mick’s blog

Daily Roots with Dillinger

February 10, 2022

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Cosmos NGC 2174

February 9, 2022

NGC 2174 (also known as Monkey Head Nebula) is an H II emission nebula located in the constellation Orion and is associated with the open star cluster NGC 2175. It is thought to be located about 6,400 light-years away from Earth. The nebula may have formed through hierarchical collapse.

There is some equivocation in the use of the identifiers NGC 2174 and NGC 2175. These may apply to the entire nebula, to its brightest knot, or to the star cluster it includes. Burnham’s Celestial Handbook lists the entire nebula as 2174/2175 and does not mention the star cluster. The NGC Project (working from the original descriptive notes) assigns NGC 2174 to the prominent knot at J2000 06h 09m 23.7s, +20° 39′ 34″ and NGC 2175 to the entire nebula, and by extension to the star cluster. Simbad uses NGC 2174 for the nebula and NGC 2175 for the star cluster.

 

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Joe Maneri

February 9, 2022

Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri (February 9, 1927 – August 24, 2009 Brooklyn, NY), was an American jazz composer, saxophone and clarinet player. Violinist Mat Maneri is his son.

In 1988, Maneri founded the Boston Microtonal Society, dedicated to microtonal music and tuning. It is currently led by James Bergin and Julia Werntz.

 

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Ernest Tubb

February 9, 2022

Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 – September 6, 1984 Crisp, TX), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, “Walking the Floor Over You” (1941), marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music.

In 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson’s “Blue Christmas“, a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his late-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was “Waltz Across Texas” (1965) (written by his nephew Quanah Talmadge Tubb, known professionally as Billy Talmadge), which became one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texasduring waltz lessons. Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, including their hit “Sweet Thang”. Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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Carmen Miranda

February 9, 2022

Carmen Miranda, GCIH, OMC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkaɾmẽȷ̃ miˈɾɐ̃dɐ]; born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, 9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star who was active from the late 1920s onwards. Nicknamed “The Brazilian Bombshell”, Miranda was known for her signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in her American films. As a young woman, she designed hats in a boutique before making her first recordings with composer Josué de Barros in 1929. Miranda’s 1930 recording of “Taí (Pra Você Gostar de Mim)”, written by Joubert de Carvalho, catapulted her to stardom in Brazil as the foremost interpreter of samba.

During the 1930s, Miranda performed on Brazilian radio and appeared in five Brazilian chanchadas, films celebrating Brazilian music, dance and the country’s carnival culture. Hello, Hello Brazil! and Hello, Hello, Carnival! embodied the spirit of these early Miranda films. The 1939 musical Banana da Terra (directed by Ruy Costa) gave the world her “Baiana” image, inspired by Afro-Brazilians from the north-eastern state of Bahia.

In 1939, Broadway producer Lee Shubert offered Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris after seeing her at Cassino da Urca in Rio de Janeiro. The following year she made her first Hollywood film, Down Argentine Way with Don Ameche and Betty Grable and her exotic clothing and Lusophone accent became her trademark. That year, she was voted the third-most-popular personality in the United States; she and her group, Bando da Lua, were invited to sing and dance for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1943, Miranda starred in Busby Berkeley‘s The Gang’s All Here, which featured musical numbers with the fruit hats that became her trademark. By 1945, she was the highest-paid woman in the United States.

Miranda made fourteen Hollywood films between 1940 and 1953. Although she was hailed as a talented performer, her popularity waned by the end of World War II. Miranda came to resent the stereotypical “Brazilian Bombshell” image she had cultivated and attempted to free herself of it with limited success. She focused on nightclub appearances and became a fixture on television variety shows. Despite being stereotyped, Miranda’s performances popularized Brazilian music and increased public awareness of Latin culture.

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Walter Page

February 9, 2022

Walter Sylvester Page (February 9, 1900 – December 20, 1957) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist and bandleader, best known for his groundbreaking work as a double bass player with Walter Page’s Blue Devils and the Count Basie Orchestra.

Page was born in Gallatin, Missouri on February 9, 1900 to parents Edward and Blanche Page. Page showed a love for music even as a child, perhaps due in part to the influence of his aunt Lillie, a music teacher. Page’s mother, with whom he moved to Kansas City in 1910, exposed him to folksongs and spirituals, a critical foundation for developing his love of music. He gained his first musical experience as a bass drum and bass horn player in the brass bands of his neighborhood.

 

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World Fusion with Spell Songs

February 9, 2022

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Daily Roots with Sugar Minott

February 9, 2022

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Cosmos NGC 7582

February 8, 2022

Lurking about 70 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Grus, you will find the galaxy NGC 7582 — a spiral galaxy harbouring a supermassive black hole at its core.

