mick laBriola

Colour-composite image of the Carina Nebula, revealing exquisite details in the stars and dust of the region. Several well known astronomical objects can be seen in this wide field image : to the bottom left of the image is one of the most impressive binary stars in the Universe, Eta Carinae, with the famous Keyhole Nebula just adjacent to the star. The collection of very bright, young stars above and to the right of Eta Carinae is the open star cluster Trumpler 14. A second open star cluster, Collinder 228 is also seen in the image, just below Eta Carinae. The Carina Nebula also bears the NGC 3372 designation. On this image, North is up and East is to the left. The field of view is 0.55 x 0.55 degrees, covering a 72 x 72 light-year region at the distance of the nebula.

Javon Anthony Jackson (born June 16, 1965) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He played in Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers from 1987 until Blakey’s death in 1990 and has played with the Harper Brothers, Benny Green, Freddie Hubbard, and Elvin Jones.

In his solo career, his music has been a mix of hard bop with soul and funk influences. He became chair of the University of Hartford‘s Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz in 2013

Jackson was born on June 16, 1965, in Carthage, Missouri, and brought up in Denver. His mother played the piano, and his father played trumpet, but Jackson began playing alto saxophone aged 10. At the age of 16, he changed to tenor saxophone and in his teens, he was taught by pianist Billy Wallace. He was briefly enrolled at the University of Denver, before spending part of 1985–86 at the Berklee College of Music, which he abandoned to join drummer Art Blakey‘s band.

Eli “Lucky” Thompson (June 16, 1924 – July 30, 2005) was an American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist. While John Coltrane usually receives the most credit for bringing the soprano saxophone out of obsolescence in the early 1960s, Thompson (along with Steve Lacy) embraced the instrument earlier than Coltrane.

Thompson was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and moved to Detroit, Michigan, during his childhood. Thompson had to raise his siblings after his mother died, and he practiced saxophone fingerings on a broom handle before acquiring his first instrument. He joined Erskine Hawkins‘ band in 1942 upon graduating from high school.

After playing with the swing orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman, Billy Eckstine (alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker),Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie, he worked in rhythm and blues and then established a career in bebop and hard bop, working with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Gillespie and Milt Jackson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUbe9PFhqs

Sherrifo Konteh is the son of Alhaji Bai Konte and the brother of Dembo Konte, Sherrifo learned from both and has become an outstanding musician in his own right.

He was born in Brikama, the Gambia, where he still lives. Sherrifo comes from one the most famous of the jali families from a town that is the home of many jalis families. As most jalis, he was introduced to music at an early age. His father taught him how to play the kora at the age of six.

The beautiful edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3190 with tightly wound arms and a warped shape that makes it resemble a gigantic potato crisp, as seen by ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Supernova SN 2002bo is found in between the ‘V’ of the dust lanes in the south-western part of NGC 3190. SN 2002cv is obscured by a large amount of dust and is therefore not visible. Its position is however indicated on the above image. This colour composite is based on images obtained on 26 March 2003 with FORS1 on UT2 (Kueyen) in four filters (B, V, R and I) for a total exposure time of 14 minutes. The observations were done in the framework of a programme aiming at studying the physics of Type Ia supernovae. The field of view is 6.15 x 5 arcminutes. North is up and East is to the left. The data extraction from the archive, data reduction and final colour processing of the image was done by Henri Boffin (ESO).

NGC 3190 is a spiral galaxy with tightly wound arms and lying in the constellation Leo. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. NGC 3190 is member of Hickson 44 galaxy group, estimated at around 80 million light years away,^[2] and consisting of four galaxies in a tight group – NGC 3193 is fairly featureless, NGC 3187 is a dim but striking spiral galaxy and NGC 3185 has a barred spiral structure with an outer ring.

In 2002 two supernovae were observed in the galaxy. A Brazilian amateur astronomer Paulo Cacella detected one supernova in the southeastern part in March 2002 (SN 2002bo), and then an Italian team, while studying the first one, detected a second supernova (SN 2002cv) on the other side two months later.

