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Randolph Edward “Randy” Weston (April 6, 1926 – September 1, 2018) was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection.

Weston’s piano style owed much to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, whom he cited in a 2018 video as among pianists he counted as influences, as well as Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Earl Hines.Beginning in the 1950s, Weston worked often with trombonist and arranger Melba Liston.

Described as “America’s African Musical Ambassador”, Weston once said: “What I do I do because it’s about teaching and informing everyone about our most natural cultural phenomenon. It’s really about Africa and her music.”

Randolph Edward Weston was born on April 6, 1926, to Vivian (née Moore) and Frank Weston and was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where his father owned a restaurant. His mother was from Virginia and his father was of Jamaican–Panamanian descent, a staunch Garveyite, who passed self-reliant values to his son. Weston studied classical piano as a child and took dance lessons. He graduated from Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he had been sent by his father because of the school’s reputation for high standards. Weston took piano lessons from someone known as Professor Atwell who, unlike his former piano teacher Mrs Lucy Chapman, allowed him to play songs outside the classical music repertoire.

Charlie Rouse (April 6, 1924 – November 30, 1988) was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist and flautist. His career is marked by his collaboration with Thelonious Monk, which lasted for more than ten years.

Rouse was born in Washington, D.C., United States. At first he worked with the clarinet, before turning to the tenor saxophone.

Rouse began his career with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in 1944, followed by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in 1945, the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1949 to 1950, the Count Basie Octet in 1950, Bull Moose Jackson And His Buffalo Bearcats in 1953, and the Oscar Pettiford Sextet in 1955. He made his recording debut with Tadd Dameron in 1947, and in 1957 made a notable album with Paul Quinichette.

He was a member of Thelonious Monk‘s quartet from 1959 to 1970. In the 1980s he was a founding member of the group Sphere, which began as a tribute to Monk.

Charlie Rouse died from lung cancer on November 30, 1988, at University Hospital in Seattle at the age of 64.

Arthur S. Taylor Jr. (April 6, 1929 – February 6, 1995 NY,NY) was an American jazz drummer, who “helped define the sound of modern jazz drumming”.

As a teenager, Taylor joined a local Harlem band that featured Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean and Kenny Drew. After playing in the bands of Howard McGhee (1948), Coleman Hawkins (1950–51), Buddy DeFranco (1952), Bud Powell (1953), George Wallington and Art Farmer (1954), Powell and Wallington again (1954–55), Gigi Gryce and Donald Byrd (1956), he formed his own group, Taylor’s Wailers.Between 1957 and 1963, he toured with Donald Byrd, recorded with Miles Davis, Gene Ammons and John Coltrane, and performed with Thelonious Monk; Taylor also was a member of the original Kenny DorhamQuartet of 1957.

Friday April 5th 2024 6pm. Erev Shabbat Service Featuring Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of JCC Krakow  Music with Inbal Sharett-Singer, Jayson Rodovsky, Jeff Bailey, Pete Whitman and mick laBriola.

Stanley William Turrentine (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000 Pittsburg. PA) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and record producer. He began his career playing R&B for Earl Bostic and later soul jazzrecording for the Blue Note label from 1960, touching on jazz fusion during a stint on CTI in the 1970s.He was described by critic Steve Huey as “renowned for his distinctively thick, rippling tone [and] earthy grounding in the blues.” In the 1960s Turrentine was married to organist Shirley Scott, with whom he frequently recorded, and he was the younger brother of trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, with whom he also recorded.

The Passing of Bassist Nabil Totah… Nabil Marshall Totah, 5 April 1930-August 15th 2012, Ramallah, Jordan. As a child, ‘Nobby’ Totah played violin and piano. Relocating to the USA in 1944, he studied political science before deciding on a career in music.

Taking up the bass in 1953, just as he engaged in military service, he played in army bands and then with Hampton Hawes and Toshiko Akiyoshi. These engagements occurred while he was in Japan and on his return to the USA the following year, he played briefly with Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker and then began long intermittent spells in small groups led by with Gene Krupa and by Johnny Smith.

Also during the 50s, Totah played with a wide range of artists including Eddie Costa, Tal Farlow, Bobby Jaspar, Herbie Mann, Zoot Sims, George Wallington and Phil Woods. During the next decade, he worked in bands led by Benny Goodman, Bobby Hackett, Max Kaminsky, Lee Konitz and Hazel Scott. Concurrent with these activities, Totah also led his own small groups using as sidemen a distinguished array of musicians, including Pepper Adams and Horace Parlan. A solid and reliable accompanist, Totah has always subordinated his role to the needs of the musicians he supports and has accordingly built a very high reputation within the jazz fraternity.

Billy Bland (April 5, 1932 – March 22, 2017) was an American R&B singer and songwriter.

Bland, the youngest of 19 children, first sang professionally in 1947 in New York City, and sang with a group called The Bees in the 1950s on New Orleans‘s Imperial Records. In 1954, “Toy Bell” by the group caused some unrest by veering into the dirty blues genre. Dave Bartholomew brought them to New Orleans, where they recorded a song he had written and recorded twice before: firstly in 1952 for King Records as “My Ding-a-Ling,” and later that year for Imperial as “Little Girl Sing Ting-A-Ling.” Bland later pursued a solo career.

In 1960, Bland heard Titus Turner recording the song “Let the Little Girl Dance” in the studio, and demonstrated for Turner how to sing it (along with guitarist Mickey Baker and other session musicians). The event was recorded by record producer Henry Glover, and was eventually released as a single. The tune was a hit in the US, peaking at number 11 on the US Billboard R&B chart. and number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Bland had two other minor hits that year, “Harmony” (U.S. Hot 100 number 91) and “You Were Born to Be Loved” (U.S. Hot 100 number 94). He recorded until 1963 for Old Town, and then quit the music industry.

• Entrada: when the dancer comes on stage
• Llamada: from the verb “llamar,” to call. The dancer calls to the other people on stage that something is about to happen, for example a new verse or section of footwork
• Desplante: a “display,” a short section of footwork
• Letras: dance that traditionally accompanies passages of singing. Chord progressions suggesting the letra may be included even when a singer is not present.
• Escobilla: long passages of footwork (though not too long – in buleria in particular this is frowned upon)
• Cierre: a closing dance pattern, often one moving across the stage

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as “the father of South African jazz“. Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such as “Soweto Blues” and “Bring Him Back Home“. He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 with his version of “Grazing in the Grass“.

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was born in the township of KwaGuqa in Witbank (now called Emalahleni), South Africa, to Thomas Selena Masekela, who was a health inspector and sculptor and his wife, Pauline Bowers Masekela, a social worker. His younger sister Barbara Masekela is a poet, educator and ANCactivist. As a child, he began singing and playing piano and was largely raised by his grandmother, who ran an illegal bar for miners. At the age of 14, after seeing the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing the trumpet. His first trumpet was bought for him from a local music store by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the anti-apartheid chaplain at St. Peter’s Secondary School now known as St. Martin’s School (Rosettenville).