Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding. Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, very rarely collide in the course of the ponderous cataclysm that lasts for hundreds of millions of years. But the galaxies’ large clouds of molecular gas and dust often do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center of the cosmic wreckage. Spanning over 500 thousand light-years, this stunning view also reveals new star clusters and matter flung far from the scene of the accident by gravitational tidal forces. The remarkably sharp ground-based image, an accumulation of 88 hours of exposure captured during 2012-2021, follows the faint tidal tails and distant background galaxies in the field of view. The suggestive overall visual appearance of the extended arcing structures gives the galaxy pair, also known as Arp 244, its popular name – The Antennae.
Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss.
His career highlights as a musician include recording five No. 1 albums among 28 albums on the Billboard chart; achieving 14 platinum albums and 15 gold albums; and earning nine Grammy Awards. He has sold 72 million records worldwide. Alpert is one of two musicians to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist (“This Guy’s in Love with You“, 1968) and an instrumentalist (“Rise“, 1979); the other is Barry White (“Love’s Theme“, a 1973 instrumental with The Love Unlimited Orchestra and 1974’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe“).
Herb Alpert was born and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Eastside Los Angeles, California, the son of Tillie (née Goldberg) and Louis Leib Alpert. His parents were Jewish immigrants to the U.S. from Radomyshl (in present-day Ukraine) and Romania.
see full post...Frederick William Green (March 31, 1911 – March 1, 1987) was an American swing jazz guitarist who played rhythm guitar with the Count Basie Orchestra for almost fifty years.
Green was born in Charleston, South Carolina on March 31, 1911. He was exposed to music from an early age, and learned the banjo before picking up the guitar in his early teenage years. A friend of his father by the name of Sam Walker taught a young Freddie to read music, and keenly encouraged him to keep up his guitar playing. Walker gave Freddie what was perhaps his first gig, playing with a local community group of which Walker was an organizer. Another member of the group was William “Cat” Anderson, who went on to become an established trumpeter, working with notable figures such as Duke Ellington.
see full post...Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville, March 31, 1908 – April 6, 1999) was an American musician, one of jazz‘s early vibraphonists, known as “Mr. Swing”. He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His recordings included “Dance of the Octopus”, “Bughouse”, “Knockin’ on Wood”, “Congo Blues”, and “Hole in the Wall”.
Red Norvo was born in Beardstown, Illinois, United States. His career began in Chicago with a band called “The Collegians” in 1925. He played with many other bands, including an all-marimba band on the vaudeville circuit, and the bands of Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, and Woody Herman. He recorded with Mildred Bailey (his wife from 1933 to 1942), Billie Holiday, Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra. Norvo and his wife were known as “Mr. and Mrs. Swing.” He appeared as himself in the film Screaming Mimi (1958) and in Ocean’s 11, accompanying Dean Martinwhile he sang “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?“.
see full post...Major Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953), better known as Big Maceo Merriweather, was an American pianist and blues singer. He was mainly active in Chicago through the 1940s.
Born in Newnan, Georgia, he was a self-taught pianist. In the 1920s, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, to begin his music career. He moved to Chicago in 1941, where he made the acquaintance of Tampa Red. Red introduced him to Lester Melrose of RCA Victor and its subsidiary label Bluebird Records, who signed Merriweather to a recording contract.
His first record was “Worried Life Blues” (1941), which became a blues hit and remained his signature piece. The song had elements derived from Sleepy John Estes‘ “Someday, Baby”. Other classic piano blues recordings followed, such as “Chicago Breakdown”, “Texas Stomp”, and “Detroit Jump“. His piano style was developed from players like Leroy Carr and Roosevelt Sykes and from the boogie-woogie style of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. He in turn influenced other musicians, such as Little Johnny Jones and Henry Gray, the latter of whom credited Merriweather with helping him launch his career as a blues pianist.
see full post...Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the Brandenburg Concertos; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.
The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical formation in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar, where he expanded his organ repertory, and Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig. He composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university’s student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by his sovereign, Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in 1736. In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.
Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach’s compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular. He composed Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs. He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments. He composed concertos, for instance for violin and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works employ the genres of canon and fugue.
