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Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a Trinidadian jazz and classical pianist and singer. She was an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. She used her influence to improve the representation of Black Americans in film.
Born in Port of Spain, Scott moved to New York City with her mother at the age of four. Scott was a child musical prodigy, receiving scholarships to study at the Juilliard School when she was eight. In her teens, she performed at Café Society while still at school. She also performed on the radio.
She was active as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first black American to host her own TV show, The Hazel Scott Show. Her career in the United States faltered after she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950 during the era of McCarthyism. Scott subsequently moved to Paris, France, in 1957 and began performing in Europe, not returning to the United States until 1967.
Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on June 11, 1920, Hazel Dorothy Scott was the only child of R. Thomas Scott, a West African scholar from Liverpool, England, and Alma Long Scott, a classically trained pianist, and music teacher. In 1924, the family moved from Trinidad to the United States and settled in Harlem, New York City. Her parents had separated by this time, and Scott lived with her mother and grandmother.
more...Sheldon “Shelly” Manne (June 11, 1920 – September 26, 1984) was an American jazz drummer. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, swing, bebop, avant-garde jazz, and later fusion. He also contributed to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood films and television programs.
Sheldon “Shelly” Manne was born June 11, 1920, in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Manne’s father Max Manne and uncles were drummers. In his youth he admired many of the leading swing drummers of the day, especially Jo Jones and Dave Tough. Billy Gladstone, a colleague of Manne’s father and the most admired percussionist on the New York theatrical scene, offered the teenage Shelly tips and encouragement.
From that time, Manne rapidly developed his style in the clubs of 52nd Street in New York in the late 1930s and 1940s. His first professional job with a known big band was with the Bobby Byrne Orchestra in 1940. In those years, as he became known, he recorded with jazz stars like Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Shavers, and Don Byas. He also worked with a number of musicians mainly associated with Duke Ellington, like Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart.
more...This Picture of the Week shows the brightly coloured Gum 3 nebula as seen with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert. Attentive viewers may find that part of Gum 3 resembles a Koi fish in this VST image. Equipped with the OmegaCAM instrument, an enormous 268-megapixel camera, the telescope is designed to survey large areas of the southern sky in visible light and take stunning images like this one. Gum 3 is an interstellar cloud of gas and dust located about 3600 light-years away, between the Monoceros and Canis Major constellations. It is named after Colin Stanley Gum, an Australian astronomer who catalogued 84 nebulae in the southern sky. When the intense ultraviolet radiation from nearby young stars hits hydrogen atoms in the cloud, they emit visible light at very specific colours, which we see as shades of red and pink in the image. At the same time, tiny particles of dust within the cloud reflect starlight, especially blue colours, similar to what makes the sky look blue here on Earth. This play of colours makes nebulae like this spectacular to look at. This image shows not only colour, but also the lack of it. Look closely at the area just right of the brightest part of the cloud — right of the pink “Koi-smic fish”. Does anything look odd to you? It’s not that there really are fewer stars in this dark area; instead, there is a big clump of dust that blocks part of the visible light, hiding the stars from VST and us.
Mickey Jones (June 10, 1941 – February 7, 2018) was an American musician and actor. He played drums with acts such as Trini Lopez and Bob Dylan, with whom he played on his 1966 world tour. He became a founding member of The First Edition with singer Kenny Rogers, and played on all of their albums. Overall, Jones played on 17 gold records from his musical career of over two decades.
After the break-up of The First Edition in 1976, Jones concentrated on his career as a character actor, where he made many appearances in film and television. Mickey Jones was born on June 10, 1941, in Houston, Texas, to Fred Edward Jones, a U.S. Navy officer, and Frances Marie (née Vieregge) Jones, a homemaker. His sister, Cheryl Marie, died in 2006.
Jones attended Sunset High School in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. It was during this time that he obtained and learned to play his first set of drums. After sitting in with several local bands, Jones and four schoolmates formed their own band, called The Catalinas. Although the band saw some local success, he was replaced by a new drummer, as Jones was only sixteen at the time, and the band wanted someone who was of legal age.
more...Charnett Moffett (June 10, 1967 – April 11, 2022) was an American jazz bassist.[1] A consummate and versatile bassist, and composer, he was an apparent child prodigy. Moffett began playing bass in the family band, touring the Far East in 1975 at the age of eight. In the mid-1980s, he played with Wynton Marsalisand Branford Marsalis.
