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George Harrison MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called “the quiet Beatle”, Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles’ work. Although the majority of the band’s songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group include “Taxman“, “Within You Without You“, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps“, “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something“. Harrison’s earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt; subsequent influences were Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry.
By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and towards Indian classical music through his use of Indian instruments, such as the sitar, which he had become acquainted with on the set of the film Help! He played sitar on numerous Beatles songs, starting with “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)“. Having initiated the band’s embrace of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement. After the band’s break-up in 1970, Harrison released the triple album All Things Must Pass, a critically acclaimed work that produced his most successful hit single, “My Sweet Lord“, and introduced his signature sound as a solo artist, the slide guitar. He also organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to later benefit concerts such as Live Aid. In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles’ Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974. He co-founded HandMade Films in 1978, initially to produce the Monty Python troupe’s comedy filmThe Life of Brian (1979).
Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer. In 1988, he co-founded the platinum-selling supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. A prolific recording artist, he was featured as a guest guitarist on tracks by Badfinger, Ronnie Wood, and Billy Preston, and collaborated on songs and music with Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Tom Petty. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 31 in their 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time. He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004.
Harrison’s first marriage to model Pattie Boyd in 1966 ended in divorce in 1977. In the following year he married Olivia Arias, with whom he had a son, Dhani. A lifelong cigarette smoker, Harrison died of numerous cancers in 2001 at the age of 58, two years after surviving a knife attack by an intruder at his home, Friar Park. His remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in a private ceremony in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. He left an estate of almost £100 million.
more...Ida M. Cox (Prather; February 26, 1888 or 1896 – November 10, 1967) was an American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as “The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues”.
Cox was born Ida M. Prather, the daughter of Lamax and Susie (née Knight) Prather in Toccoa, then Habersham County, Georgia, and grew up in Cedartown, Polk County, Georgia. Many sources give her birth date as February 26, 1896, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc have suggested she was born in 1888, and noted other evidence suggesting 1894.
more...1956 – In Cleveland, OH, police invoked a 1931 ordinance barring people under the age of 18 from dancing in public unless accompanied by an adult.
more...RCW 16 is an Ha-emission region in the southern Milky Way. NGC 2467, also known as the “Skull and Crossbones Nebula”, is a star-forming region within RCW 16.
more...Nicholas Christian Hopkins (24 February 1944 – 6 September 1994) was an English pianist and organist. He performed on many popular and enduring British and American rock music recordings from the 1960s to the 1990s, most notably on songs recorded by the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, the Beatles, the Steve Miller Band, Jefferson Airplane, Rod Stewart, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Hollies, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Harry Nilsson, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jerry Garcia, Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker, Art Garfunkel, Badfinger, Graham Parker, Gary Moore, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Donovan. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest studio pianists in the history of popular rock music. Hopkins died on 6 September 1994, at the age of 50, in Nashville, Tennessee, from complications resulting from intestinal surgery related to his lifelong battle with Crohn’s disease. At the time of his death, he was working on his autobiography with Ray Coleman.
more...David “Fathead” Newman (February 24, 1933 – January 20, 2009) was an American jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophonist, who made numerous recordings as a session musician and leader, but is best known for his work as a sideman on seminal 1950s and early 1960s recordings by Ray Charles.
The AllMusic Guide to Jazz wrote that “there have not been many saxophonists and flutists more naturally soulful than David ‘Fathead’ Newman.” Newman was a leading proponent of the “Texas Tenor” saxophone style, a big-toned, bluesy approach popularized by jazz tenor players from that state.
Newman was born in Corsicana, Texas, United States, on February 24, 1933, but grew up in Dallas, where he studied first the piano and then the saxophone.
more...The Celestial Antiquity Event is scheduled on 3-28-24 at UWEC Eau Claire, WI at 7pm. The location of the event will be at Gartner Hall in Haas Fine Arts building on campus of UWEC.
Friday 2-23-24 630pm Shabbat for the Soul service with Jennifer Struss-Klein, Tami Morse and mick laBriola. February is Jewish Disability, Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion (JDAIM) Month. Mount Zion member, Shelley Robbins, will be our pulpit speaker.
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This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Centered and moving upward in the sharply detailed color composite its thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on. Discovered in the 1840s by Sir John Herschel, the narrow-looking nebula is sometimes known as Herschel’s Ray. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its pointed appearance suggests its modern popular name, the Pencil Nebula. The Pencil Nebula is about 800 light-years away. Nearly 5 light-years long it represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant though. The enormous Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter, the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the section of the shock wave seen as the Pencil nebula was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar material.
more...Wayne Escoffery (born 23 February 1975) is an American jazz saxophonist.
