mick laBriola

The central plane of the Milky Way is a busy place, filled with objects of all shapes, sizes, colors and classifications. The beautiful region above is just a tiny sliver of a much larger whole, called IRAS 16562-3959: it can be found in the constellation of Scorpius. IRAS, as we’ll call it from here on out, is a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust, belonging to the small molecular cloud pictured in ruddy orange. It, in turn, is surrounded by a plethora of bright, colorful stars, providing contrast to the interstellar materials.

Of the hundreds of stars pervading the medium, one stands apart from the rest: the bright, young star pictured front and center. It’s so young, in fact, it still hasn’t yet progressed into main sequence mode. Rather, the section of the cloud that birthed it continues to collapse under the weight of its own gravity. When all is said and done, it will be about 15 times heavier than the Sun, but even that comes with its own set of problems, being that it won’t live that long, and will explode as a supernova in several millions of years

This spectacular image was put together using VISTA (an acronym for ‘Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy‘), a tool installed on the ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Recently, the ESO probed the region using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). It revealed that the central star — dubbed G345.4938+01.4677 — has a rather large disk of gas and dust encompassing it. Additionally, there is streams of material spewing from its surface. Things like this are not unusual when dealing with stars still in the process of forming, but theoretical models indicate that neither feature should be exhibited by stars similar to G345.4938+01.4677.

Vassar Carlton Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was a Grammy Award-winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical traditions.

Clements was born in Kinard, Florida,^[1] but grew up in Kissimmee, Florida. He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7 and the first song he learned was “There’s an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor”. Soon, Clements formed a local string band with two first cousins, Red and Gerald. Gerald was the fiddle player and when he got married and left, Clements had to pick up the fiddle. In his early teens, he met Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boyswhen they came to Florida to visit Clements’ stepfather who knew Chubby Wise. Clements heard Wise play and was impressed.

Albert Nelson (April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992 Indianola, MI), known by his stage name Albert King, was an American blues guitarist and singer whose playing influenced many other blues guitarists. He is perhaps best known for the popular and influential album Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and the title track.

He was known as “The Velvet Bulldozer” because of his smooth singing and large size—he stood taller than average, with sources reporting 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) or 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m), and weighed 250 lb (110 kg)—and also because he drove a bulldozer in one of his day jobs early in his career.

King was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in May 2013.

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996 Newport News, Va) was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz, and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a “horn-like” improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

After tumultuous teenage years, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the Chick Webb Orchestra, performing across the country, but most often associated with the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Fitzgerald’s rendition of the nursery rhyme “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start a solo career that would last effectively the rest of her life.

Signed with manager and Savoy co-founder Moe Gale from early in her career, she eventually gave managerial control for her performance and recording career to Norman Granz, who built up the label Verve Records based in part on Fitzgerald’s vocal abilities. With Verve she recorded some of her more widely noted works, particularly her interpretation of the Great American Songbook.

While Fitzgerald appeared in movies and as a guest on popular television shows in the second half of the twentieth century, her musical collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and The Ink Spots were some of her most notable acts outside of her solo career. These partnerships produced recognizable songs like “Dream a Little Dream of Me“, “Cheek to Cheek“, “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall“, and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)“. In 1993, Fitzgerald capped off her fifty-nine year career with her last public performance. Three years later, she died at the age of 79, following years of decline in her health. After her death, Fitzgerald’s influence lived on through her fourteen Grammy Awards, National Medal of Arts, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and tributes in the form of stamps, music festivals, and theater namesakes.

The concept is really an expression of what Atash itself is, at its core. We are musicians from very different backgrounds who are united by our love for music, and our desire to create. It’s a microcosm for what’s possible in the world – that is, bringing people from different cultures, different countries, different religions, different ages, different socioeconomic backgrounds, together and creating something beautiful together.

