mick laBriola

Star formation is one of the most important processes in shaping the universe. In addition to birthing new stars, it gives rise to planetary systems and plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies. Yet there is still much that astronomers do not understand about this fundamental process. The driving force behind star formation is particularly unclear for a type of galaxy called a flocculent spiral. Unlike grand-design spiral galaxies, flocculent spiral galaxies do not have well defined spiral arms. Instead, they appear to have many discontinuous arms.

M63, also known as the Sunflower galaxy, is one such flocculent spiral galaxy. Although it only has two arms, many appear to be winding around its yellow core in this image captured by Hubble. The arms shine with the radiation from recently formed blue stars and can be more clearly seen in infrared observations. By imaging flocculent spiral galaxies like M63, astronomers hope to gain a better understanding of how stars form in such systems.

The Sunflower galaxy was discovered in 1779 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain and was the first of 24 objects that Méchain would contribute to Charles Messier’s catalog. The galaxy is located roughly 27 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.3 and appears as a faint patch of light in small telescopes. The best time to observe M63 is during May.

Joshua Redman (born February 1, 1969) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.

In 1991, he won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition.

Joshua Redman was born in Berkeley, California, to jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman and dancer and librarian Renee Shedroff. He is Jewish.He was exposed to many kinds of music at the Center for World Music in Berkeley, where his mother studied South Indian dance. Some of his earliest lessons in music and improvisation were on recorder with gamelan player Jody Diamond. He was exposed at an early age to a variety of musics and instruments and began playing clarinet at age nine before switching to what became his primary instrument, the tenor saxophone, one year later. Redman cites John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cannonball Adderley, his father Dewey Redman, as well as the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Earth, Wind and Fire, Prince, the Police and Led Zeppelin as musical influences.

Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American pianist, keyboard player, and composer. He was one of the founding members of the Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply the Crusaders in 1971, and remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991 (not including the 2003 reunion album Rural Renewal).

Beginning in the 1970s, he enjoyed a successful solo career and guested on many recordings by other performers and groups, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Anita Baker, and the Supremes. Sample incorporated jazz, gospel, blues, Latin, and classical forms into his music.

Sample was born in Houston, Texas, on February 1, 1939. Sample began to play the piano at age 5. He was a student of the organist and pianist Curtis Mayo.

In high school in the 1950s, Sample teamed up with friends saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer “Stix” Hooper to form a group called the Swingsters. While studying piano at Texas Southern University, Sample met and added trombonist Wayne Henderson and several other players to the Swingsters, which became the Modern Jazz Sextet and then the Jazz Crusaders, in emulation of one of the leading progressive jazz bands of the day, Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers. Sample never took a degree from the university; instead, in 1960, he and the Jazz Crusaders made the move from Houston to Los Angeles. He was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Sadao Watanabe (渡辺 貞夫, Watanabe Sadao, born February 1, 1933) is a Japanese jazz musician who plays alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone, and flute. He is known for his bossa nova recordings, although his work encompasses many styles with collaborations from musicians all over the world. He has had over ten albums reach the top 50 Billboard charts and two within the top 10. He has also had numerous albums reach number one on the jazz charts. Among his awards are the Order of the Rising Sun, the imperial medal of honor for contribution to the arts, and the Fumio Nanri award.

Born in Utsunomiya, Japan, Sadao first began learning music at the age of 18 and started performing professionally in 1953. By 1958 he had performed with leading musicians and quartets. In 1962 he left Japan to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1995 the college awarded him an honorary doctorate degree for his contributions to music. In addition to his musical career, Watanabe has published six photography books in Japan.

“Baby Face” Leroy Foster (February 1, 1923 – May 26, 1958) was an American blues singer, drummer and guitarist, active in Chicago from the mid-1940s until the late 1950s. He was a significant figure in the development of the postwar electric Chicago blues sound, notably as a member of the Muddy Waters band during its formative years.