In 1987, he recorded his debut album Netman for Blue Note Records. He worked with Art Blakey, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Dizzy Gillespie, Ellis Marsalis, Sonny Sharrock, Stanley Jordan, Wallace Roney, Arturo Sandoval, Courtney Pine, David Sanborn, David Sánchez, Dianne Reeves, Frank Lowe, Harry Connick, Jr., Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Kenny Garrett, Kenny Kirkland, Kevin Eubanks, Lew Soloff, Manhattan Jazz Quintet, Melody Gardot, Mulgrew Miller and Tony Williams.
more...João Gilberto (born João Gilberto do Prado Pereira de Oliveira – Portuguese: [ʒuˈɐ̃w ʒiwˈbɛʁtu]; 10 June 1931 – 6 July 2019) was a Brazilian guitarist, singer, and composer who was a pioneer of the musical genre of bossa nova in the late 1950s. Around the world, he was often called the “father of bossa nova”; in his native Brazil, he was referred to as “O Mito” (“The Legend”). In 1965, the album Getz/Gilbertowas the first jazz record to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It also won Best Jazz Instrumental Album – Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Nominated at the Grammy 1978 in the category Best Jazz Vocal Performance, album Amoroso, and winner category in Grammy 2001 with João voz e violão Best World Music Album.
more...Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976 Hines, Ill), better known by his stage name
Howlin’ Wolf, was an American blues singer and guitarist. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time.
Born into poverty in Mississippi as one of six children, he went through a rough childhood where his mother kicked him out of her house, and he moved in with his great-uncle, who was particularly abusive. He then ran away to his father’s house where he finally found a happy family, and in the early 1930s became a protégé of legendary Delta blues guitarist and singer Charley Patton. He started a solo career in the Deep South, playing with other notable blues musicians of the era, and at the end of a decade had made a name for himself in the Mississippi Delta.
After going through some legal issues and spending some time in jail and a particularly rough experience while serving in the Army, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, in adulthood and became successful. He started his recording career in 1951 after being heard singing by 19-year-old Ike Turner, and then formed his own band in Chicago. Five of his songs got on the Billboard national R&B charts. He released several albums in the 1960s and 1970s, and made several television performances. His studio albums include The Howlin’ Wolf Album (1969), Message to the Young (1971), and The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions (1971). He released his final album The Back Door Wolf in 1973, and made his last public performance in November 1975 with fellow blues legend B.B. King. After years of severely declining health, Burnett died in 1976. He was posthumously inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.
With a booming voice and imposing physical presence, he is one of the best-known Chicago blues artists. AllMusic has described him as “a primal, ferocious blues belter with a roster of classics rivaling anyone else, and a sandpaper growl of a voice that has been widely imitated”. The musician and critic Cub Kodanoted, “no one could match Howlin’ Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits.” Producer Sam Phillips recalled, “When I heard Howlin’ Wolf, I said, ‘This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.'” Several of his songs, including “Smokestack Lightnin’“, “Killing Floor” and “Spoonful“, have become blues and blues rockstandards. “Smokestack Lightnin'” was selected for a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, and three of his songs were listed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll”.In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 54 on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time“.
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Remnants from a star that exploded thousands of years ago created an astonishing spectacle seen here. Officially known as NGC 2736, it is part of the huge Vela supernova remnant and its linear appearance triggered its popular name, the Pencil Nebula. The nebula’s shape suggests that the shock wave which followed the star explosion encountered a region of dense gas, causing the nebula to glow and appear like a rippled sheet. Some regions are dominated by ionized oxygen atoms which glow blue in the picture, yet other regions of mostly hydrogen and are seen emitting red in the image….
Close to 33 hours were utilised to capture the data on my telescope installed in the Deep Sky Chile observatory. Dark skies with good seeing, a fast scope and modern sensors make easy work of capturing pristine data with very few lost subs. I deliberately captured a lot of data on Oxygen III and Hydrogen Alpha to better illustrate what is mentioned above. Image processing has progressed leap and bounds in the last year and with the myriad of post processing tools now available, constructing the final image was an easy task.
Jack Leroy Wilson Jr. (June 9, 1934 – January 21, 1984) was an American singer of the 1950s and 1960s. He was a prominent figure in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. Nicknamed “Mr. Excitement”, he was considered a master showman and one of the most dynamic singers and performers in soul, R&B, and rock and roll history. He was born in Highland Park, an enclave of Detroit.
Wilson gained initial fame as a member of the R&B vocal group Billy Ward and His Dominoes. He went solo in 1957 and scored over 50 chart singles spanning the genres of R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, doo-wop, and easy listening. This included 16 Top 10 R&B hits, six of which ranked as number ones. On the BillboardHot 100, Wilson scored 14 top 20 pop hits, six of which reached the top 10. In 1975, Wilson suffered a heart attack during a performance, which left him in a minimally conscious state until his death in 1984.
Wilson was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.[3] He is also inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. Two of Wilson’s recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. He was honored with the Legacy Tribute Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundationin 2003.[4] In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Wilson No. 69 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and placed him on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time (2023). NPR named him one of the 50 Great Voices.
