mick laBriola

Amos Leon Thomas Jr. (October 4, 1937 – May 8, 1999), better known by his stage name Leon Thomas, was an American jazz and blues vocalist, born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and known for his bellowing glottal-stop style of free jazz singing in the late 1960s and 1970s. Leon Thomas was born Amos Thomas, Jr. on October 4, 1937, in East St. Louis, Illinois. He studied music at Tennessee State University. At the time of his studies, he had begun a singing career as a guest vocalist for the jazz bands of percussionist Armando Peraza, saxophonist Jimmy Forest, and guitarist Grant Green. His musical development at this time was shaped in part by seeing saxophonist John Coltrane perform in trumpeter Miles Davis‘s sextet during the late 1950s. Thomas moved to New York City in 1959, singing at the Apollo Theater as a vocalist for acts such as jazz ensemble The Jazz Messengers and singer Dakota Staton. In 1961, he joined the Count Basie Orchestra but soon left after being conscripted into the army.

Thomas was discharged from the army in the late 1960s and resumed his music career, first working with avant-garde jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. In 1969, he released his first solo album for Bob Thiele‘s Flying Dutchman label. Thomas became best known for his work with Sanders, particularly the 1969 song “The Creator Has a Master Plan” from Sanders’ Karma album. Thomas’s most distinctive device was that he often broke out into yodeling in the middle of a vocal. This style has influenced singers James Moody, Tim Buckley and Bobby McFerrin. He said in an interview that he developed this style after he fell and broke his teeth before an important show. Some of the vocal style is classified as ‘jive singing’. (Ref: Leon Thomas Blues Band album)  Thomas saw music as a means of social commentary during this period, saying, “You just have to be more than an entertainer. How the blazes can you ignore what is happening?

Flamenco Fridays featuring Siguiriyas.

Siguiriyas (Spanish pronunciation: [seɣiˈɾiʝas]; also seguiriyas, siguerillas, siguirillas, seguidilla gitana, etc.) is a form of flamenco music belonging to the cante jondo category. Its deep, expressive style is among the most important in flamenco. The siguiriyas are normally played in the key of A Phrygian with each measure (or compás) consisting of 12 counts with emphasis on the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 8th and 11th beats as shown here:

[1] 2 [3] 4 [5] 6 7 [8] 9 10 [11] 12

This rhythm can be contrasted to the rhythmic pattern of the soleares, which also has 12 beats, but the accents fall differently. Taking the unusual accenting into account, it can technically be seen as a measure of 3/4 (counted in eighth notes) starting on “2”, then a measure of 6/8 followed by the “1 and” of the 3/4. Every note is evenly spaced apart. For example:

[2] and [3] and [1] 2 3 [4] 5 6 [1] and

However, this presents difficulties in counting and is counted more simply in 5 beats, with three “short” and two “long” beats:

[1] and [2] and [3] and uh [4] and uh [5] and

In this case, the 1, 2, and 5 are the short beats and the 3 and 4 are long beats.

Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum Galaxy and lies a mere 3 million light-years away. The galaxy’s inner 30,000 light-years or so are shown in this magnificent 25 panel telescopic mosaic. Based on image data from space and ground-based telescopes, the portrait of M33 shows off the galaxy’s reddish ionized hydrogen clouds or HII regions. Sprawling along loose spiral arms that wind toward the core, M33’s giant HII regions are some of the largest known stellar nurseries, sites of the formation of short-lived but very massive stars. Intense ultraviolet radiation from the luminous, massive stars ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas and ultimately produces the characteristic red glow. To enhance this image, broadband data was used to produce a color view of the galaxy and combined with narrowband data recorded through a hydrogen-alpha filter. That filter transmits the light of the strongest visible hydrogen emission line.

Big music day with Von Freeman, Steve Reich, Eddie Cochran, Chubby Checker, Lindsey Buckingham, Ronnie Laws, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gwen Stefani etc

Stephen Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, and one of the most influential guitarists in the revival of blues in the 1980s. He is commonly referred to as one of the greatest guitar players of all time.

Vaughan was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. He began playing guitar at the age of seven, inspired by his older brother Jimmie. He dropped out of high school in 1971 and moved to Austin the following year. He played gigs with numerous bands, earning a spot in Marc Benno‘s band the Nightcrawlers and later with Denny Freeman in the Cobras, with whom he continued to work through late 1977. He then formed his own group Triple Threat Revue, but he renamed them Double Trouble after hiring drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon. He gained fame after his performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982, and his debut studio album Texas Flood charted at number 38 in 1983, a commercially successful release that sold over half a million copies. Vaughan headlined concert tours with Jeff Beck in 1989 and Joe Cocker in 1990. He died in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990, at the age of 35.

