mick laBriola

Knoel Scott (born July 18, 1956) is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. He plays baritone, tenor and alto saxophone in addition to flute, while his live performances often include singing and dancing. He is best known for his work with keyboardist/bandleader Sun Ra and is an original member of the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen. Knoel Scott was born Noel Scott on July 18, 1956 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Brooks and Kathaniel Walker Scott. His father Brooks Scott is listed as deceased on Scott’s birth certificate, and he was raised by Robert and Edith Nero in Jamaica, Queens. Scott studied at Queens College from 1974 to 1976, and also at State University of New York at Old Westbury, where he graduated in 1979. Scott studied additionally at Jazzmobile with such musicians as Frank Foster, Charles Davis, John Stubblefield and Lisle Atkinson.

Federico Arístides Soto Alejo (June 30, 1930 – February 4, 2008), better known as Tata Güines, was a Cuban percussionist, bandleader and arranger. He was widely regarded as a master of the conga drum, and alongside Carlos “Patato” Valdés, influential in the development of contemporary Afro-Cuban music, including Afro-Cuban jazz. He specialized in a form of improvisation known as descarga, a format in which he recorded numerous albums throughout the years with Cachao, Frank Emilio Flynn, Estrellas de Areito, Alfredo Rodríguez and Jane Bunnett, among others. In the 1990s he released two critically acclaimed albums as a leader: Pasaporte and Aniversario. His composition “Pa’ gozar” has become a standard of the descarga genre.

Arístides Soto was born in Güines, a town east of Havana in the former province of Havana in Cuba, on June 30, 1930. He made his first drums out of milk cartons and sausages. He started working professionally in the 1950s as a percussionist in various popular Cuban ensembles, making his first recordings in 1951 as part of Estrellas Juveniles, a group founded by Arsenio Rodríguez. He later joined Fajardo y sus Estrellas, with whom he traveled to Venezuela in 1956. The next year he took part in the recording of Cachao‘s Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature; he even doubled on bass on one track with Cachao on piano. He then moved to New York City for two years, performing at the Waldorf Astoria and various nightclubs including Birdland, where he shared the stage with jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson and Miles Davis. He also played with Josephine Baker and Frank Sinatra.

Mthutuzeli Dudu Pukwana (18 July 1938 – 30 June 1990) was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist (although not known for his piano playing). Dudu Pukwana was born in Walmer Township, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He grew up studying piano in his family, but in 1956 he switched to alto sax after meeting tenor sax player Nikele Moyake. In 1962, Pukwana won first prize at the Johannesburg Jazz Festival with Moyake’s Jazz Giants (1962 Gallo/Teal). In his early days he also played with Kippie Moeketsi. Chris McGregor then invited him to join the pioneering Blue Notes sextet where he played along with Mongezi Feza, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo. Although The Blue Notes are often considered McGregor’s group, Pukwana was initially the principal composer and all the group members had pivotal roles.

Jalacy “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as “I Put a Spell on You“, he sometimes used macabre props onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and learned guitar in his 20s. His initial goal was to become an opera singer (Hawkins cited Paul Robeson as his musical idol in interviews), but when his initial ambitions failed, he began his career as a conventional blues singer and pianist.

He joined the US Army with a forged birth certificate in 1942, and allegedly served in a combat role, with his fellow soldiers and higher-ups around him somehow remaining completely oblivious to the fact he was underage. During this time, he also entertained the troops as part of his service.Hawkins was an avid and formidable boxer during his years on the US Army’s boxing circuit. In 1949, he was the middleweight boxing champion of Alaska.^[14] In 1951, he joined guitarist Tiny Grimes‘ band, and was subsequently featured on some of Grimes’ recordings. When Hawkins became a solo performer, he often performed in a stylish wardrobe of leopard skins, red leather, and wild hats.

