mick laBriola

RCW 49 (Gum 29) is a H II region nebula located 13,700 light years away. It is a dusty stellar nursery that contains more than 2,200 stars and is about 350 light years across.

The nebula RCW49, shown in infrared light in this image from the Spitzer Space Telescope, is a nursery for newborn stars. Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have found in RCW49 more than 300 newborn or ‘protostars,’ all with circumstellar disks of dust and gas. The discovery reveals that galaxies make new stars at a much more prolific rate than previously imagined. The stellar disks of dust and gas not only feed material onto the growing new stars, but can be the raw material for new planetary systems.

Gary Robert McFarland (October 23, 1933 – November 3, 1971) was a composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist, prominent on Verve and Impulse! Records during the 1960s, when he made “one of the more significant contributors to orchestral jazz”. McFarland was born in Los Angeles, on October 23, 1933, but grew up in Grants Pass, Oregon.

He attained a small following after working with Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges, John Lewis, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer, and Anita O’Day.

As well as his own albums and arrangements for other musicians he composed the scores to the films Eye of the Devil (1966) and Who Killed Mary What’s ‘Er Name? (1971). By the end of the 1960s, he was moving away from jazz towards an often wistful or melancholy style of instrumental pop, as well as producing the recordings of other artists on his Skye Records label (run in partnership with Gábor Szabó and Cal Tjader until its bankruptcy in 1970).

Frank Hewitt (October 23, 1935 – September 5, 2002) was an American hard bop jazz pianist. Born in Queens, New York, Hewitt lived most of his life in Harlem. His mother was a church pianist, and he initially studied classical and gospel music, but switched to jazz after hearing a Charlie Parker record. He took the bop pianists Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Elmo Hope as his role models. In the 1950s and 1960s he worked with Howard McGhee, Cecil Payne, John Coltrane, Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, among others; in 1961 he also participated in the Living Theater‘s production of Jack Gelber‘s The Connection. He became a regular figure in the circle of the pianist Barry Harris. In the 1990s Hewitt became a central figure at New York’s Smalls Jazz Club; aside from playing there several nights a week, he sometimes also ended up using the walk-in refrigerator as a place to bunk when times were rough.

During his lifetime only one track of Hewitt’s playing was released, a version of the Kenny Dorham tune “Prince Albert” on the compilation Jazz Underground: Live at Smalls (Impulse, 1998). After Hewitt’s death, however, recordings made by Luke Kaven began to surface on Kaven’s Smalls Records label: the trio discs We Loved You, Not Afraid to Live, Fresh from the Cooler, and Out of the Clear Black Sky, and the quintet date Four Hundred Saturdays. His reputation as a neglected jazz master has steadily grown among fans of bebop piano.

William “Sonny” Criss (23 October 1927 – 19 November 1977) was an American jazz musician.

An alto saxophonist of prominence during the bebop era of jazz, he was one of many players influenced by Charlie Parker.

William Criss was born in Memphis, Tennessee and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 15. He then went on to play in various bands including Howard McGhee‘s, which also featured Charlie Parker.

Criss had developed his own, concise, bluesy tone by this point, and though his basic style did not vary much, his ability on the instrument continued to develop. Nevertheless, he continued to drift from band to band, and played on some records with Johnny Otis and Billy Eckstine.

His first major break came in 1947, on a number of jam sessions arranged by jazz impresario Norman Granz. In 1956 he signed to Imperial Records, based in New York, and recorded a series albums including Jazz U.S.A , Go Man! and Sonny Criss Plays Cole Porter featuring pianist Sonny Clark. Capitol, which owned the master recordings, reissued them as a 2-CD set on their Blue Note imprint in 2000. Criss also recorded At the Crossroadswith pianist Wynton Kelly.

Prestige signed Criss in 1965, and he continued to record well-acclaimed albums which were mainly rooted in hard bop traditions. Sonny’s Dreamfeatured arrangements by Horace Tapscott. Later sessions were recorded for Muse and Impulse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj00v0ssjqU

A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.

On or around May 1, 1006 A.D., observers from Africa to Europe to the Far East witnessed and recorded the arrival of light from what is now called SN 1006, a tremendous supernova explosion caused by the final death throes of a white dwarf star nearly 7,000 light-years away. The supernova was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans, and surpassed Venus as the brightest object in the night time sky, only to be surpassed by the moon. It was visible even during the day for weeks, and remained visible to the naked eye for at least two and a half years before fading away.