Vaughan received several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1983, readers of Guitar Player voted him Best New Talent and Best Electric Blues Guitar Player. In 1984, the Blues Foundation named him Entertainer of the Year and Blues Instrumentalist of the Year, and in 1987, Performance Magazine honored him with Rhythm and Blues Act of the Year. He won six Grammy Awards and ten Austin Music Awards and was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2014. Rolling Stone ranked him as the 12th greatest guitarist of all time. In 2015, Vaughan and Double Trouble were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Stevie’s grandfather, Thomas Lee Vaughan, married Laura Belle LaRue and moved to Rockwall County, Texas, where they lived by sharecropping. Stevie’s father, Jimmie Lee Vaughan, was born on September 6, 1921.

Jimmie, also known as Jim and Big Jim, dropped out of school at age sixteen, and enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. After his discharge, he married Martha Cook on January 13, 1950. They had a son, Jimmie, in 1951. Stephen was born on October 3, 1954, in Dallas, Texas. Big Jim secured a job as an asbestos worker, an occupation that involved rigorous manual effort. The family moved frequently, living in other states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma before ultimately moving to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. A shy and insecure boy, Vaughan was deeply affected by his childhood experiences. His father struggled with alcohol abuse, and often terrorised his family and friends with his bad temper. In later years, Vaughan recalled that he had been a victim of his father’s violence. His father died on August 27, 1986, exactly four years before Vaughan. In the early 1960s, Vaughan’s admiration for his brother Jimmie resulted in him trying different instruments such as the drums and saxophone. In 1961, for his seventh birthday, Vaughan received his first guitar, a toy from Sears with Western motif. Learning by ear, he diligently committed himself, following along to songs by the Nightcaps, particularly “Wine, Wine, Wine” and “Thunderbird”. He listened to blues artists such as Albert King, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters, and rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as jazz guitarists including Kenny Burrell. In 1963, he acquired his first electric guitar, a Gibson ES-125T, as a hand-me-down from Jimmie.

Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American rock ‘n roll singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularising many dance styles including the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters‘ R&B hit “The Twist” and the Pony with hit “Pony Time“. In September 2008, “The Twist” topped Billboard‘s list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1958, an honor it maintained for an August 2013 update of the list. He also popularized the “Limbo Rock” and its trademark limbo dance, as well as various dance styles such as The Fly.

Ernest Evans, later known as Chubby Checker, was born in Spring Gully, South Carolina. He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents, Raymond and Eartle Evans, and two brothers. By age eight Evans formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, took piano lessons at Settlement Music School. He entertained his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino. One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabiano Forte, who would become a popular performer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian.

Stephen Michael Reich (/raɪʃ/ born October 3, 1936) is an American composer who, along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass, pioneered minimal music in the mid to late 1960s.

Reich’s style of composition influenced many composers and groups. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (for example, his early compositions It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out), and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts (for instance, Pendulum Musicand Four Organs). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music, especially in the US. Reich’s work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains.

Writing in The Guardian, music critic Andrew Clements suggested that Reich is one of “a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history”. The American composer and critic Kyle Gann has said that Reich “may … be considered, by general acclamation, America’s greatest living composer”.

Reich was born in New York City to the Broadway lyricist June Sillman and Leonard Reich. When he was one year old, his parents divorced, and Reich divided his time between New York and California. He is the half-brother of writer Jonathan Carroll. He was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the “middle-class favorites”, having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At the age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the Baroque period and earlier, as well as music of the 20th century. Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff in order to play jazz. While attending Cornell University, he minored in music and graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in Philosophy.

Earle Lavon “Von” Freeman Sr. (October 3, 1923 – August 11, 2012) was an American hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Freeman as a young child was exposed to jazz. His father, George, a city policeman, was a close friend of Louis Armstrongwith Armstrong living at the Freeman house when he first arrived in Chicago.

Freeman’s father taught him to play piano and bought him his first saxophone when he was seven. His musical education was furthered at DuSable High School, where his band director was Walter Dyett. Freeman began his professional career at the age of 16 in Horace Henderson‘s Orchestra.

Freeman enlisted into the Navy during World War II and was trained at Camp Robert Smalls in Chicago. “All the great musicians ended up at Great Lakes”, he recalled. “It was an incubator for the best and the brightest lights in the jazz world at that time, and the musical jam sessions were simply phenomenal.” After training, he was sent to Hawaii as part of the Hellcats stationed at Barbers Point Naval Air Station in a band that starred Harry “Pee Wee” Jackson, the trumpeter from Cleveland whose nickname was Gabriel. The Hellcats were frequent winners of the islands’ competitive Battle of the Bands competitions and included musicians who had formerly played in bands fronted by Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Lucky Millinder, Les Hite, Count Basie, Fats Waller, and Tiny Bradshaw.

