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Wilbur Little (1928 in Parmele, North Carolina – 1987 in Amsterdam) was an African-American jazz bassist known for Hard bop and Post-bop.

Little originally played piano, but switched to bass after serving in the military. In 1949 he moved to Washington, DC, where he worked with “Sir” Charles Thompson among others. After that he was in J. J. Johnson‘s quintet from 1955 to 1958 and was also the bassist for the Tommy FlanaganTrio. He moved to the Netherlands in 1977 and lived there for the rest of his life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOsD-z9wuhY

World Music with Spanish Medieval composer Francisco de la Torre (1483 – 1504)

Daily Roots with Cornell Campbell

3-5-18

he sweeping arms of NGC 3359 are full of color with the punctuated pinks of star forming regions against the bluish arms which are filled with energetic young stars. Although the galaxy is 30-40 million light years away, the brightness, form and “drama” of the galaxy makes it stand out among galaxies at similar distances. Viewers with a good monitor and good eyes will note two very faint arms that wrap around this splendid galaxy.

Ricky Ford (born March 4, 1954) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.

Ford was born in Boston and studied at the New England Conservatory. In 1974 he recorded with Gunther Schuller and then played in the Duke Ellington Orchestra under Mercer Ellington from 1974 to 1976. After this he played with Charles Mingus (1976–77), Dannie Richmond (1978–81), Lionel Hampton (1980–82), and then in the Mingus Dynasty (1982). He also played with Abdullah Ibrahim (1983–90) and Mal Waldron (1989–94), and has recorded with many other notable musicians including Yusef Lateef, Sonny Stitt, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Amina Claudine Myers, Sathima Bea Benjamin, Steve Lacy, and others.

Ford has recorded extensively as a leader for Muse and Candid.

He settled in Paris, France, in the 1990s. He taught at Istanbul Bilgi University from 2001 to 2006.

In 2009 he founded the Toucy Jazz Festival in Yonne, (France), and invited musicians including Rhoda Scott (2009) and Ravi Coltrane (2011).

Jan Garbarek (born 4 March 1947) is a Norwegian jazz saxophonist who is also active in classical music and world music.

Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war, Czesław Garbarek, and a Norwegian farmer’s daughter. He grew up in Oslo, stateless until the age of seven, as there was no automatic grant of citizenship in Norway at the time. When he was 21, he married Vigdis. He is the father of musician and composer Anja Garbarek.

Garbarek’s sound is one of the hallmarks of the ECM Records label, which has released virtually all of his recordings. His style incorporates a sharp-edged tone, long, keening, sustained notes, and generous use of silence. He began his recording career in the late 1960s, notably featuring on recordings by the American jazz composer George Russell (such as Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature). If he had initially appeared as a devotee of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann, by 1973 he had turned his back on the harsh dissonances of avant-garde jazz, retaining only his tone from his previous approach. Garbarek gained wider recognition through his work with pianist Keith Jarrett‘s European Quartet which released the albums Belonging (1974), My Song (1977) and the live recordings Personal Mountains (1979), and Nude Ants (1979). He was also a featured soloist on Jarrett’s orchestral works Luminessence (1974) and Arbour Zena (1975).

Garbarek live in 2007.

Garbarek with Eberhard Weber and Nana Vasconcelos in Vancouver, Canada 1987.

As a composer, Garbarek tends to draw heavily from Scandinavian folk melodies, a legacy of his Ayler influence. He is also a pioneer of ambient jazz composition, most notably on his 1976 album Dis a collaboration with guitarist Ralph Towner that featured the distinctive sound of a wind harp on several tracks. This textural approach, which rejects traditional notions of thematic improvisation (best exemplified by Sonny Rollins) in favour of a style described by critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton as “sculptural in its impact”, has been critically divisive. Garbarek’s more meandering recordings are often labeled as new-age music, a style generally scorned by more orthodox jazz musicians and listeners, or spiritual ancestors thereof. Other experiments have included setting a collection of poems of Olav H. Hauge to music, with a single saxophone complementing a full mixed choir; this has led to notable performances with Grex Vocalis, but not yet to recordings. In the 1980s, Garbarek’s music began to incorporate synthesizers and elements of world music. He has collaborated with Indian and Pakistani musicians such as Trilok Gurtu, Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Garbarek is credited for composing original music for the 2000 film Kippur.

