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Arthur William “Big Boy” Crudup (August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known, outside blues circles, for his songs “That’s All Right” (1946), “My Baby Left Me” and “So Glad You’re Mine”, later recorded by Elvis Presleyand other artists.
Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi, to a family of migrant workers traveling through the South and Midwest. The family returned to Mississippi in 1926, where he sang gospel music. He had lessons with a local bluesman, whose name was Papa Harvey, and later he was able to play in dance halls and cafes around Forest. Around 1940 he went to Chicago.
more...The shapes of planetary nebula like the Helix are important because they likely hold clues to how stars like the Sun end their lives. Observations by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and the 4-meter Blanco Telescope in Chile, however, have shown the Helix is not really a simple helix. Rather, it incorporates two nearly perpendicular disks as well as arcs, shocks, and even features not well understood. Even so, many strikingly geometric symmetries remain. How a single Sun-like star created such beautiful yet geometric complexity is a topic of research. The Helix Nebula is the nearest planetary nebulato Earth, lies only about 700 light years away toward the constellation of Aquarius, and spans about 3 light-years.
more...Keith John Moon (23 August 1946 – 7 September 1978) was an English drummer for the rock band the Who. He was noted for his unique style and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour.
Moon grew up in Alperton, a suburb of Wembley, in Middlesex, and took up the drums during the early 1960s. After playing with a local band, the Beachcombers, he joined the Who in 1964 before they recorded their first single. He remained with the band during their rise to fame, and was quickly recognised for his drumming style, which emphasised tom-toms, cymbal crashes, and drum fills. Throughout Moon’s tenure with the Who his drum kit steadily grew in size, and (along with Ginger Baker) he has been credited as one of the earliest rock drummers to regularly employ double bass drumsin his setup. Moon occasionally collaborated with other musicians and later appeared in films, but considered playing in the Who his primary occupation, and remained a member of the band until his death. In addition to his talent as a drummer, however, Moon developed a reputation for smashing his kit on stage and destroying hotel rooms on tour. He was fascinated by blowing up toilets with cherry bombs or dynamite, and by destroying television sets. Moon enjoyed touring and socialising, and became bored and restless when the Who were inactive. His 21st birthday party in Flint, Michigan, has been cited as a notorious example of decadent behaviour by rock groups.
Moon suffered a number of setbacks during the 1970s, most notably the accidental death of chauffeur Neil Boland and the breakdown of his marriage. He became addicted to alcohol, particularly brandy and champagne, and acquired a reputation for decadence and dark humour; his nickname was “Moon the Loon”. After moving to Los Angeles with personal assistant Peter “Dougal” Butler during the mid-1970s, Moon recorded his only solo album, the poorly received Two Sides of the Moon. While touring with the Who, on several occasions he passed out on stage and was hospitalised. By the time of their final tour with him in 1976, and particularly during production of The Kids Are Alright and Who Are You, the drummer’s deterioration was evident. Moon moved back to London in 1978, dying in September of that year from an overdose of Heminevrin, a drug intended to treat or prevent symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.
Moon’s drumming continues to be praised by critics and musicians. He was posthumously inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1982, becoming the second rock drummer to be chosen, and in 2011, Moon was voted the second-greatest drummer in history by a Rolling Stone readers’ poll.
more...Terje Rypdal (born 23 August 1947) is a Norwegian guitarist and composer. He has been an important member in the Norwegian jazz community, and has also given show concerts with guitarists Ronni Le Tekrø and Mads Eriksen as “N3”.
Rypdal was born in Oslo, Norway, the son of a composer and orchestra leader. He studied classical piano and trumpet as a child, and then taught himself to play guitar as he entered his teens. Starting out as a Hank Marvin-influenced rock guitarist with The Vanguards, Rypdal turned towards jazz in 1968 and joined Jan Garbarek‘s group and later George Russell‘s sextet and orchestra. An important step towards international attention was his participation in the free jazz festival in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1969, where he was part of a band led by Lester Bowie. During his musical studies at Oslo university and conservatory, he led the orchestra of the Norwegian version of the musical Hair. He has often been recorded on the ECM record label, both jazz-oriented material and classical compositions (some of which do not feature Rypdal’s guitar).
His compositions “Last Nite” and “Mystery Man” were featured in the Michael Mann film Heat, and included on the soundtrack of the same name.
more...Alvin Gilbert “Gil” Coggins (August 23, 1928 – February 15, 2004) was an American jazz pianist.
Coggins was born to parents of West Indian heritage. His mother was a pianist and had her son start on piano from an early age. He attended school in New York City and Barbados. In Harlem, New York City, he attended The High School of Music & Art.
In 1946, Coggins met Miles Davis while stationed at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. After his discharge he began playing piano professionally, working with Davis on several of his Blue Note and Prestige releases. Coggins also recorded with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers, Ray Draper, and Jackie McLean.
Coggins gave up playing jazz professionally in 1954 and took up a career in real estate, playing music only occasionally. He did not record as a leader until 1990, when Interplay Records released Gil’s Mood. He continued performing through the 1990s and 2000s until 2004, when he died from complications sustained in a car crash eight months earlier in Forest Hills, New York. Better Late Than Never, his second album recorded as a leader, was released posthumously.
more...NGC 4026 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. It is located at a distance of circa 50 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 4026 is about 80,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 12, 1789. The galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole with estimated mass 108.33±0.109 (166-275 million) M☉. NGC 4026 belongs to M109 Group, the largest subgroup of galaxies with the Ursa Major Cluster. In the vicinity of NGC 4026 lie some low surface brightness spiral galaxies, UGC 6917 (42 arcminutes from NGC 4026), UGC 6922 (26 arcminutes from NGC 4026) and UGC 6956 (10 arcminutes from NGC 4026).
