mick laBriola

Richard Daniel (Dick) Burnett (October 8, 1883 – January 23, 1977) was an American folk musician and songwriter from Kentucky.

Burnett was born near Monticello, Kentucky. Blind for most of his life, he was a full-time travelling entertainer. With fiddler Leonard Rutherford he formed a long touring partnership, and a brief recording career in which they cut a number of popular and influential sides with Burnett on banjo or guitar. Both men also sang.

Burnett has been described as “one of the great natural songsters, a man who collected, codified, and transmitted some of our best traditional songs. Dick was also a skilful composer and folk poet of considerable skill; his “Man of Constant Sorrow” remains one of the most evocative country songs.”

Burnett was born in the area around the head of Elk Springs, about seven miles north of Monticello. He remembered little of his farming parents. His father died when he was only four and his mother died when he was twelve. Burnett did say that his mother told him how his father would carry him in his arms when he was only four years old and he would help his dad sing. It is notable that Burnett’s grandparents were of German and English descent and that particular ancestral influence would be instrumental in forming Burnett’s musical career. At the age of seven, Burnett was playing the dulcimer; at nine he was playing the banjo, and at thirteen he had learned to play the fiddle. Unusually for the time, he also learned the guitar, which was still a novelty in that area.

Park Frederick “Pepper” Adams III (October 8, 1930 – September 10, 1986) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist and composer. He composed 42 pieces, was the leader on eighteen albums spanning 28 years, and participated in 600 sessions as a sideman. He worked with an array of musicians, and had especially fruitful collaborations with trumpeter Donald Byrd and as a member of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band.

Pepper Adams was born in Highland Park, Michigan, to father Park Adams II and mother Cleo Marie Coyle. Both of his parents were college graduates, with each spending some time at the University of Michigan. Due to the onset of the Great Depression, Adams’ parents separated to allow his father to find work without geographic dependence. In the fall of 1931 Adams moved with his mother to his extended family’s farm near Columbia City, Indiana, where food and support were more readily available. In 1933 Adams began playing piano. His father having reunited with the family, they moved to Rochester, New York, in 1935 and in that city he began his musical efforts on tenor sax and clarinet. Two years later Adams began deepening his developing passion for music by listening to Fats Waller‘s daily radio show. He was also influenced at a young age by listening to Fletcher Henderson‘s big band radio broadcasts out of Nashville, Jimmie Lunceford, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway. Adams would later describe “[his] time up until the age of eight or so [as] really just traveling from one place to another”. As early as 4th grade, Adams sold cigarettes and candy door-to-door in order to contribute to his family’s income for essential items.

The Giant Squid Nebula cataloged as Ou4, and Sh2-129 also known as the Flying Bat Nebula, are both caught in this cosmic scene toward the royal royal constellation Cepheus. Composed with 55 hours of narrowband image data, the telescopic field of view is 3 degrees or 6 Full Moons across. Discovered in 2011 byFrench astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula’s alluring bipolar shape is distinguished here by the telltale blue-green emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms. Though apparently completely surrounded by the reddish hydrogen emission region Sh2-129, the true distance and nature of the Squid Nebula have been difficult to determine. Still, a more recent investigation suggests Ou4 really does lie within Sh2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, Ou4 would represent a spectacular outflow driven by HR8119, a triple system of hot, massive stars seen near the center of the nebula. The truly giant Squid Nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.

Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris, France to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, United States, Ma was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from The Juilliard School and Harvard University, and has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. He has recorded more than 90 albums and received 18 Grammy Awards.

In addition to recordings of the standard classical repertoire, he has recorded a wide variety of folk music such as American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, the tangos of Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla, and Brazilian music. He has collaborated with artists including jazz singer Bobby McFerrin, guitarist Carlos Santana, Sérgio Assad and his brother, Odair, and singer-songwriter and guitarist James Taylor. Ma’s primary performance instrument is a Montagnana cello crafted in 1733 and valued at US$2.5 million.

He has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2006. He was awarded The Glenn Gould Prize in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, and Polar Music Prize in 2012.

Ma is included in Time magazine ‘s 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

Larry Young (also known as Khalid Yasin [Abdul Aziz]; 7 October 1940 in Newark, New Jersey – 30 March 1978 in New York City) was an American jazz organist and occasional pianist. Young’s early work was strongly influenced by the soul jazz of Jimmy Smith, but Young later pioneered a more experimental, modal approach to the Hammond B-3. Raised in Newark, New Jersey, Young attended Newark Arts High School, where he began performing with a vocal group and a jazz band.