The galaxy contains an active galactic nucleus (AGN)  — an extremely energetic central engine powered by the supermassive black hole gobbling up material in its immediate surroundings.  Matter heats up in this process, launching huge amounts of energy and powerful winds into the surrounding area. But what effect does this have on the galaxy at large?

To find out, a recent study, led by Stéphanie Juneau from NSF’s NOIRLab in the USA, looked at the distribution of different ionised elements in the galaxy. The image on the right shows oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen in blue, green and red respectively. The red glowing areas are regions of high star formation activity, whereas the dominant blue regions show the cone-shaped material flowing out of the AGN. The image on the left, which covers the same area, shows a more classical view of this galaxy, with dust lanes obscuring blue and orange starlight.

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Shadia

February 8, 2022

Fatma Ahmed Kamal Shaker (Arabic: فاطمة أحمد كمال شاكر; 8 February 1931 – 28 November 2017), better known by her stage name Shadia (Arabic: شادية, Shādiyya), was an Egyptian actress and singer. She was famous for her roles in light comedies and drama in the 1950s and 1960s. She was the third wife of Actor and film producer Salah Zulfikar. Shadia was one of the iconic actresses and singers in Egypt and the Middle East region and a symbol of the golden age of Egyptian cinema and is known of her many patriotic songs. Her movies and songs are popular in Egypt and all the Arab World. Critics consider her the most successful comprehensive Egyptian and Arabic artist of all time. Her first appearance in a film was in “Azhar wa Ashwak” (Flowers and Thorns), and her last film was “La Tas’alni Man Ana” (Don’t Ask Me Who I Am).[1] She is also known for her patriotic song “Ya Habibti Ya Masr” (Oh Egypt, My Love) and her breakthrough leading role in the Egyptian movie “Al Maraa Al Maghoula” (The Unknown Woman).[2] Six of her movies are listed in the top 100 Egyptian movies of the 20th century. In April 2015, she became the first actress to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the Egyptian Academy of Arts. She was given the nickname “Idol of the Masses” following her successful movie “Maaboudat El Gamaheer” (Idol of the Masses).[citation needed] Other notable nicknames include “The Guitar of the Arabic Singing” (Egyptian Arabic: قيثارة الغناء العربى) and “The Golden Guitar” (Egyptian Arabic: القيثارة الذهبية).

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John Williams

February 8, 2022

John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor and pianist. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic history. Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Academy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 52 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. His compositions are considered the epitome of film music; Classic FM considers Williams to be one of the greatest composers of classical music in history.

Williams has composed for many critically acclaimed and popular movies, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the first two Home Alone films, the Indiana Jones films, the first two Jurassic Park films, Schindler’s List, and the first three Harry Potter films. Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. He served as the Boston Pops‘ principal conductor from 1980 to 1993 and is its laureate conductor. He has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for all but five of his feature films, and George Lucas, with whom he has worked on both of his main franchises. Other works by Williams include theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, NBC Sunday Night Football, “The Mission” theme used by NBC News and Seven News in Australia, the television series Lost in Space and Land of the Giants, and the incidental music for the first season of Gilligan’s Island.

In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams’s score to 1977’s Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time. The Library of Congress also entered the Star Wars soundtrack into the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl‘s Hall of Fame in 2000, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2004. His AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016 was the first to be awarded outside of the acting and directing fields. He has composed the score for nine of the top 25 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office (adjusted for inflation). His work has influenced other composers of film, popular, and contemporary classical music; Norwegian composer Marcus Paus argues that Williams’s “satisfying way of embodying dissonance and avant-garde techniques within a larger tonal framework” makes him “one of the great composers of any century”.

 

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Floyd Dixon

February 8, 2022

Floyd Dixon (February 8, 1929 – July 26, 2006) was an American rhythm-and-blues pianist and singer.

Dixon was born in Marshall, Texas. Some sources give his birth name as Jay Riggins, Jr., although he himself stated that Floyd Dixon was his real name and that his parents were Velma and Ford Dixon. Growing up, he was influenced by blues, gospel, jazz and country music. His family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1942. There Dixon met Charles Brown, who had an influence on his music.

The self-dubbed “Mr. Magnificent”, Dixon signed a recording contract with Modern Records in 1949, specializing in jump blues and sexualized songs like “Red Cherries”, “Wine Wine Wine”, “Too Much Jelly Roll” and “Baby Let’s Go Down to the Woods”. Both “Dallas Blues” and “Mississippi Blues”, credited to the Floyd Dixon Trio, reached the Billboard R&B chart in 1949, as did “Sad Journey Blues”, issued by Peacock Records in 1950.

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Lonnie Johnson

February 8, 2022

Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson (February 8, 1899 – June 16, 1970) was an American blues and jazz singer, guitarist, violinist and songwriter. He was a pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin and is recognized as the first to play an electrically amplified violin.

