mick laBriola

This picture of the spectacular southern spiral galaxy NGC 300 was taken using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It was assembled from many individual images through a large set of different filters over many observing nights, spanning several years. The main purpose of this extensive observational campaign was to get an unusually thorough census of the stars in the galaxy, counting both the number and varieties of stars and marking regions, or even individual stars, that warrant deeper and more focussed investigation. But such a rich data collection will also have many other uses for years to come.

The images were mostly taken through filters that transmit red, green or blue light. These were supplemented by images through special filters that allow through only the light from ionised hydrogen or oxygen gas and highlight the glowing clouds in the galaxy’s spiral arms. The total exposure time amounted to around 50 hours.

NGC 300 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. It is one of the closest galaxies to the Local Group, and probably lies between the latter and the Sculptor Group. It is the brightest of the five main spirals in the direction of the Sculptor Group. It is inclined at an angle of 42° when viewed from Earth and shares many characteristics of the Triangulum Galaxy

In 1986, Allan Sandage estimated the distance to NGC 300 to be 5.41 Mly (1.66 Mpc).

Barron W. “Barry” Rogers (May 22, 1935 – April 18, 1991) was a salsa musician and jazz fusion trombonist.

Born in The Bronx, he descended from Polish Jews who came to New York City via London and was raised in Spanish Harlem. His family (original name: Rogenstein) possessed a strong musicality; his father and several of his uncles sang in the choir of notable hazzan Joseph Rosenblatt, and his mother had taught in Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere which inspired an interest in music from other nations. In addition to this foundation, the mamboand jazz genres were simply popular in the neighborhood.

As a student of the playing of jazz trombonists Jack Teagarden, Lawrence Brown and J. C. Higginbotham, Rogers began to play Latin music in the mid-1950s and would be most associated with it from then on. He developed his style working with Eddie Palmieri.^[1] Willie Colón regarded Rogers as his strongest musical influence, and would feature him in many of his productions. Bobby Valentín would feature Rogers in his classic song “El Jíbaro y la Naturaleza”, which led then-singer Marvin Santiago to nickname him “El Terror de los Trombones” for the record (Rogers’ trombone tone was regarded as one of the loudest in salsa music).

Rogers worked with musicians such as Palmieri, Israel “Cachao” López, Machito, Manny Oquendo, Andy González, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Cheo Feliciano, Johnny Pacheco, Chino Rodríguez, the Fania All-Stars, and many more. Although fundamentally known as a salsa trombonist, as a studio recording musician, he collaborated with jazz, soul and pop luminaries. A founding member of the jazz-rock band Dreams, which included the brothers Michael and Randy Brecker and Billy Cobham, he also performed with James Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Todd Rundgren, Grover Washington, Jr., Ron Carter, George Benson, Carly Simon, David Byrne, Bob James, Spyro Gyra, Bob Moses, Elton John and Don Grolnick, among others. He was the father of noted trumpeter Chris Rogers.

Elek Bacsik (22 May 1926 – 14 February 1993) was a Hungarian-born American jazz guitarist and violinist. He was the cousin of guitarist Django Reinhardt.

Bacsik was born in Budapest, Hungary, the son of Arpad Bacsik and Erzsebet Pocsi, of Romani ethnicity. He studied classical violin at the Budapest Conservatory before moving on to jazz guitar. In his teens, he recorded with Geza Szabo and Jozsef Quitter, then toured Europe with Mihaly Tabanyi. He lived in Paris in the 1950s, recording with French musicians and with American musicians who were passing through, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Lou Bennett, Art Simmons, and Quentin Jackson. In 1966, he moved to America and worked with Teresa Brewer until 1974. He played at the Olympic Games Jazz Festival in Los Angeles in 1984.

Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony’r Ra; May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, “cosmic” philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led “The Arkestra”, an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.