Foster was born in Algoma, Mississippi. He moved to Chicago in the mid-1940s and by 1946 was working with the pianist Sunnyland Slim and the harmonica player John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. He was introduced to the singer and guitarist Muddy Waters by an acquaintance Waters met at a recording session in 1946. Foster was soon playing guitar and drums in Waters’s band, along with the guitar and harmonica player Jimmy Rogers. The band was later joined by Little Walter on harmonica. Calling themselves the Headhunters, the trio was known for going from club to club and “cutting” (i.e., engaging in musical duels with) other bands.

NGC 5195 (also known as Messier 51b or M51b) is a dwarf galaxy that is interacting with the Whirlpool Galaxy (also known as M51a or NGC 5194). Both galaxies are located approximately 25 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. Together, the two galaxies are one of the most famous interacting galaxy pairs. NGC 5195 was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 20, 1781.

NGC 5195 and the Whirlpool Galaxy compose one of the most noted interacting galaxy pairs in astronomy. The two galaxies are listed in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as one of several prominent examples of a spiral galaxy with a companion galaxy. The system was also the subject of very early theoretical investigations into galaxy interactions. The two galaxies are connected by a dust-rich tidal bridge. The dust in this tidal bridge can be seen silhouetted against the center of NGC 5195. This demonstrates that NGC 5195 appears to lie behind the Whirlpool Galaxy. The encounter has significantly enhanced the spiral structure of M51.

Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. His work has been associated with the minimalist school of composition. Glass describes himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures”,  which he has helped evolve stylistically.

Franz Peter Schubert (German: [ˈfʁant͡s ˈpeːtɐ ˈʃuːbɐt]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classicaland early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the ”Great” Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the three last piano sonatas (D. 958–960), the opera Fierrabras (D. 796), the incidental music to the play Rosamunde (D. 797), and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795) and Winterreise (D. 911).

Born in the Himmelpfortgrund suburb of Vienna, Schubert’s uncommon gifts for music were evident from an early age. His father gave him his first violin lessons and his older brother gave him piano lessons, but Schubert soon exceeded their abilities.

Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906 – July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as “The Honeydripper“.

Sykes was born in Elmar, Arkansas, and grew up near Helena. At age 15, he went on the road playing piano in a barrelhouse style of blues. Like many bluesmen of his time, he travelled around playing to all-male audiences in sawmill, turpentine and levee camps along the Mississippi River, sometimes in a duo with Big Joe Williams, gathering a repertoire of raw, sexually explicit material. His wanderings eventually brought him to St. Louis, Missouri, where he met St. Louis Jimmy Oden, the writer of the blues standard “Goin’ Down Slow“.

In 1929 he was spotted by a talent scout and sent to New York City to record for Okeh Records. His first release was “44 Blues” which became a blues standard and his signature song. He soon began recording for different labels under various names, including Easy Papa Johnson, Dobby Bragg, and Willie Kelly (for Victor Records from 1930 to 1933). During this period he befriended another blues musician, the singer Charlie “Specks” McFadden, and accompanied him on half of the McFadden’s recordings. After he and Oden moved to Chicago, Sykes found his first period of fame when he signed a contract with Decca Records in 1934. In 1943, he signed with Bluebird Records and recorded with the Honeydrippers. Sykes and Oden continued their musical friendship into the 1960s.

In Chicago, Sykes began to display an increasing urbanity in his songwriting, using an eight-bar blues pop gospel structure instead of the traditional twelve-bar blues. Despite the growing urbanity of his style, he gradually became less competitive in the post–World War II music scene. After his contract with RCA Victor expired, he recorded for smaller labels, such as United, until his opportunities ran out in the mid-1950s.

