mick laBriola

Earth’s annual Lyrid Meteor Shower peaked before dawn yesterday, as our fair planet plowed through debris from the tail of long-period comet Thatcher. In crisp, clear and moonless predawn skies over Brown County, Indiana this streak of vaporizing comet dust briefly shared a telephoto field of view with stars and nebulae along the Milky Way. Alpha star of the constellation Cygnus, Deneb lies near the bright meteor’s path along with the region’s dark interstellar clouds of dust and the recognizable glow of the North America nebula (NGC 7000). The meteor’s streak points back to the shower’s radiant, its apparent point of origin on the sky. That would be in the constellation Lyra, near bright star Vega and off the top edge of the frame.

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. Many critics described his music as operatic, nicknaming him “the Caruso of Rock” and “the Big O”. Most male rock-and-roll performers in the 1950s and 1960s projected a defiant masculinity, while many of Orbison’s songs conveyed vulnerability. He performed standing still, wearing black clothes to match his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.

Orbison began singing in a rockabilly and country-and-western band in high school. He was contracted by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956, but his greatest success came with Monument Records. From 1960 to 1966, 22 of his singles reached the Billboard Top 40, and he wrote or co-wrote almost all that rose to the Top 10, including “Only the Lonely” (1960), “Running Scared” (1961), “Crying” (1961), “In Dreams” (1963), and “Oh, Pretty Woman” (1964). Soon afterward, he was struck by a number of personal tragedies while his record sales declined.

In the 1980s, Orbison experienced a resurgence in popularity following the success of several cover versions of his songs. In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys, a rock supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. Orbison died of a heart attack in December 1988 at age 52. One month later, his song “You Got It” (1989) was released as a solo single and became his first hit to reach the U.S. Top 10 in nearly 25 years.

Orbison’s honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in the same year, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014. Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on their list of the “Greatest Artists of All Time” and number 13 on their list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed him at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.

Vernice “Bunky” Green (born April 23, 1935) is an American jazz alto saxophonist and educator.

Green was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he played the alto saxophone, mainly at a local club called “The Brass Rail”.

His first big break came when he was hired in New York City by Charles Mingus as a replacement for Jackie McLean in the 1960s. His brief stint with the eccentric bass player made a deep impression. Mingus’ sparing use of notation and his belief that there was no such thing as a wrong note had a lasting influence on Green’s own style.

The next year, Green moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he appeared with several prominent players including Sonny Stitt, Louie Bellson, Andrew Hill, Yusef Lateef, and Ira Sullivan. Originally strongly influenced by Charlie Parker, Green spent a period reassessing his style and studying, emerging with a highly distinctive sound that has deeply influenced a number of younger saxophonists, including Steve Coleman and Greg Osby.

Green gradually withdrew from the public eye to develop a career as a leading jazz educator. He taught at Chicago State University from 1972–1989, and in the 1990s took up the directorship of the jazz studies program at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, where he taught and acted as chair of Jazz Studies until his retirement in 2011. He has also served a term as the president of the International Association for Jazz Education and been elected to the Jazz Education Hall of Fame.

Charles Edward “Cow Cow” Davenport (April 23, 1894 – December 3, 1955) was an American boogie-woogie and piano blues player as well as a vaudeville entertainer. He also played the organ and sang.

Davenport, who also made recordings under the pseudonyms of Bat The Humming Bird, George Hamilton and The Georgia Grinder, is a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

He was born in Anniston, Alabama, United States, one of eight children. Davenport started playing the piano at age 12. His father objected strongly to his musical aspirations and sent him to a theological seminary, where he was expelled for playing ragtime.

Davenport’s career began in the 1920s when he joined Banhoof’s Traveling Carnival, a medicine show. His first fame came as accompanist to blues musicians Dora Carr and Ivy Smith. Davenport and Carr performed as a vaudeville act as “Davenport & Co”, and he performed with Smith as the “Chicago Steppers”. He also performed with Tampa Red. Davenport recorded for many record labels, and was a talent scout and artist for Vocalion Records. Davenport suffered a stroke in 1938 and lost movement in his hands. He was washing dishes when he was found by the jazzpianist Art Hodes. Hodes assisted in his rehabilitation and helped him find new recording contracts.

His best-known tune was “Cow Cow Blues”. The “Cow Cow” in the title referred to a train’s cowcatcher. The popularity of the song gave Davenport the nickname “Cow Cow.” In 1953, “Cow Cow Blues” was an influence on the Ahmet Ertegün-written “Mess Around” by Ray Charles,which was Charles’s first step away from his Nat “King” Cole-esque style, and into the style he would employ throughout the 1950s for Atlantic Records.