Zenzile Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, and civil-rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

Born in Johannesburg to Swazi and Xhosa parents, Makeba was forced to find employment as a child after the death of her father. She had a brief and allegedly abusive first marriage at the age of 17, gave birth to her only child in 1950, and survived breast cancer. Her vocal talent had been recognized when she was a child, and she began singing professionally in the 1950s, with the Cuban Brothers, the Manhattan Brothers, and an all-woman group, the Skylarks, performing a mixture of jazz, traditional African melodies, and Western popular music. In 1959, Makeba had a brief role in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa, which brought her international attention, and led to her performing in Venice, London, and New York City. In London, she met the American singer Harry Belafonte, who became a mentor and colleague. She moved to New York City, where she became immediately popular, and recorded her first solo album in 1960. Her attempt to return to South Africa that year for her mother’s funeral was prevented by the country’s government.

Makeba’s career flourished in the United States, and she released several albums and songs, her most popular being “Pata Pata” (1967). Along with Belafonte she received a Grammy Award for her 1965 album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. She testified against the South African government at the United Nations and became involved in the African-American civil rights movement. She married Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Black Panther Party, in 1968. As a result, she lost support among white Americans and faced hostility from the US government, leading her and Carmichael to move to Guinea. She continued to perform, mostly in African countries, including at several independence celebrations. She began to write and perform music more explicitly critical of apartheid; the 1977 song “Soweto Blues“, written by her former husband Hugh Masekela, was about the Soweto uprising. After apartheid was dismantled in 1990, Makeba returned to South Africa. She continued recording and performing, including a 1991 album with Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, and appeared in the 1992 film Sarafina!. She was named a UN goodwill ambassador in 1999, and campaigned for humanitarian causes. She died of a heart attack during a 2008 concert in Italy.

Makeba was among the first African musicians to receive worldwide recognition. She brought African music to a Western audience, and popularized the world music and Afropop genres. She also made popular several songs critical of apartheid, and became a symbol of opposition to the system, particularly after her right to return was revoked. Upon her death, former South African President Nelson Mandela said that “her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74f9eIi9c0

World Music with Jupiter & Okwess from the Congo

Daily Roots with Johnny Clarke

3-4-18

NGC 125 (also known as PGC 1772) is a lenticular galaxy located in the constellation Pisces. It is designated as subclass Sa Ring in the galaxy morphological classification scheme. It lies approximately 235 million light-years away.

NGC 125 was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on 25 December 1790 and viewed with a reflecting telescope with an aperture of 18.7 inches. At the time of discovery, its coordinates were recorded as 00h 21m 41s, +87° 56.1′ -20.0″. It was also observed 12 October 1827 by John Herschel.

Dreyer described NGC 125 as “very faint” and “small,” with a “brighter middle.” It is about 115 thousand light-years across, making it slightly larger than the Milky Way galaxy.

NGC 125 is part of the NGC 128 group, which includes NGC 125, NGC 126, NGC 127, NGC 128, and NGC 130. Though they are in the same galaxy group, the >1000 km/h difference in recessional velocities between NGC 125 and NGC 128 make it unlikely that they are near in space to each other; however, because of their similar redshifts, NGC 125 and NGC 126 are most likely close

James Emory Garrison (March 3, 1934 – April 7, 1976) was an American jazz double bassist born in Americus, Georgia. He is best remembered for his association with John Coltrane from 1961 to 1967.

Garrison was raised in both Miami, Florida and Philadelphia where he learned to play bass. Garrison came of age in the midst of a thriving Philadelphia jazz scene that included fellow bassists Reggie Workman and Henry Grimes, pianist McCoy Tyner and trumpeter Lee Morgan. Between 1957 and 1962, Garrison played and recorded with trumpeter Kenny Dorham; clarinetist Tony Scott; drummer Philly Joe Jones; and saxophonists Bill Barron, Lee Konitz, and Jackie McLean, as well as Curtis Fuller, Benny Golson, Lennie Tristano, and Pharoah Sanders, among others. In 1959 he first appeared on record with Ornette Coleman on “Art of the Improvisers” (Atlantic, 1959). He continued to work with many leaders, including Walter Bishop, Jr., Coleman, Dorham, and Cal Massey for the next two years.

Dupree Bolton (3 March 1929 – 5 June 1993) was a jazz trumpeter from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, known for his recordings with Harold Land and Curtis Amy.

