mick laBriola

The massive star cluster Westerlund 2, seen here in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope, is filled with young stars surrounded by dense clouds of interstellar dust that’s in the process of forming baby planets. But the stars in the center of the cluster don’t have the same planet-building supplies as their neighbors near the cluster’s outskirts, Hubble observations have revealed. The absence of dust in the center of Westerlund 2 is caused by “blistering ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds” coming from the biggest and brightest stars of the cluster, which congregate in the cluster’s core, eroding and blasting away all the dust, Hubble officials said in a statement.

Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, and one of the most influential musicians behind soul and politically conscious African-American music. He first achieved success and recognition with The Impressions during the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, and later worked as a solo artist.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Mayfield started his musical career in a gospel choir. Moving to the North Side, he met Jerry Butler in 1956 at the age of 14, and joined the vocal group The Impressions. As a songwriter, Mayfield became noted as one of the first musicians to bring more prevalent themes of social awareness into soul music. In 1965, he wrote “People Get Ready” for the Impressions, which displayed his more politically charged songwriting. Ranked at no. 24 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the song received numerous other awards, and was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, as well as being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

After leaving the Impressions in 1970 in the pursuit of a solo career, Mayfield released several albums, including the soundtrack for the blaxploitationfilm Super Fly in 1972. The soundtrack was noted for its socially conscious themes, mostly addressing problems surrounding inner city minorities such as crime, poverty and drug abuse. The album was ranked at no. 72 on Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down after lighting equipment fell on him during a live performance at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, on August 13, 1990. Despite this, he continued his career as a recording artist, releasing his final album New World Order in 1996. Mayfield won a Grammy Legend Award in 1994 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. He is a double inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of the Impressions in 1991, and again in 1999 as a solo artist. He was also a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee. He died from complications of type 2 diabetes at the age of 57 on December 26, 1999.

Theodore Curson (June 3, 1935 – November 4, 2012) was an American jazz trumpeter.

Curson was born in Philadelphia. He became interested in playing trumpet after watching a newspaper salesman play a silver trumpet. Curson’s father, however, wanted him to play alto saxophone like Louis Jordan. When he was ten, he got his first trumpet. He attended Granoff School of Music in Philadelphia. At the suggestion of Miles Davis, he moved to New York in 1956. He performed and recorded with Cecil Taylor in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His composition “Tears for Dolphy” has been used in numerous films. He was a familiar face in Finland, having performed at the Pori Jazz festival every year since it began in 1966. In 2007, he performed at Finland’s Independence Day Ball at the invitation of president Tarja Halonen.

A longtime resident of Montclair, New Jersey, Curson died there on November 4, 2012.

Jimmy Rogers (June 3, 1924 – December 19, 1997) was a Chicago blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player, best known for his work as a member of Muddy Waters‘s band in the early 1950s. He also had solo hits on the R&B chart with “That’s All Right” in 1950 and “Walking by Myself” in 1954. He withdrew from the music industry at the end of the 1950s but returned to recording and touring in the 1970s. He is not to be confused with the country music singer Jimmie Rodgers or the pop singer Jimmie Rodgers.

Rogers was born Jay Arthur Lane in Ruleville, Mississippi, on June 3, 1924. He was raised in Atlanta and Memphis. He adopted his stepfather’s surname. He learned to play the harmonica with his childhood friend Snooky Pryor, and as a teenager he took up the guitar. He played professionally in East St. Louis, Illinois, with Robert Lockwood, Jr., among others. Rogers moved to Chicago in the mid-1940s. By 1946, he had recorded as a harmonica player and singer for the Harlem record label, run by J. Mayo Williams. Rogers’s name did not appear on the record, which was mislabeled as the work of Memphis Slim and His Houserockers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBl9v5WlPeE&t=362s

Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

During her early career Baker was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol of the Jazz Age and the 1920s.

Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the “Black Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, the “Bronze Venus”, and the “Creole Goddess”. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France. “I have two loves, my country and Paris”, Baker once said, and she sang: « J’ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris ».

She was known for aiding the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, she was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H46uf5-Way0

This picture of the nearby galaxy NGC 3521 was taken using the FORS1 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The large spiral galaxy lies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), and is only 35 million light-years distant. This picture was created from exposures taken through three different filters that passed blue light, yellow/green light, and near-infrared light. These are shown in this picture as blue, green, and red, respectively.

Ilaiyaraaja (born 2 June 1943) is an Indian film composer, singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, orchestrator, conductor-arranger and lyricist who works in the Indian film industry, predominantly in Tamil and other languages including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Hindi and English. Widely regarded as one of the greatest Indian music composers, he is credited with introducing western musical sensibilities in the Indian film musical mainstream. Reputed to be the world’s most prolific composer, he has composed more than 7,000 songs, provided film scores for more than 1,000 movies and performed in more than 20,000 concerts. Being the first Asian to compose a full symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, Ilaiyaraaja is known to have written the entire symphony in less than a month. He is also a gold medalist in classical guitar from Trinity College of Music, London, Distance Learning Channel. In a poll conducted by CNN-IBN celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema in 2013, Ilaiyaraaja was voted as the all-time greatest film-music director of India. U.S.-based world cinema portal “Taste of Cinema” placed Ilaiyaraaja at the 9th position in its list of 25 greatest film composers in the history of cinema and he is the only Indian in that list.

Ilaiyaraaja is known for integrating Indian folk music and traditional Indian instrumentation with western classical music techniques. His scores are often performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. He is a recipient of five Indian National Film Awards—three for Best Music Direction and two for Best Background Score. In 2010, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian honour in India and the Padma Vibhushan in 2018, the second-highest civilian award by the government of India. In 2012, he received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the highest Indian recognition given to practising artists, for his creative and experimental works in the music field.

In 2003, according to an international poll conducted by BBC, more than half-a million people from 165 countries voted his composition Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu from the 1991 film Thalapathi as the fourth in the world’s top 10 most popular songs of all time. According to Achille Forler, board member of the Indian Performing Right Society, the kind of stellar body of work that Ilaiyaraaja has created in the last 40 years should have placed him among the world’s Top 10 richest composers, somewhere between Andrew Lloyd Webber ($1.2 billion) and Mick Jagger (over $300 million).

Ilaiyaraaja is nicknamed Isaignani (The musical genius in English) and often referred to as Maestro, the prestigious title conferred by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London. The critically acclaimed Thiruvasagam (2006) is the first Indian oratorio composed by Ilaiyaraaja. Winner of numerous accolades, one of his compositions was part of the playlist for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXw5Oelk4q8&t=34s

Charles Robert Watts (born 2 June 1941) is an English drummer, best known as a member of the Rolling Stones since 1963. Originally trained as a graphic artist, he started playing drums in London’s rhythm and blues clubs, where he met Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards. In January 1963, he joined their fledgling group, the Rolling Stones, as drummer, while doubling as designer of their record sleeves and tour stages. Watts cites jazz as a major influence on his drumming style. He has toured with his own group, the Charlie Watts Quintet, and appeared in London at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club with the Charlie Watts Tentet.

In 2006, Watts was elected into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame; in the same year, Vanity Fair elected him into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. In the estimation of noted music critic Robert Christgau, Watts is “rock’s greatest drummer.” In 2016, he was ranked 12th on Rolling Stone‘s “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time” list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0iLSCgMjvE

Valaida Snow (June 2, 1904 – May 30, 1956) was a virtuoso American jazz musician and entertainer who became an internationally celebrated talent. She was known as “Little Louis” and “Queen of the Trumpet,” a nickname given to her by W.C. Handy.