NGC 70 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered on September 11, 1784 by R. J. Mitchell and was also observed on December 19, 1897 by Guillaume Bigourdan from France who described it as “extremely faint, very small, round, between 2 faint stars.Distance 320-325 Mly

Chico Freeman (born Earl Lavon Freeman Jr.; July 17, 1949) is a modern jazz tenor saxophonist and trumpeter and son of jazz saxophonist Von Freeman. He began recording as lead musician in 1976 with Morning Prayer, won the New York Jazz Award in 1979 and earned the Stereo ReviewRecord of the Year in 1981 for his album The Outside Within.

Freeman was introduced to the trumpet by his brother Everett, who found a trumpet in the family basement. Freeman began playing, inspired by artists such as Miles Davis. He went to Northwestern University in 1967 with a scholarship for mathematics and played the trumpet in the school, but did not begin playing the saxophone until his junior year. After practicing eight to ten hours per day and trying out for the saxophone section, Freeman quickly changed his major to music, and graduated in 1972. By that time he was proficient in saxophone, trumpet, and piano.

After graduation, Freeman taught at the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians School of Music in Chicago and started taking classes as a graduate student at Governors State University, earning a master’s degree in composition and theory. Although most of Freeman’s musical upbringing had been in jazz, at this time he began getting involved in blues music as well. He began playing at local Chicago clubs with artists such as Memphis Slim and Lucky Carmichael. 1976 saw the release of Freeman’s first album as lead musician, Morning Prayer. The next year he moved to New York City, and widened his musical influences. The following years would be the most productive of his career, producing albums such as No Time Left, Tradition in Transition, and The Outside Within; the last of which earned him Record of the Year from Stereo Review.

He came to prominence in the late 1970s as part of a movement including Wynton Marsalis of modern players steeped in the traditions of jazz, recording for independent labels like India Navigation and Contemporary Records. Freeman’s albums contain standards and compositions by modernists like John Coltrane as well as new tunes by Freeman and his contemporaries such as bassist Cecil McBee. The line-up on his 1981 album Destiny’s Dance includes Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Hutcherson, Cecil McBee (these two contributing compositions), with Freeman playing tenor saxophone and bass clarinet. Freeman formed the band Guataca and released Oh By the Way… in 2002. Freeman has toured internationally, both with his band as well as with Chaka Khan, Tomasz Stanko, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. Members of Guataca include Hilton Ruiz, Ruben Rodriguez, Yoron Israel, and Giovanni Hidalgo.

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi /ɡəˈrældi/ (July 17, 1928 – February 6, 1976), born Vincent Anthony Dellaglio, was an American jazz pianist noted for his innovative compositions and arrangements and for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip, as well as his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader‘s 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career which included the radio hit “Cast Your Fate to the Wind“. Guaraldi was born in San Francisco’s North Beach area, a place that became very important to his blossoming musical career. His last name changed to Guaraldi after his mother, Carmella (née Marcellino), divorced his biological father (whose last name was Dellaglio) and married Tony Guaraldi, who adopted the boy.His maternal uncle was musician, singer, and whistler Muzzy Marcellino. He graduated from Lincoln High School, attended San Francisco State College, and served in the U.S. Army as a cook in the Korean War.

Guaraldi’s first recording was made in November 1953 with Cal Tjader and was released early in 1954. The 10-inch LP was called The Cal Tjader Trio, and included “Chopsticks Mambo”, “Vibra-Tharpe”, and “Lullaby of the Leaves”. By 1955, Guaraldi had his own trio with Eddie Duran and Dean Reilly. He then reunited with Tjader in June 1956 and was an integral part of two bands that the vibraphonist assembled. The first band played mainly straight jazz and included Al Torre (drums), Eugene Wright (bass) and Luis Kant (congas and bongos). The second band was formed in the spring of 1958 and included Al McKibbon (bass), Mongo Santamaría (congas and bongos) and Willie Bobo (drums and timbales). Reed men Paul Horn and Jose “Chombo” Silva were also added to the group for certain live performances and recordings.