It wasn’t until the mid-1960s that radio astronomers first detected a nearly circular ring of material at the recorded position of the supernova. The ring was almost 30 arcminutes across, the same angular diameter as the full moon. The size of the remnant implied that the blast wave from the supernova had expanded at nearly 20 million miles per hour over the nearly 1,000 years since the explosion occurred.

In 1976, the first detection of exceedingly faint optical emission of the supernova remnant was reported, but only for a filament located on the northwest edge of the radio ring. A tiny portion of this filament is revealed in detail by the Hubble observation. The twisting ribbon of light seen by Hubble corresponds to locations where the expanding blast wave from the supernova is now sweeping into very tenuous surrounding gas.

The hydrogen gas heated by this fast shock wave emits radiation in visible light. Hence, the optical emission provides astronomers with a detailed “snapshot” of the actual position and geometry of the shock front at any given time. Bright edges within the ribbon correspond to places where the shock wave is seen exactly edge on to our line of sight.

Today we know that SN 1006 has a diameter of nearly 60 light-years, and it is still expanding at roughly 6 million miles per hour. Even at this tremendous speed, however, it takes observations typically separated by years to see significant outward motion of the shock wave against the grid of background stars. In the Hubble image as displayed, the supernova would have occurred far off the lower right corner of the image, and the motion would be toward the upper left.

SN 1006 resides within our Milky Way Galaxy. Located more than 14 degrees off the plane of the galaxy’s disk, there is relatively little confusion with other foreground and background objects in the field when trying to study this object. In the Hubble image, many background galaxies (orange extended objects) far off in the distant universe can be seen dotting the image. Most of the white dots are foreground or background stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

This image is a composite of hydrogen-light observations taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in February 2006 and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations in blue, yellow-green, and near-infrared light taken in April 2008. The supernova remnant, visible only in the hydrogen-light filter was assigned a red hue in the Heritage color image.

Leslie West (born Leslie Weinstein; October 22, 1945) is an American rock guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He is best known as a founding member of the hard rock band Mountain. West was born in New York City, to a Jewish family. He grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and in East Meadow, New York, Forest Hills, New York and Lawrence, New York.^[1] After his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West. His musical career began with the Vagrants, an R&B/blue-eyed soul-rock band influenced by the likes of the Rascals that was one of the few teenage garage rock acts to come out of the New York metropolitan area itself (as opposed to the Bohemian Greenwich Village scene of artists, poets and affiliates of the Beat Generation, which produced bands like The Fugs and The Velvet Underground). The Vagrants had two minor hits in the Eastern US: 1966’s “I Can’t Make a Friend” and a cover of Otis Redding‘s “Respect” the following year.

Some of the Vagrants’ recordings were produced by Felix Pappalardi, who was also working with Cream on their album Disraeli Gears. In 1969, West and Pappalardi formed the pioneering hard rock act Mountain, which was also the title of West’s debut solo album. Rolling Stone identified the band as a “louder version of Cream”.^[2] With Steve Knight on keyboards and original drummer N. D. Smart, the band appeared on the second day of the Woodstock Festival on Saturday, August 16, 1969 starting an 11-song set at 9 pm. The band’s original incarnation saw West and Pappalardi sharing vocal duties and playing guitar and bass, respectively. New drummer Corky Laingjoined the band shortly after Woodstock. They had success with “Mississippi Queen“, which reached No. 21 on the Billboard charts and No. 4 in Canada. It was followed by the Jack Bruce-penned “Theme For an Imaginary Western”. Mountain is one of the bands considered to be forerunners of heavy metal.