Since 2000, he has been working in New York City with Carl Allen, Eric Reed, and the Mingus Big Band. Other musicians performed with include Ralph Peterson, Ben Riley, Ron Carter, Rufus Reid, Bill Charlap, Bruce Barth, Jimmy Cobb, and Eddie Henderson. He has worked with vocalists including Mary Stallings, Cynthia Scott, Nancie Banks, LaVerne Butler, and Carolyn Leonhart. In addition to performing with his own Quartet featuring David Kikoski, Ugonna Okegwo and Ralph Peterson, Escoffery currently performs and tours with Ben Riley‘s Monk Legacy Septet, The Mingus Band, Ron Carter’s great Big Band, Monty Alexander, Amina Figarova and many others. He is currently a member of The Tom Harrell Quintet and has been since 2006. He has also co-produced four of Harrell’s latest recordings.
Wayne and his mother, Patricia Escoffery emigrated to the United States and settled in New Haven, Connecticut in 1986. He attended ACES Educational Center for the Arts high school.
more...Norman Russell Young (February 23, 1946 – April 14, 2021) was an American guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, best known as one of the frontmen in the influential country rock and Americana band Poco.
A virtuoso on pedal steel guitar, he was celebrated for the ability to get a Hammond B3 organ sound out of the instrument by playing it through a Leslie speaker cabinet and as an innovator of producing other rock sounds from the instrument.
Young was born in Long Beach, California and raised in Colorado. He began playing lap steel guitar at age 6, and taught guitar and steel guitar lessons during his high school years at Jefferson High School, Lakewood, Colorado with George Grantham. During that time, he also played country music in late night bars. Young played in a well known Denver psychedelic rock band “Boenzee Cryque”.
more...John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and record producer. Winter was known for his high-energy blues rock albums, live performances and slide guitar playing from the late 1960s into the early 2000s. He also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. After his time with Waters, Winter recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time“.
Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas, on February 23, 1944. He and his younger brother Edgar Winter (born 1946) were nurtured at an early age by their parents in musical pursuits. Both were born with albinism. Their father, a Leland, Mississippi native John Dawson Winter Jr. (1909–2001), was also a musician who played saxophone and guitar and sang at churches, weddings, Kiwanis and Rotary Club gatherings. Johnny and his brother began performing at an early age. When Winter was ten years old, the brothers appeared on a local children’s show with Johnny playing ukulele.
more...Each copla (verse) of the Fandangos de Huelva contains six sets of twelve counts, and dancers usually perform several verses of the song, or trade off performing a verse with another dancer. In a performance, the guitarist plays two or four sets of estribillos before each copla. The singer may also sing the estribillo before the first copla. When performed in the traditional, regional style, steps are characterized by beautiful leg gestures, flicks of the feet, jota steps and jumps, escuela bolera steps and patterns, a small amount of taconeo/zapateado, castanets, and a distinctive arched line in the back of the dancer – torcido – which produces a spiraling effect. The dance is also often performed aflamencada, in a flamenco style that includes footwork, flamenco marking steps and cues, and llamadas and remates that are similar to those found in Bulerías.
The typical scenario for a traditional Fandangos de Huelva dance (performed by soloists or in groups) is as follows:
- Entrance/entrada
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Danced to a musical (with or without cante) estribillo
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1st copla
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Each verse contains six sets of twelve count phrases, performed with or without castanets, and includes traditional regional or flamenco steps and phrases
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Estribillo transition
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Two to four sets of twelve count phrases are performed to the estribillo music, acting as transitions between the coplas (verses). These transitions allow dancers to enter or exit the stage.
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Arrimaté
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A traditional cierre (closing/ending) for cante and baile por Fandangos de Huelva
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spiral, Messier 106 dominates this cosmic vista. The nearly two degree wide telescopic field of view looks toward the well-trained constellation Canes Venatici, near the handle of the Big Dipper. Also known as NGC 4258, M106 is about 80,000 light-years across and 23.5 million light-years away, the largest member of the Canes II galaxy group. For a far far away galaxy, the distance to M106 is well-known in part because it can bedirectly measured by tracking this galaxy’s remarkable maser, or microwave laser emission. Very rare but naturally occurring, the maser emission is produced by water molecules in molecular clouds orbiting its active galactic nucleus. Another prominent spiral galaxy on the scene, viewed nearly edge-on, is NGC 4217 below and right of M106. The distance to NGC 4217 is much less well-known, estimated to be about 60 million light-years, but the bright spiky stars are in the foreground, well inside our own Milky Way galaxy.
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Joseph James LaBarbera (born February 22, 1948) is an American jazz drummer and composer. He is best known for his recordings and live performances with the trio of pianist Bill Evans in the final years of Evans’s career.His older brothers are saxophonist Pat LaBarbera and trumpeter John LaBarbera.
He grew up in Mount Morris, New York. His first drum teacher was his father. For two years in the late 1960s he attended Berklee College of Music, then went on tour with singer Frankie Randall. After Berklee he spent two years with the US Army band at Fort Dix, New Jersey. He began his professional career playing with Woody Herman and the Thundering Herd.
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