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Cat Anderson Day

September 12, 2018

William Alonzo “Cat” Anderson (September 12, 1916 – April 29, 1981) was an American jazz trumpeter known for his long period as a member of Duke Ellington‘s orchestra and for his wide range (more than five octaves), especially his playing in the higher registers.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Anderson lost both parents when he was four years old, and was sent to live at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, where he learned to play trumpet. Classmates gave him the nickname “Cat” (which he used all his life) based on his fighting style. He toured and made his first recording with the Carolina Cotton Pickers, a small group based at the orphanage. After leaving the Cotton Pickers, Anderson played with guitarist Hartley Toots, Claude Hopkins‘ big band, Doc Wheeler’s Sunset Orchestra (1938–1942), with whom he also recorded, Lucky Millinder, the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, Sabby Lewis‘s Orchestra, and Lionel Hampton, with whom he recorded the classic “Flying Home No. 2”.

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World Music with Paracumbé

September 12, 2018

Puerto Rico

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Daily Roots with Lacksley Castell & Augustus Pablo

September 12, 2018

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The Cosmos with NGC 4102

September 11, 2018

68.8 MLY away

NGC 4102 is an intermediate spiral galaxy located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major. The galaxy contains a LINER region and a starburst region. The starburst region is 1,000 ly (310 pc) in diameter containing some 3 billion solar masses

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Victor Wooten

September 11, 2018

Victor Lemonte Wooten (born September 11, 1964) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, educator, and recipient of five Grammy Awards.He has been the bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since the group’s formation in 1988 and a member of the band SMV with two other bassists, Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller.

He owns Vix Records which releases his albums. He wrote the novel The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music.

Wooten has won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times and is the first person to win the award more than once. In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Born to Dorothy and Elijah Wooten, Victor is the youngest of the five Wooten Brothers; Regi, Roy, Rudy and Joseph Wooten, all of whom are musicians. Regi began to teach Victor to play bass when he was two, and by the age of six, he was performing with his brothers in their family band, The Wooten Brothers Band.

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Baby Face Willette Day

September 11, 2018

Roosevelt “Baby Face” Willette (September 11, 1933 – April 1, 1971) was a hard bop and soul-jazz musician most known for playing Hammond organ. It is unclear whether he was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, or New Orleans, Louisiana

His mother was a missionary who played the piano in the church where his father was a minister. His musical roots are therefore in gospel and Baby Face started out playing the piano for various gospel groups, and spent his early career travelling across the United States, Canada and Cuba. In Chicago he decided to switch from gospel and rhythm and blues to playing in jazz bands. He played piano with the bands of King Kolax, Joe Houston, Johnny Otis and Big Jay McNeely before switching to organ. In 1960 he arrived in New York City where he met Lou Donaldson and Grant Green, and played on a few Blue Note sessions with them. This led to Willette being signed to Blue Note Records, which recorded his debut album Face to Face . Willette formed his own trio in 1963 and recorded two more albums for Argo. He has a son named Kevin D. Bailey. Willette taught himself to play the piano and was inspired by Jimmy Smith‘s work, however his playing style is heavily influenced by gospel and soul jazz. Willette was also a professional hairdresser. Before his time in New York City, he was based out of Milwaukee, playing with his vocalist wife Jo Gibson at clubs such as The Flame Club, The Pelican Club, The Moonglow and Max’s among others. After stints in New York City, and then California, failing health forced a return to Chicago, where his family resided. He died in 1971.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DN1lLhtdck

 

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Oliver Jones Day

September 11, 2018

Oliver Theophilus Jones, OC CQ (born September 11, 1934 in Little Burgundy, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian jazz pianist, organist, composer and arranger.

Born to Barbadian parents, Oliver Jones began his career as a pianist at the age of five, studying with Mme Bonner in Little Burgundy’s Union United Church, made famous by Trevor W. Payne‘s Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir. He continued to develop his talent through his studies with Oscar Peterson‘s sister Daisy Peterson Sweeneystarting at eight years old. In addition to performing at Union United Church when he was a child, he also performed a solo novelty act at the Cafe St. Michel as well as other clubs and theaters in the Montreal area. “I had a trick piano act, dancing, doing the splits, playing from underneath the piano, or with a sheet over the keys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIiKe_L56R4

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World Music with Alim Qasımov & Fərgana Qasımova Ansamble

September 11, 2018

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Daily Roots with Big Sherman

September 11, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N34jtTajYTA

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The Cosmos with NGC 2787

September 10, 2018

NGC 2787 is a barred lenticular galaxy approximately 24 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. In 1999, the Hubble Space Telescope took a look at NGC 2787. The supermassive black hole at the core has a mass of 4.1+0.4
−0.5×107 M
.

NGC 2787 contains a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER), a type of region that is characterized by spectral line emission from weakly ionized atoms. LINERs are very common within lenticular galaxies, approximately one-fifth of nearby lenticular galaxies contain LINERs

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Dave Burrell Day

September 10, 2018

Dave Burrell (born September 10, 1940) is an American jazz pianist. He has worked for many jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Marion Brown and David Murray.

Born in Middletown, Ohio, Burrell grew fond of jazz at a young age after meeting Herb Jeffries. Burrell studied music at the University of Hawaiibefore transferring to Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1961. He worked in Boston and then settled on the Lower East Side in New York City in 1965 after graduating with a degree in musical composition. He started the Untraditional Jazz Improvisational Team with saxophonist Byard Lancaster, Sirone, and Bobby Kapp.

