Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009 Gary,IN) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the “King of Pop“, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres; through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated dance moves such as the moonwalk, to which he gave the name, as well as the robot. He is the most awarded individual music artist in history.
The eighth child of the Jackson family, Jackson made his professional debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 (later known as the Jacksons). Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown Records. He became a solo star with his 1979 album Off the Wall. His music videos, including those for “Beat It“, “Billie Jean“, and “Thriller” from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an artform and promotional tool. He helped propel the success of MTV and continued to innovate with videos for the albums Bad (1987), Dangerous(1991), and HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995). Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, while Bad was the first album to produce five U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles.
From the late 1980s, Jackson became a figure of controversy and speculation due to his changing appearance, relationships, behavior, and lifestyle. In 1993, he was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend. The lawsuit was settled out of civil court; Jackson was not indicted due to lack of evidence. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges. The FBI found no evidence of criminal conduct on Jackson’s behalf in either case. In 2009, while preparing for a series of comeback concerts, This Is It, Jackson died from an overdose of propofol administered by his personal physician, Conrad Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter.
Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 400 million records worldwide. He had 13 Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era) and was the first artist to have a top-ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades. He is regarded by the RIAA as the highest-selling individual music artist of all time worldwide. His honors include 15 Grammy Awards, 6 Brit Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and 39 Guinness World Records, including the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time”. Jackson’s inductions include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice), the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Dance Hall of Fame (the only recording artist to be inducted), and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. In 2016, his estate earned $825 million, the highest yearly amount for a celebrity ever recorded by Forbes. On June 25, 2009, less than three weeks before the first This Is It show was due to begin in London, with all concerts sold out, Jackson died from cardiac arrest, caused by a propofol and benzodiazepine overdose.
see full post...Bennie Maupin (born August 29, 1940) is an American jazz multireedist who performs on various saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet.
Maupin was born in Detroit, Michigan, United States. He is known for his participation in Herbie Hancock‘s Mwandishi sextet and Headhunters band, and for performing on Miles Davis‘s seminal fusion record, Bitches Brew. Maupin has collaborated with Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, Woody Shaw, Lee Morgan and many others. He is noted for having a harmonically-advanced, “out” improvisation style, while having a different sense of melodic direction than other “out” jazz musicians such as Eric Dolphy.
Maupin was a member of Almanac, a group with Cecil McBee (bass), Mike Nock (piano) and Eddie Marshall (drums).
see full post...Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as “the most popular black female recording artist of the 1950s songs”. Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of “Queen of the Blues”. She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
Ruth Lee Jones was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Alice and Ollie Jones, and moved to Chicago as a child. She became deeply involved in gospel music and played piano for the choir in St. Luke’s Baptist Church while still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choirin her teens and was a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. When she joined the Sallie Martin group, she dropped out of Wendell Phillips High School. She sang lead with the first female gospel singers formed by Sallie Martin,who was co-founder of the Gospel Singers Convention. Her involvement with the gospel choir occurred after she won an amateur contest at Chicago’s Regal Theater where she sang “I Can’t Face the Music”. Early in the morning of December 14, 1963, Washington’s sixth husband, football great Dick “Night Train” Lane, went to sleep with Washington and awoke later to find her slumped over and not responsive. Dr. B. C. Ross pronounced her dead at the scene at age 39. An autopsy later showed a lethal combination of secobarbital and amobarbital, prescriptions for her insomnia and diet, which contributed to her death. She is buried in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
see full post...Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed “Bird” or “Yardbird“, was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was an extremely fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker’s tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. He was known for the very clear, sweet and articulate notes he could produce from the saxophone.
Parker acquired the nickname “Yardbird” early in his career on the road with Jay McShann. This, and the shortened form “Bird”, continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as “Yardbird Suite“, “Ornithology“, “Bird Gets the Worm”, and “Bird of Paradise”. Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.
Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, at 852 Freeman Avenue, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, near Westport and later – in high school – near 15th and Olive St. to Charles Parker Sr. and Adelaide “Addie” Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African-American background. He attended Lincoln High School in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, just before joining the local musicians’ union and choosing to pursue his musical career full-time. His childhood sweetheart and future wife, Rebecca Ruffin, graduated from Lincoln High School in June 1935.
Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his high school band where he studied under Bandmaster Alonzo Lewis. His mother purchased a new alto saxophone around the same time. His father was often required to travel for work, but provided some musical influence because he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit. He later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways. Parker’s mother Addie worked nights at the local Western Union office. His biggest influence at that time was a young trombone player named Robert Simpson, who taught him the basics of improvisation.
see full post...Spanish guitarist and composer Manolo Sanlucar one of the innovative guitar masters of the 20th century such as Paco de Lucía or Tomatito, He passed away this Saturday at the age of 78.confirmed to the news agency EFE sources of the Town Hall of his hometown, Sanlúcar de Barrameda (south).
