mick laBriola

Colorful stars sparkle across a sea of cosmic dust and gas in this new view of Gum 26, a star-forming region in the Milky Way galaxy. Located 20,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Vela, the sails, Gum 26 is a hydrogen-rich emission nebula, also known as an H II region, where collapsing clumps of dust and gas are actively forming new stars. This new image of the stellar nursery was captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Leo Sayer (born Gerard Hugh Sayer, 21 May 1948) is an English-Australian singer-songwriter musician and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. He is now an Australian citizen and resident.

Sayer launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10 – a feat first registered by his first manager, Adam Faith. His songs have been sung by other notable artists, including Cliff Richard (“Dreaming“).

Larance Norman Marable (May 21, 1929 – July 4, 2012) was a jazz drummer from Los Angeles, California.

Marable was born in Los Angeles on May 21, 1929. His family was musical, but he was largely self-taught.

In the 1950s, Marable played with musicians who were visiting Los Angeles; these included Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker, and Zoot Sims. Marable recorded as a leader in 1956.He also recorded with George Shearing, Chet Baker, Milt Jackson, and other well-known musicians.

Drug problems led to Marable stopping playing in the 1960s. His career resumed in the mid-1970s, after he had ended his drug addiction. He toured with Supersax and Bobby Hutcherson in the 1970s, and was a member of Charlie Haden‘s Quartet West in the 1980s and 1990s. Marable had a stroke in the 2000s and lived in a health care facility.He died in Manhattan on July 4, 2012.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFDYe4oYGyI

May 21, 1920-June 20, 1991

Some folks called Chicago harpist Little Willie Anderson “Little Walter Jr.,” so faithfully did Anderson‘s style follow that of the legendary harp wizard. But Anderson was already quite familiar with the rudiments of the harmonica before he ever hit the Windy City, having heard Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, and Robert Jr. Lockwood around West Memphis.

Anderson came to Chicago in 1939, eventually turning pro as a sideman with Johnny Young. Anderson served as Walter‘s valet, chauffeur, and pal during the latter’s heyday, but his slavish imitations probably doomed any recording possibilities for Anderson — until 1979, that is, when Blues On Blues label boss Bob Corritore escorted him into a Chicago studio and emerged with what amounts to Anderson‘s entire recorded legacy.

Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid the groundwork for modern jazz piano. His best-known compositions, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose“, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999. Waller copyrighted over 400 songs, many of them co-written with his closest collaborator, Andy Razaf. Razaf described his partner as “the soul of melody… a man who made the piano sing… both big in body and in mind… known for his generosity… a bubbling bundle of joy”. It’s possible he composed many more popular songs and sold them to other performers when times were tough.

Waller started playing the piano at the age of six, and became a professional organist aged 15. By the age of 18 he was a recording artist. Waller’s first recordings, “Muscle Shoals Blues” and “Birmingham Blues”, were made in October 1922 for Okeh Records. That year, he also made his first player piano roll, “Got to Cool My Doggies Now”.Waller’s first published composition, “Squeeze Me”, was published in 1924. He became one of the most popular performers of his era, touring internationally and achieving critical and commercial success in the United States and Europe. He died from pneumonia, aged 39.

Waller was the seventh child of 11 (five of whom survived childhood) born to Adeline Locket Waller, a musician, and Reverend Edward Martin Waller, a trucker and pastor in New York City. He started playing the piano when he was six and graduated to playing the organ at his father’s church four years later. His mother instructed him in his youth, and he attended other music lessons, paying for them by working in a grocery store. Waller attended DeWitt Clinton High School for one semester, but left school at 15 to work as an organist at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem, where he earned $32 a week. Within 12 months he had composed his first rag. He was the prize pupil and later the friend and colleague of the stride pianist James P. Johnson. His mother died on November 10, 1920 from a stroke due to diabetes

This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope features the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3583. Located some 98 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, NGC 3583 is about three-quarters the size of our Milky Way galaxy. But while the Milky Way has four distinct spiral arms that wrap around its galactic core, NGC 3583 has two long arms that twist out into the universe. Astronomers have observed two supernova explosions in this galaxy, one in 1975 and then again in 2015. — Hanneke Weitering

Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole (Hawaiian: pronounced [kəˌmɐkəˌvivoˈʔole]; Hawaiian for ‘”the fearless eye, the bold face”‘; May 20, 1959 – June 26, 1997), also called Bruddah Iz or IZ, was a Native Hawaiian singer-lyricist, musician, and Hawaiian sovereignty activist.

