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Patti Bown (July 26, 1931, Seattle, Washington – March 21, 2008, Media, Pennsylvania) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and singer.

Bown was born in Seattle, the daughter of Augustus Bown and Edith Ruth Cahill Brown. She began playing piano at age two. Her sister Edith Bown Valentine was a classical pianist; another sister, Millie Bown Russell, became known for her work on diversity in STEM education.

Bown studied piano while attending the University in Seattle on a music scholarship. She played in local orchestras toward the end of the 1940s. From 1956, she worked as a soloist in New York City, playing early on in sessions with Billy Eckstine and Jimmy Rushing. She released an album under her own name, Patti Bown Plays Big Piano, in 1958 for the Columbia label. The next year she was invited by Quincy Jones to join an orchestra for the European tour of the musical Free and Easy. While there she also played with Bill Coleman in Paris. In the 1960s, she recorded with Gene Ammons, Oliver Nelson, Cal Massey, Duke Ellington, Roland Kirk, George Russell, and Harry Sweets Edison. Her musical compositions were recorded by Sarah Vaughan, Benny Golson, and Duke Ellington. She also recorded with soul musicians such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown. Between 1962 and 1964, she served as the musical director for the bands accompanying Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan.

In the 1970s, Bown worked as a pianist in orchestras on Broadway and composed for film and television. She played regularly at the Village Gate nightclub for many years and lived in Greenwich Village for the last 37 years of her life.

“Rondeña” belong to Malaga’s singing group. “Rondeña” existed before flamenco, joining it in the 19th century. Its origin is in “fandango” from Malaga, more specifically in ” bandolás”. Some authors suggest that this name comes from the nightly rounds. Other authors believe that it comes from the city of Ronda, as “rodeña” was originated in the homonymous mountains.

“Rondeña” has greatly extended through Andalusia during the 19th century. “Rondeña” singing has evolved in recent times with with a decrease in melismatic ornamentation. Its composition ad libitum (without “compas”). Lyrics are related to countryside life. Its structure is a couplet of four eight-syllable verses, usually consonant rhyme. They normally turn into five by repetition of the second one, but also without repetition. Dance displays a rhythm of wild abandon. Others have used the rhythm of the “taranto“, which has many similarities but, being rondeña, more open and evocative.

Among its higher representers we can find: Miguel Borrul senior and Ramón Montoya, the first one to ennoble the genre. In the 20th century, we can highlight singers as “Fosforito”, Antonio de Canillas, Alfredo Arrevola, Juan de la Loma, Jacinto Almaden “EL Gallina”, Antonio Ranchal, Enrique Orozco, Candido de Malaga and Jose Menese. At the guitar, Manolo Sanlúcar.

Steven Benjamin Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song “City of New Orleans“, which was recorded by Arlo Guthrie and many others including John Denver, The Highwaymen, and Judy Collins; in 1985, it afforded Goodman the Grammy songwriter award for best country song, as performed by Willie Nelson. Goodman co-wrote “You Never Even Called Me by My Name“, which became the best-selling song of country musician David Allen Coe. Goodman had a small but dedicated group of fans for his albums and concerts during his lifetime. His most frequently sung song, “Go Cubs Go“, is about the Chicago Cubs. Goodman died of leukemia in September 1984.

Alfarita Constantia “Rita” Marley OJ OD (née Anderson; born 25 July 1946) is a Cuban-born Jamaican singer-songwriter and entrepreneur. She is the widow of reggaelegend Bob Marley. Along with Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, Rita was a member of the reggae vocal group the I Threes, the backing vocalists for Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Rita Marley was born in Santiago de Cuba, to Leroy Anderson and Cynthia “Beda” Jarrett. Her parents moved to Kingston, Jamaica, when she was three months old. In her memoir, No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley, Rita describes how she was raised by her Aunt Viola after her parents separated. She was raised in Trenchtown in Kingston, Jamaica.

Semmangudi Radhakrishna Srinivasa Iyer (25 July 1908 – 31 October 2003) was an Indian Carnatic vocalist. He was the youngest recipient of the Sangeetha Kalanidhiawarded by the Music Academy in 1947, a distinction he holds to this day as of 2023, probably the only musician to receive that honour before reaching 40. He had received many other awards as well, including Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan from the Government of India, Rajyasevanirata title from Travancore’s erstwhile ruling family,Sangeet Natak Academy award (1953), Isai Perarignar from Government of Tamil Naduand Kalidas Samman from Government of Madhya Pradesh. He was affectionately addressed as “Semmangudi Maama” (Semmangudi Uncle) by his disciples. He was also considered the “Pitamaha” or the grand sire of modern Carnatic Music. He was conferred with an honorary doctorate by University of Kerala in 1979.

Donald Johnson Ellis (July 25, 1934 – December 17, 1978) was an American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of time signatures. Later in his life he worked as a film composer, contributing a score to 1971’s The French Connection and 1973’s The Seven-Ups.

