mick laBriola

George Murphy “Pops” Foster (May 19, 1892 – October 29, 1969) was a jazz musician best known for his vigorous slap bass playing of the string bass. He also played the tuba and trumpet professionally.

Foster was born to Charley and Annie Foster, who “was nearly fullblooded Cherokee,” on a plantation near McCall in Ascension Parish near Donaldsonville in south Louisiana. His family moved to New Orleans when he was about 10 years of age. His older brother, Willard Foster, began playing banjo and guitar; George started out on a cello then switched to string bass. Foster married twice: to Bertha Foster in 1912 and Alma Foster in 1936. Pops Foster was playing professionally by 1907 and worked with Jack Carey, Kid Ory, Armand Piron, King Oliver and other prominent hot bands of the era.

In 1921 he moved to St. Louis to play with the Charlie Creath and Dewey Jackson bands, in which he would be active for much of the decade. He also joined Ory in Los Angeles. He acquired the nickname “Pops” because he was far older than any of the other players in the band.

In 1929 Foster moved to New York City, where he played with the bands of Luis Russell and Louis Armstrongthrough 1940. He gigged with various New York-based bands through the 1940s, including those of Sidney Bechet, Art Hodes, and regular broadcasts on the national This Is Jazz radio program. He also recorded for the Mezzrow-Bechet Quintet (Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, Fitz Weston, and Kaiser Marshall) and Septet (on two consecutive dates in 1945, with Hot Lips Page (as Pappa Snow White), Sammy Price (as Jimmy Blythe Jr.), Danny Barker and Sid Catlett, and on the second session with Pleasant Joe on vocals).

In the late 1940s he began touring more widely and played in many countries in Europe, especially in France, and throughout the United States including returns to New Orleans and California.

In 1952, Foster toured Europe with Jimmy Archey‘s Band. He played regularly at Central Plaza in New York and briefly in New Orleans with Papa Celestin in 1954.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he played with Earl Hines‘ Small Band. In 1966, he toured Europe with the New Orleans All-Stars but remained based in San Francisco, where he died.

The Autobiography of Pops Foster was published in 1971, with a new edition in 2005. Foster is quoted, “Some of the books are fouled up on” the times in New Orleans”, “and some of the guys weren’t telling the truth.” “The critics and guys who write about jazz think they know more about what went on in New Orleans than the guys that were there.”

Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan (/ˈɛnjə/); born 17 May 1961), known professionally as Enya, is an Irish singer, songwriter, record producer and musician. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore in County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family’s Celtic band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan’s wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, and folk music. She has sung in ten languages.

Enya’s first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the international top-10 hit single “Orinoco Flow“. This was followed by the multi-million selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995) and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, “Only Time“, surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the 11 September attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came… (2008), Enya took an extended break from music; she returned in 2012 and released Dark Sky Island (2015).

She is Ireland’s bestselling solo artist and second-bestselling artist behind U2, with a discography that has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.^[5] A Day Without Rain(2000) remains the bestselling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide.^[6] Enya has won awards including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album,^[7] and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for “May It Be“, written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

William Scott Bruford (born 17 May 1949) is an English former drummer, percussionist, songwriter, producer, and record label owner who first gained prominence as a founding member of the progressive rock band Yes. After his departure from Yes, Bruford spent the rest of the 1970s playing in King Crimson, touring with Genesis and U.K., and eventually forming his own group, Bruford.

In the 1980s, Bruford returned to King Crimson for three years, collaborated with several artists including the Roches, Patrick Moraz, and David Torn, and formed his jazz band Earthworks in 1986. He then played in Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, which eventually led to his second stint in Yes. Bruford played in King Crimson for his third and final tenure between 1994 and 1997, after which he continued with Earthworks and further collaborations.

On 1 January 2009, Bruford retired from public performance, barring one private gig in 2011. He released his autobiography, and continues to speak and write about music. He operates his record labels, Summerfold and Winterfold Records. In 2016, after four-and-a-half years of study, Bruford earned a PhD in Music at the University of Surrey, in the same year Rolling Stone magazine ranked Bruford No. 16 in its list of the “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time”. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Yes in 2017

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (born May 17, 1942), who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician, a singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments. He often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific.

