mick laBriola

John Aaron Lewis (May 3, 1920 – March 29, 2001) was an American jazz pianist, composer and arranger, best known as the founder and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.

John Lewis was born in La Grange, Illinois, and after his parents’ divorce moved with his mother, a trained singer, to Albuquerque, New Mexico when he was two months old. She died from peritonitis when he was four and he was raised by his grandmother and great-grandmother. He began learning classical music and piano at the age of seven. His family was musical and had a family band that allowed him to play frequently and he also played in a Boy Scout music group. Even though he learned piano by playing the classics, he was exposed to jazz from an early age because his aunt loved to dance and he would listen to the music she played. After attending Albuquerque High School, he then studied at the University of New Mexico, where he led a small dance band that he formed and double majored in Anthropology and Music. His piano teacher at the university was Walter Keller, to whom he paid tribute on the title composition of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s 1974 album In Memoriam. Eventually, he decided not to pursue Anthropology because he was advised that careers from degrees in the subject did not pay well. In 1942, Lewis entered the Army and played piano alongside Kenny Clarke, who influenced him to move to New York once their service was over. Lewis moved to New York in 1945 to pursue his musical studies at the Manhattan School of Music and eventually graduated with a master’s degree in music in 1953. Although his move to New York turned his musical attention more towards jazz, he still frequently played and listened to classical works and composers such as Chopin, Bach and Beethoven.

Derived from flamenco’s earliest root forms, the tonás, siguiriyas is one of flamenco’s oldest and deepest forms. Its name is a corruption of the term seguidillas, a group of 18th Century songs and dances. Siguiriyas first emerged in the 18th Century in Cádiz, Sevilla and Jerez de la Frontera. Slow, majestic and tragic, Siguiriyas is the most jondo of cante jondo forms. Its lyrics focus on tragedy, inconsolable sorrow, and pain. An important feature of Siguiriyas is its unusual compás which gives the form its unique, uneven pattern and much of its expressive power. Siguiriyas is a highly personal form and most artists associated with the style, such as El Planeta, La Niña de los Peines, Manuel Molina and Antonio Chacón, created their own extraordinary versions.

May 2nd 1941 Kingston, Jamaica. Percussionist, conga drummer, singer and music historian.

Devon worked with Bob Marley touring in the late 70’s and recorded on Bob Marleys Confrontation album. Now living in Rogers, MN. Devon currently lectures and tours throughout the USA.

May 2nd 1977

People come to websites, reading bios, trying to figure out who someone else is. Said website owner makes a bio, tries to put impressive things there, drop names, list accomplishments. Then perhaps judgements are formed, opinons made and such by you, the reader.

Well, I don’t like those bios really…it has never sat right with me (I understand some may need to create such bios for various purposes…not slighting you all). And I could make it all up and you wouldn’t know the difference!

I am Curtis….a drummer.

But I am much more than that I suppose. I make music first and foremost, but that is just a means to try and figure “IT” out. Music as a career is second to music as a vehicle for growth and exploration. In my own creations and travels I try and gain more insight into who I am, what I am doing and try and to foster love, understanding, truth, wonder and excitement for being alive.
Hopefully, in the process I will keep the rumble in my stomach to a minimum and have some kind of roof over my head.

I was born on May 2, 1977.

My childhood was great. My family is amazing. I have an amazing wife and a daughter that I cherish every moment. If I am unhappy, I have only myself to look to for the reason.

I taught myself to play the drumset at 14 and now I travel the world, following my curiosity for rhythm, culture, spirit, what makes humans do what we do.

I’ve spent years studying the musical culture of Ghana and South India and count some of the best in those worlds as my mentors. Trichy Sankaran has been my mridangam guru since the beginning I can’t be thankful enough for that.

I compose my own music, I play mbira with one of Canada’s best mbira players, I co-lead a Ghanaian drum & dance ensemble, I lead my own Afro-Indian-World-Jazz group (that genre exists…I made it up), and collaborate with various Indian, African, jazz, and “other” musicians in Vancouver and beyond.

I’m born and raised in a small Newfoundland town called Carbonear, but now live in Vancouver, BC on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

There is a school in a Ghanaian village with my name on it. I like to help people with the power, potential and advantage that I have in my life and where I was born and what I was born into.

I’ve been to school…BFA from York U.
It was a good time, I met my guru. But it didn’t make me the musician I am today. No school can do that.

I also have a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia.

Please take some time when you have it to see some pictures and read some of my experiences from around the world.

Listen to some of my own music as well if you please. I think I’ve said enough in this space.

Peace and Love,
Curtis

Richard Arnold “Groove” Holmes (May 2, 1931 – June 29, 1991) was an American jazz organist who performed in the hard bop and soul jazz genre. He is best known for his 1965 recording of “Misty“.

Holmes’s first album, on Pacific Jazz with guest Ben Webster, was recorded in March 1961. He recorded many albums for Pacific Jazz, Prestige, Groove Merchant, and Muse, many of them with Houston Person.

He died of a heart attack after battling prostate cancer, having performed his last concerts in a wheelchair. One of his last gigs was at the 1991 Chicago Blues Festival with his longtime friend, singer Jimmy Witherspoon.

Shirley Valerie Horn (May 1, 1934 – October 20, 2005) was an American jazz singer and pianist. She collaborated with many jazz musicians including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis and others. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence and ability on the piano while singing, something described by arranger Johnny Mandel as “like having two heads”, and for her rich, lush voice, a smoky contralto, which was described by noted producer and arranger Quincy Jones as “like clothing, as she seduces you with her voice”.

Shirley Horn was born and raised in Washington, D.C. Encouraged by her grandmother, an amateur organist, Horn began piano lessons at the age of four. Aged 12, she studied piano and composition at Howard University, later graduating from there in classical music. Horn was offered a place at the Juilliard School, but her family could not afford to send her there. Horn formed her first jazz piano trio when she was 20.

Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners’ expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player.

Jacobs’ date of birth is usually given as May 1, 1930, in Marksville, Louisiana. He was born without a birth certificate and when he applied for a Social Security card in 1940, his birthdate was listed as May 1, 1923. Over the years he often gave different years, but May 1 was constant. In some other documents he filled out before reaching the age of majority he indicated birth years of 1925 and 1928, probably to appear to be of legal age to sign contracts for recordings and club work. After reaching the age of majority based on a birth year of 1930, he consistently gave his birth year as 1930. In the 1940 U.S. Census, his mother Beatrice reported his age at 14, making his birth year 1925. A few months after returning from his second European tour, Little Walter was involved in a fight while taking a break from a performance at a nightclub on the South Side of Chicago. He apparently sustained only minor injuries in this altercation, but they aggravated the damage he had suffered in previous violent encounters, and he died in his sleep at the apartment of a girlfriend, at 209 East 54th Street in Chicago, early the following morning.The official cause of death on his death certificate was coronary thrombosis (a blood clot in the heart); evidence of external injuries was so insignificant that the police reported that his death was due to “unknown or natural causes”, and no external injuries were noted on the death certificate. His body was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, on February 22, 1968.