Throughout the 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including, the Air on the G String and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring“, and of recordings, such as three different box sets with complete performances of the composer’s oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death.
see full post...RIP TABBY DIAMOND – MIGHTY DIAMONDS’ LEAD SINGER KILLED
REST IN POWER TABBY DIAMOND [October 7, 1955 – March 29, 2022]
Sad news reached us from Jamaica today: Donald Orlando Shawaka Tabby Diamond of legendary group The Mighty Diamonds was shot dead last night in Kingston, Jamaica.
The Jamaica Gleaner (Andre Williams/Staff Reporter) reported this morning: “Reggae musician ‘Tabby Diamond’ of the legendary trio Mighty Diamonds is among two people shot dead on McKinley Crescent in the St Andrew South Police Division. Three other people were shot in the drive-by attack. The musician, whose real name is Donald Orlando Shaw, 67, was among a group seated on the roadway when they came under attack about 9:45 p.m. They were rushed to hospital by residents where Shaw and another man were pronounced dead and three other people admitted with gunshot injuries.”
Our social media feeds are overflowing with tributes from fans and colleagues:
DENNIS ALCAPONE:
“R I P Tabby Diamond.. May your Soul Forever Rest in Perfect Peace My Brother. You said When the Right Time Come But This is not the Right Time. This is very untimely and the way that These Heartless people took your life is Totally unacceptable. You spend your whole life making people Happy and This is the Reward you Get. Still can’t believe that this is the end. We Had some nice times on the Road I will Cherish Those Times .Travel Good My Brother. Mankind Mankind. Man is not Kind Anymore.”
UPDATE: “Just Got an update on the Shooting of Tabby Diamond. They said that Tabby was standing with Two other Persons at His Gate and all three of them Got Shot and Tabby is the only one that Died. Can you Believe it Family.”
PERFECT GIDDIMANI:
“Oh Jamaica, why ???? U give us Legends and take them away. Rise In Power Tabby. Diamonds are forever!”
WARRIOR KING
“Jah kno!!! My friend, my brother, icon, mentor!! We have lost a great soul!! When will all this violence stop?! Im sick and I’m tired…am I supposed to be afraid to live in my own country? to sit at my own gate?
May his soul rest in peace. My condolences to his family. We have lost a great soul. I will always remember all your great advice Tabby.”
MIKEY GENERAL:
“EGZIO TESEHALENE. LORD HAVE MERCY!!!One the great voices of reggae music, The legend Tabby Diamond was killed last night in a drive by shooting. He was one of the humblest artist and person l know. Recently l did some dubs for a sound with him. Soft spoken, kind, humility was his trademark. JAH blessed him him a sweet unique voice.Reggae has lost a real giant. Condolences to the family and friends. Dis yah one hot!!! RIP GREAT ICON.”
MR VEGAS:
“Walk in peace great one! Jamaica is not a real place! They killed your flesh, not your spirit! Swallowfield the battle field; Natty Dread will never run away! Hail King Tubby! You are indeed a Mighty Diamond!”
UPPSALA REGGAE FESTIVAL:
“Rest In Eternal Peace Tabby Diamond. What a sad day in life and a huge loss for Reggae in general. One of the humblest and most pleasant people to be around with, one will ever meet gets shot to death on a senseless drive-by shooting, while sitting and minding his own on a roadway with friends. Our deepest condolences to his family.”
BRIAN JAHN (Photographer):
“So sad to hear of the tragic death one of my favorite singers. I’ll miss that golden voice and big smile. Walk good Tabby”
IN THE PRESS
GRANGE CONDEMNS KILLING OF ‘TABBY’ SHAW OF THE MIGHTY DIAMONDS
[Jamaica Observer – March 30, 2022]
“The news about Tabby’s death has left me in shock. I have had a special and close relationship with the Mighty Diamonds over the years. I feel the pain of the other two Diamonds, ‘Bunny’ and ‘Judge’, who I know will never get over the loss of Tabby. I pray for strength for them always.”
MIGHTY DIAMONDS LEAD SINGER KILLED IN DRIVE-BY SHOOTING
[Jamaica Observer – March 30, 2022]
“Lead singer of stalwart reggae group Mighty Diamonds, Tabby Diamond was among two people killed in a drive-by shooting on McKinley Crescent in Kingston minutes before 10 on Tuesday night.”