Sykes left Chicago in 1954 for New Orleans as electric blues was taking over the Chicago blues clubs. When he returned to recording in the 1960s, it was for labels such as Delmark, Bluesville, Storyville and Folkways, which were documenting the quickly passing blues history. He lived out his final years in New Orleans, where he died from a heart attack on July 17, 1983.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ti2gQ14lJY

Tientos is a flamenco Andalusian palo which has a rhythm consisting of 4 beats. It is in the same family as the Tangos, but slower and with different topics, lyrics and mood. Every Tientos becomes a Tangos at the end of the song/dance.^[1] Traditionally, cantaor El Marrurro (1848 -1906) has been considered one of the creators of this style. Enrique el Mellizo gave it the modern form by which we know it today. Other famous cantaores who interpreted this style were Antonio Chacón and Pastora Pavón.

Like many Cante Jondo, traditional Tientos lyrics (letras) tend to be pathetic, sentimental, and speak about the lack of love, disillusionment and revenge. Dancers strive to capture this mood in their solos. It can be danced by a man or a woman.

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), the world’s largest solar telescope, captured its first image of the sun — the highest-resolution image of our star to date — last month.

The image begins what scientists hope will be a nearly 50-year study of the Earth’s most important star. The new images reveal small magnetic structures in incredible detail. As construction on the 4-meter telescope winds down on the peak of Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui, more of the telescope’s instruments will begin to come online, increasing its ability to shed light on the active sun.

Philip David Charles Collins LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English drummer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. He was the drummer and then the singer of the rock band Genesis, and is also a solo artist. Between 1982 and 1989, Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, he had more US Top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. His most successful singles from the period include “In the Air Tonight“, “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)“, “One More Night“, “Sussudio“, “Two Hearts” and “Another Day in Paradise“.

Born and raised in west London, Collins played drums from the age of five and completed drama school training, which secured him various roles as a child actor. He then pursued a music career, joining Genesis in 1970 as their drummer and becoming lead singer in 1975 following the departure of Peter Gabriel. Collins began a solo career in the 1980s, initially inspired by his marital breakdown and love of soul music, releasing a series of successful albums, including Face Value (1981), No Jacket Required (1985), and …But Seriously (1989). Collins became “one of the most successful pop and adult contemporary singers of the ’80s and beyond”. He also became known for a distinctive gated reverb drum sound on many of his recordings. In 1996, Collins left Genesis to focus on solo work; this included writing songs for Disney’s Tarzan (1999) for which he received an Oscar for Best Original Song for “You’ll Be in My Heart”. He rejoined Genesis for their Turn It On Again Tour in 2007. Following a five-year retirement to focus on his family life, Collins released an autobiography in 2016 and completed his 97-date Not Dead Yet Tour in 2019.

Collins’s discography includes eight studio albums that have sold 33.5 million certified units in the US and an estimated 150 million worldwide, making him one of the world’s best-selling artists. He is one of only three recording artists, along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, who have sold over 100 million records worldwide both as solo artists and separately as principal members of a band. He has received eight Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards (winning Best British Male Artist three times), two Golden Globe Awards, one Academy Award, and a Disney Legend Award. He was awarded six Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the International Achievement Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999, and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010. He has also been recognised by music publications with induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2012, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_l1M_cpqKY

Edward Brian “Tubby” Hayes (30 January 1935 – 8 June 1973) was an English jazz multi-instrumentalist, best known for his tenor saxophoneplaying in groups with fellow sax player Ronnie Scott and with trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar.

Hayes was born in St Pancras, London, England, and brought up in London. His father was a BBC studio violinist who gave his son violin lessons from an early age. By the age of ten, Hayes was playing the piano, and started on the tenor sax at 11. Dizzy Gillespie was an early influence.

In 1951, aged 16, Hayes joined Kenny Baker’s sextet, later playing for big-band leaders such as Ambrose, Terry Brown, Tito Burns, Roy Fox, Vic Lewis and Jack Parnell. In 1955, he formed his own octet, with which he toured the UK for 18 months.

Hayes took up the vibraphone in early 1957, having tried Victor Feldman’s instrument on a gig. Although the vibes were a key double in his instrumental arsenal, he eventually tired of playing them, recording his final solo on the instrument in 1966.