She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her mother, Etta, was a Howard University-educated music teacher and her father, John, was a minister who was the leader of the Pickaninny Troubadours, a group mainly consisting of child performers. Raised on the road in a show-business family, where starting from the age of 5, she began performing with her father’s group. By the time she was 15, she learned to play cello, bass, banjo, violin, mandolin, harp, accordion, clarinet, trumpet, and saxophone. She also sang and danced.

Her solo career began when she joined a popular revue called “Holiday in Dixieland,” after exiting an abusive marriage. She then held a residency at a Harlem cabaret, which helped lead her to be cast along Josephine Baker in the musical “In Bamville,” a follow-up to the enduring hit musical “Shuffle Along.” While the musical was itself not a hit, Baker and Snow both received positive reviews.

After focusing on the trumpet, she quickly became so famous at the instrument that she was named “Little Louis” after Louis Armstrong, who called her the world’s second best jazz trumpet player besides himself. W. C. Handy, who is known as the Father of the Blues, gave her the nickname “Queen of the Trumpet.” Contemporary critics Krin Gabbard and Will Friedwald have commented on her approach to playing like Armstrong. Gabbard said she developed a “distinctly Armstrongian style” and Friedwald said she “mimicked” Armstrong.

Alanis Nadine Morissette (born June 1, 1974) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Known for her emotive mezzo-soprano voice, Morissette began her career in Canada in the early 1990s with two mildly successful dance-pop albums. Afterwards, as part of a recording deal, she moved to Holmby Hills, Los Angeles and in 1995 released Jagged Little Pill, a more rock-oriented album which sold more than 33 million copies globally and is her most critically acclaimed work. Her follow-up album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was released in 1998.

Morissette assumed creative control and producing duties for her subsequent studio albums, including Under Rug Swept (2002), So-Called Chaos(2004), Flavors of Entanglement (2008), and Havoc and Bright Lights (2012). Her 9th album, Such Pretty Forks in the Road is set to be released in 2020. Morissette has sold more than 75 million records worldwide and has been dubbed the “Queen of Alt-Rock Angst” by Rolling Stone.

Ronald David Wood (born 1 June 1947) is an English rock musician, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, artist, author and radio personality best known as a member of The Rolling Stones since 1975, as well as a member of Faces and the Jeff Beck Group.

Wood began his career in 1964, when he joined The Birds (not to be confused with the American band The Byrds) on guitar. He then joined the modgroup The Creation, but remained with the group only for a short time and appeared on a small number of singles. Wood joined the Jeff Beck Group in 1967 as a bass player. The band released two albums, Truth and Beck-Ola, both seminal albums.

The group split in 1969, and Wood departed along with lead vocalist Rod Stewart to join former Small Faces members Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones in a new group named Faces. The group found great success in the UK and mainland Europe, though were relegated to cult status in the United States. Faces released its debut album, First Step, in 1970. The group went on to release Long Player and A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse in 1971. Their last LP, titled Ooh La La, was released in 1973. Wood co-wrote and sang the album’s popular title track.

As the group began to split, Wood started several solo projects, eventually recording his first solo LP, I’ve Got My Own Album to Do, in 1974. The album featured bandmate McLagan as well as former Beatle George Harrison and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, a longtime friend of Wood’s. Richards soon invited Wood to join the Rolling Stones, after the departure of Mick Taylor. Wood joined in 1975, but was not officially inducted as a member until bassist Bill Wyman‘s departure in 1993.

Besides I’ve Got My Own Album to Do, Wood has recorded several other solo efforts. Now Look was released in 1975, and peaked at No. 118 on Billboard, and Wood collaborated with Ronnie Lane for the soundtrack album Mahoney’s Last Stand. He released Gimme Some Neck in 1979, which hit No. 45 in the US, 1234 was released in 1981, peaking at No. 164. He released Slide on This in 1992, Not for Beginners came out in 2002. and I Feel Like Playing in 2010. As a member of the Rolling Stones, Wood was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and was inducted a second time, as a member of Faces, in April 2012.