Born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. on May 17, 1942, in Harlem, New York, Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was raised in a musical environment; his mother was a member of a local gospel choir and his father was an Afro-Caribbean jazz arranger and piano player. His family owned a shortwave radio which received music broadcasts from around the world, exposing him at an early age to world music. Early in childhood he recognized the stark differences between the popular music of his day and the music that was played in his home. He also became interested in jazz, enjoying the works of musicians such as Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Milt Jackson. His parents came of age during the Harlem Renaissance, instilling in their son a sense of pride in his Caribbean and African ancestry through their stories.

John Lenwood “Jackie” McLean (May 17, 1931 – March 31, 2006) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator, and is one of the few musicians to be elected to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in the year of their death.

McLean was born in New York City. His father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw‘s orchestra. After his father’s death in 1939, Jackie’s musical education was continued by his godfather, his record-store-owning stepfather, and several noted teachers. He also received informal tutoring from neighbors Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and Charlie Parker. During high school McLean played in a band with Kenny Drew, Sonny Rollins, and Captain Kirk (the tenor saxophonist son of Andy Kirk).

Along with Rollins, McLean played on Miles Davis‘ Dig album, when he was 20 years old. As a young man he also recorded with Gene Ammons, Charles Mingus (for Pithecanthropus Erectus), George Wallington, and as a member of Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers. McLean joined Blakey after reportedly being punched by Mingus. Fearing for his life, McLean pulled out a knife and contemplated using it against Mingus in self-defense, but later stated that he was grateful that he had not stabbed the bassist.

McLean’s early recordings as leader were in the hard bop school. He later became an exponent of modal jazz without abandoning his foundation in hard bop. Throughout his career he was known for a distinctive tone, akin to the tenor saxophone and often described with such adjectives as “bitter-sweet”, “piercing”, or “searing”, a slightly sharp pitch, and a strong foundation in the blues.

Walter Dewey Redman (May 17, 1931 – September 2, 2006) was an American saxophonist who performed free jazz as a bandleader and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett. Redman played tenor saxophone, though he occasionally played alto saxophone, the Chinese suona (which he called a musette), and clarinet. His son is saxophonist Joshua Redman.

A dark river seems to flow through this sky from the horizon toward colorful clouds near red giant star Antares. Murky looking, the dark river is a dusty nebula obscuring background starlight near the central Milky Way, although the dark dust nebula contains mostly hydrogen molecular gas. Dust scattering starlight around Antares, alpha star of Scorpius, creates the unusual yellow-hued reflection nebula. Above it, bright blue double star Rho Ophiuchi is embedded in more typical dusty bluish reflection nebulae, with red emission nebulae also scattered through the interstellar space. Globular star cluster M4 looks almost like a bright star just above and right of Antares, though it lies far behind the colorful clouds, at a distance of some 7,000 light-years. The dark river itself is about 500 light years away. To create the startling night sky view, all background and foreground exposures were made back to back with the same camera and telephoto lens on the same night from the same location. In combination they produce a stunning image that reveals a range of brightness and color that your eye can’t quite perceive. Recorded in the early hours of January 31, the composite also captures Mars still near the eastern horizon and rising to join rival Antares on the celestial stage. Bright Mars and its watery reflection are left of a lonely tree in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, planet Earth.

Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is an English musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has also worked extensively as a session musician and collaborator, notably with David Bowie, Blondie, Brian Eno, and David Sylvian. He has also contributed sounds to the Windows Vista operating system. His discography includes contributions to over 700 official releases.

He is ranked 62nd on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2011 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time after having been ranked by David Fricke 42nd on its 2003 list. Tied with Andrés Segovia, he also is ranked 47th on Gibson’s Top 50 guitarists of all time. His compositions often feature unusual time signatures, which have been influenced by classical and folk traditions. His innovations include Frippertronics, “soundscapes”, and new standard tuning.

William Emanuel Cobham Jr. (born May 16, 1944) is a Panamanian-American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. According to AllMusic‘s reviewer, Cobham is “generally acclaimed as fusion’s greatest drummer”. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013. Born in Colón, Panama, Cobham moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York, when he was three. His father, Manuel, worked as a hospital statistician during the week and played piano on weekends. Cobham started playing drums at age four and joined his father four years later. When he was fourteen, he got his first drum kit as a gift after being accepted to The High School of Music & Art in New York City. He was drafted in 1965, and for the next three years he played with a U.S. Army band.

