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The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a dark nebula of gas and dust that is located 1° south of the star ρ Ophiuchi of the constellation Ophiuchus. At an estimated distance of 131 ± 3 parsecs, this cloud is one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System

The colors result from a mixture of objects and processes. Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight produces blue reflection nebulae. Gaseous clouds whose atoms are excited by ultraviolet starlight produce reddish emission nebulae. Backlit dust clouds block starlight and so appear dark. Antares, a red supergiant and one of the brighter stars in the night sky, lights up the yellow-red clouds on the lower left of the featured image. Rho Ophiuchi lies at the center of the blue nebula near the top. The distant globular cluster M4 is visible to the right of Antares. These star clouds are even more colorful than humans can see, emitting light across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Warren Harding “Sonny” Sharrock (August 27, 1940 – May 25, 1994) was an American jazz guitarist. He was married to singer Linda Sharrock, with whom he recorded and performed.

One of few guitarists in the first wave of free jazz in the 1960s, Sharrock was known for his heavily chorded attack, his highly amplified bursts of feedback, and his use of saxophone-like lines played loudly on guitar.

Sharrock began his musical career singing doo wop in his teen years. He collaborated with Pharoah Sanders and Alexander Solla in the late 1960s, appearing first on Sanders’s 1966 album, Tauhid. He made several appearances with flautist Herbie Mann and an uncredited appearance on Miles Davis‘s A Tribute to Jack Johnson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDR87-HRhA

Alice Coltrane (née McLeod, August 27, 1937 – January 12, 2007), also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda or Turiya Alice Coltrane, was an American jazz musician and composer, and in her later years a swamini. One of the few harpists in the history of jazz, she recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other major record labels. She was the second wife and the widow of jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. Alice McLeod was born on August 27, 1937, in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in a musical household. Her mother, Anna McLeod, was a member of the choir at her church, and her half brother, Ernest Farrow became a jazz bassist. With the motivation of her father, Alice pursued music and started to perform in various clubs around Detroit, until moving to Paris in the late 1950s. She studied classical music, and also jazz with Bud Powellin Paris, where she worked as the intermission pianist at the Blue Note Jazz Club in 1960. It was there that Alice appeared on French television in a performance with Lucky Thompson, Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke. She married Kenny “Pancho” Hagood in 1960 and had a daughter with him. The marriage ended soon after, on account of Hagood’s developing heroin addiction, and Alice was forced to move back to Detroit with her daughter. She continued playing jazz as a professional in Detroit, with her own trio and as a duo with vibist Terry Pollard. In 1962–63 she played with Terry Gibbs‘ quartet, during which time she met John Coltrane. In 1965 they were married in Juárez, Mexico. John Coltrane became stepfather to Alice’s daughter Michelle, and the couple had three children together: John Jr. (1964–1982, a drummer); Ravi (b. 1965, a saxophonist); and Oranyan (b. 1967, a DJ). Oranyan later played saxophone with Santana for a period of time.

Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed “Pres” or “Prez”, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.

Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie‘s orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called “a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike”. Lester Young was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on August 27, 1909. His mother was Lizetta Young (née Johnson), and his father was Willis Handy Young, originally from Louisiana. Lester had two siblings – Leonidas Raymond, who became a drummer, and Irma Cornelia. He grew up in a musical family. His father was a teacher and band leader, and several other relatives performed professionally.

nebula NGC 2170, also known as the Angel Nebula, shines near the image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption nebulae, and a backdrop of colorful stars. Like the common household items that still life paintersoften choose for their subjects, the clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars featured here are also commonly found in this setting — a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). The giant molecular cloud, Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be over 60 light-years across.

Branford Marsalis (born August 26, 1960) is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque. Marsalis was born in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. He is the son of Dolores (née Ferdinand), a jazz singer and substitute teacher, and Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr., a pianist and music professor. His brothers Jason Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, and Delfeayo Marsalis are also jazz musicians.

Leon Redbone (born Dickran Gobalian, August 26, 1949 – May 30, 2019) was a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor specializing in jazz, blues, and Tin Pan Alley classics. Recognized by his Panama hat, dark sunglasses, and black tie, Redbone was born in Cyprus of Armenian ancestry and first appeared on stage in Toronto, Canada, in the early 1970s. He also appeared on film and television in acting and voice-over roles.