From the age of 13 he accompanied singers of all styles and was a reference in the world of flamencoamong others, he played with classical flamenco figures such as La Niña de los Peines, her artistic godmother, Pepe Pinto, Pepe Marchena or La Paquera de Jerez.
With more than twenty records, in 1988 he published Tauromagiaan example of the flamenco-bullfight union, dedicated to ten figures related to the world of bullfighting.
recorded together with Dew Sworn Y John Pena Lebrijano the first Andalusian opera, “gypsy gospel”, which he himself composed, performed, directed and produced.
Among his numerous performances, those at the Carnegie Hall Theater in New York in 1990 and his premiere in Japan of the symphonic work “Aljibe” (1992), with an excellent reception, stand out..
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Daughter, sister, wife, mom & LMFT therapist. Happy Birthday to my stunning daughter.
The Pleiades also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky.
Philip William Seamen (28 August 1926 – 13 October 1972) was an English jazz drummer.
With a background in big band music, Seamen played and recorded in a wide range of musical contexts with virtually every key figure of 1950s and 1960s British jazz. Notable examples included Joe Harriott, Tubby Hayes, Stan Tracey, Ronnie Scott, Denny Termer, Dick Morrissey, Harold McNair, Don Rendell, Victor Feldman, Dizzy Reece, Tony Coe, Tony Lee, and George Chisholm, among others. Later in his career he worked with Alexis Korner and Georgie Fame, and had a spell with Ginger Baker’s Air Force, the leader of the band being Seamen’s foremost disciple. Addiction to alcohol and other drugs hampered his career.
see full post...Daniel Peter Seraphine (born August 28, 1948) is an American drummer, record producer, theatrical producer and film producer. He is best known as the original drummer and founding member of the rock band Chicago, a tenure which lasted from February 1967 to May 1990.
Daniel Peter Seraphine was born in Chicago to John and Mary Seraphine. The family lived in the Dunning neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side. He started playing drums at the age of nine while attending St. Priscilla Catholic grade school. When he was 15 years old, Seraphine withdrew from Steinmetz High School. Outside of school he joined a local gang called the JPs.
In December 1965, after deciding to quit as a professional drummer, he was invited to join Jimmy Ford and the Executives, Dick Clark’s road band. Already in the band were Terry Kath on bass and Walter Parazaider on saxophone. After being let go from Jimmy Ford and the Executives when it merged with another local band, Little Artie and the Pharaohs (under the new name, The Mob) the three of them were invited to join a cover band called The Missing Links.
He studied privately with percussionist Bob Tilles at DePaul University, where future members of Chicago were also studying. Seraphine cites his influences as Buddy Rich, Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Grady Tate, Ringo Starr, Mitch Mitchell, and Hal Blaine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akhQtzIkbRo
see full post...Kenneth Sidney “Kenny” Drew (August 28, 1928 – August 4, 1993) was an American jazz pianist.
Drew was born in New York City, United States, and received piano lessons from the age of five. He attended the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. Drew’s first recording, in 1950, was with Howard McGhee, and over the next two years he worked in bands led by Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, among others. After a brief period with his own trio in California, Drew returned to New York, playing with Dinah Washington, Johnny Griffin, Buddy Rich, and several others over the following few years. He led many recording sessions throughout the 1950s, and in 1957 appeared on John Coltrane‘s album, Blue Train.
Drew was one of the American jazz musicians who settled in Europe around this period: he moved to Paris in 1961 and to Copenhagen three years later. While he sacrificed much of the interest of the American jazz audience, he gained a wide following across Europe. Kenny Drew was a well-known figure on the Copenhagen jazz scene, recording many sessions with the Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. “Living in Copenhagen, and travelling out from there,” Drew remarked, “I have probably worked in more different contexts than if I had stayed in New York where I might have got musically locked in with a set-group of musicians. This way, I have been able to keep my musical antennas in shape, while at the same time I have had more time to study and also get deeper into my own endeavors.
see full post...Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146, the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide. Climbing high in northern summer night skies, it’s located some 4,000 light years away toward the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Like other star forming regions, it stands out in red, glowing, hydrogen gas excited by young, hot stars, and dust-reflected starlight at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud. In fact, the bright star found near the center of this nebula is likely only a few hundred thousand years old, powering the nebular glow as it clears out a cavity in the molecular cloud’s star forming dust and gas. A 29 hour long integration with a small telescope from Ayr, Ontario, Canada resulted in this exceptionally deep color view tracing tantalizing features within and surrounding the dusty stellar nursery.
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Warren Harding “Sonny” Sharrock (August 27, 1940 – May 25, 1994) was an American jazz guitarist. He was married to singer Linda Sharrock, with whom he recorded and performed.
One of only a few prominent guitarists who participated in the first wave of free jazz during the 1960s, Sharrock was known for his heavily chorded attack, highly amplified bursts of feedback, and use of aggressive sustain to achieve saxophone-like lines on guitar. His early work also features creative use of a slide.