Johnson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in a family of musicians. He studied violin, piano and guitar as a child and learned to play various other instruments, including the mandolin, but he concentrated on the guitar throughout his professional career. “There was music all around us,” he recalled, “and in my family you’d better play something, even if you just banged on a tin can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp9BlskYdqU

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World Music with Mauro Palmas

February 8, 2022

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Daily Roots with Frankie Jones

February 8, 2022

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Cosmos Arp 282

February 7, 2022

It is now widely accepted amongst astronomers that an important aspect of how galaxies evolve is the way they interact with one another. Galaxies can merge, collide, or brush past one another — each of which has a significant impact on their shapes and structures. As common as these interactions are thought to be in the Universe, it is rare to capture an image of two galaxies interacting in such a visibly dynamic way. This image, from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, feels incredibly three-dimensional for a piece of deep-space imagery.  The subject of this image is named Arp 282, an interacting galaxy pair that is composed of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 169 (bottom) and the galaxy IC 1559 (top). If you’re interested in learning more about Seyfert galaxies, you can read about the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5728 here. Interestingly, both of the galaxies comprising Arp 282 have monumentally energetic cores, known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), although it is difficult to tell that from this image. This is actually rather fortunate, because if the full emission of two AGNs was visible in this image, then it would probably obscure the beautifully detailed tidal interactions occurring between NGC 169 and IC 1559. Tidal forces occur when an object’s gravity causes another object to distort or stretch. The direction of the tidal forces will be away from the lower-mass object and towards the higher mass object. When two galaxies interact, gas, dust and even entire solar systems will be drawn away from one galaxy towards the other by these tidal forces. This process can actually be seen in action in this image — delicate streams of matter have formed, visibly linking the two galaxies.

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Earl King

February 7, 2022

Earl Silas Johnson IV (February 7, 1934 – April 17, 2003), known as Earl King, was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter, most active in blues music. A composer of blues standards such as “Come On” (covered by Jimi Hendrix, Freddie King, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and “Big Chief” (recorded by Professor Longhair), he was an important figure in New Orleans R&B.

King was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. His father was a piano player. He died when Earl was still a baby, and Earl was brought up by his mother. With his mother, he started going to church at an early age. In his youth he sang gospel music, but he took the advice of a friend to switch to blues to make a better living.

King started to play the guitar at the age of 15. Soon he started entering talent contests at local clubs, including the Dew Drop Inn. At one such club he met his idol, Guitar Slim. King started imitating Slim, and his presence had a big impact on his musical direction. In 1954, Slim was injured in an automobile accident (right around the time he had the number 1 R&B hit “The Things That I Used To Do”), and King was deputized to continue a tour with Slim’s band, representing himself as Slim. After succeeding in this role, King became a regular at the Dew Drop Inn.

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King Curtis

February 7, 2022

Curtis Ousley (born Curtis Montgomery; February 7, 1934 – August 13, 1971), known professionally as King Curtis, was an American saxophonist who played rhythm and blues, jazz, and rock and roll. A bandleader, band member, and session musician, he was also a musical director and record producer. A master of the instrument, he played tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone.[2] He played riffs and solos on hit singles such as “Respect” by Aretha Franklin (1965), and “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters (1958) and his own “Soul Serenade” (1964) and “Memphis Soul Stew” (1967).

Curtis Montgomery was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Ethel Montgomery, and was adopted, with his sister Josephine Allen (died 2019), by Josie and William Ousley. Curtis attended I.M. Terrell High School, and studied and performed music with schoolmate Ornette Coleman (1930–2015).

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Milt Holland

February 7, 2022

Milton Holland (born Milton Olshansky; February 7, 1917 – November 4, 2005) was an American drummer, percussionist, ethnomusicologist, and writer in the Los Angeles music scene. He pioneered the use of African, South American, and Indian percussion styles in jazz, pop and film music, traveling extensively in those regions to collect instruments and learn styles of playing them.

Holland was born Milton Olshansky in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. His first instrument was the violin. He pursued a passion for percussion, playing in clubs and shows and on CBS Radio in Chicago. By the age of twelve, he was playing at speakeasies for the likes of Al Capone.

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Eubie Blake

February 7, 2022

James HubertEubieBlake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was an American pianist, lyricist, and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popularmusic. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake’s compositions included such hits as “Bandana Days”, “Charleston Rag”, “Love Will Find a Way”, “Memories of You” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry“. The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works.

Eubie Blake was born February 7, 1887, at 319 Forrest Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. Of the many children born to former slaves, Emily “Emma” Johnstone and John Sumner Blake, he was the only one to survive childhood. John Sumner Blake was a stevedore on the Baltimore Docks.

Blake claimed in later life to have been born in 1883, but records published beginning in 2003—U.S. Census, military, and Social Security records and Blake’s passport application and passport—uniformly give his birth year as 1887.

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