After his discharge, he became a member of Horace Silver‘s quintet. He played an early model electric drum kit given to him by Tama Drums. He was a house drummer for Atlantic Records and a session musician for CTI and Kudu, appearing on the albums White Rabbit by George Benson, Sunflower by Milt Jackson, and Soul Box by Grover Washington Jr.

Cobham started the jazz rock group Dreams with Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Barry Rogers, and John Abercrombie. He moved further into jazz fusion when he toured with Miles Davis and recorded Davis’s albums Bitches Brew and A Tribute to Jack Johnson. In 1971, he and guitarist John McLaughlin left Davis to start the Mahavishnu Orchestra, another group that fused rock, funk, and jazz. Cobham toured extensively from 1971 to 1973 with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which released two studio albums, The Inner Mounting Flame (1971) and Birds of Fire (1973), and one live album, Between Nothingness & Eternity (1973). The studio versions of songs on the live album were released on The Lost Trident Sessions (1999).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om58HGf79Nk

Isaac “Redd” Holt (or “Red” Holt) (born May 16, 1932, Rosedale, Mississippi) is an American jazz and soul music drummer.

Holt began playing drums as a teenager while living in Chicago, where he played in an ensemble with future collaborators Ramsey Lewis and Eldee Young. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1955 and was stationed in Germany, where he played with a military band, and upon his return worked with Lewis, alongside Young, from 1956-1966, in addition to recording with Earl Bostic and James Moody near the end of the 1950s. In 1966 Young and Holt split with Lewis and formed their own group, Young-Holt Unlimited, which went on to achieve commercial success as an instrumental soul band. After the group’s dissolution in 1974 Holt continued on as Redd Holt Unlimited, playing under this name into the 1990s, and worked in jazz education in Illinois. He founded the Gumption Artist Workshop, which was active from 1980 to 1985, and played internationally, including at the 1988 Montreux Jazz Festival and in Singapore in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In January and March 2018 at the age of 85 years, Redd did studio recording sessions at Treehouse Records in Chicago, ILLinois with Redd Holt on drums, Ken Haebich on bass and Jim Ryan on piano. This trio has been playing a gig every Friday night at the East Bank Club in Chicago for the last 15 years. The studio sessions produced a vinyl LP named, It’s A Take! on the Treehouse Record label with 8 full length jazz standards on it. Redd Holt at 87 years of age is still belting out the tunes when his sticks hit the skins!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8hUvpazxD0&t=456s

Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones; May 19, 1929 – September 26, 1998) was an American jazz singer known for her improvisational technique, scatting and other complex musical abilities that demonstrated her vocal talent and imaginative interpretation of lyrics and melodies.Vocalist Carmen McRae once remarked: “There’s really only one jazz singer—only one: Betty Carter.” Carter was born in Flint, Michigan, and grew up in Detroit, where her father, James Jones, was the musical director of a Detroit church and her mother, Bessie, was a housewife.

Even at a young age, Carter was able to bring a new vocal style to jazz. The breathiness of her voice was a characteristic seldom heard before her appearance on the music scene. She also was well known for her passion for scat singing and her strong belief that the throwaway attitude that most jazz musicians approached it with was inappropriate and wasteful due to its spontaneity and basic inventiveness, seldom seen elsewhere.

Detroit, where Carter grew up, was a hotbed of jazz growth. After signing with a talent agent after her win at amateur night, Carter had opportunities to perform with famous jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, who visited Detroit for an extensive amount of time. Gillespie is often considered responsible for her strong passion for scatting. In earlier recordings, it is apparent that her scatting had similarities to the qualities of Gillespie’s.

At the time of Gillespie’s visit, Charlie Parker was receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital, delaying her encounter with him. However, Carter eventually performed with Parker, as well as with his band consisting of Tommy Potter, Max Roach, and Miles Davis. After receiving praise from both Gillespie and Parker for her vocal prowess, Carter felt an upsurge in confidence and knew that she could make it in the business with perseverance.