Cándido de Guerra Camero (born April 22, 1921), also known simply as Cándido, is a Cuban conga and bongo player. He also plays the tres, drums, and acoustic bass. He has worked in many genres of popular music from pop, rock, R&B and disco to Afro-Cuban dance music and Latin jazz. He is the first player to develop techniques to play multiple conga drums, coordinated independence and the use of multiple percussion, one player playing a variety of percussion instruments simultaneously. Early in his career, Camero recorded in his native Cuba with many of the early pioneers of the son movement as well as being the conga drummer for the Tropicana night club in Havana from its opening night in 1940 and subsequently for the next eight years. He first appeared in NYC in the musical review, Tidbits, at the Plymouth Theater on Broadway in 1946 backing up the Cuban dance team of Carmen and Rolando. In 1948 he made his first U.S. recording with Machito and His Afro-Cubans on the tune, “El Rey Del Mambo.” as well as working with Dizzy Gillespie. During 1953–54, he was in the Billy Taylor Trio and in 1954 he performed and recorded with Stan Kenton.

He also enjoyed success during the disco era of the 1970s, most notably with the Babatunde Olatunji-penned track “Jingo” from his Dancin’ and Prancin‘ album, which he recorded for Salsoul Records in 1979. The album has also been acknowledged as an influence and precursor to house music, predating the emergence of the genre by over five years.

Cyril “Midnight” Blake (22 October 1900 – 3 December 1951) was a Trinidadian jazz trumpeter. Blake moved to England about 1918, where he played in a British group called the Southern Syncopated Orchestra. He worked in Paris and London as a musician throughout the 1920s, and in the 1930s played in the bands of Leon Abbey, Happy Blake, Rudolph Dunbar, Leslie Thompson, Joe Appleton, and Lauderic Caton. In 1938 he formed his own band, which was centred on Jig’s Club in London; he recorded several times with this ensemble. In the 1940s Blake led his band behind Lord Kitchener for recordings on Parlophone Records, playing in a calypso style. Late in his life he returned to Trinidad, where he continued to lead bands. He died of an illness in 1951.

Franz Liszt (German: [ˈlɪst]; Hungarian: Liszt Ferencz, in modern usage Liszt Ferenc [ˈlist ˈfɛrɛnt͡s];^{[n 1]} 22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungariancomposer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, and organist of the Romantic era. He was also a writer, a philanthropist, a Hungarian nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary.

Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.^[1]

A prolific composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School (Neudeutsche Schule). He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work which influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated 20th-century ideas and trends. Among Liszt’s musical contributions were the symphonic poem, developing thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and radical innovations in harmony.

The irregular galaxy NGC 4485 shows all the signs of having been involved in a hit-and-run accident with a bypassing galaxy. Rather than destroying the galaxy, the chance encounter is spawning a new generation of stars, and presumably planets. The right side of the galaxy is ablaze with star formation, shown in the plethora of young blue stars and star-incubating pinkish nebulas. The left side, however, looks intact. It contains hints of the galaxy’s previous spiral structure, which, at one time, was undergoing normal galactic evolution. The larger culprit galaxy, NGC 4490, is off the bottom of the frame. The two galaxies sideswiped each other millions of years ago and are now 24,000 light-years apart. The gravitational tug-of-war between them created rippling patches of higher-density gas and dust within both galaxies. This activity triggered a flurry of star formation. This galaxy is a nearby example of the kind of cosmic bumper-car activity that was more common billions of years ago when the universe was smaller and galaxies were closer together. NGC 4485 lies 25 million light-years away in the northern constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs).

Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso (October 21, 1925 – July 16, 2003), known as Celia Cruz, was a Cuban singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname “La Guarachera de Cuba”. In the following decades, she became known internationally as the “Queen of Salsa” or “The Queen of Latin Music” due to her contributions to Latin music in the United States.

She began her career in her native Cuba, earning recognition as a vocalist of the popular musical group Sonora Matancera, a musical association that lasted fifteen years (1950-1965). Cruz mastered a wide variety of Afro-Cuban music styles including guaracha, rumba, afro, son and bolero, recording numerous singles in these styles for Seeco Records. In the early 1960s, after the Cuban Revolution caused the nationalization of the music industry, Cruz left her native country, becoming one of the symbols and spokespersons of the Cuban community in exile. Cruz continued her career, first in Mexico, and then in the United States, the country that she took as her definitive residence. In the 1960s, she collaborated with Tito Puente, recording her signature tune “Bemba colorá”. In the 1970s, she signed for Fania Records and became strongly associated with the salsa genre, releasing hits such as “Quimbara”. She often appeared live with Fania All-Stars and collaborated with Johnny Pacheco and Willie Colón. During the last years of her career, Cruz continued to release successful songs such as “La vida es un carnaval” and “La negra tiene tumbao“.