REGGAE ICON, TABBY DIAMOND – OF THE MIGHTY DIAMONDS – KILLED IN MCKINLEY CRESCENT SHOOTING
[Nationwide 90FM – March 30, 2022]
“Sources believe Shaw may have been the target of the attack. According to Nationwide sources, one of Shaw’s close relatives has reportedly been involved in several recent shooting incidents in the community.”
MIGHTY DIAMONDS LEAD VOCALIST, ‘TABBY’, KILLED IN DRIVE-BY SHOOTING
[Loop News – March 30, 2022]
“Speaking to Loop News on Wednesday Lloyd ‘Judge’ Ferguson, one of the remaining members of the Mighty Diamonds, said Shaw will be missed. Fitzroy ‘Bunny’ Simpson is the other member of the group, which was formed in 1969. “Tabby was one of the great soul singers, I knew him from 1969, we did 46 albums and a whole heap of singles together; we toured the world. He will be greatly missed,” Ferguson told Loop News”
MIGHTY DIAMONDS LEAD SINGER SHOT DEAD
[Voice Online – March 30, 2022]
“IT’S BEEN reported that ‘Tabby Diamond’ real name Donald Shaw, lead singer of the Mighty Diamonds has been shot dead in Jamaica. Tabby, 67, one of three members of the legendary music group formed in 1969, is one of two people said to have been caught up in a drive-by shooting on McKinley Crescent in the St Andrew South Police Division.”
‘MIGHTY DIAMONDS’ LEAD SINGER AMONG TWO KILLED IN DRIVE-BY SHOOTING
[Jamaica Gleaner – March 30, 2022]
“They were rushed to hospital by residents where Shaw and another man were pronounced dead and three other people admitted with gunshot injuries.”
Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and a well-known satellite of our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 55 is more like 6 million light-years distant, a member of the Sculptor Galaxy Group. Classified as an irregular galaxy, in deep exposures the LMC itself resembles a barred disk galaxy. Spanning about 50,000 light-years, NGC 55 is seen nearly edge-on though, presenting a flattened, narrow profile in contrast with our face-on view of the LMC. Just as large star forming regions create emission nebulae in the LMC, NGC 55 is also seen to beproducing new stars. This highly detailed galaxy portrait highlights a bright core crossed with dust clouds, telltale pinkish star forming regions, and young blue star clusters in NGC 55.
Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has won multiple awards and her albums have sold more than 50 million records worldwide. Billboard named her the top jazz artist of the 2000s decade. She has won nine Grammy Awards and was ranked 60th on Billboard magazine’s artists of the 2000s decade chart.
In 2002, Jones launched her solo music career with the release of Come Away with Me, which was a fusion of jazz with country, blues, folk and pop. It was certified diamond, selling over 27 million copies. The record earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Her subsequent studio albums—Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), and The Fall (2009)—all gained platinum status, selling over a million copies each. They were also generally well received by critics. Jones’s fifth studio album, Little Broken Hearts, was released on April 27, 2012; her sixth, Day Breaks, was released on October 7, 2016. Her seventh studio album, Pick Me Up Off the Floor, was released on June 12, 2020. Jones made her feature film debut as an actress in My Blueberry Nights, which was released in 2007 and was directed by Wong Kar-Wai.
Jones is the daughter of Indian sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar and concert producer Sue Jones, and is the half-sister of fellow musicians Anoushka Shankar and Shubhendra Shankar.
see full post...Eric Patrick Clapton CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, widely regarded as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone‘s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time“[3] and fourth in Gibson‘s “Top 50 Guitarists of All Time”.[4] He was also named number five in Time magazine’s list of “The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players” in 2009.
After playing in a number of different local bands, Clapton joined the Yardbirds in 1963, replacing founding guitarist Top Topham. Dissatisfied with the change of the Yardbirds sound from blues rock to a more radio-friendly pop rock sound, Clapton left in 1965 to play with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. On leaving Mayall in 1966, after one album, he formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and “arty, blues-based psychedelic pop”. After Cream broke up in November 1968, he formed the blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech, recording one album and performing on one tour before they broke up. Clapton embarked on a solo career in 1970.