He was born in Ossining, New York, United States. Sharrock began his musical career singing doo wop in his teen years. He collaborated with Pharoah Sanders and Alexander Solla in the late 1960s, appearing first on Sanders’s 1966 album, Tauhid. He made several appearances with flautist Herbie Mann, and an uncredited appearance on Miles Davis‘s A Tribute to Jack Johnson.
see full post...Alice Coltrane (née McLeod; August 27, 1937 – January 12, 2007), also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was an American jazzmusician and composer, and in her later years a swamini. An accomplished pianist and one of the few harpists in the history of jazz, she recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other record labels. She was married to jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, with whom she performed in 1966–1967. One of the foremost exponents of spiritual jazz, her eclectic music proved widely influential both within and outside the world of jazz.
Coltrane’s professional music career slowed from the mid 1970s as she became more dedicated to her religious education. She founded the Vedantic Center in 1975 and the Shanti Anantam Ashram in California in 1983, where she served as spiritual director. On July 3, 1994, Swamini rededicated and inaugurated the land as Sai Anantam Ashram. During the 1980s and 1990s, she recorded several albums of Hindu devotional songs before returning to jazz in the 2000s.
Coltrane was born Alice McLeod on August 27, 1937, in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in a musical household. Her mother, Anna McLeod, was a member of the choir at her church; her half-brother, Ernest Farrow, became a jazz bassist; and her younger sister, Marilyn McLeod, became a songwriter at Motown. With the encouragement of her father, Alice McLeod pursued music and started to perform in various clubs around Detroit, until moving to Paris in the late 1950s. She studied classical music, and also jazz with Bud Powell in Paris, where she worked as the intermission pianist at the Blue Note Jazz Club in 1960. It was there that McLeod appeared on French television in a performance with Lucky Thompson, Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke.
see full post...Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed “Pres” or “Prez”, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie‘s orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called “a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike”.
Known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with the music.
Lester Young was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on August 27, 1909. to Lizetta Young (née Johnson), and Willis Handy Young, originally from Louisiana. Lester had two siblings – Leonidas Raymond, who became a drummer, and Irma Cornelia. He grew up in a musical family. His father was a teacher and band leader, and several other relatives performed professionally.
see full post...The jazz world lost another titan the morning of August, 25th as Joey DeFrancesco passed away at the young age of 51. Generally considered the best Hammond B3 organ player in the world, Joey DeFrancesco, born and raised in Philadelphia, worked early in his career with Miles Davis and later with such diverse artists as Van Morrison, Pharoah Sanders, and Diana Krall. His talents ran beyond just the organ; he was an engaging multi-instrumentalist known for his trumpet playing and occasional singing. Recent live performances, including one just this past Tuesday at Baltimore’s famed Keystone Korner, and his latest album, More Music (2021) featured DeFrancesco on tenor saxophone. With a gregarious personality and forward-thinking musical approach, DeFrancesco was a major force that will be sorely missed. He was one of the few, for example, who could get Van Morrison animated and actually induce laughs as heard on the two albums he and his band recorded with the Belfast soul man, You’re Driving Me Crazy (2018) and the The Prophet Speaks (2018).
DeFrancesco hails from a musical family as both his father and grandfather were musicians. Joey even played his grandfather’s tenor saxophonist on his most recent release, More Music. His brother, John, is a well-respected blues guitarist. DeFrancesco. Joey DeFrancesco was a 9-time winner of the Down Beat Critics Poll (organ) and won the Down Beat Readers Poll every year since 2005. DeFrancesco was an inaugural member of the Hammond Hall of Fame, inducted in 2013 along with other musicians that included Brian Auger, Billy Preston, Steve Winwood, and his mentor Jimmy Smith. was a four-time Grammy Award-nominee, with nominations in 2004, 2010, and 2020. The latter references 2019’s In the Key of the Universe with Pharoah Sanders, Troy Roberts, Billy Hart, and Sammy Figueroa. The album was hailed by many outlets including this one as one of the year’s best. Also in 2020, DeFrancesco recorded with his best friend, Christian McBride, both of whom attended Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. On the Grammy-nominated Christian McBride’s Big Band, For Jimmy, Wes, and Oliver, DeFrancesco also honors his mentor, Jimmy Smith.
DeFrancescoreleased more than 30 albums as a leader and recorded extensively as a side musician with such leading performers apart from those mentioned as Houston Person and John McLaughlin early in his career. He signed his first record deal at the age of 16 and over the years has recorded and toured internationally with David Sanborn, Arturo Sandoval, Larry Coryell, Frank Wess, Benny Golson, James Moody, Steve Gadd, Danny Gatton, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Cobb, George Benson, Pat Martino, Tony Monaco, John Scofield, Lee Ritenour, Joe Lovano, and done prominent session work with a wide variety of musicians including Ray Charles, Bette Midler, Janis Siegel, and Jimmy Smith. He has left us way too soon.
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