He achieved commercial success outside Hawaii when his album Facing Future was released in 1993. His medley of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” was released on his albums Ka ʻAnoʻi and Facing Future. It was subsequently featured in several films, television programs, and television commercials.

Along with his ukulele playing and incorporation of other genres, such as jazz and reggae, Kamakawiwoʻole remains influential in Hawaiian music.

Kamakawiwoʻole was born at Kuakini Medical Center in Honolulu to Henry “Hank” Kaleialoha Naniwa Kamakawiwoʻole Jr. and Evangeline “Angie” Leinani Kamakawiwoʻole. The notable Hawaiian musician Moe Keale was his uncle and a major musical influence. He was raised in the community of Kaimuki, where his parents had met and married. He began playing music with his older brother Skippy and cousin Allen Thornton at the age of 11, being exposed to the music of Hawaiian entertainers of the time such as Peter Moon, Palani Vaughn and Don Ho, who frequented the establishment where Kamakawiwoʻole’s parents worked. Hawaiian musician Del Beazley spoke of the first time he heard Kamakawiwoʻole perform, when, while playing for a graduation party, the whole room fell silent on hearing him sing. Kamakawiwoʻole continued his path as his brother Skippy entered the Army in 1971 and his cousin Allen left in 1976 for the mainland.

John Robert “Joe” Cocker OBE (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English singer known for his gritty voice, spasmodic body movement in performance, and distinctive versions of popular songs of varying genres.

Cocker’s recording of the Beatles‘ “With a Little Help from My Friends” reached number one in the UK in 1968. He performed the song live at Woodstock in 1969 and performed the same year at the Isle of Wight Festival, and at the Party at the Palace concert in 2002 for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. His version also became the theme song for the TV series The Wonder Years. His 1974 cover of “You Are So Beautiful” reached number five in the US. Cocker was the recipient of several awards, including a 1983 Grammy Award for his US number one “Up Where We Belong“, a duet with Jennifer Warnes.

In 1993, Cocker was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male, in 2007 was awarded a bronze Sheffield Legends plaque in his hometown and in 2008 he received an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music.^[2][3] Cocker was ranked number 97 on Rolling Stone‘s 100 greatest singers list.

Charles Davis (May 20, 1933 – July 15, 2016) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Davis played alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, and performed extensively with Archie Shepp and Sun Ra.

Born in Goodman, Mississippi, Davis was raised in Chicago. He graduated from DuSable High School before studying at the Chicago School of Music. Davis also studied privately with John Hauser. During the 1950s, he played with Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Sun Ra and Dinah Washington. Davis also performed and recorded with Kenny Dorham, with whom he associated musically for many years.

During the 1960s, he performed and recorded with Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Griffin, Steve Lacy and Ahmad Jamal, also working with Blue Mitchell, Erskine Hawkins, John Coltrane and Clifford Jordan. In 1964, Davis topped Downbeat Magazine‘s International Jazz Critics Poll for baritone saxophone. He performed in the musical The Philosophy of The Spiritual – A Masque of the Black with Willie Jones, produced by Nadi Qamar. Davis taught at PS 179 in Brooklyn and was musical director of the Turntable, a nightclub owned by Lloyd Price.

During the 1970s, Davis was a member of the cooperative Artistry in Music with Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins. He co-led, composed and arranged for the Baritone Saxophone Retinue, a six-baritone-saxophone group. Davis toured Europe, playing major jazz festivals and concerts with the Clark Terry Orchestra, and toured the United States with Duke Ellington’s Orchestra under the direction of Mercer Ellington. As musical director of the Home of the Id nightclub, he presented Gene Ammons, Randy Weston and Max Roach. As producer of the Monday Night Boat Ride Up The Hudson, Davis presented Art Blakey, George Benson and Etta Jones. He appeared on television with Archie Shepp, Lucky Thompson, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Edward Louis Smith (May 20, 1931 – August 20, 2016) was an American jazz trumpeter from Memphis, Tennessee.

After graduating from Tennessee State University he attended graduate school at the University of Michigan. While studying at the University of Michigan, he played with visiting musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thad Jones and Billy Mitchell, before going on to play with Sonny Stitt, Count Basie and Al McKibbon, Cannonball Adderley, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham and Zoot Sims.^[1] Smith decided to forgo being a full-time musician to take a job a director of Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School. There he recorded two albums for Blue Note.