From 1957 to 1959, he joined Ronnie Scott in co-leading a quintet, The Jazz Couriers, perhaps the most fondly remembered of British modern jazz groups.

Hayes took up the flute in 1958, making his recording debut on the instrument a year later. He continued to feature the flute throughout the remainder of his life.

Subsequently, Hayes reformed his quartet, and toured Germany with Kurt Edelhagen. Then, in 1961, he was invited to play at the Half Note Club in New York City; a new transatlantic Musicians’ Union agreement meant that, in exchange, Zoot Sims played at Ronnie Scott’s. While in the United States, Hayes recorded (Tubbs In N.Y.) with Clark Terry, Eddie Costa, and Horace Parlan, returning in 1962 for another visit, this time recording Return Visit! with James Moody, Roland Kirk, Walter Bishop Jr, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. He played at the Half Note again in 1964, and at the Boston Jazz Workshop the same year, and at Shelly Manne‘s Manne-Hole in Los Angeles in 1965.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8nOSGNCYMs

Ahmed Abdul-Malik (born Jonathan Tim, Jr.; January 30, 1927 – October 2, 1993) was a jazz double bassistand oud player.

Abdul-Malik is remembered for integrating Middle Eastern and North African music styles in his jazz music. He was a bass player for Art Blakey, Earl Hines, Randy Weston, and Thelonious Monk, among others.

Abdul-Malik claimed that his father was from Sudan and moved to the United States. Research by historian Robin Kelley, however, indicates that Abdul-Malik was born to Caribbean immigrants and changed his birth name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRP2lJP2pDQ

David Roy Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed “Little Jazz“, was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from the dominant style of jazz trumpet innovator Louis Armstrong, and his strong impact on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most influential musicians of the swing era and a precursor of bebop.

Eldridge was born on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 30, 1911, to parents Alexander, a wagon teamster, and Blanche, a gifted pianist with a talent for reproducing music by ear, a trait that Eldridge claimed to have inherited from her.

Eldridge led and played in a number of bands during his early years, moving extensively throughout the American Midwest. He absorbed the influence of saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, setting himself the task of learning Hawkins’s 1926 solo on “The Stampede” (by Fletcher Henderson‘s Orchestra) in developing an equivalent trumpet style.

Eldridge left home after being expelled from high school in ninth grade, joining a traveling show at the age of sixteen; the show soon folded, however, and he was left in Youngstown, Ohio. He was then picked up by the “Greater Sheesley Carnival,” but returned to Pittsburgh after witnessing acts of racism in Cumberland, Maryland that significantly disturbed him. Eldridge soon found work leading a small band in the traveling “Rock Dinah” show, his performance therein leading swing-era bandleader Count Basie to recall young Roy Eldridge as “the greatest trumpet I’d ever heard in my life.” Eldridge continued playing with similar traveling groups until returning home to Pittsburgh at the age of 17.

At the age of 20, Eldridge led a band in Pittsburgh, billed as “Roy Elliott and his Palais Royal Orchestra”, the agent intentionally changing Eldridge’s name because “he thought it more classy.” Roy left this position to try out for the orchestra of Horace Henderson, younger brother of famed New York City bandleader Fletcher Henderson, and joined the ensemble, generally referred to as The Fletcher Henderson Stompers, Under the Direction of Horace Henderson. Eldridge then played with a number of other territory bands, staying for a short while in Detroit before joining Speed Webb‘s band which, having garnered a degree of movie publicity, began a tour of the Midwest. Many of the members of Webb’s band, annoyed by the leader’s lack of dedication, left to form a practically identical group with Eldridge as bandleader. The ensemble was short-lived, and Eldridge soon moved to Milwaukee, where he took part in a celebrated cutting contest with trumpet player Cladys “Jabbo” Smith, with whom he later became good friends.