Guaraldi left the group early in 1959 to pursue his own projects full-time. He probably would have remained a well-respected but minor jazz figure had he not written an original number to fill out his covers of Antonio Carlos Jobim/Luis Bonfá tunes on his 1962 album, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, inspired by the French/Brazilian film Black Orpheus. Fantasy Records released “Samba de Orpheus” as a single, trying to catch the building bossa nova wave, but it was destined to sink without a trace when radio DJs began flipping it over and playing the B-side, Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind“. A gentle, likeable tune, it stood out from everything else on the airwaves and became a grass-roots hit. It also won the Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition. While “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Guaraldi achieved modest chart success as a single in 1963, a cover version two years later by British group Sounds Orchestral cracked the Billboard top 10 (in the spring of 1965). Unlike many songwriters who grow weary of their biggest hits, Guaraldi never minded taking requests to play it when he appeared live. “It’s like signing the back of a check”, he once remarked.

Guaraldi then recorded an album called Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete and Friends with guitarist Bola Sete, Fred Marshall (bass) and Jerry Granelli (drums). This began a period of collaboration between Guaraldi and Sete where Guaraldi began experimenting with bossa nova-influenced music as well as with the electric piano. This experimentation may have led to the loss of Fred Marshall, who left the group in 1964 citing “personal differences” after Guaraldi purportedly threw a cup of coffee at Marshall during the 17th Berkeley Jazz Festival. Shortly after this time, Guaraldi undertook the role of composer and pianist for the Eucharist chorus at the San Francisco Grace Cathedral. Utilizing his Latin influences from his bossa nova days with Bola Sete, Guaraldi composed a number of pieces with waltz tempos and jazz standards and later recorded this performance in 1965.

Guaraldi appreciated the potential in some of the radio waves’ pop tunes of the day. For instance, he recorded his own version of “I’m a Loser”, written by John Lennon and originally a hit for the Beatles.

Benjamin Alexander Riley Jr. (July 17, 1933 – November 18, 2017) was an American jazz drummer known for his work with Thelonious Monk, as well as Alice Coltrane, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Ahmad Jamal, Kenny Barron, and as member of the group Sphere. During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet.

Benjamin Alexander Riley Jr. was born in Savannah, Georgia, and at the age of four moved with his family to New York City.^[1] In high school he played in the school band, and after graduation he joined the army, where he was a paratrooper, and also played with the army band.

Upon leaving the army in 1954 he moved to New York, and in 1956 started playing jazz professionally. He played with such musicians as Randy Weston, Mary Lou Williams, Sonny Rollins, Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Billy Taylor, and Johnny Griffin. What made his name, however, were the four years spent playing, touring, and recording with the pianist Thelonious Monk. He was also in a trio around 1960 with Al Schackman on guitar and Ron Carter on bass that toured with Nina Simone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn8vTPbinII

Joseph Albert Morello (July 17, 1928 – March 12, 2011) was a jazz drummer best known for his work with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. He was particularly noted for playing in the unusual time signatures employed by that group in such pieces as “Take Five” and “Blue Rondo à la Turk“. Popular for its work on college campuses during the 1950s, Brubeck’s group reached new heights with Morello. In June 1959, Morello participated in a recording session with the quartet — completed by the alto saxophonist Paul Desmond and the bassist Eugene Wright — that yielded “Kathy’s Waltz” and “Three to Get Ready,” both of which intermingled 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures.

Morello suffered from partial vision from birth, and devoted himself to indoor activities. At six years old, he began studying the violin. Three years later, he was a featured soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and again three years later.

At the age of 15, Morello met the violinist Jascha Heifetz and decided that he would never be able to equal Heifetz’s “sound”. Therefore, he switched to drumming, first studying with a show drummer named Joe Sefcik and then George Lawrence Stone, author of the noted drum textbook Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. Stone was so impressed with Morello’s ideas that he incorporated them into his next book, Accents & Rebounds, which is dedicated to Morello. Later, Morello studied with Radio City Music Hall percussionist Billy Gladstone.