In concert Redbone often employed comedy and demonstrated his skill in guitar playing. Recurrent gags involved the influence of alcohol and claiming to have written works originating well before he was born – Redbone favored material from the Tin Pan Alley era, circa 1890 to 1910. He sang the theme to the 1980s television series Mr. Belvedere and released eighteen albums.

James Andrew Rushing (August 26, 1901 – June 8, 1972) was an American blues and jazz singer, and pianist from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, best known as the featured vocalist of Count Basie‘s Orchestra from 1935 to 1948.

Rushing was known as “Mr. Five by Five” and was the subject of an eponymous 1942 popular song that was a hit for Harry James and others; the lyrics describe Rushing’s rotund build: “he’s five feet tall and he’s five feet wide”. He joined Walter Page‘s Blue Devils in 1927 and then joined Bennie Moten‘s band in 1929. He stayed with the successor Count Basie band when Moten died in 1935.

Rushing said that his first time singing in front of an audience was in 1924. He was playing piano at a club when the featured singer, Carlyn Williams, invited him to do a vocal. “I got out there and broke it up. I was a singer from then on,” he said.^[3]

Rushing was a powerful singer who had a range from baritone to tenor. He has sometimes been classified as a blues shouter. He could project his voice so that it soared over the horn and reed sections in a big-band setting. Basie claimed that Rushing “never had an equal” as a blues vocalist, though Rushing “really thought of himself as a ballad singer.” George Frazier, the author of Harvard Blues, called Rushing’s distinctive voice “a magnificent gargle”. Dave Brubeck defined Rushing’s status among blues singers as “the daddy of them all.” Late in his life Rushing said of his singing style, “I don’t know what kind of blues singer you’d call me. I just sing ’em.” Among his best-known recordings are “Going to Chicago”, with Basie, and “Harvard Blues”, with a famous saxophone solo by Don Byas.

Pulsars are superdense, rapidly spinning neutron stars left behind when a massive star explodes. Their rotational periods ranging from more than 10 seconds to just a few milliseconds. Since their discovery in 1967, various surveys have discovered over 2,600 pulsars. PSR J0002+6216 was discovered in 2017 by a citizen-science project called Einstein@Home. Located about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, this pulsar spins 8.7 times a second, producing a pulse of gamma rays with each rotation. “This pulsar has completely escaped the remnant of debris from the supernova explosion. It’s very rare for a pulsar to get enough of a kick for us to see this,” said Dr. Frank Schinzel, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Radio observations with the Very Large Array clearly show PSR J0002+6216 outside the supernova remnant, with a tail of shocked particles and magnetic energy 13 light-years long behind it. The tail points back toward the center of the CTB 1 supernova remnant. “Measuring the pulsar’s motion and tracing it backwards shows that it was born at the center of the remnant, where the supernova explosion occurred. The pulsar now is 53 light-years from the center of CTB 1,” said Dr. Matthew Kerr, of the Naval Research Laboratory. “The explosion debris in the supernova remnant originally expanded faster than the pulsar’s motion,” said Dr. Dale Frail, of NRAO. “However, the debris was slowed by its encounter with the tenuous material in interstellar space, so the pulsar was able to catch up and overtake it.”

Pat Martino (born August 25, 1944) is a jazz guitarist and composer. Martino was born Pat Azzara in South Philadelphia. He began playing professionally at the age of 15 after moving to New York City. He lived for a period with Les Paul and began playing at jazz clubs such as Smalls Paradise. He later moved into a suite in the President Hotel on 48th Street. He would play at Smalls for six months of the year, and then in the summer play at the Club Harlem in Atlantic City.

Martino played and recorded early in his career with Lloyd Price, Willis Jackson, and Eric Kloss. He also worked with jazz organists Charles Earland, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Trudy Pitts, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ludwig, and Joey DeFrancesco.

Martino had been performing until an aneurysm in 1980 left him with amnesia and no recollection or knowledge of his career or how to play the very instrument that made him successful. Martino says he came out of surgery with complete forgetfulness, learning to focus on the present instead of the past or what may lie ahead. He was forced to learn how to play the guitar from zero. This circumstance is crucial to understand his career and his particular way of thinking.

Martino is married to Ayako Asahi Martino, whom he met in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995.