Young played with various R&B bands in the 1950s before gaining jazz experience with Jimmy Forrest, Lou Donaldson, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobleyand Tommy Turrentine. Recording as a leader for Prestige from 1960, Young made a number of soul jazz discs, Testifying, Young Blues and Groove Street. When Young signed with Blue Note around 1964, his music began to show the marked influence of John Coltrane. In this period, he produced his most enduring work. He recorded several times as part of a trio with guitarist Grant Green and drummer Elvin Jones, occasionally augmented by additional players; most of these albums were released under Green’s name, though Into Somethin’ (with Sam Rivers on saxophone) became Young’s Blue Note debut. Unity, recorded in 1965, remains his best-known album; it features a front line of Joe Henderson and the young Woody Shaw. Subsequent albums for Blue Note (Contrasts, Of Love and Peace, Heaven On Earth, Mother Ship) also drew on elements of the ’60s avant-garde and utilised local musicians from Young’s hometown of Newark. Young then became a part of some of the earliest fusion groups: first on Emergency! with the Tony Williams Lifetime (with Tony Williams and John McLaughlin) and also on Miles Davis‘s Bitches Brew. His sound with Lifetime was made distinct by his often very percussive approach and often heavy use of guitar and synthesizer-like effects. He is also known for a jam he recorded with rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix, which was released after Hendrix’s death on the album Nine to the Universe. In March 1978 he checked into the hospital for stomach pains. He died there on March 30, 1978, while being treated for what is said to be pneumonia. However, the actual cause of his death is unclear.

Mel Brown (October 7, 1939 – March 20, 2009) was an American-born blues guitarist and singer. He is best remembered for his decade long backing of Bobby Bland, although in his own right, Brown recorded over a dozen albums between 1967 and 2006.

Brown was born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, and was presented with his first guitar as a teenager while recovering from a bout of meningitis. By 1955, after performing backing duties for both Sonny Boy Williamson II and Jimmy Beasley, Brown had a two year long stint backing Johnny Otis. This led to work with Etta James, where he swapped his Gibson Les Paul for an ES-175 to give him a richer and fuller tone to his guitar work, that set him apart from his contemporaries.

The stress of constant touring led him to Los Angeles, California, to resume work with Otis, spending an extended residency at the Club Sands. Further session duties saw Brown back Bobby Darin and Bill Cosby among others, as well as performing on T-Bone Walker‘s Funky Town. ABC Records producer Bob Thiele offered Brown to chance to record his own material, and Brown released Chicken Fat in 1967.

Jonathan David Samuel Jones (October 7, 1911 – September 3, 1985) was an American jazz drummer. A band leader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948. He was sometimes known as Papa Jo Jones to distinguish him from younger drummer Philly Joe Jones.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Jones moved to Alabama, where he learned to play several instruments, including saxophone, piano, and drums. He worked as a drummer and tap-dancer at carnival shows until joining Walter Page‘s band, the Blue Devils in Oklahoma City in the late 1920s. He recorded with trumpeter Lloyd Hunter‘s Serenaders in 1931, and later joined pianist Count Basie‘s band in 1934. Jones, Basie, guitarist Freddie Green and bassist Walter Page were sometimes billed as an “All-American Rhythm section,” an ideal team. Jones took a brief break for two years when he was in the military, but he remained with Basie until 1948. He participated in the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series.

He was one of the first drummers to promote the use of brushes on drums and shifting the role of timekeeping from the bass drum to the hi-hatcymbal. Jones had a major influence on later drummers such as Buddy Rich, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes, Max Roach, and Louie Bellson. He also starred in several films, most notably the musical short Jammin’ the Blues (1944).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxtik6ektQY

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. HFG1 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It was produced by a binary star system (V664 Cas) that is moving rapidly through our Galaxy. The star is moving towards the upper-right of the image. As HFG1 plows through the interstellar medium, a bluish bowshock is produced; and a red trail of gas is left behind in its wake. The image was generated with observations in the Hydrogen alpha (red) and Oxygen [OIII] (blue) filters. In this image, North is down and East is to the right.

Mark Whitfield (born October 6, 1966) is an American jazz guitarist.