Born and raised in Alabama, Blount eventually became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian God of the Sun) and developing a complex persona and mythology that would make him a pioneer of Afrofuturism: he claimed he was an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, and throughout his life he consistently denied any ties to his prior identity. His widely eclectic and avant-garde music would eventually touch on virtually the entire history of jazz, ranging from swing music and bebop to free jazz and fusion, and his compositions ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of over 30 musicians. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age.

Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained both influential and controversial throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century. Following Sun Ra’s death in 1993, the Arkestra continues to perform.

He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed “Sonny” from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.

https://howafrica.com/senegalese-famous-musician-habib-faye-bows-out/

This image, taken by OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope at Paranal Observatory, shows a section of the Ara OB1 stellar association. In the centre of the image is the young open cluster NGC 6193, and to the right is the emission nebula NGC 6188, illuminated by the ionising radiation emitted by the brightest nearby stars.

NGC 6193 is open cluster containing 27 stars in the constellation Ara, visible to the unaided eye.^[1] NGC 6193 lies at the center of the Ara OB1 association, which extends over a square degree. The cluster is associated with (and provides the energizing radiation for) neighboring regions of the nebulosity NGC 6188.

Distance 3765.3 ly

Larance Marable (May 21, 1929 – July 4, 2012) was a West Coast jazz hard bop drummer born in Los Angeles, California, probably best known for his work with Charlie Haden in his Quartet West. However, Marable also had a career first as a bop musician in the 1950s, working with Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker, among others. In the 1960s he started to venture into the cool jazz idiom with musicians like Zoot Sims, George Shearing and Chet Baker, although he worked with Baker as early as 1952 on the album “Bird and Chet: Live at the Trade Winds”.

Earlier in his career, he was known as Lawrence Marable.

Larance was a relative of Mississippi riverboat bandleader Fate Marable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEXCjyLNe4M

Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid the groundwork for modern jazz piano. His best-known compositions, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose“, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999.

Waller was the youngest of 11 children (five of whom survived childhood) born to Adeline Locket Waller, a musician, and the Reverend Edward Martin Waller in New York City.

Performing with Super Étoile de Dakar & Youssou N’Dour.

Habib was born in 1965, in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. It’s a bustling and crowded city on the west coast of Africa, and its citizens have a strong tradition of hospitality. It’s also a deeply musical city, rooted in tradition, yet open to modern music. Habib grew up in a musical family: his father and his five brothers were all outstanding musicians. He didn’t attend music school, but listened to jazz, rock, and salsa, absorbing it and teaching himself to play it all. He worked hard at music, perhaps in part because he was a Mouride – a follower of the Sufi tradition in Senegal and devotee of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, who installed both non-violence and hard work into his followers.

In the heart of monstrous Tarantula Nebula lies huge bubbles of energetic gas, long filaments of dark dust, and unusually massive stars. In the center of this heart, is a knot of stars so dense that it was once thought to be a single star. This star cluster, labeled as R136 or NGC 2070, is visible just above the center of the featured image and home to a great number of hot young stars. The energetic light from these stars continually ionizes nebula gas, while their energetic particle wind blows bubbles and defines intricate filaments. The representative-color picture, a digital synthesis of images from the NASA/ESA orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and ESO‘s ground-based New Technology Telescope, shows great details of the LMC nebula’s tumultuous center. The Tarantula Nebula, also known as the 30 Doradus nebula, is one of the largest star-formation regions known, and has been creating unusually strong episodes of star formation every few million years.

John Robert “Joe” Cocker, OBE (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English singer and musician. He was known for his gritty voice, spasmodic body movement in performance and definitive versions of popular songs of varying genre.

Cocker’s cover of the Beatles‘ “With a Little Help from My Friends” reached number one in the UK in 1968. He performed the song live at Woodstockin 1969 and performed the same year at the Isle of Wight Festival, and at the Party at the Palace concert in 2002 for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. His version also became the theme song for the TV series The Wonder Years. His 1974 cover of “You Are So Beautiful” reached number five in the US. Cocker was the recipient of several awards, including a 1983 Grammy Award for his US number one “Up Where We Belong“, a duet with Jennifer Warnes.