After moving to New York City, Morello worked with numerous notable jazz musicians including Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, Stan Kenton, Phil Woods, Sal Salvador, Marian McPartland, Jay McShann, Art Pepper, and Howard McGhee. After a period of playing in McPartland’s trio, Morello declined invitations to join both Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey‘s bands, favoring a temporary two-month tour with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1955. Morello remained with Brubeck for well over a decade, departing in 1968. Morello later became an in-demand clinician, teacher and bandleader whose former students include Danny Gottlieb, Bruce Springsteen E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg, Rich Galichon, Phish drummer Jon Fishman, Gary Feldman, Patrick Wante, Tony Woo, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons drummer Gerry Polci, Jerry Granelli, RIOT drummer Sandy Slavin, retired Army Blues drummer Steve Fidyk, Glenn Johnson,Pittsburgh drummer Bennett Carlise, and Jon Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres.

Morello appeared in many Brubeck performances and contributed to over 60 albums with Brubeck. On “Take Five“, he plays an imaginative drum solo maintaining the 5/4 time signature throughout. Another example of soloing in odd time signatures can be heard on “Unsquare Dance“, in which he solos using only sticks without drums in 7/4 time. At the end of the track, he can be heard laughing about the “trick” ending. He also features on “Blue Rondo à la Turk“, “Strange Meadow Lark“, “Pick-Up Sticks” and “Castilian Drums“.

Messier 91 (also known as NGC 4548 or M91) is a barred spiral galaxy located in the Coma Berenices constellation and is part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. M91 is about 63 million light-years away from the earth. It was the last of a group of eight nebulae discovered by Charles Messierin 1781.

Originally M91 was a missing Messier object in the catalogue as the result of a bookkeeping mistake by Messier. It was not until 1969 that amateur astronomer William C. Williams realized that M91 was NGC 4548, which was documented by William Herschel in 1784 (according to other sources, however, the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 4571 was also considered as a candidate for Messier 91 by him.)

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna (born July 16, 1948), known professionally as Rubén Blades (Spanish: [ruˈβem ˈblaðes], but [ˈbleðz] in Panama and within the family), is a Panamanian singer, songwriter, actor, musician, activist, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban, salsa, and Latin jazz genres. As a songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and politically inspired Nuyorican salsa to his music, creating “thinking persons’ (salsa) dance music”. Blades has written dozens of hit songs, including “Pedro Navaja” and “El Cantante” (which became Héctor Lavoe‘s signature song). He has won eight Grammy Awards and five Latin Grammy Awards.

His acting career began in 1983, and has continued, sometimes with several-year breaks to focus on other projects. He has prominent roles in films such as Crossover Dreams (1985), The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), Predator 2 (1992), Color of Night (1994), Safe House (2012), The Counselor(2013) and Hands of Stone (2016), along with three Emmy Award nominations for his performances in The Josephine Baker Story (1991), Crazy from the Heart (1992) and The Maldonado Miracle (2003). Since 2015, he has portrayed Daniel Salazar, a main character on the TV series Fear the Walking Dead.

He is an icon in Panama and is much admired throughout Latin America and Spain, and managed to attract 17% of the vote in his failed attempt to win the Panamanian presidency in 1994. In September 2004, he was appointed minister of tourism by Panamanian president Martín Torrijos for a five-year term. He holds a Bachelor of Arts‘ Law degree from the University of Panama and an LL.M in International Law from Harvard University. He is married to singer Luba Mason.

