mick laBriola

Willie Ruff (born September 1, 1931) is an American jazz musician, specializing in the French horn and double bass, and a music scholar and educator, primarily as a Yale professor from 1971 to 2017.

He was born in Sheffield, Alabama. Ruff attended the Yale School of Music as an undergraduate (Bachelor of Music, 1953) and graduate student (Master of Music, 1954). Ruff played in the Mitchell-Ruff Duo with pianist Dwike Mitchell for over 50 years. Mitchell and Ruff first met in 1947, when they were teenaged servicemen stationed at the former Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio; Mitchell recruited Ruff to play bass with his unit band for an Air Force radio program. Mitchell and Ruff later played in Lionel Hampton‘s band but left in 1955 to form their own group. Together as the Mitchell-Ruff Duo, they played as “second act” to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. From 1955 to 2011, the duo regularly performed and lectured in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Mitchell-Ruff Duo was the first jazz band to play in the Soviet Union (1959) and in China (1981). Mitchell died in 2013.

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

Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. (September 1, 1925 – June 15, 1982)was an American alto saxophonist and very occasional tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. A longtime figure in West Coast jazz, Pepper came to prominence in Stan Kenton‘s big band. He was known for his emotionally charged performances and several stylistic shifts throughout his career, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as “the world’s great altoist” at the time of his death.

Art Pepper was born in Gardena, California, on September 1, 1925. His mother was a 14-year-old runaway; his father, a merchant seaman. Both were violent alcoholics, and when Art was still quite young he was sent to live with his paternal grandmother. He expressed early musical interest and talent, and he was given lessons. He began playing clarinet at nine, switched to alto saxophone at 13 and immediately began jamming on Central Avenue, the black nightclub district of Los Angeles.

At the age of 17 he began playing professionally with Benny Carter and then became part of the Stan Kenton orchestra, touring with that band until he was drafted in 1943. After the war he returned to Los Angeles and joined the Kenton Innovations Orchestra. By the 1950s Pepper was recognized as one of the leading alto saxophonists in jazz, finishing second only to Charlie Parker as Best Alto Saxophonist in the DownBeat magazine Readers Poll of 1952. Along with Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Shelly Manne, and perhaps due more to geography than playing style, Pepper is often associated with the musical movement known as West Coast jazz, as contrasted with the East Coast (or “hot”) jazz of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Some of Pepper’s most famous albums from the 1950s are Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Art Pepper + Eleven – Modern Jazz Classics, Gettin’ Together, and Smack Up. Representative music from this time appears on The Aladdin Recordings (three volumes), The Early Show, The Late Show, The Complete Surf Ride, and The Way It Was!, which features a session recorded with Warne Marsh.

Westerhout 43, also known as W43, is a region of star formation of our galaxy located in the constellation of Aquila at a distance of 6 kilo-parsecs(nearly 20,000 light-years) of the Sun, that is considered the region of the Milky Way that is most actively forming stars. Despite this, however, it is so heavily obscured by the interstellar dust that it is totally invisible in the optical and must be studied using other wavelengths that are not affected by it, such as the infrared or the radio waves.

This star-forming region is located in the 5-kpc ring, a ring with that radius that encircles the central bar of our galaxy and that contains most of its molecular hydrogen as well as most of its star formation.

It is associated with a very massive complex of molecular clouds with a total mass of more than 7 million times the one of our Sun and is forming stars of all masses within star clusters that are less massive versions of those found on starburst galaxies; it still has capacity to form more clusters.

There are also massive protostars as well as stellar clusters in formation embedded within the nebula, with this star formation region likened to NGC 3603.

Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and record producer. His professional career began as a teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Van Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B and rock band, Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic “Gloria“. His solo career began in 1967, under the pop-hit orientated guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single “Brown Eyed Girl“. After Berns’s death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). Though this album gradually garnered high praise, it was initially a poor seller.

Morrison has a reputation for being at once stubborn, idiosyncratic, and sublime. His live performances at their best are seen as transcendental and inspired, while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It’s Too Late to Stop Now, are highly acclaimed.

Moondance (1970) established Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances. He continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains.

Much of Morrison’s music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles “Brown Eyed Girl“, “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)“, “Domino” and “Wild Night“. An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks and the lesser known Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as “Celtic soul”. He has received two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was knighted for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland. He is known by the nickname Van the Man to his fans.

Wilton Lewis Felder (August 31, 1940 – September 27, 2015) was an American saxophone and bass player, and is best known as a founding member of the Jazz Crusaders, later known as The Crusaders.

Felder was born in Houston, Texas and studied music at Texas Southern University. Felder, Wayne Henderson, Joe Sample, and Stix Hooperfounded their group while in high school in Houston. The Jazz Crusaders evolved from a straight-ahead jazz combo into a pioneering jazz-rock fusion group, with a definite soul music influence. Felder worked with the original group for over thirty years, and continued to work in its later versions, which often featured other founding members.