After his return to Chicago, where he remained for the duration of his career, Freeman played with his brothers George on guitar and Eldridge “Bruz” Freeman on drums at the Pershing Hotel Ballroom. Various leading jazzmen such as Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie played there with the Freemans as the backing band. In the early 1950s, Von played in Sun Ra‘s band.

The Carina Nebula is a bright, large emission nebula surrounding the star Eta Carinae, located in the southern constellation Carina. It is also sometimes called the Eta Carinae Nebula, the Grand Nebula, or the Great Nebula in Carina. The nebula’s designation in the New General Catalogue is NGC 3372. It is one of the largest diffuse nebulae known, one that contains several open star clusters. The Carina Nebula is home to several notable objects: the Mystic Mountain, the Homunculus Nebula, and the Keyhole Nebula. The Carina Nebula lies in the Carina-Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way, at a distance between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth. The estimated distance of the nebula is 7,500 light years.

Roy Powell (born 2 October 1965 in Langham, Rutland) is a British jazz pianist. His mother was a historian. His father was a scientist who moved the family from Rutland to Canada. When Powell was ten, the family returned to England, settling in Hayfield, Derbyshire. He had been playing piano for five years after receiving lessons from his father. He attended New Mills Grammar School at the same time as Lloyd Cole. In the 1970s, when other teenagers were listening to The Clash and The Sex Pistols, Powell was listening to Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and buying albums through the mail from America. He attended the Royal Northern College of Music, studying piano and classical composition during the day and playing in Manchester jazz clubs at night. After departing school, he started a jazz fusion band and choreographed a ballet. In 1992 he was a member of the Creative Jazz Orchestra. Three years later he moved to Norway to teach.

Powell has been a member of the group InterStatic with Jacob Young, and Jarle Vespestad, and the group Naked Truth with Lorenzo Feliciati, Pat Mastelotto, and Graham Haynes. He recorded the album Mumpbeak with Feliciati, Mastelotto, Bill Laswell, Tony Levin, and Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz. On the album Powell plays Hohner Clavinet through guitar effect pedals and amps.

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE (born 2 October 1951), known as Sting, is an English musician and actor. He was the principal songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for the new wave rock band the Police from 1977 to 1984, and launched a solo career in 1985. He has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age and worldbeat in his music.

As a solo musician and a member of the Police, Sting has received 17 Grammy Awards: he won Song of the Year for “Every Breath You Take“, three Brit Awards, including Best British Male Artist in 1994 and Outstanding Contribution in 2002, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2019, he received a BMI Award for “Every Breath You Take” becoming the most played song in radio history. In 2002, Sting received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authorsand was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003. In 2000, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording. In 2003, Sting received a CBE from Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for services to music. He was made a Kennedy Center Honoree at the White House in 2014, and was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2017.

With the Police, Sting became one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Solo and with the Police combined, he has sold over 100 million records.In 2006, Paste ranked him 62nd of the 100 best living songwriters. He was 63rd of VH1‘s 100 greatest artists of rock, and 80th of Q magazine‘s 100 greatest musical stars of the 20th century. He has collaborated with other musicians on songs such as “Money for Nothing” with Dire Straits, “Rise & Fall” with Craig David, “All for Love” with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, “You Will Be My Ain True Love” with Alison Krauss, and introduced the North African music genre raï to Western audiences through the hit song “Desert Rose” with Cheb Mami. In 2018, he released the album 44/876, a collaboration with Jamaican musician Shaggy, which won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in 2019.

Howard Roberts (October 2, 1929 – June 28, 1992) was an American jazz guitarist, educator, and session musician. Roberts was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and began playing guitar at the age of 8. By the time he was 15 he was playing professionally locally. In 1950, he moved to Los Angeles, California. With the assistance of Jack Marshall, he began working with musicians, arrangers and songwriters including Neal Hefti, Henry Mancini, Bobby Troup, Chico Hamilton, George Van Eps, and Barney Kessel. Around 1956, Bobby Troup signed him to Verve Records as a solo artist. At that time he decided to concentrate on recording, both as a solo artist and a Wrecking Crew session musician, a direction he would continue until the early 1970s.

Roberts played rhythm and lead guitar, bass guitar, and mandolin. He was known for his heavy use of the Gibson L-5 guitar in the studio and for television and movie projects, including lead guitar on the theme from The Twilight Zone as well as acoustic and electric guitar on I Love Lucy, The Munsters, Bonanza, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, Green Acres, Get Smart, Batman, Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, Peter Gunn, Lost in Space, Dragnet, Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, The Odd Couple, Dick Van Dyke, I Dream of Jeannie, and the theme for the film Bullitt.