Flash Gordon Meets Luke Skywalker

NGC 346, the brightest star-forming region in the neighbouring Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy, some 210 000 light-years away from Earth. The light, wind and heat given off by massive stars have dispersed the glowing gas within and around this star cluster, forming a surrounding wispy nebular structure that looks like a cobweb. NGC 346 is located in the constellation Tucana (the Toucan) and spans approximately 200 light-years. This particular image was obtained using the Wide Field Imager instrument at the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Images like this help astronomers chronicle star birth and evolution, while offering glimpses of how stellar development influences the appearance of the cosmic environment over time. This is an enhanced colour image based on three different broadband filters (B, V, R), as well as a narrowband filter (H-alpha, shown in blue).. The field of view is about 30 arcminutes wide.

Joe Henderson (April 24, 1937 – June 30, 2001) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than four decades, Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.

Born in Lima, Ohio, Henderson was one of five sisters and nine brothers. He was encouraged by his parents Dennis and Irene (née Farley) and older brother James T. to study music. He dedicated his first album to them “for being so understanding and tolerant” during his formative years. Early musical interests included drums, piano, saxophone and composition. According to Kenny Dorham, two local piano teachers who went to school with Henderson’s brothers and sisters, Richard Patterson and Don Hurless, gave him a knowledge of the piano. He was particularly enamored of his brother’s record collection. It seems that a hometown drummer, John Jarette, advised Henderson to listen to musicians like Lester Young, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker. He also liked Flip Phillips, Lee Konitz and the Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings. However, Parker became his greatest inspiration. His first approach to the saxophone was under the tutelage of Herbert Murphy in high school. In this period of time, he wrote several scores for the school band.

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

ohn Arnold Griffin III (April 24, 1928 – July 25, 2008) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Nicknamed “the Little Giant” for his short stature and forceful playing, Griffin’s career began in the early 1940s and continued until the month of his death. A pioneering figure in hard bop, Griffin recorded prolifically as a bandleader in addition to stints with pianist Thelonious Monk, drummer Art Blakey, in partnership with fellow tenor Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and as a member of the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band after he moved to Europe in the 1960s. In 1995, Griffin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music

Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax. While still at high school at the age of 15, Griffin was playing with T-Bone Walker in a band led by Walker’s brother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuhMv7GC4DM

Homayun Sakhi has established an international reputation as the outstanding Afghan rubab player of his generation. A master of the rubab, a skin-faced lute that is revered as the national instrument of Afghanistan, he performs the music of Afghanistan, which is rich in traditions that span the Middle East, Central Asia and North India.

My Eyes are Red Dub

The Blue Horsehead Nebula looks quite different in infrared light. In visible light, the reflecting dust of the nebula appears blue and shaped like a horse’s head. In infrared light, however, a complex labyrinth of filaments, caverns, and cocoons of glowing dust and gas emerges, making it hard to even identify the equine icon. The featured image of the nebula was created in three infrared colors (R=22, G=12, B=4.6 microns) from data taken by NASA’s orbiting Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. The nebula is cataloged as IC 4592 and spans about 40 light years, lying about 400 light years away toward the constellationScorpius along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. IC 4592 is fainter but covers an angularly greater region than the better known Horsehead Nebula of Orion. The star that predominantly illuminates and heats the dust is Nu Scorpii, visible as the reddened star left of center.

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter known for his distinctive, impassioned voice, complex song structures, and dark emotional ballads. The combination led many critics to describe his music as operatic, nicknaming him “the Caruso of Rock“ and “the Big O”. While most male rock-and-roll performers in the 1950s and 1960s projected a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison’s songs instead conveyed vulnerability. His voice ranged from baritone to tenor, and music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. During performances, he was known for standing still and solitary, and for wearing black clothes, to match his dyed jet black hair and dark sunglasses, which lent an air of mystery to his persona.

Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison (1913–1984), an oil well driller and car mechanic, and Nadine Vesta Shults (July 25, 1913 – May 28, 1992), a nurse. Both of his parents were unemployed during the Great Depression and, searching for work, moved the family to Fort Worth in 1942. He attended Denver Avenue Elementary School until a polio scare prompted the family to return to Vernon. Later, in 1946, they moved to Wink, Texas. Orbison later described life in Wink as “football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand” and expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town. All the Orbison children were afflicted with poor eyesight; Roy used thick corrective lenses from an early age. He was not confident about his appearance and began dyeing his nearly-white hair black when he was still young. He was quiet, self-effacing, and remarkably polite and obliging—a product, biographer Alan Clayson wrote, of his Southern upbringing. He was readily available to sing, however, and often became the focus of attention when he did. He considered his voice memorable, if not great.

Vernice “Bunky” Green (born April 23, 1935) is an American jazz alto saxophonist and educator.

Green was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he played the alto saxophone, mainly at a local club called “The Brass Rail”.

His first big break came when he was hired in New York City by Charles Mingus as a replacement for Jackie McLean in the 1960s. His brief stint with the eccentric bass player made a deep impression. Mingus’ sparing use of notation and his belief that there was no such thing as a wrong note had a lasting influence on Green’s own style.

The next year, Green moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he appeared with several prominent players including Sonny Stitt, Louie Bellson, Andrew Hill, Yusef Lateef, and Ira Sullivan. Originally strongly influenced by Charlie Parker, Green spent a period reassessing his style and studying, emerging with a highly distinctive sound that has deeply influenced a number of younger saxophonists, including Steve Coleman and Greg Osby.

Charles Edward “Cow Cow” Davenport (April 23, 1894 – December 3, 1955) was an American boogie-woogie and piano blues player as well as a vaudeville entertainer. He also played the organ and sang.

He was born in Anniston, Alabama, one of eight children. Davenport started playing the piano at age 12. His father objected strongly to his musical aspirations and sent him to a theological seminary, where he was expelled for playing ragtime.

Davenport’s career began in the 1920s when he joined Banhoof’s Traveling Carnival, a medicine show. His first fame came as accompanist to blues musicians Dora Carr and Ivy Smith. Davenport and Carr performed as a vaudeville act as Davenport & Co, and he performed with Smith as the “Chicago Steppers”. He also performed with Tampa Red. Davenport recorded for many record labels, and was a talent scout and artist for Vocalion Records. Davenport suffered a stroke in 1938 and lost movement in his hands. He was washing dishes when he was found by the jazzpianist Art Hodes. Hodes assisted in his rehabilitation and helped him find new recording contracts.

Born in San José, Costa Rica, on October 4, 1961, Obregón began playing piano at the age of seven. After graduating from the University of Costa Rica Conservatory, he went on to study at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid; in Barcelona, Spain; and at the Swiss Jazz School in Berne, Switzerland.

Walk Away From Love

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was a jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period, but also by his impeccable time and intonation, and virtuosic improvisations. He was also known for his bowed solos.^[2][3] Chambers recorded some dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, and prolifically as a sideman notably as the anchor of trumpeter Miles Davis‘s “first great quintet” (1955–63) and with pianist Wynton Kelly (1963–68).

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 22, 1935, to Paul Lawrence Chambers and Margaret Echos. He was raised in Detroit, Michigan following the death of his mother. He began playing music with several of his schoolmates; the baritone horn was his first instrument. Later he took up the tuba. “I got along pretty well, but it’s quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn’t like the instrument that much”. Chambers became a string bassist around 1949. His formal bass training got going in earnest in 1952, when he began taking lessons with a bassist in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Chambers did some classical work himself, with a group called the Detroit String Band that was, in effect, a rehearsal symphony orchestra. Studying at Cass Technical High School off and on from 1952 to 1955, he played in Cass’ own symphony, and in various other student groups, one of which had him playing baritone saxophone. By the time he left for New York City at the invitation of tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, he had absorbed a working knowledge of many instruments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avVuvLhs0u0