mick laBriola

Soleares is often referred to as the mother of all flamenco forms because so many other important forms are derived from it. It may be more accurate to think of soleares as the most flamenco of flamenco forms. All the elements of soleares, including its 12-count compás with an irregular beat structure, its Andalusian cadence, and its melodic and melissmatic gestures are unique to flamenco. Soleares first evolved in the late 18th Century from a dance form called Jaleo. As it evolved through the 19th Century, it took on a more solemn, cante jondo character, probably due to its inclusion in the Cafés Cantantes as a featured song and flamenco dance. Various forms of soleares developed associated with different cities and individuals. At the beginning of the 20th Century new forms were derived from soleares, including bulerías and soleá por bulerías. A common belief is that the word soleares is derived from the Spanish word soledad, or sorrow. Sorrowful, unrequited love is a main theme of the letras, along with other bittersweet lamentations.

Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you might miss the stars of open cluster IC 1590. But, formed within the nebula, that cluster’s young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in this portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted columns and dense dust globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters, combining emission from the nebula’s hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in green, red, and blue hues. It spans over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281.

Theodore “Fats” Navarro (September 24, 1923 – July 6, 1950) was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, including Clifford Brown.

Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, of Cuban, African, and Chinese descent. He began playing piano at age six, but did not become serious about music until he began playing trumpet at the age of thirteen. He was a childhood friend of drummer Al Dreares. By the time he graduated from Douglass High School, he wanted to be away from Key West and joined a dance band headed for the Midwest.

Navarro gained valuable experience touring in bands, including Snookum Russell‘s territory band, where he met and influenced a young J.J. Johnson. Tiring of the life on the road, Navarro settled in New York City in 1946, where his career took off. He met and played with, among others, Charlie Parker. But Navarro was in a position to demand a high salary and did not join one of Parker’s regular groups. He also developed a heroin addiction, tuberculosis, and a weight problem. (He was nicknamed “Fat Girl” due to his weight and high speaking voice.) These afflictions led to a slow decline in health. Navarro was hospitalized on July 1, 1950 and he died five days later on July 6 at the age of twenty-six. His last performance was with Charlie Parker on July 1 at Birdland.

Navarro played in the Andy Kirk, Billy Eckstine, Benny Goodman, and Lionel Hampton big bands, and participated in small group recording sessions with Kenny Clarke, Tadd Dameron, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Howard McGhee, and Bud Powell.

Jack Costanzo (September 24, 1919 – August 18, 2018) was an American percussionist.

A composer, conductor and drummer, Costanzo is best known for having been a bongo player, and was nicknamed “Mr. Bongo”. He visited Havanathree times in the 1940s and learned to play Afro-Cuban rhythms on the bongos and congas.

Costanzo started as a dancer, touring as a team with his wife before World War II. After his discharge from the Navy, he worked as a dance instructor at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Latin band leader Bobby Ramos heard Costanzo playing bongos in a jam session and offered him a job. Throughout the 1940s, Costanzo worked with several Latin bands, including a revived version of the Lecuona Cuban Boys, Desi Arnaz, and Rene Touzet.

Costanzo toured with Stan Kenton from 1947–48 and occasionally in the 1950s, and played with Nat King Cole from 1949 to 1953. He also played with the Billy May Orchestra, Peggy Lee, Danny Kaye, Perez Prado, Charlie Barnet, Pete Rugolo, Betty Grable, Harry James, Judy Garland, Patti Page, Jane Powell, Ray Anthony, Martin & Lewis, Frances Faye, Dinah Shore, Xavier Cugat, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Eddie Fisher.

Costanzo formed his own band in the 1950s which recorded and toured internationally. Many Hollywood stars studied bongos with him, including Marlon Brando, Rita Moreno, Carolyn Jones, Hugh O’Brian, Keenan Wynn, Van Johnson, Tony Curtis, Betty Grable, Vic Damone, James Dean, and Gary Cooper.

Lemon Henry “Blind Lemon” Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929) was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the “Father of the Texas Blues“.

Jefferson’s performances were distinctive because of his high-pitched voice and the originality of his guitar playing. His recordings sold well, but he was not a strong influence on younger blues singers of his generation, who could not imitate him as easily as they could other commercially successful artists. Later blues and rock and roll musicians, however, did attempt to imitate both his songs and his musical style.

Jefferson was born blind, near Coutchman, Texas. He was the youngest of seven (or possibly eight) children born to Alex and Clarissa Jefferson, who were African-American sharecroppers. Disputes regarding the date of his birth derive from contradictory census records and draft registration records. By 1900, the family was farming southeast of Streetman, Texas. Jefferson’s birth date was recorded as September 1893 in the 1900 census. The 1910 census, taken in May, before his birthday, confirms his year of birth as 1893 and indicated that the family was farming northwest of Wortham, near his birthplace.

born 9-23-95  died 6-5-2002 Diego was a radiant beam of pure Love and inexhaustible energy. His excitement for life was as contagious as his beautiful smile. One could see the unfolding Love of the Universe while gazing in his intense eyes. His gifts of Loving, Caring and Care taking others were abundant and generous. I will never forget his Laughter, Goofiness, Drumming, Hugging, Holding and Kissing.

https://diego-labriola.virtual-memorials.com/main.php?action=view&mem_id=6547&page_no=1

Messier 88 (also known as M88 or NGC 4501) is a spiral galaxy about 50 to 60 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. M88 is one of the fifteen Messier objects that belong to the nearby Virgo Cluster of galaxies. It is galaxy number 1401 in the Virgo Cluster Catalogue (VCC) of 2096 galaxies that are candidate members of the cluster. M88 may be on a highly elliptical orbit that is carrying it toward the cluster center, which is occupied by the giant elliptical galaxy M87. It is currently 0.3–0.48 million parsecs from the center and will come closest to the core in about 200–300 million years. The motion of M88 through the intergalactic medium of the Virgo cluster is creating ram pressure that is stripping away the outer region of neutral hydrogen. This stripping has already been detected along the western, leading edge of the galaxy.