In 1993, Cocker was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male, in 2007 was awarded a bronze Sheffield Legends plaque in his hometown and in 2008 he received an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music.

Charles Davis (May 20, 1933 – July 15, 2016) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Davis played alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, and performed extensively with Archie Shepp and Sun Ra.

Born in Goodman, Mississippi, Davis was raised in Chicago. He graduated from DuSable High School before studying at the Chicago School of Music. Davis also studied privately with John Hauser. During the 1950s, he played with Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Sun Ra and Dinah Washington. Davis also performed and recorded with Kenny Dorham, with whom he associated musically for many years.

During the 1960s, he performed and recorded with Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Griffin, Steve Lacy and Ahmad Jamal, also working with Blue Mitchell, Erskine Hawkins, John Coltrane and Clifford Jordan. In 1964, Davis topped Downbeat Magazine‘s International Jazz Critics Poll for baritone saxophone. He performed in the musical The Philosophy of The Spiritual – A Masque of the Black with Willie Jones, produced by Nadi Qamar. Davis taught at PS 179 in Brooklyn and was musical director of the Turntable, a nightclub owned by Lloyd Price.

Edward Louis Smith (May 20, 1931 – August 20, 2016) was an American jazz trumpeter from Memphis, Tennessee.

After graduating from Tennessee State University he attended graduate school at the University of Michigan. While studying at the University of Michigan, he played with visiting musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thad Jones and Billy Mitchell,^[1] before going on to play with Sonny Stitt, Count Basie and Al McKibbon, Cannonball Adderley, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham and Zoot Sims. Smith decided to forego being a full time musician to take a job a director of Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School. There he recorded two albums for Blue Note.

The first, Here Comes Louis Smith, originally recorded for the Boston-based Transition Records, featured Cannonball Adderley (then under contract to Mercury) playing under the pseudonym “Buckshot La Funke”, Tommy Flanagan, Duke Jordan, Art Taylor and Doug Watkins. He also replaced Donald Byrd for Horace Silver’s Live at the Newport 1958 set. His playing on the set was one of his best efforts and was described by one critic as “monstrous”. He was a prolific composer and successful band director leaving Booker T. Washington to become director of the Jazz Ensemble at the University of Michigan and a teacher in Ann Arbor’s public school system. He later recorded for the SteepleChase label.

Smith suffered a stroke in 2006, and was seen occasionally enjoying live jazz in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area, but did not return to performing.

His cousin Booker Little was also a trumpeter.

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

Virelai is a Danish band that plays medieval music with reconstructed instruments from the period. The group is named after the ancient French Virelai dance and love song form from the Middle Ages .

The band performs primarily in medieval markets around the country, but has also released four CDs. The group has also been instrumental in recording music for the Danish film, The Shame’s Daughter , who premiered in 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms6kS8TzR_E

This richly coloured cloud of gas called RCW 34 is a site of star formation in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sails). This image was taken using the FORS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in northern Chile.

RCW 34, also known as Gum 19, is a star-forming region located in the southern constellation Vela, approximately 8,150 light-years away.

The object is very young, about 2 million years old, and contains a group of massive young stars.

These stars have a dramatic effect on the nebula. Gas exposed to strong UV radiation becomes ionized, meaning that the electrons have escaped the hydrogen atoms.

Stars are born from collapsing gas clouds and therefore abundant in regions with copious amounts of gas, like RCW 34.

This makes the cloud particularly interesting to scientists studying stellar birth and evolution.

Vast amounts of dust within RCW 34 block the view of the inner workings of the stellar nursery.

The nebula is characterized by extremely high extinction, meaning that almost all of the visible light from this region is absorbed before it reaches Earth.

Despite hiding away from direct view, astronomers can use infrared telescopes, to peer through the dust and study the nest of embedded stars.