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The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Lunar coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. Solar coronae are also sometimes evident. The featured image was taken last month from Paris, France. The blue beacon emanating from the Eiffel Tower did not affect the colorful lunar corona.

Dave McKenna (May 30, 1930 – October 18, 2008) was an American jazz pianist known primarily as a solo pianist and for his “three-handed” swing style. He was a significant figure in the evolution of jazz piano.

He was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, United States. At age 15, McKenna worked in big bands with Charlie Ventura (1949) and Woody Herman’s Orchestra (1950–51). He then spent two years in the military, in the Korea War, before returning to Ventura (1953–54). During his career he worked in swing and dixieland settings with Al Cohn, Eddie Condon, Stan Getz, Gene Krupa, Zoot Sims, Joe Venuti, and often with Bob Wilber and Bobby Hackett. McKenna released his first solo album in 1955. During the 1980s, he worked as a pianist at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston.

Clora Larea Bryant (May 30, 1927 – August 25, 2019 Denison, TX) was an American jazz trumpeter. She was the only female trumpeter to perform with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and was a member of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.

Bryant turned down scholarships from Oberlin Conservatory and Bennett College to attend Prairie View College in Houston starting in 1943, where she was a member of the Prairie View Co-eds jazz band. The band toured in Texas and performed at the Apollo Theater in New York City in 1944. Her father got a job in Los Angeles, and she transferred to UCLA in 1945. Bryant heard bebop for the first time on Central Avenue.

In 1946 she became a member of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an all-female jazz band, earned her union card and dropped out of school. Dizzy Gillespie became her mentor and provided her with work. She joined the black female jazz band the Queens of Swing as a drummer, and went on tour with the band.

Most eye-catching is the grand arch of the Milky Way Galaxy, the band that is the central disk of our galaxy which is straight but distorted by the wide-angle nature of this composite image. Many stars well in front of the Milk Way will be visible, with the bright white star just below the stellar arch being Altair, and the bright blue star above it being Vega. The air glows green on the left, just above the yellow cloud deck. The featured image was taken last month on Portugal‘s Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and what happens after you reach the top of these stairs and admire the amazing sky is, quite probably, that you then descend down the stairs on the other side.    

Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953 LA, CA) is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead singer and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his first studio film in 1985, Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall.

Freddie Redd (May 29, 1928 – March 17, 2021 Harlem, NY) was an American hard-bop pianist and composer. He is best known for writing music to accompany The Connection (1959), a play by Jack Gelber. According to Peter Watrous, writing in The New York Times: “Mr. Redd hung out at jam sessions in the 1950s and played with many of the major figures, Sonny Rollins to Art Blakey, and worked regularly with Charles Mingus. When things got tough, he just moved on, living in Guadalajara, Mexico, and in Paris and London.

Eugene Joseph Wright (May 29, 1923 – December 30, 2020 Chicago) was an American jazz bassist who was a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Leland Bruce Sklar (born May 28, 1947) is an American bassist and session musician. He rose to prominence as a member of James Taylor‘s backing band, which coalesced into a group in its own right, The Section, which supported so many of Asylum Records‘ artists that they became known as Asylum’s de facto house band, as those artists became iconic singer-songwriters of the 1970s.

Sklar has recorded and toured with artists including James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, Toto, The Doors and Lyle Lovett. As a group member, session player, or touring musician, Sklar has appeared on over 2,000 albums, and contributed to many motion picture and television show soundtracks. Since 2018, he has been the bassist for The Immediate Family, a group reuniting lifelong friends and most of his former bandmates from The Section.

Leland Bruce Sklar was born May 28, 1947, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His mother’s family was from Duluth, Minnesota. His father’s family was from Milwaukee. Originally, the paternal side of the family came from Odesa, Ukraine. Sklar is a Ukrainian surname meaning glazier, a person whose profession is fitting glass into windows and doors.

John Henry Creach (May 28, 1917 – February 22, 1994), better known as Papa John Creach, was an American blues violinist who also played classical, jazz, R&B, pop and acid rock music. Early in his career, he performed as a journeyman musician with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Stuff Smith, Charlie Christian, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Nat King Cole and Roy Milton.

Following his rediscovery by drummer Joey Covington in 1967, he fronted a variety of bands (including Zulu and Midnight Sun) in addition to playing with Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship, the San Francisco All-Stars (1979–1984), Dinosaurs (1982–1989) and Steve Taylor.

Creach recorded a number of solo albums and guested at several Grateful Dead and Charlie Daniels Bandconcerts. He was a regular guest at the early annual Volunteer Jams, hosted by Charlie Daniels, which exposed him to a new audience that was receptive to fiddle players.

Creach was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. As a child, he was introduced to the violin by an uncle, and he received both tutoring in the instrument and conservatory training. Creach and his family moved to Chicago in 1935.

Aaron Thibeaux “T-Bone” Walker (May 28, 1910 – March 16, 1975) was an American blues musician, composer, songwriter and bandleader, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues, West Coast blues, and electric blues sounds. In 2018 Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 67 on its list of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas, of African-American and Cherokee descent. His parents, Movelia Jimerson and Rance Walker, were both musicians. His stepfather, Marco Washington (a member of the Dallas String Band), taught him to play the guitar, ukulele, banjo, violin, mandolin, and piano.

Walker began his career as a teenager in Dallas in the 1920s. His mother and stepfather were musicians, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, a family friend, sometimes came over for dinner. Walker left school at the age of 10, and by 15, he was a professional performer on the blues circuit. Initially, he was Jefferson’s protégé and would guide him around town for his gigs. In 1929, Walker made his recording debut with Columbia Records, billed as Oak Cliff T-Bone, releasing the single “Wichita Falls Blues” backed with “Trinity River Blues”. Oak Cliff is the community in which he lived at the time, and T-Bone is a corruption of his middle name. The pianist Douglas Fernell played accompaniment on the record.

Andrew Dewey Kirk (May 28, 1898 – December 11, 1992) was an American jazz bandleader and saxophonist who led the Twelve Clouds of Joy, a band popular during the swing era.

He was born in Newport, Kentucky, United States. Kirk grew up in Denver, Colorado, where he was tutored by Wilberforce Whiteman, Paul Whiteman‘s father. Kirk started his musical career playing with George Morrison’s band, but then went on to join Terrence Holder‘s Dark Clouds of Joy. In 1929, he was elected leader after Holder departed. Renaming the band Clouds of Joy, Kirk also relocated the band from Dallas, Texas, to Kansas City, Missouri. Although named the Clouds of Joy, the band has also been known as the Twelve Clouds of Joy due to the number of musicians in the band. They set up in the Pla-Mor Ballroom on the junction of 32nd and Main in Kansas City and made their first recording for Brunswick Records that same year. Mary Lou Williams came in as pianist at the last moment, but she impressed Brunswick’s Dave Kapp, so she became a member of the band.