Roberts recorded with Georgie Auld, Peggy Lee, Eddie Cochran Jody Reynolds, Shelley Fabares, Dean Martin, the Monkees, Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, and the Electric Prunes.

In 1961, Roberts designed a signature guitar which was produced by Epiphone. The guitar was a modified Gibson ES-175 (Epiphone is owned by Gibson and during this period Epiphone guitars were manufactured in the same factory as Gibson guitars in Kalamazoo, Michigan), with a round sound hole and a single pickup. A redesigned version was later produced by Gibson.

In 1963, Roberts recorded Color Him Funky and H.R. Is a Dirty Guitar Player, his first two albums after signing with Capitol. Produced by Jack Marshall, they both feature the same quartet with Roberts (guitar), Chuck Berghofer (bass), Earl Palmer (drums) and Paul Bryant alternating with Burkley Kendrix on organ. He recorded ten albums with Capitol before signing with ABC Records/Impulse! Records.

This is a colour composite (BVR) of a sky field near the border between the southern constellations Carina (The Ship’s Keel) and Volans (The Flying Fish). It contains a spiral galaxy, ESO 60-24 that is seen nearly edge-on. This galaxy has a strong equatorial dust band that hides the light from the stars behind it. A bright centre is located just below the dust band and the spiral structure may be perceived in the outer regions. The velocity is 4,000 km/sec, corresponding to a distance of about 200 million light-years. These observations were made with FORS1 at ANTU on March 27, 1999. Field size: 6.8×6.8 arcmin 2 ; North is up and East is to the left.

Dave Holland (born 1 October 1946) is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for over 40 years.

His work ranges from pieces for solo performance to big band. Holland runs his own independent record label, Dare2, which he launched in 2005. He has explained his musical philosophy by quoting fellow jazz artist Sam Rivers: “Sam said, ‘Don’t leave anything out – play all of it.'”

Holland has played with some of the greatest names in jazz, and has participated in several classic recording sessions. Born in Wolverhampton, England, Holland taught himself how to play stringed instruments, beginning at four on the ukulele, then graduating to guitar and later bass guitar. He quit school at the age of 15 to pursue his profession in a top 40 band, but soon gravitated to jazz. After seeing an issue of Down Beat where Ray Brown had won the critics’ poll for best bass player, Holland went to a record store, and bought a couple of LPs featuring Brown backing pianist Oscar Peterson. He also bought two Leroy Vinnegar albums (Leroy Walks! and Leroy Walks Again) because the bassist was posed with his instrument on the cover. Within a week, Holland traded in his bass guitar for an acoustic bass and began practicing with the records. In addition to Brown and Vinnegar, Holland was drawn to the bassists Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkgaUrrF3s8

Albert Gene Drewery, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Man (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993), was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and a capo. His long association with the Fender Telecaster led to the title “The Master of the Telecaster”.

Collins was born in Leona, Texas, on October 1, 1932. He was introduced to the guitar at an early age by his cousin Lightnin’ Hopkins, also a Leona resident, who played at family gatherings. The Collins family relocated to Marquez, Texas, in 1938 and to Houston in 1941 where he attended Jack Yates High School. Collins took piano lessons when he was young, but when his piano tutor was unavailable his cousin Willow Young would lend Albert his guitar and taught him the altered tuning that he used throughout his career. Collins tuned his guitar to an open F-minor chord (FCFAbCF), with a capo at the 5th, 6th or 7th fret. At the age of twelve, he decided to concentrate on learning the guitar after hearing “Boogie Chillen’” by John Lee Hooker. At eighteen Collins started his own group, the Rhythm Rockers, in which he honed his craft. During this time he was employed for four years at a ranch in Normangee, Texas; he then worked as a truck driver for various companies for twelve years.

Collins played an Epiphone guitar during his first two years with the Rhythm Rockers, but in 1952, after seeing Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown playing a Fender Esquire, he decided to purchase a Fender. He wanted a Telecaster, but because of the cost he chose to buy an Esquire, which he took to the Parker Music Company in Houston to be fitted with a Telecaster neck. This was his main guitar until he moved to California, and it was the guitar that he used on his earliest recordings, including his signature song, “Frosty”. For the rest of his career he played a “maple cap”–necked natural ash body Fender 1966 Custom Telecaster with a Gibson PAF humbucking pickup retrofitted into the neck position, which became the basis for a Fender Custom Artist signature model in 1990.