Jimmie Noone (April 23, 1895 – April 19, 1944) was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader. After beginning his career in New Orleans, he led Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra, a Chicago band that recorded for Vocalion and Decca. Classical composer Maurice Ravel acknowledged basing his Boléro on an improvisation by Noone. At the time of his death Noone was leading a quartet in Los Angeles and was part of an all-star band that was reviving interest in traditional New Orleans jazz in the 1940s. Jimmie Noone was born on April 23, 1895, on a farm in Cut Off, Louisiana, to Lucinda (née Daggs) and James Noone. He grew up in Hammond, Louisiana, where he started playing guitar. In 1910, Noone’s family moved to New Orleans. Noone switched to the clarinet and studied with Lorenzo Tio and the young Sidney Bechet.

This wide-field image shows a spectacular area of dark and bright clouds that are part of a region of star formation in the great constellation Ophiuchus (the Serpent Bearer).

Peter Kenneth Frampton (born 22 April 1950) is an English-American rock musician, singer, songwriter, producer, and guitarist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and the Herd. After the end of his ‘group’ career, as a solo artist, Frampton released several albums including his international breakthrough album, the live release Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold more than 8 million copies in the United States and spawned several hit singles. Since then he has released several other albums. He has also worked with Ringo Starr, the Who‘s John Entwistle, David Bowie and both Matt Cameron and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, among others.

Frampton is best known for such hits as “Breaking All the Rules”, “Show Me the Way“, “Baby, I Love Your Way“, “Do You Feel Like We Do“, and “I’m in You“, which remain staples on classic rock radio. He has also appeared as himself in television shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Madam Secretary. Frampton is known for his work as a guitar player, particularly with a talk box and his voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLgeTtYwQ7o

Bernard Alfred Nitzsche (April 22, 1937 – August 25, 2000), known professionally as Jack Nitzsche, was an American musician, arranger, songwriter, composer and record producer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector and went on to work with the Rolling Stones and Neil Young, among others. He also worked extensively in film scores, notably for films such as Performance, The Exorcist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1983, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for co-writing “Up Where We Belong“.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and raised on a farm in Newaygo, Michigan, Nitzsche moved to Los Angeles in 1955 with ambitions of becoming a jazz saxophonist. He was hired by Sonny Bono, who was at the time an A&R (artists and repertory) executive at Specialty Records, as a music copyist. While there Nitzshe wrote a novelty hit called Bongo Bongo Bongo Nitsche wrote with Bono the song “Needles and Pins” for Jackie DeShannon, later recorded by the SearchersHis instrumental composition “The Lonely Surfer”, entered Cash Box on August 3, 1963 and reached No. 37.

He became arranger and conductor for producer Phil Spector, and orchestrated the Wall of Sound for the song “River Deep, Mountain High” by Ike and Tina Turner. Nitzsche worked with Earl Palmer, Leon Russell, Roy Caton, Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye and Hal Blaine in The Wrecking Crew, the backing band for many pop acts such as the Beach Boys and the Monkees. Nitzsche arranged the title song of Doris Day‘s Move Over, Darling that was a successful single on the pop charts of the time.

While organizing the music for the T.A.M.I. Show television special in 1964, he met the Rolling Stones and went on to play keyboards on their albums The Rolling Stones, Now! (The Rolling Stones No. 2 in the UK), Out of Our Heads, Aftermath and Between the Buttons as well as on their hit singles “Paint It, Black” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together“; he also wrote the choral arrangements for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“. In 1968 he introduced the band to slide guitarist Ry Cooder, a seminal influence on the band’s 1969–1973 style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCAO4ib-YVI

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was a jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the extent of his work in this short period, but also by his impeccable timekeeping and intonation, and virtuosic improvisations. He was also known for his bowed solos. Chambers recorded about a dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, and as a sideman, notably as the anchor of trumpeter Miles Davis‘s “first great quintet” (1955–63) and with pianist Wynton Kelly (1963–68).

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 22, 1935, to Paul Lawrence Chambers and Margaret Echos. He was brought up in Detroit, Michigan following the death of his mother.He began playing music with several of his schoolmates on the baritone horn. Later he took up the tuba. “I got along pretty well, but it’s quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn’t like the instrument that much”.

Chambers became a string bassist around 1949. His formal bass training began in earnest in 1952, when he began taking lessons with a bassist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Chambers did some classical playing himself, with a rehearsal group called the Detroit String Band. He studied at Cass Technical High School intermittently from 1952 to 1955, and played in Cass’ symphony, and in various other student groups, in one of which he played baritone saxophone.