He was chosen as Guitar Player of the Year in the Down Beat magazine Readers’ Poll of 2004. In 2006, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissued his album East! on Ultradisc UHR SACD.

In 2017, he shot a series of educational videos entitled A Study of the Opposites and How They Manifest on the Guitar.

Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.

Shorter came to wide prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he went on to join Miles Davis‘s Second Great Quintet, and from there he co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader.

Many of Shorter’s compositions have become jazz standards, and his output has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and various commendations. Shorter has won 11 Grammy Awards. He has also received acclaim for his mastery of the soprano saxophone (after switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s), beginning an extended reign in 1970 as Down Beat‘s annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics’ poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers’ for 18. The New York Times described Shorter in 2008 as “probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser.” In 2017, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize.Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Newark Arts High School, from which he graduated in 1952. He loved music, being encouraged by his father to take up the clarinet as a teenager; his older brother Alan played alto saxophone before switching to the trumpet in college. While in high school Wayne also performed with the Nat Phipps Band in Newark, NJ. After graduating from New York University with a degree in music education in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson. In his youth Shorter had acquired the nickname “Mr. Gone”, which later became an album title for Weather Report.

Leonard Bernstein (/ˈbɜːrnstaɪn/ BURN-styne; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.”

His fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, from his conducting of concerts with most of the world’s leading orchestras, and from his music for West Side Story, Peter Pan, Candide, Wonderful Town, On the Town, On the Waterfront, his Mass, and a range of other compositions, including three symphonies and many shorter chamber and solo works.

Bernstein was the first conductor to give a series of television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954 and continuing until his death. He was a skilled pianist, often conducting piano concertos from the keyboard. He was also a critical figure in the modern revival of the music of Gustav Mahler, the composer he was most passionately interested in.

As a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and pieces for the piano. Many of his works are regularly performed around the world, although none has matched the tremendous popular and critical success of West Side Story. He was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Ukrainian Jewish parents Jennie (née Resnick) and Samuel Joseph Bernstein, a hairdressing supplies wholesaler originating from Rovno (now Ukraine).

NGC 3169 is located approximately 76 million light-years away in the constellation of Sextans.Also known as LEDA 29855 or UGC 5525, the spiral galaxy was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel in 1783.NGC 3169 is a member of the Leo I Group of galaxies, which is part of a larger galactic congregation known as the Virgo Supercluster.The galaxy is located relatively close to another spiral galaxy, NGC 3166.The distance between them is just 50,000 light-years, a separation that is only about half the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy.The two comprise a physical pair and influence each other gravitationally. NGC 3169’s arms, shining bright with big, young, blue stars, have been teased apart, and lots of luminous gas has been drawn out from its disk. The galaxy’s bright center is encircled by thick dust lanes. “Cosmic dust comprises a potpourri of particles, including water ice, hydrocarbons, silicates, and other solid material,” Hubble astronomers said. “It has many origins and sources, from the leftovers of star and planet formation to molecules modified over millions of years by interactions with starlight.”

Oteil Burbridge is an American multi-instrumentalist, specializing on the bass guitar, trained in playing jazz and classical music from an early age. He has achieved fame primarily on bass guitar during the resurgence of the Allman Brothers Band from 1997 through 2014, and as a founding member of the band Dead & Company. Burbridge was also a founding member of The Aquarium Rescue Unit, and has worked with other musicians including Bruce Hampton, Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Bill Kreutzmann and The Derek Trucks Band, with whom his brother Kofi Burbridge was the keyboardist and flautist.

Burbridge has been recognized for his ability to incorporate scat-singing into his improvised bass solos. Burbridge endorses Fodera, Modulus, Sukop and Dunlop guitars and effects. Burbridge was born and raised in Washington, D.C., to an African American family with some Egyptian heritage. His name, Oteil, means “explorer” or “wanderer”. When he and elder sibling Kofi showed talent for music, their mother encouraged them with classical and jazz courses hoping to nurture their musical inclinations and keep them out of trouble. Kofi remembers Oteil’s first drum set: a Quaker Oatmeal box, when he was only three or four years old. Both brothers were introduced to a wide variety of instruments, and became multi-instrumentalists, with both being taught to play the piano. Oteil gained proficiency on the bass clarinet, violin,and trumpet; however, bass guitar and drums became his instruments of choice (while Kofi developed a love for both flute and keyboards).