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Roy Ayers Day

September 10, 2018

Roy Ayers (born September 10, 1940) is an American funk, soul, and jazz composer and vibraphone player. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Polydor Records beginning in the 1970s, during which he helped pioneer jazz-funk. He is a key figure in the acid jazz movement, which is a mixture of jazz into hip-hop and funk, and has been dubbed by many as “The Godfather of Neo Soul”.  He is most well known for his signature compositions “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” and “Searchin”, and is also famous for having more sampled hits by rappers than any other artist.

Ayers was born in Los Angeles, and grew up in a musical family, where his father played trombone and his mother played piano. At the age of five, he was given his first pair of vibraphone mallets by Lionel Hampton. The area of Los Angeles that Ayers grew up in, South Park (later known as South Central) was the epicenter of the Southern California Black music scene. The schools he attended (Wadsworth Elementary, Nevins Middle School, and Thomas Jefferson High School) were all close to the famed Central Avenue, Los Angeles’ equivalent of Harlem‘s Lenox Avenue and Chicago’s State Street. Roy would likely have been exposed to music as it not only emanated from the many nightclubs and bars in the area, but also poured out of many of the homes where the musicians who kept the scene alive lived in and around Central. During high school, Ayers sang in the church choir and fronted a band named The Latin Lyrics, in which he played steel guitar and piano. His high school, Thomas Jefferson High School, produced some of the most talented new musicians, such as Dexter Gordon.

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Prince Lasha Day

September 10, 2018

William B. Lawsha, better known as Prince Lasha (pronounced “La-shay“), (September 10, 1929 – December 12, 2008) was an American jazzalto saxophonist, flautist, and clarinetist.

He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he came of age studying and performing alongside fellow I.M. Terrell High School students John Carter, Ornette Coleman, King Curtis, Charles Moffett, and Dewey Redman.

Lasha moved to California during the 1950s. In the 1960s, he was active in the burgeoning free jazz movement, of which his Fort Worth cohort Ornette Coleman was a pioneer. Lasha recorded with Eric Dolphy (Iron Man and Conversations, both in 1963) and the Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet featuring McCoy Tyner (Illumination! in 1964).

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World Music with Chapey Kong Nay

September 10, 2018

From Cambodia

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Daily Roots with Barrington Spence

September 10, 2018

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The Cosmos with M1

September 9, 2018

6,523 light years from Earth

This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The featured image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is presented in three colors chosen for scientific interest. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula‘s very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second.

 

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Otis Redding Day

September 9, 2018

Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967 Dawson, GA) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Redding’s style of singing gained inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the genre. His singing style influenced many other soul artists of the 1960s. During his lifetime, his recordings were produced by Stax Records, based in Memphis, Tennessee.

Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, and at the age of 2, moved to Macon, Georgia. Redding quit school at age 15 to support his family, working with Little Richard‘s backing band, the Upsetters, and by performing in talent shows at the historic Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia. In 1958, he joined Johnny Jenkins‘s band, the Pinetoppers, with whom he toured the Southern states as a singer and driver. An unscheduled appearance on a Stax recording session led to a contract and his first single, “These Arms of Mine“, in 1962.

Stax released Redding’s debut album, Pain in My Heart, two years later. Initially popular mainly with African-Americans, Redding later reached a wider American pop music audience. Along with his group, he first played small gigs in the American South. He later performed at the popular Los Angeles night club Whisky a Go Go and toured Europe, performing in London, Paris and other major cities. He also performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.

Shortly before his death in a plane crash, Redding wrote and recorded his iconic “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” with Steve Cropper. The song became the first posthumous number-one record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts. The album The Dock of the Bay was the first posthumous album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. Redding’s premature death devastated Stax. Already on the verge of bankruptcy, the label soon discovered that the Atco division of Atlantic Records owned the rights to his entire song catalog.

Redding received many posthumous accolades, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fameand the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In addition to “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” “Respect” and “Try a Little Tenderness” are among his best-known songs.

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Elvin Jones Day

September 9, 2018

Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004 Pontiac, MI) was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed an interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family’s home in Pontiac, Michigan. He served in the United States Army from 1946 to 1949 and subsequently played in a Detroit house band led by Billy Mitchell. He moved to New York City in 1955 and worked as a sideman for Charles Mingus, Teddy Charles, Bud Powell and Miles Davis.

From 1960 to 1966 he was a member of the John Coltrane quartet (along with Jimmy Garrison on bass and McCoy Tyner on piano), a celebrated recording phase, appearing on such albums as A Love Supreme. Following his work with Coltrane, Jones led several small groups, some under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank Jones and Thad Jones were also jazz musicians with whom he recorded. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1995.

 

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World Music with Badie Mohd Al Tayeb

September 9, 2018

Badie Muhammad El Tayb, is one of the Haqibah generation, he performing one of the traditional Haqibah songs, Nour Jabienou Sabah HAQIBAH Modern Northern Sudanese music has its roots in haqibah (pronounced hagee-ba). It originated in the early 1920s, and was originally derived from the Muslim gospel style known as madeeh. Haqibah is essentially a harmonic a cappella and vocal style, with percussion coming from the tambourine-like riq and from other instruments. Occasionally tonal instruments such as the piano and the qanun are used. The early pioneers were mostly singer-songwriters, including the prolific Karoma, author of several hundred songs, the innovative Ibrahim al-Abadi and Khalil Farah, who was active in the Sudanese independence movement. Al-Abadi was known for an unorthodox style of fusing tradition wedding poetry with music. Other songwriters of the era included Mohammed Ahmed Sarror, Al-Amin Burhan, Mohamed Wad Al Faki and Abdallah Abdel Karim.

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

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Daily Roots with Torch

September 9, 2018

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