Jack Leroy Wilson Jr. was born on June 9, 1934, in Highland Park, Michigan, as the third and only surviving child of singer Jack Leroy Wilson, Sr. (1903–1983) and Eliza Mae Wilson (1900–1975). Eliza Mae was born on the Billups-Whitfield Place in Lowndes County, Mississippi. Eliza Mae’s parents were Tom and Virginia Ransom. Wilson often visited his family in Columbus and was greatly influenced by the choir at Billups Chapel. Growing up in the suburban Detroit enclave of Highland Park, Wilson joined a gang called the Shakers and often got himself in trouble. Wilson’s alcoholic father was frequently absent and usually unemployed. In 1943, his parents separated shortly after Jackie’s ninth birthday.
more...Nehemiah Curtis “Skip” James (June 9, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. AllMusic stated: “Coupling an oddball guitar tuning set against eerie, falsetto vocals, James’ early recordings could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.”
His guitar playing is noted for its dark, minor-key sound, played in an open D-minor tuning with an intricate fingerpicking technique. James first recorded for Paramount Records in 1931, but these recordings sold poorly, having been released during the Great Depression, and he drifted into obscurity.
After a long absence from the public eye, James was rediscovered in 1964 by blues enthusiasts including John Fahey, helping further the blues and folk music revival of the 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, James appeared at folk and blues festivals, gave concerts around the country, and recorded several albums for various record labels. His songs have influenced generations of musicians and have been adapted by numerous artists. He has been hailed as “one of the seminal figures of the blues”.
Nehemiah Curtis James was born on June 9, 1902, in a segregated hospital near Bentonia, Mississippi.His mother Phyllis worked as a cook and babysitter on the Woodbine Plantation, which was 15 miles south of Yazoo City. His father Eddie James, a bootlegger who was described as a “local lowlife” by Stephen Calt, left the family around 1907. He later reformed and became a preacher. As a youth, James heard local musicians, such as Henry Stuckey, from whom he learned to play the guitar, and the brothers Charlie and Jesse Sims. His mother bought him a $2.50 guitar, which was his first instrument. James later began playing the organ in his teens. He later left Bentonia in 1919, and began working on road construction and levee-building crews in Mississippi in the early 1920s, and wrote what is perhaps his earliest song, “Illinois Blues”, about his experiences as a laborer. He began playing the guitar in open D-minor tuning.
more...Kenny Barron (born June 9, 1943) is an American jazz pianist, who has appeared on hundreds of recordings as leader and sideman and is considered one of the most influential mainstream jazz pianists since the bebop era.
Barren was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had four siblings; his eldest brother was tenor saxophonist Bill Barron (1927–1989). At the age of 15, Barron played briefly with Mel Melvin’s orchestra. In 1959, still at school, Barron had local gigs with saxophonist Jimmy Heath. He also played a gig with Yusef Lateef two months before graduating high school.
A few days after graduating, Barron set off on a week-long tour with Lateef. Seeking to further his musical career, Barron moved to New York in 1961. He soon had a regular spot in saxophonist James Moody‘s band, and in the same year he was briefly a sideman with bands led by Lou Donaldson, Roy Haynes, and Lee Morgan. Barron then joined Dizzy Gillespie‘s band, with which he toured internationally between 1962 and 1966. Barron was briefly a member of the Jazztet around 1962, but did not record with them. In the 1960s, he also married and moved to Brooklyn.
more...Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-bodyelectric guitar, and his prototype, called the Log, served as inspiration for the Gibson Les Paul. Paul taught himself how to play guitar, and while he is mainly known for jazz and popular music, he had an early career in country music. In the 1950s, he and his wife, singer and guitarist Mary Ford, recorded numerous records, selling millions of copies.
Paul is credited with many recording innovations. His early experiments with overdubbing (also known as sound on sound), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing, and multitrack recording were among the first to attract widespread attention. His licks, trills, chording sequences, fretting techniques, and timing set him apart from his contemporaries and inspired many guitarists of the present day.
Among his many honors, Paul is one of a handful of artists with a permanent exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an “architect” and a “key inductee” with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed. Paul is the only inductee in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Paul was born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to George and Evelyn (Stutz) Polsfuss, both of German ancestry. His only sibling, Ralph, was seven years older. Paul’s mother was related to the founders of Milwaukee’s Valentin Blatz Brewing Company and the makers of the Stutzautomobile. His parents divorced when he was a child. His mother simplified their Prussian family name first to Polfuss, then to Polfus, although Les Paul never legally changed his name. Before taking the stage name Les Paul, he performed as Red Hot Red and Rhubarb Red.
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