Blades was born in Panama City, Panama. He is the son of Cuban musician and actress Anoland Díaz (real surname Bellido de Luna), and Colombian Rubén Darío Blades, Sr., an athlete, percussionist and graduate of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in Washington, D.C. His mother’s great-uncle, Juan Bellido de Luna, was active in the Cuban revolutionary movement against Spain^[5] and was a writer and publisher in New York City. Blades’s paternal grandfather, Rubén Blades, was an English-speaking native of St. Lucia who came to Panama as an accountant. His family is uncertain how the Blades family ended up in St. Lucia, but when his grandfather moved to Panama, he lived in the Panamanian Bocas del Toro Province. Ruben Blades thought that his grandfather had come to Panama to work on the Panama Canal, as he tells in the song “West Indian Man” on the album Amor y Control (“That’s where the Blades comes from”) (1992). He explains the source and the pronunciation (/ˈbleɪdz/) of his family surname, which is of English origin, in his web show Show De Ruben Blades (SDRB).

Desmond Dekker (16 July 1941 – 25 May 2006) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer-songwriter and musician. Together with his backing group the Aces (consisting of Wilson James and Easton Barrington Howard), he had one of the earliest international reggae hits with “Israelites” (1968). Other hits include “007 (Shanty Town)” (1967), “It Miek” (1969) and “You Can Get It If You Really Want” (1970).

Desmond Adolphus Dacres was born in Saint Andrew Parish (Greater Kingston), Jamaica, on 16 July 1941. Dekker spent his formative years in Kingston. From a young age he regularly attended the local church with his grandmother and aunt. This early religious upbringing, as well as Dekker’s enjoyment of singing hymns, led to a lifelong religious commitment. Following his mother’s death, he moved to the parish of St. Mary and later to St. Thomas. While at St. Thomas, Dekker embarked on an apprenticeship as a tailor before returning to Kingston, where he became a welder. His workplace singing had drawn the attention of his co-workers, who encouraged him to pursue a career in music. In 1961 he auditioned for Coxsone Dodd (Studio One) and Duke Reid (Treasure Isle).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDr3-ygpd_w

Callen Radcliffe “Cal” Tjader, Jr. (/ˈtʃeɪdər/ JAY-dər; July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) was an American Latin jazz musician, known as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, even as he continued to perform the music of Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America for the rest of his life.

Tjader played the vibraphone primarily. He was accomplished on the drums, bongos, congas, timpani, and the piano. He worked with many musicians from several cultures. He is often linked to the development of Latin rock and acid jazz. Although fusing jazz with Latin music is often categorized as “Latin jazz” (or, earlier, “Afro-Cuban jazz“), Tjader’s works swung freely between both styles. His Grammy award in 1980 for his album La Onda Va Bien capped off a career that spanned over forty years.

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. was born 16 July 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri, to touring Swedish American vaudevillians. His father tap danced and his mother played piano, a husband-wife team going from city to city with their troupe to earn a living. When he was two, Tjader’s parents settled in San Mateo, California, and opened a dance studio. His mother (who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist) instructed him in classical piano and his father taught him to tap dance. He performed around the Bay Area as “Tjader Junior,” a tap-dancing wunderkind. He performed a brief non-speaking role dancing alongside Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in the film The White of the Dark Cloud of Joy.

He joined a Dixieland band and played around the Bay Area. At age sixteen, he entered a Gene Krupa drum solo contest, making it to the finals and ultimately winning by playing “Drum Boogie.” The win was overshadowed by that morning’s event: Japanese planes had bombed Pearl Harbor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_p6vFMkH4A

the International Space Station (ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun. Sunspots, individually, have a dark central umbra, a lighter surrounding penumbra, and no solar panels. By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired mechanism, one of the largest and most sophisticated machines ever created by humanity. Also, sunspots occur on the Sun, whereas the ISS orbits the Earth. Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one’s timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare. Strangely, besides that fake spot, in this recent two-image composite, the Sun lacked any real sunspots. The featured picture combines two images — one capturing the space station transiting the Sun — and another taken consecutively capturing details of the Sun’s surface. Sunspots have been rare on the Sun since the dawn of the current Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity. For reasons not yet fully understood, the number of sunspots occurring during both the previous and current solar minima have been unusually low.