John Arthur “Jaki” Byard (June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz.

Byard played with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and was a member of bands led by bassist Charles Mingus for several years, including on several studio and concert recordings. The first of his recordings as a leader was in 1960, but, despite being praised by critics, his albums and performances did not gain him much wider attention. In his 60-year career, Byard recorded at least 35 albums as leader, and more than 50 as a sideman. Byard’s influence on the music comes from his combining of musical styles during performance, and his parallel career in teaching.

From 1969 Byard was heavily involved in jazz education: he began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music and went on to work at several other music institutions, as well as having private students. He continued performing and recording, mainly in solo and small group settings, but he also led two big bands – one made up of some of his students, and the other of professional musicians. His death, from a single gunshot while in his home, remains an unsolved mystery.

Byard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. At that time, his parents – John Sr and Geraldine Garr – were living at 47 Clayton Street. Both of his parents played musical instruments; his mother played the piano, as did his uncles and grandmother, the last playing in cinemas during the silent film era. He began piano lessons at the age of six, but they ended when his family was affected by the Great Depression.

Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1923 – January 2, 1977; some sources say b. 1921) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad “Misty“, has become a jazz standard. Scott Yanow of Allmusic calls him “one of the most distinctive of all pianists” and a “brilliant virtuoso.” He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6363 Hollywood Blvd.

Born with his twin brother Ernest in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to an African-American family on June 15, 1923, Erroll began playing piano at the age of three. His elder siblings were taught piano by Miss Bowman. From an early age, Erroll would sit down and play anything she had demonstrated, just like Miss Bowman, his eldest sister Martha said. He attended George Westinghouse High School, as did fellow pianists Billy Strayhorn and Ahmad Jamal. Garner was self-taught and remained an “ear player” all his life – he never learned to read music. At the age of seven, he began appearing on the radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh with a group called the Candy Kids. By the age of 11, he was playing on the Allegheny riverboats. At 14 in 1937, he joined local saxophonist Leroy Brown.

World Music on Flamenco Fridays with Paco Soto

Paco Soto, Águilas (1991). At the age of ten, he was given a guitar and five minutes later he said he wanted to be a flamenco guitarist; since then he got to the task. He has studied at the Cante de las Minas de la Unión Festival and the Cristina Heeren Foundation in Seville, with guitarists such as Gerardo Núñez and Miguel Ángel Cortés. Finally he moved to Madrid to study with Enrique Vargas and make room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05FxQvJ9l2w

At the heart of a star-forming region called RCW 57, this image shows the complex interaction of interstellar gas and dark dust clouds among newly formed stars. The glowing gas is energized by ultraviolet radiation from the young stars. The intricate wispy structures in the cloud are formed by radiation from the young stars and the explosions of nearby, very massive stars that have exceptionally short lives compared to stars like our sun. A study by M. Maercker in 2006 revealed that the region is overly abundant with massive star formation with over 33 star-forming regions in the extended area at the end stages of formation. This region of the sky is only visible from observers in the southern hemisphere and is a popular showpiece for small telescopes and binoculars in the far-southern constellation of Carina. The Gemini image was obtained with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph at the Gemini South telescope using two pointings to make a mosaic image that has a field of view of 9.0 x 5.0 arcsminutes. The exposures were taken through three narrowband filters: [OIII] (blue), [SII] (green) and H-alpha (red).

Marcus Miller (born William Henry Marcus Miller Jr.; June 14, 1959) is an American jazz composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, best known as a bass guitarist. He has worked with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, among others.

Miller was born in Brooklyn, New York City, in 1959 and raised in a musical family that includes his father, William Miller (a church organist and choir director) and jazz pianist Wynton Kelly. He is classically trained as a clarinetist and also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar. He began to work regularly in New York City, eventually playing bass and writing music for jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith. Miller soon became a session musician, appearing on over 500 albums by such artists as Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, George Benson, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Joe Walsh, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Kazumi Watanabe, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J and Flavio Sala.