Angela Maria “Ani” DiFranco (/ˈɑːniː/; born 1970 Buffalo, NY) is an American singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco’s music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz. She has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe, giving her significant creative freedom.

DiFranco supports many social and political movements by performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums and speaking at rallies. Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed grassroots cultural and political organizations supporting causes including abortion rights and LGBT visibility. She counts American folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger among her mentors. DiFranco released a memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, on May 7, 2019, via Viking Books.

Joseph Young Jr. (September 23, 1927 – March 24, 1999), known as Mighty Joe Young, was an American Chicago blues guitarist.

Young was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, moving to Milwaukee in about 1945. He was an amateur boxer in the 1940s, but he later recalled that “It was nothing to write home about… I decided that music was the best thing to do.” He began his music career in the early 1950s, singing on the Milwaukee nightclub circuit and taking his stage name after the film of the same name. In 1955, he returned to Louisiana to make his recording debut, for Jiffy Records.

He then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a sideman, notably with Joe Little & his Heart Breakers and later Billy Boy Arnold. After recording “Why Baby” / “Empty Arms” for Bobby Robinson‘s Fire Records in 1961, he performed with Otis Rush in the early 1960s, playing on Rush’s album Cold Day in Hell. He also continued to record under his own name for small labels such as Webcor, Celtex, and Jacklyn. He played on Magic Sam‘s albums West Side Soul and Black Magic and also worked with Jimmy Rogers, Willie Dixon, Tyrone Davis and Jimmy Dawkins. Young’s album Blues with a Touch of Soul was released by Delmark Records in 1971, and two further albums followed on the Ovation label in the mid-1970s.

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer. Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called “Brother Ray.” He was often referred to as “The Genius.”Charles was blinded during childhood due to glaucoma.

Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

Charles’ 1960 hit “Georgia On My Mind” was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. His 1962 album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200. Charles had multiple singles reach the Top 40 on various Billboardcharts: 44 on the US R&B singles chart, 11 on the Hot 100 singles chart, 2 on the Hot Country singles charts.

Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by Louis Jordan and Charles Brown. He had a lifelong friendship and occasional partnership with Quincy Jones. Frank Sinatra called Ray Charles “the only true genius in show business,” although Charles downplayed this notion. Billy Joel said, “This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley“.

For his musical contributions, Charles received with the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and the Polar Music Prize. He won 17 Grammy Awards, including 5 posthumously. Charles was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, and 10 of his recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.^[10] Rolling Stone ranked Charles No. 10 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and No. 2 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Ray Charles Robinson was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, and Aretha (or Reatha) Williams, a laundress, of Greenville, Florida.

Aretha was described as a lovely slip of a girl with long wavy black hair; she was also sickly and walked with a cane. Her mother had died and her father, a man Bailey worked with, could not keep her. The Robinson family—Bailey, his wife Mary Jane and his mother—informally adopted her and Aretha took the surname Robinson. A few years later 15 year old Aretha became pregnant by Bailey. During the ensuing scandal, she left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be with family in Albany, Georgia. After the birth of Ray Charles, she and her baby returned to Greenville. Aretha and Bailey’s wife, who had lost a son, then shared in Charles’ upbringing. His father abandoned the family, left Greenville, and married another woman elsewhere. By his first birthday Charles had a brother, George. In later years, none could remember who was George’s father.

John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bopidioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane’s music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. He remains one of the most influential saxophonists in music history. He received numerous posthumous awards, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church and a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His second wife was pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane. The couple had three children: John Jr. (1964–1982), a bassist; Ravi (born 1965), a saxophonist; and Oran (born 1967), also a saxophonist.

Coltrane was born in his parents’ apartment at 200 Hamlet Avenue in Hamlet, North Carolina, on September 23, 1926. His father was John R. Coltraneand his mother was Alice Blair. He grew up in High Point, North Carolina and attended William Penn High School. Beginning in December 1938, his father, aunt, and grandparents died within a few months of each other, leaving him to be raised by his mother and a close cousin. In June 1943, he moved to Philadelphia. In September, his mother bought him his first saxophone, an alto. He played clarinet and alto horn in a community band before beginning alto saxophone in high school. From early to mid-1945 he had his first professional work: a “cocktail lounge trio” with piano and guitar.

To avoid being drafted by the Army, Coltrane enlisted in the Navy on August 6, 1945, the day the first U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. He was trained as an apprentice seaman at Sampson Naval Training Station in upstate New York before he was shipped to Pearl Harbor, where he was stationed at Manana Barracks, the largest posting of African-American servicemen in the world.By the time he got to Hawaii in late 1945, the Navy was downsizing. Coltrane’s musical talent was recognized, and he became one of the few Navy men to serve as a musician without having been granted musician’s rating when he joined the Melody Masters, the base swing band. As the Melody Masters was an all-white band, however, Coltrane was treated merely as a guest performer to avoid alerting superior officers of his participation in the band. He continued to perform other duties when not playing with the band, including kitchen and security details. By the end of his service, he had assumed a leadership role in the band. His first recordings, an informal session in Hawaii with Navy musicians, occurred on July 13, 1946. He played alto saxophone on a selection of jazz standards and bebop tunes.