NGC 4026 appears disturbed in HI imaging, with a filament extending southward. The mass of HI in NGC 4026 is below 0.71 × 108 M⊙. The total HI mass in NGC 4026, UGC 6956 and the HI filament is estimated to be 7.94 × 108 M⊙
more...Sonny Thompson (probably August 23, 1916 – August 11, 1989), born Alfonso Thompson or Hezzie Tompson, was an American R&B bandleader and pianist, popular in the 1940s and 1950s.
There is some uncertainty over Thompson’s origins, as well as his birth name. Researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc indicate that he was born in 1916 in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, but other sources state that he was born in 1923, either in Mississippi or in Chicago.
He began recording in 1946, and in 1948 achieved two #1 R&B chart hits on the Miracle label – “Long Gone (Parts I and II)” and “Late Freight“, both featuring saxophonist Eddie Chamblee. The follow-ups “Blue Dreams” and “Still Gone” also reached the R&B chart. By 1952 he had moved on to King Records, where he worked in A&R and as a session musician and arranger. At King, he had further R&B Top 10 successes with the singer Lula Reed, the biggest hit being “I’ll Drown in My Tears“. Thompson married Reed sometime in the early 1950s. He continued to work as a session musician, and to perform with Reed into the early 1960s. He also had success as a songwriter, often co-writing with blues guitarist, Freddie King. Thompson died in 1989 in Chicago.
more...Malachi Favors (August 22, 1927 – January 30, 2004) was an American jazz bassist who played with the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
“Favors’s tendency to dissemble about his age was a well-known source of mirth to fellow musicians of his generation”. Most reference works give his year of birth of 1937, but, following his death, his daughter stated that it was 1927.
Favors primarily played the double bass, but also played the electric bass guitar, banjo, zither, gong, and other instruments. He began playing double bass at the age of 15 and began performing professionally upon graduating high school. Early performances included work with Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard. By 1965, he was a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of Muhal Richard Abrams‘ Experimental Band.
At some point he added the word “Maghostut” to his name and because of this he is commonly listed as “Malachi Favors Maghostut”. Musically he is most associated with bebop, hard bop, and particularly free jazz.
Favors was a protégé of Chicago bassist Wilbur Ware. His first known recording was a 1953 session with tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb. He made an LP with Chicago pianist Andrew Hill (1957). Favors began working with Roscoe Mitchell in 1966; this group eventually became the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Favors also worked outside the group, with artists including Sunny Murray, Archie Shepp, and Dewey Redman.
Prominent records include Natural & Spiritual (solo bass, 1978) and Sightsong (duets with Muhal Richard Abrams, 1975). In 1994 he played with Roman Bunka (Oud) at Berlin Jazz Fest and recorded the German Critics Poll Winner album Color me Cairo.
more...Lex Humphries (August 22, 1936 – July 11, 1994) was a jazz drummer. He worked with two musicians known for mixing world music with jazz: Sun Ra and Yusef Lateef. As a member of Sun Ra’s “Arkestra” he appeared in the film Space Is the Place.
Humphries played on the Giant Steps sessions with John Coltrane. The renditions he and Cedar Walton recorded with Coltrane were released as alternative tracks in 1974. He was also the first drummer in the Jazztet, appearing on their first album, Meet the Jazztet, in 1960.
more...John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stone‘s 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists.
Some of his best known songs include “Boogie Chillen’” (1948), “Crawling King Snake” (1949), “Dimples” (1956), “Boom Boom” (1962), and “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” (1966). Several of his later albums, including The Healer (1989), Mr. Lucky (1991), Chill Out (1995), and Don’t Look Back (1997), were album chart successes in the U.S. and UK. The Healer (for the song “I’m In The Mood”) and Chill Out (for the album) both earned him Grammy wins as well as Don’t Look Back, which went on to earn him a double-Grammy win for Best Traditional Blues Recording and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (with Van Morrison).
Hooker’s date of birth is a subject of debate; the years 1912, 1915, 1917, 1920, and 1923 have been suggested. Most sources give 1917, though at times Hooker stated he was born in 1920. Information in the 1920 and 1930 censuses indicates that he was born in 1912. In 2017, a series of events took place to celebrate the purported centenary of his birth. In the 1920 federal census, John Hooker is seven years old and one of nine children living with William and Minnie Hooker in Tutwiler, Mississippi.
more...(Achille) Claude Debussy (French: [aʃil klod dəbysi]; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France’s leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire’s conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, Pelléas et Mélisande.
Debussy’s orchestral works include Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899) and Images (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a reaction against Wagner and the German musical tradition. He regarded the classical symphony as obsolete and sought an alternative in his “symphonic sketches”, La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include two books of Préludes and two of Études. Throughout his career he wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. He was greatly influenced by the Symbolist poetic movement of the later 19th century. A small number of works, including the early La Damoiselle élue and the late Le Martyre de saint Sébastien have important parts for chorus. In his final years, he focused on chamber music, completing three of six planned sonatas for different combinations of instruments.
With early influences including Russian and far-eastern music, Debussy developed his own style of harmony and orchestral colouring, derided – and unsuccessfully resisted – by much of the musical establishment of the day. His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans. Debussy died from cancer at his home in Paris at the age of 55 after a composing career of a little more than 30 years.
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