Alongside his solo career, he also performed with Delaney & Bonnie and Derek and the Dominos, with whom he recorded “Layla“, one of his signature songs. He continued to record a number of successful solo albums and songs over the next several decades, including a 1974 cover of Bob Marley‘s “I Shot the Sheriff” (which helped reggae reach a mass market), the country-infused Slowhand album (1977) and the pop rock of 1986’s August. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton’s grief was expressed in the song “Tears in Heaven“, which appeared on his Unplugged album, and in 1996 he had another top-40 hit with the R&B crossover “Change the World“. In 1998, he released the Grammy award-winning “My Father’s Eyes“. Since 1999, he has recorded a number of traditional blues and blues rock albums and hosted the periodic Crossroads Guitar Festival. His most recent studio album is Happy Xmas (2018).
Clapton has received 18 Grammy Awards as well as the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2004, he was awarded a CBE for services to music. He has received four Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and of Cream.
In his solo career, Clapton has sold more than 280 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.
see full post...John Lee Curtis “Sonny Boy” Williamson (March 30, 1914 – June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He is often regarded as the pioneer of the blues harp as a solo instrument. He played on hundreds of recordings by many pre–World War II blues artists. Under his own name, he was one of the most recorded blues musicians of the 1930s and 1940s and is closely associated with Chicago producer Lester Melrose and Bluebird Records. His popular songs, original or adapted, include “Good Morning, School Girl“, “Sugar Mama“, “Early in the Morning“, and “Stop Breaking Down“.
Williamson’s harmonica style was a great influence on postwar performers. Later in his career, he was a mentor to many up-and-coming blues musicians who moved to Chicago, including Muddy Waters. In an attempt to capitalize on Williamson’s fame, Aleck “Rice” Miller began recording and performing as Sonny Boy Williamson in the early 1940s, and later, to distinguish the two, John Lee Williamson came to be known as Sonny Boy Williamson I or “the original Sonny Boy”.
see full post...NGC 3199 is an emission nebula in the constellation Carina. It is commonly known as the Banana Nebula. The object was discovered in 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. It is a bow shockaround the central star, WR 18, an especially hot and especially luminous Wolf–Rayet star.
Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou (Greek: Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου [eˈvaɲɟelos oðiˈseas papaθanaˈsi.u]; born 29 March 1943), known professionally as Vangelis (/væŋˈɡɛlɪs/ vang-GHEL-iss; Greek: Βαγγέλης [vaɲˈɟelis]), is a Greek musician and composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, and orchestral music. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score to Chariots of Fire (1981), as well as for composing scores to the films Blade Runner (1982), Missing (1982), Antarctica (1983), The Bounty (1984), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), and Alexander (2004), and for the use of his music in the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.
Vangelis began his career working with several pop bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite’s Child, with the latter’s album 666 (1972) going on to be recognized as a progressive–psychedelic rock classic. Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed scores for several animal documentaries, including L’Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo released several albums together as Jon & Vangelis.
In 1980, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack’s single, the film’s theme, also reached the top of the American Billboard Hot 100 chart and was used as the background music at the London 2012 Olympics winners’ medal presentation ceremonies.
Having had a career in music spanning over 50 years and having composed and performed more than 50 albums, Vangelis is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of electronic music.
see full post...Michael Leonard Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He was awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2004, and was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 2007.
Michael Brecker was born in Philadelphia and raised in Cheltenham Township, a local suburb. He was raised in a Jewish–and artistic–family: his father, Bob (Bobby), was a lawyer who played jazz piano and his mother, Sylvia, was a portrait artist. Michael Brecker was exposed to jazz at an early age by his father. He grew up as part of the generation of jazz musicians who saw rock music not as the enemy but as a viable musical option. Brecker began studying clarinet at age 6, then moved to alto saxophone in eighth grade, settling on the tenor saxophone as his primary instrument in his sophomore year. While performing at the Mount Fuji Jazz Festival in 2004, Brecker experienced a sharp pain in his back. Shortly thereafter in 2005, he was diagnosed with the blood disorder myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Despite a widely publicized worldwide search, Brecker was unable to find a matching stem cell donor. In late 2005, he was the recipient of an experimental partial matching stem cell transplant. By late 2006, he appeared to be recovering, but the treatment proved not to be a cure. He made his final public performance on June 23, 2006, playing with Hancock at Carnegie Hall. Brecker died from complications of leukemia in a Manhattan hospital. His funeral was held on January 15, 2007 in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
see full post...