The first, Here Comes Louis Smith, originally recorded for the Boston-based Transition Records, featured Cannonball Adderley (then under contract to Mercury) playing under the pseudonym “Buckshot La Funke”, Tommy Flanagan, Duke Jordan, Art Taylor and Doug Watkins. He also replaced Donald Byrd for Horace Silver’s Live at the Newport 1958 set. His playing on the set was one of his best efforts and was described by one critic as “monstrous”. He was a prolific composer and successful band director leaving Booker T. Washington to become director of the Jazz Ensemble at the University of Michigan and a teacher in Ann Arbor’s public school system. He later recorded for the SteepleChase label.

Smith suffered a stroke in 2006, and was seen occasionally enjoying live jazz in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area, but did not return to performing. His cousin Booker Little was also a trumpeter. Smith died on August 20, 2016, at age 85.

Astronomers have discovered a special kind of neutron star for the first time outside of the Milky Way galaxy, using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.

Neutron stars are the ultra dense cores of massive stars that collapse and undergo a supernova explosion. This newly identified neutron star is a rare variety that has both a low magnetic field and no stellar companion.

The neutron star is located within the remains of a supernova — known as 1E 0102.2-7219 (E0102 for short) — in the Small Magellanic Cloud, located 200,000 light years from Earth.

This new composite image of E0102 allows astronomers to learn new details about this object that was discovered more than three decades ago. In this image, X-raysfrom Chandra are blue and purple, and visible light data from VLT’s Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument are bright red. Additional data from the Hubble Space Telescope are dark red and green.

Oxygen-rich supernova remnants like E0102 are important for understanding how massive stars fuse lighter elements into heavier ones before they explode. Seen up to a few thousand years after the original explosion, oxygen-rich remnants contain the debris ejected from the dead star’s interior. This debris (visible as a green filamentary structure in the combined image) is observed today hurtling through space after being expelled at millions of miles per hour.

Chandra observations of E0102 show that the supernova remnant is dominated by a large ring-shaped structure in X-rays, associated with the blast wave of the supernova. The new MUSE data revealed a smaller ring of gas (in bright red) that is expanding more slowly than the blast wave. At the center of this ring is a blue point-like source of X-rays. Together, the small ring and point source act like a celestial bull’s eye.

A composite image of the supernova 1E0102.2-7219 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue and purple), visible light data from VLT’s MUSE instrument (bright red), and additional data from Hubble (dark red and green). A neutron star, the ultra dense core of a massive star that collapses and undergoes a supernova explosion, is found at its center.

Thomas Wright Scott (born May 19, 1948) is an American saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He was a member of The Blues Brothers and led the jazz fusion group L.A. Express.

Scott was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of film and television composer Nathan Scott, who had more than 850 television credits and more than 100 film credits as a composer, orchestrator, and conductor, including the theme songs for Dragnet and Lassie.

His professional career began as a teenager as leader of the jazz ensemble Neoteric Trio. After that, he worked as a session musician. He wrote the theme songs for the television shows Starsky and Hutch and The Streets of San Francisco. He played the soprano saxophone solo on the No. 1 hit single “Listen to What the Man Said” by the band Wings. In 1976 he played the theme “I Still Can’t Sleep” in Taxi Driver. In 1982, he collaborated with Johnny Mathis on “Without Us”, the theme to the 1980s sitcom Family Ties. He also played the lyricon, an electronic wind instrument on Michael Jackson‘s Billie Jean.

Scott was a founding member of the Blues Brothers Band, despite his absence in the two films, The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000. According to Bob Woodward’s account in Wired, a biography of John Belushi, Scott left the band after their 1980 tour over a salary dispute. However, he reunited with Dan Aykroyd and the Blues Brothers Band in 1988 to record a few tracks for The Great Outdoors.

Scott led the house band on two short-lived late night talk shows: The Pat Sajak Show and The Chevy Chase Show. He was music director for the 68th Academy Awards in 1996, several Emmy Awards telecasts from 1996 to 2007, Ebony‘s 50th Birthday Celebration, and the People’s Choice Awards telecasts.

He has dozens of solo recordings for which he collected thirteen Grammy nominations (three of which he won). He has numerous film and television scoring credits, including composing and conducting the score for the movie Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and appeared on records by the Beach Boys, Blondie (“Rapture“), Grateful Dead, George Harrison, Whitney Houston(“Saving All My Love for You“), Quincy Jones, Carole King, Richard Marx (“Children of the Night“), Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Eddie Money, Olivia Newton-John, Pink Floyd, Helen Reddy, Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan (“Black Cow“), Steppenwolf, Rod Stewart (“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?“) Steely Dan, Aja.