When he left for New York City at the invitation of tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, he had a working knowledge of many instruments. Jazz bass players were largely limited to timekeeping with drums, until Duke Ellington‘s bassist Jimmy Blanton began a transformation in the instrument’s role at the end of the 1930s. Chambers was about 15 years old when he started to listen to Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, his first jazz influences. Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown were the first bassists he admired, and these were followed by Percy Heath, Milt Hinton and Wendell Marshall for their rhythm section work, and Charles Mingus and George Duvivier for their technical prowess and for their efforts in broadening the scope of jazz bass. Blanton was his all-time favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSM6t8d1jXU

Lorenzo Aitken (22 April 1927 – 17 July 2005), better known by the stage name Laurel Aitken, was an influential Caribbean singer and one of the pioneers of Jamaican ska music. He is often referred to as the “Godfather of Ska”. Born in Cuba of mixed Cuban and Jamaican descent, Aitken and his family settled in Jamaica in 1938.^[1] After an early career working for the Jamaican Tourist Board singing mento songs for visitors arriving at Kingston Harbour, he became a popular nightclub entertainer. His first recordings in the late 1950s were mento tunes such as “Nebuchnezer”, “Sweet Chariot” (aka the gospel classic “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”) and “Baba Kill Me Goat”.Aitken’s 1958 single “Boogie in My Bones”/”Little Sheila” was one of the first records produced by Chris Blackwell and the first Jamaican popular music record to be released in the United Kingdom. Other more Jamaican rhythm and blues orientated singles from this period include “Low Down Dirty Girl” and “More Whisky” both produced by Duke Reid.

Aitken moved to Brixton, London, in 1960 and recorded for the Blue Beat label, releasing fifteen singles before returning to Jamaica in 1963. He recorded for Duke Reid, with backing from the Skatalites on tracks such as “Zion” and “Weary Wanderer”, before returning to the UK, where he began working with Pama Records. He recorded hits such as “Fire in Mi Wire” and “Landlord and Tenants”, which led to a wider recognition outside of Jamaica and the UK. This cemented his position as one of ska’s leading artists and earned him the nicknames The Godfather of Ska,and later Boss Skinhead. He gained a loyal following not only among the West Indian community, but also among mods, skinheads and other ska fans. He had hit records in the United Kingdom and other countries in the 1950s through to the 1970s on labels such as Blue Beat, Pama, Trojan, Rio, Dr. Bird, Nu-Beat, Ska-Beat, Hot Lead and Dice. Some of his singles featured B-sides credited to his brother, guitarist Bobby Aitken. Aitken also recorded a few talk-over/deejay tracks under the guise of ‘King Horror’, such as “Loch Ness Monster”, “Dracula, Prince of Darkness” and “The Hole”. Aitken settled in Leicester with his wife in 1970. His output slowed in the 1970s and during this period he worked as an entertainer in nightclubs and restaurants in the area including the popular ‘Costa Brava Restaurant’ in Leicester under his real name Lorenzo. In 1980, with ska enjoying a resurgence in the wake of the 2 Tone movement, Aitken had his only success in the UK Singles Chart with “Rudi Got Married” (No. 60) released on I-Spy Records (the label created and managed by Secret Affair. Aitken’s career took in mento/calypso, R&B, ska, rock steady, and reggae, and in the 1990s he even turned his talents to dancehall. He performed occasional concerts almost until his death from a heart attack in 2005. After a long campaign, a blue plaque in his honour was put up at his Leicester home in 2007. Punk band Rancid cover Aitken’s “Everybody Suffering” on their 2014 LP Honor Is All We Know.

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and composers in history, with a career spanning three decades and collaborations with other jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dannie Richmond, and Herbie Hancock.

Mingus’ compositions continue to be played by contemporary musicians ranging from the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition. In 1993, the Library of Congress acquired Mingus’s collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as “the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library’s history”.

Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona. His father, Charles Mingus Sr., was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Mingus was largely raised in the Watts area of Los Angeles. His maternal grandfather was a Chinese British subject from Hong Kong, and his maternal grandmother was an African-American from the southern United States. Mingus was the third great-grandson of the family’s founding patriarch who was, by most accounts, a German immigrant. His ancestors included German American, African American, and Native American.

In Mingus’s autobiography Beneath the Underdog his mother was described as “the daughter of an English/Chinese man and a South-American woman”, and his father was the son “of a black farm worker and a Swedish woman”. Charles Mingus Sr. claims to have been raised by his mother and her husband as a white person until he was fourteen, when his mother revealed to her family that the child’s true father was a black slave, after which he had to run away from his family and live on his own. The autobiography doesn’t confirm whether Charles Mingus Sr. or Mingus himself believed this story was true, or whether it was merely an embellished version of the Mingus family’s lineage.

April 21st 2020Never forget this artocity!