Her musical legacy is made up of a total of 37 studio albums, as well as numerous live albums and collaborations. Throughout her career, she was awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, including two Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards. In addition to her prolific career in music, Cruz also made several appearances as an actress in movies and telenovelas. Her catchphrase ¡Azúcar! (Sugar!) has become one of the most recognizable symbols of salsa music. Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born at 47 Serrano Street in the Santos Suárez neighborhood of Havana, Cuba. Her father, Simón Cruz, was a railway stoker, and her mother, Catalina Alfonso Ramos, a housewife who took care of an extended family. Celia was one of the eldest among fourteen children, including her three siblings, Dolores, Gladys and Bárbaro, and she used to sing cradle songs to put them to sleep.According to her mother, she began singing as a child at 9 or 10 months of age, often in the middle of the night. She also sang in school during the Fridays’ actos cívicos and in her neighborhood ensemble, Botón de oro.

While growing up in Cuba’s diverse 1930s musical climate, Cruz listened to many musicians who influenced her adult career, including Fernando Collazo, Abelardo Barroso, Pablo Quevedo, Antonio Arcaño and Arsenio Rodríguez. Despite her father’s opposition and the fact that she was Catholic, as a child Cruz learned Santería songs from her neighbor who practiced Santería.Cruz also studied the words to Yoruba songs with colleague Merceditas Valdés (an akpwon, a santería singer) from Cuba and later made various recordings of this religious genre, even singing backup for other female akpwons like Candita Batista.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgtxZda3Q-E

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (/ɡɪˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer. Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks, and his light-hearted personality provided some of bebop’s most prominent symbols. In the 1940s Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione, and balladeer Johnny Hartman.

Scott Yanow wrote, “Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time, Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up being similar to those of Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis‘s emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy’s style was successfully recreated [….] Arguably Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time”. 

The youngest of nine children of James and Lottie Gillespie, Dizzy Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina. His father was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to the children. Gillespie started to play the piano at the age of four. Gillespie’s father died when he was only ten years old. He taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve. From the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician.

Carlos Wesley “Don” Byas (October 21, 1912 – August 24, 1972) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, most associated with bebop. He played with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others, and also led his own band. He lived in Europe for the last 26 years of his life. Byas was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Both of Byas’ parents were musicians. His mother played the piano, and his father, the clarinet. Byas started his training in classical music, learning to play violin, clarinet and alto saxophone, which he played until the end of the 1920s.

Benny Carter, who played many instruments, was his idol at this time. Byas started playing in local orchestras at the age of 17, with Bennie Moten, Terrence Holder and Walter Page. He founded and led his own college band, Don Carlos and His Collegiate Ramblers, during 1931-32, at Langston College, Oklahoma.

In 1937, Byas moved to New York to work with the Eddie Mallory band, accompanying Mallory’s wife, the singer Ethel Waters, on tour, and at the Cotton Club. He had a brief stint with arranger Don Redman‘s band in 1938 and later in 1939-1940. He recorded his first solo record in May 1939: “Is This to Be My Souvenir?” with Timme Rosenkrantz and his Barrelhouse Barons for Victor. He played with the bands of such leaders as Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk, Edgar Hayes and Benny Carter. He spent about a year in Andy Kirk’s band, recording with him between March 1939 and January 1940, including a short solo on “You Set Me on Fire”. In September 1940, he had an eight bar solo on “Practice Makes Perfect”, recorded by Billie Holiday. He participated in sessions with the pianist Pete Johnson, trumpeter Hot Lips Page, and singer Big Joe Turner. In 1941 at Minton’s Playhouse he played with Charlie Christian, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke in after hours sessions.

In early 1941, after a short stay with Paul Bascomb, he had his big break when Count Basie chose him to succeed the post of Lester Young in his big band. Byas recorded “Harvard Blues” with the Basie orchestra on November 17, 1941 on Jimmy Rushing‘s vocal version of George Frazier‘s tune. He was part of a small group session on July 24, 1942 with Buck Clayton, Count Basie, and his rhythm section (Freddie Green, Walter Page, Jo Jones) recording “Royal Garden Blues” and “Sugar Blues“.

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