Felder also worked as a West Coast studio musician, mostly playing electric bass, for various soul and R&B musicians, and was one of the in-house bass players for Motown Records, when the record label opened operations in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. He played on recordings by the Jackson 5 such as “I Want You Back” and “The Love You Save“, as well as for Marvin Gaye and Grant Green. He also played bass for soft rock groups like Seals and Crofts. Also of note were his contributions to the John Cale album Paris 1919, Steely Dan‘s Pretzel Logic (1974), and Billy Joel‘s Piano Man and Streetlife Serenade albums. He was one of three bass players on Randy Newman‘s Sail Away (1972) and Joan Baez‘ Diamonds & Rust. Felder also anchored albums from Joni Mitchell and Michael Franks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgOogZqq0NA

Paul Winter (born August 31, 1939) is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. A seven-time Grammy Award-winner, he is recognized as one of the pioneers of the world music genre, and also for his genre of “earth music,” which interweaves the voices of the greater symphony of the wild with instrumental voices from classical, jazz and world music traditions. The music is often improvised, and recorded in natural acoustic spaces, to reflect the qualities and instincts brought into play by the environment. With his various ensembles—the Paul Winter Sextet, the Paul Winter Consort, and the Earth Band—he has recorded more than 40 albums, and performed in 52 countries and six continents.

Herman Riley (August 31, 1933 – April 14, 2007) was a jazz saxophonist who spent most of his life as a studio musician in Los Angeles. He worked with Gene Ammons, Lorez Alexandria, Count Basie, Bobby Bryant, Donald Byrd, Benny Carter, Quincy Jones, Shelly Manne, Blue Mitchell, and Joe Williams.

John Edmund Andrew Phillips (August 30, 1935 – March 18, 2001) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and promoter. He is best known as the leader of the vocal group The Mamas & the Papas. He was one of the chief organizers of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

In 2009, Phillips’ daughter Mackenzie alleged that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, beginning when she was 19 years old; this account is disputed.

Phillips was born August 30, 1935, in Parris Island, South Carolina. His father, Claude Andrew Phillips, was a retired United States Marine Corpsofficer. On his way home from France following World War I, Claude Phillips managed to win a tavern located in Oklahoma from another Marine during a poker game. His mother, Edna Gertrude (née Gaines), who had English ancestry, met his father in Oklahoma. According to Phillips’ autobiography, Papa John, his father was a heavy drinker who suffered from poor health.

Luther Johnson (born Lucious Brinson, August 30, 1934 or 1941 – March 18, 1976), sometimes credited with the sobriquets “Georgia Boy”, “Snake”, or “Snake Boy”, was an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.

AllMusic journalist Ron Wynn stated, “Johnson’s own inimitable vocals, raspy lines and tart guitar eventually create his own aura… a good, occasionally outstanding blues artist.” He is not to be confused with Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, nor Luther “Houserocker” Johnson, from Atlanta, Georgia.

He was born in Davisboro, Georgia. Sources give different years of birth, ranging from 1934 to 1941 (according to his headstone), though 1939 has also been published. He was raised on a farm and taught himself to play guitar.

After completing his service in the US Army, Johnson played guitar with the Milwaukee Supreme Angels, a local gospel group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. However, he gravitated towards blues and formed his own trio in Milwaukee. He relocated to Chicago, Illinois, in the early 1960s. He backed Elmore James prior to his James’s death in 1963, and joined Muddy Waters‘ backing band in 1966. Johnson worked with various musicians during this period, including Chicago Bob Nelson. He recorded his debut album, Come On Home, in 1968, with Muddy Waters’ band.

McKinley Howard “Kenny” Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer. Dorham’s talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention or public recognition from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did. For this reason, writer Gary Giddins said that Dorham’s name has become “virtually synonymous with underrated.”Dorham composed the jazz standard “Blue Bossa“, which first appeared on Joe Henderson‘s album Page One.

Dorham was one of the most active bebop trumpeters. He played in the big bands of Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Mercer Ellington and the quintet of Charlie Parker. He joined Parker’s band in December 1948. He was a charter member of the original cooperative Jazz Messengers. He also recorded as a sideman with Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, and he replaced Clifford Brown in the Max Roach Quintet after Brown’s death in 1956. In addition to sideman work, Dorham led his own groups, including the Jazz Prophets (formed shortly after Art Blakeytook over the Jazz Messengers name). The Jazz Prophets, featuring a young Bobby Timmons on piano, bassist Sam Jones, and tenorman J. R. Monterose, with guest Kenny Burrell on guitar, recorded a live album ‘Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia in 1956 for Blue Note.

In 1963 Dorham added the 26-year-old tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson to his group, which later recorded Una Mas (the group also featured a young Tony Williams). The friendship between the two musicians led to a number of other albums, such as Henderson’s Page One, Our Thing and In ‘n Out. Dorham recorded frequently throughout the 1960s for Blue Note and Prestige Records, as leader and as sideman for Henderson, Jackie McLean, Cedar Walton, Andrew Hill, Milt Jackson and others.