Whitfield was born in Lindenhurst, New York. He has worked with Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith, Courtney Pine, Nicholas Payton, and Chris Botti.

In 2000, Whitfield released an instructional guitar video titled Mark Whitfield: Star Licks Master Sessions for Star Licks Productions. In 2017, he shot a series of instructional videos entitled Mark Whitfield: Land the Gig

Millicent Dolly May Small CD (6 October 1947 – 5 May 2020) was a Jamaican singer and songwriter, best known for her 1964 recording of “My Boy Lollipop“, which reached number two in both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100. On her UK records, she was usually credited mononymously as Millie. She was the Caribbean’s first international recording star, and its most successful female performer.

Small was born in Clarendon, Jamaica, the daughter of a sugar plantation overseer. She was one of seven brothers and five sisters. Like many Jamaican singers of the era, her career began by winning the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour talent contest, which she won at the age of twelve.Wishing to pursue a career as a singer, she moved to live with relatives in Love Lane in Kingston. She auditioned for Studio One record producerCoxsone Dodd, who was struck by the similarity of her voice to that of Shirley Goodman of the American duo Shirley and Lee. He paired her with singer Owen Gray, and they made several records together, including “Sugar Plum”, which became a local hit.

When Gray resumed his solo career, Small began recording with another singer, Samuel Augustus “Roy” Panton. Working with producer Roy Robinson, the duo of Roy & Millie had a run of local hits, including “We’ll Meet”. They had further successes working with Dodd, as well with producer Lindon Pottinger, including the local hit “Marie” in 1963; and then with Prince Buster. Her popularity brought her to the attention of Anglo-Jamaican entrepreneur Chris Blackwell, who was convinced of her wider international potential, and became her manager and legal guardian. In late 1963 he took her to Forest Hill, London, where she was given intensive training in dancing and diction.

Tony Oladipo Allen (July 20th 1940 – 30 April 2020) was a Nigerian drummer, composer, and songwriter who lived and worked in Paris, France. Allen was the drummer and musical director of Fela Kuti‘s band Africa ’70 from 1968 to 1979, and was one of the primary co-founders of the genre of Afrobeat music. Fela once stated that, “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat.”He was described by Brian Eno as “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived”.

Allen’s career and life story were documented in his 2013 autobiography Tony Allen: Master Drummer of Afrobeat, co-written with author/musician Michael E. Veal, who previously wrote a comprehensive biography of Fela Kuti.

Allen was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He began playing drums at the age of 18, while working as an engineer for a radio station. Allen was influenced by music his father listened to Jùjú, a popular Yoruba music from the 1940s, but also American jazz, and the growing highlife scene in Nigeria and Ghana. Allen worked hard to develop a unique voice on the drums, feverishly studying LPs and magazine articles by Max Roach and Art Blakey, but also revolutionary Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren (later known as Kofi Ghanaba – who developed a highly sought-after sound that mixed tribal Ghanaian drumming with bop – working with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach).

Samuel Blythe Price (October 6, 1908 – April 14, 1992) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. Price’s playing is dark, mellow, and relaxed rather than percussive, and he was a specialist at creating the appropriate mood and swing for blues and rhythm and blues recordings.

Price was born in Honey Grove, Texas, United States. Price formally studied the piano with Booker T. Washington‘s daughter, Portia Marshall Washington (1883–1978). In the mid-1920s, when he was employed in a Dallas music store, Price wrote to Paramount Records recommending Blind Lemon Jefferson to the label.

During his early career, he was a singer and dancer in local venues in the Dallas area. Price lived and played jazz in Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit. In 1938 he was hired by Decca Records as a session sideman on piano, assisting singers such as Trixie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Price was most noteworthy for his work on Decca Records with his own band, known as the Texas Bluesicians, that included fellow musicians Don Stovall and Emmett Berry. He was the accompanist on countless recording sessions for the Decca blues, race, and rhythm-and-blues catalogs, and featuring such singers as Trixie Smith (“Trixie Blues”), Blue Lu Barker (“Georgia Grind”), and Cousin Joe (“Box Car Shorty”). Price recorded under his own name, with gospel singers (Rosetta Tharpe, Evelyn Knight) and with Lester Young, toured Europe with Jimmy Rushing, appeared at numerous jazz festivals, and performed in a Broadway play starring Tallulah Bankhead (Clash By Night).Price also had a decade-long partnership with Henry “Red” Allen.