Ellis was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 25, 1934. His father was a Methodist minister and his mother a church organist. He attended West High School in Minneapolis, MN. After attending a Tommy Dorsey Big Band concert, he first became interested in jazz. Other early inspirations were Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. He graduated from Boston University in 1956 with a music composition degree.

Cornelius “Johnny” Hodges (July 25, 1907 – May 11, 1970 Cambridge, MA) was an American alto saxophonist, best known for solo work with Duke Ellington‘s big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years. Hodges was also featured on soprano saxophone, but refused to play soprano after 1946. Along with Benny Carter, Hodges is considered to be one of the definitive alto saxophone players of the big band era.

After beginning his career as a teenager in Boston, Hodges began to travel to New York and played with Lloyd Scott, Sidney Bechet, Luckey Roberts and Chick Webb. When Ellington wanted to expand his band in 1928, Ellington’s clarinet player Barney Bigardrecommended Hodges. His playing became one of the identifying voices of the Ellington orchestra. From 1951 to 1955, Hodges left the Duke to lead his own band, but returned shortly before Ellington’s triumphant return to prominence – the orchestra’s performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.

Charles McPherson (born July 24, 1939) is an American jazz alto saxophonist born in Joplin, Missouri, United States, and raised in Detroit, Michigan, who worked intermittently with Charles Mingus from 1960 to 1974, and as a performer leading his own groups.

McPherson also was commissioned to help record ensemble renditions of pieces from Charlie Parker, on the 1988 soundtrack for the film Bird.

In 2020, the JazzTimes magazine readers’ poll named McPherson Artist of the Year, and also selected his album Jazz Dance Suites as Best New Release.

Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010 Greenville, NC) was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

A jazz activist, Taylor sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America, an organisation he founded in 1989, with Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs, to save the homes and the lives of America’s elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians who survived Hurricane Katrina.

Taylor was a jazz educator, who lectured in colleges, served on panels and travelled worldwide as a jazz ambassador. Critic Leonard Feather once said, “It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the world’s foremost spokesman for jazz.

John Mayall, legendary blues guitarist and founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, died on Monday at the age of 90, Vanity Fair reports.

Born in Macclesfield, England in 1933, Mayall taught himself to play the piano, guitars and harmonica as a kid. After graduating from the Manchester College of Art, he maintained a side hustle playing with local musicians. In 1963, he founded the Bluesbreakers with drummer Peter Ward, bassist John McVie (who would later join Fleetwood Mac) and guitarist Bernie Watson. Together they helped bring the sound of American Delta blues — artists like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Elmore James — to English venues and audiences. In 1965, Eric Clapton, who’d quit the Yardbirds, joined the lineup. “The blues fitted in with the early ’60s, the social way of life at the time,” Mayall explained to The Guardian in 2014. “Things were changing anyway – in fashion, art, political views. … It happened here, rather than in America, because at the time, the scene in America was racially segregated – over there, never the twain would meet. In Europe, however – not just England – the Black blues began to be heard by an audience that was not listening to them in America. We discovered Elmore James, Freddie King, JB Lenoir, and they spoke to our feelings, our life stories and that was it. Hooked.”

Carey Frank “Carei” Thomas (* July 23, 1938 in Pittsburgh; † May 28, 2020 in Minneapolis) was an American jazz musician (piano, composition, also vocals) who was active in a six-decade career as a jazz pianist, composer, educator, and organizer of art exhibitions in Minneapolis.

Thomas spent his teenage and early adult years in Chicago, where he met one of his idols, the bandleader and pianist Sun Ra. There he founded a doo-wop group and worked with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. After serving two years overseas in the US Army, Thomas moved to Minneapolis in 1972 to study music education and therapy at the University of Minnesota. He was involved in many organizations in the Twin Cities in the years that followed, serving as music director for the Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts and as a music educator at the West Bank School of Music and St. Paul’s High School for Recording Arts. In 1993, he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, and invented new ways to play the piano. The nerve disorder required years of physical therapy and limited his finger movements.

Thomas was known for developing experimental and genre-bending pieces of music under his own name and with groups and collectives such as Zeitgeist, The Elders, and the Neighborhood Ensemble. He also pioneered musical concepts such as controlled improvisation and sound generation. In 2000, Thomas recorded the album Minding Our Bid’ness with his Feel Free Ensemble at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater in Minneapolis, which featured saxophonist George Cartwright, among others. On it he played his own compositions such as “Tippy/One Ahead (For All Victims of Violence)” and “Invention #1: Way North of the Order (Dedicated to Paul Bley and Ornette Coleman)”. In 2003 he participated in an album by the formation Fat Kid Wednesdays; around 2005 he released his last album under his own name, Sound Window(s), which was released on Innove Records.[4] In 2011 he published “Compositions and Concepts” with notes and stories behind his pieces from 1959. Thomas died in late May 2020 when complications of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy occurred after a fall, leading to heart failure.

Jazz singer José James, who performed with Thomas’ many Twin Cities ensembles and was his student, called him “a brilliant pianist, composer and mentor to a generation of artists”.