five tracks cut at the Crescendo Club in West Hollywood on August 11, 1956 with a sextet featuring Bobby Timmons and Jack Sheldon. The album copy hailed Morgan as the new Charlie Parker, who had died the same year. In his own words, Morgan was “scared to death” by this and “self-destructed.

Chesney Henry “Chet” Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations within the cool jazz subgenre leading him to be nicknamed the “prince of cool”.

Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals (Chet Baker Sings, It Could Happen to You). Jazz historian Dave Gelly described the promise of Baker’s early career as “James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one.” His well-publicized drug habit also drove his notoriety and fame. Baker was in and out of jail frequently before enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Baker was born and raised in a musical household in Yale, Oklahoma. His father, Chesney Baker Sr., was a professional guitarist, and his mother, Vera Moser, was a pianist who worked in a perfume factory. His maternal grandmother was Norwegian. Baker said that due to the Great Depression, his father, though talented, had to quit as a musician and take a regular job.

Chronis Aidonidis (Greek: Χρόνης Αηδονίδης) is a Greek singer born on December 23, 1928 in Karoti, a village now belonging to Didymoteicho, in Greece. His parents were Christos and Chrysanthi Aidonidis. He learned his first songs in his hometown and was introduced into the word of traditional music by his mother and the musicians who used to play at the local fairs.

He was taught Byzantine music first by his father and later by the professor Michalis Kefalokoptis. In 1950, he came to live in Athens with his parents, where he completed his studies in Byzantine music at the Hellenic Conservatory with the famous teacher Theodoros Hadjitheodorou. In March of the same year, he was hired at the Sismanogleion Hospital, where he worked as an account. An important incident changed his life, when in 1953 the great folklore scientist Polydoros Papachristodoulou proposed him to participate in his radio show entitled Echoes from Thrace, presenting for the first time the musical treasure of his fatherland.

Till now, Chronis Aidonidis has released many records with the most beautiful songs of northern, eastern and western Thrace. He has participated in hundreds of musical events in Greece and abroad (America, Australia, the former Soviet Union, Europe). An important step of his artistic journey was his especially successful collaboration with the wella-known Greek singer George Dalaras for the release of the CD Nightingales from the Orient in March, 1990. The success would continue with one more release of the University of Crete, in 1993: the double CD Songs and tunes from Thrace.

Another important moment of his career is his collaboration with his student Nektaria Karantzi for the release of the double CD, When the Roads Meet, where he recorded Byzantine Ecclesiastical Hymns for the first time and the CD He was Grieved, where he recorded with his student Karantzi 40 Byzantine hymns of the Holy Week and a folk lament.

In 2001, he collaborated with Nikos Kypourgos for the release of a CD entitled Secrets from the Garden. During the Olympic Games of Athens in 2004, Chronis Aidonidis addressed a warm welcome to all the guests of Greece, in a unique way, singing affectionately the song Welcome my friends. In 2005, he participated in the Easter television show of Hellenic Television entitled “He was grieved”, where he sang Byzantine hymns of the Holy Week and in 2006 he participated in the 6th Festival of Sacred Music in Patmos, with his student and Byzantine singer Karantzi and the ecclesiastical Byzantine choir, Glorifier (led by Dimitris Verykios).

José Greco (December 23, 1918 – December 31, 2000) was an Italian-born American flamenco dancer and choreographer known for popularizing Spanish dance on the stage and screen in America mostly in the 1950s and 1960s.

José Greco was born in Montorio nei Frentani of Italian parents, Paolo Emilio Greco and Maria Carmela Bucci. His real name was Costanzo Greco but he later changed it to José Greco. When he was 10 years old, Greco and his family moved to New York City. He began dancing in Brooklyn with his sister Norina at a young age.

Greco made his professional dancing debut in 1937 at the Hippodrome Theatre in Manhattan. His most famous partners were La Argentinita (Encarnación López Júlvez) and, after her death, her sister Pilar López. In 1949, he formed the José Greco Dance Company, with which he toured extensively. He also appeared in a number of films, including Sombrero (1953), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Holiday for Lovers (1959), Ship of Fools (1965), and The Proud and the Damned (1972). In 1951 Greco made his first appearance in the UK at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Later in the decade in 1954 and again in 1957 his troupe collaborated with Alfredo Antonini and members of the New York Philharmonic while performing during open air concerts at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City.

Greco received many honors and awards including being knighted by the Spanish government (Cruz Laureada del Caballero del Mérito Civil) and receiving four honorary doctorates. José Greco started the José Greco Foundation for Hispanic Dance in 1972 and retired from the stage for the first time in 1974. He published an autobiography, Gypsy in My Soul: The Autobiography of José Greco, in 1977. He had six children, three boys and three girls. His sons José Luis and Paolo are composers; his son José Greco II is a dancer as are his three daughters, Alessandra, Carmela and Lola.