Kenny Drew Jr. (June 14, 1958 – August 3, 2014) was an American jazz pianist. His music is known for its hard-swinging bluesy sound and large, two-handed rooty chords contrasting with fast runs. The son of jazz pianist Kenny Drew, he did not credit his father as an influence.

His initial study was in classical music with his mother and grandmother. In his teens he became interested in jazz and pop, but initially worked in funk bands. Later he went into jazz piano and in 1990 won the Great American Jazz Piano competition in Jacksonville, Florida. Drew continued to perform jazz, but he also performed some chamber music. His style has some similarities to his father’s, but is different enough to generally avoid comparison; he was considered the more eclectic of the two men.

Drew attended Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, for a period during 1977 to 1978. There, he became pianist for the Iona College Singers, an entertainment troop promoting the college’s name and goodwill among local high schools, retirement homes and the like in the Northeast region of the USA.

Drew cited Thelonious Monk as an influence and like Monk often recorded (and performed) solo.

Drew died at home in St. Petersburg, Florida, on August 3, 2014

Autry DeWalt Mixon Jr. (June 14, 1931 – November 23, 1995), known by the stage name Junior Walker, styled as Jr. Walker, was an American musician. His group, Jr. Walker & The All Stars, were signed to Motown‘s Soul label in the 1960s, and became one of the company’s signature acts.

Walker was born Autry DeWalt Mixon Jr. in Blytheville, Arkansas, and grew up in South Bend, Indiana. His saxophone style was the anchor for the band’s overall sound. The other original members of the group were drummer Tony Washington, guitarist Willie Woods, and keyboardist Vic Thomas.

His career started when he developed his own band in the mid-1950s as the “Jumping Jacks.” His longtime friend Billy Nicks (1935–2017) (drummer) formed his own team, the “Rhythm Rockers.” Periodically, Nicks would sit in on Jumping Jack’s shows, and Walker would sit in on the Rhythm Rockers shows.

Amadu Bansang Jobarteh (kora, voice) was a jali: an oral historian and hereditary praise singer from among the Mandinka people of Gambia, West Africa. Amadu’s family background clearly illustrates the hereditary nature of jalis in West African society. In the late 1800s, and at the request of a Gambian chief, Amadu’s father Jali Fili Jobarteh emigrated from Mali and settled with his family in the town of Bansang. Although the father played koni, his children learned the kora, which was the favored instrument in that area of Gambia.

NGC 6164-5 imaged at Gemini South. The emission nebula NGC 6164-5 is a rectangular, bipolar cloud with rounded corners and a diagonal bar producing an inverted S-shaped appearance. It lies about 1,300 parsecs (4,200 light-years) away in the constellation Norma. The nebula measures about 1.3 parsecs (4.2 light-years) across, and contains gases ejected by the star HD 148937 at its heart. This star is 40 times more massive than the Sun, and at about three to four million years of age, is past the middle of its life span. Stars this massive usually live to be only about six million years old, so HD 148397 is aging fast. It will likely end its life in a violent supernova explosion.

Attila Cornelius Zoller (June 13, 1927 – January 25, 1998) was a jazz guitarist born in Hungary. After World War II, he escaped the Soviet takeover of Hungary by fleeing through the mountains on foot into Austria. In 1959, he moved to the U.S., where he spent the rest of his life as a musician and teacher.

Zoller was born in Visegrád, Hungary in 1927. As a child, he learned violin from his father, a professional violinist. While in school, he played flugelhorn and bass before choosing guitar. He dropped out of school and played in jazz clubs in Budapest while Russia occupied Hungary. He fled Hungary in 1948 as the Soviet Union was establishing communist military rule. He escaped on foot, carrying his guitar through the mountains into Austria. He settled in Vienna, became an Austrian citizen, and started a jazz group with accordionist Vera Auer.

In the 1950s, Zoller moved to Germany and played with German musicians Jutta Hipp and Hans Koller. When American jazz musicians passed through, such as Oscar Pettiford and Lee Konitz, they persuaded him to move to the United States. He moved to the U.S. after receiving a scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz. One of his teachers was guitarist Jim Hall and his roommate was Ornette Coleman, who got him interested in free jazz.