World Music with Mabiisi from Frafra of northern Ghana

Daily Roots with Little Roy

3-3-18

Merope, designated 23 Tauri (abbreviated 23 Tau), is a star in the constellation of Taurus and a member of the Pleiades star cluster. It is approximately 380 light years away.

Merope is a blue-white B-type subgiant with a mean apparent magnitude of +4.14. Richard Hinckley Allen described the star as lucid white and violet. It has a luminosity of 630 times that of the Sun and a surface temperature of 14,000 kelvins. Merope’s mass is roughly 4.5 solar massesand has a radius more than 4 times as great as the Sun’s. It is classified as a Beta Cephei type variable star and its brightness varies by 0.01 magnitudes.

Surrounding Merope is the Merope Nebula (NGC 1435). It appears brightest around Merope and is listed in the Index Catalogue as number IC 349.

Larry Eugene Carlton (born March 2, 1948) is an American guitarist who built his career as a studio musician in the 1970s and ’80s for acts such as Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell. He has participated in thousands of recording sessions, recorded on hundreds of albums in many genres, for television and movies, and on more than 100 gold records. He has been a member of the jazz fusion groups The Crusaders and Fourplay and has maintained a long solo career.

Carlton was born in Torrance, California in 1948 and at the age of six began guitar lessons. His interest in jazz came from hearing guitarist Joe Pass on the radio. From Pass he moved on to jazz guitarists Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery and blues guitarist B.B. King. He went to junior college and Long Beach State College while playing professionally at clubs in Los Angeles.^[1]

During the 1970s, he found steady work as a studio musician on electric and acoustic guitar in a variety of genres: pop, jazz pop, rock, rhythm and blues, soul and country. Carlton appeared on hundreds of recording sessions with Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Bobby Bland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Paulinho Da Costa, the Fifth Dimension, Herb Alpert, Christopher Cross, Dolly Parton, Andy Williams, and the Partridge Family. In 1982 he appeared on The Nightfly by Donald Fagen, lead singer for Steely Dan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwGHaKbnoL8&index=2&list=RDEMrQ3ZxSE9YXXeOD0FbJkBEw

Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was the lead guitarist, singer and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground, with a solo career that spanned five decades. The Velvet Underground achieved little commercial success during their existence, but are now regarded as one of the most influential bands in rock, underground, and alternative music.

After leaving the band in 1970, he released 20 solo studio albums. Reed’s second solo album, Transformer (1972), produced by David Bowie and arranged by Mick Ronson, brought Reed mainstream recognition. After Transformer, the concept album Berlin reached No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart. Rock n Roll Animal (a live album released in 1974) sold strongly and Sally Can’t Dance (1974) peaked at number 10 on the Billboard 200, but for a period Reed’s work did not translate into sales, leading him into drug addiction and alcoholism. Reed made a gradual return to prominence with New Sensations (1984), and his album New York (1989) is recognized as the height of his mid period.

In the 1990s Reed participated in a revival of the Velvet Underground, and made several more albums, including a tribute to his mentor Andy Warhol. He contributed music to two theatrical interpretations of 19th-century writers, one of which he developed into an album. He married his third wife Laurie Anderson in 2008, made an album with Metallica, and died in 2013 of liver disease after a transplant.

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

Douglas Watkins (March 2, 1934 – February 5, 1962) was an American jazz double bassist from Detroit.

An original member of the Jazz Messengers, he later played in Horace Silver‘s quintet and freelanced with Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley,^[1] Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, and Phil Woods among others.

Some of Watkins’ best-known work can be heard when as a 22-year-old he appeared on the 1956 album, Saxophone Colossus by tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, with Max Roach and Tommy Flanagan. From that session, the tunes “Blue Seven” and “St. Thomas,” especially, have become revered not only as evidence of Rollins’ original genius but as fine examples of Watkins’ work.

According to Horace Silver‘s autobiography, Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty, Watkins, along with Silver, later left Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers because the other members of the band at the time (Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley and Blakey) had serious drug problems, whereas Watkins and Silver were tired of being harassed and searched by the police every time they went to a gig in a new city and club.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hU93L-Ed44

World Music on Flamenco Fridays with Alfredo Caceres

Performing Bulerias

Daily Roots with Delroy Washington & Jah Shaka

3-2-18