Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017 St Louis, MO) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. Nicknamed the “Father of Rock and Roll“, he refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as “Maybellene” (1955), “Roll Over Beethoven” (1956), “Rock and Roll Music” (1957) and “Johnny B. Goode” (1958).Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.
Born into a middle-class African-American family in St. Louis, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to a reformatory, where he was held from 1944 to 1947. After his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffsand showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the Johnnie Johnson Trio. His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. With Chess, he recorded “Maybellene”—Berry’s adaptation of the country song “Ida Red“—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine’s rhythm and blues chart.
By the end of the 1950s Berry was an established star, with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis nightclub, Berry’s Club Bandstand. He was sentenced to three years in prison in January 1962 for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines. After his release in 1963, Berry had several more successful songs, including “No Particular Place to Go“, “You Never Can Tell“, and “Nadine“. However, these did not achieve the same success or lasting impact of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgic performer, playing his past material with local backup bands of variable quality. In 1972 he reached a new level of achievement when a rendition of “My Ding-a-Ling” became his only record to top the charts. His insistence on being paid in cash led in 1979 to a four-month jail sentence and community service, for tax evasion.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986; he was cited for having “laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance.” Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine’s “greatest of all time” lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 and 2011 lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll includes three of Berry’s: “Johnny B. Goode”, “Maybellene”, and “Rock and Roll Music”. Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record.
see full post...Ambrose Thibodeaux 10-18-1903 died 1995
Also known as Ambrose Sam, this Cajun accordion player was one of the leading exponents of Creole or la la music in the ’50s and ’60s, blowing out the doors in dancehalls throughout the St. Landry Parish of Louisiana. The appropriately titled Authentic French Acadian Music on the La Louisiane label collects many of his prime recordings. He continued performing well into his eighties and lives on as a musical presence in Cajun music in the form of his tunes, many of which are covered by artists such as Michael Doucet. The family itself is something of a musical dynasty. His brother, Herbert Sam Thibodeaux, was a sideman in his bands and Ambrose also played with his nephews in the Sam Brothers 5 band. Bassist Kenneth David is also a successful alumni of Thibodeaux’s groups.
see full post...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7WnEixMEq0
see full post...The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellationTriangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, behind the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.
David Nesta “Ziggy” Marley (born 17 October 1968) is a Jamaican musician and philanthropist. He is the son of reggae icon Bob Marley and Rita Marley. He led the family band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, with whom he released eight studio albums. He has also released seven solo albums. Marley is an eight-time Grammy Award winner and a Daytime Emmy Award recipient.
In the earliest known record of his musical career, David Marley performed as part of a singing group called The Seven Do Bees, made up of him and his classmates, and wherein he was given the stage name “Freddie Dic”. The name never stuck, however, and instead, David went on to become known as “Ziggy”, a nickname often reported to have been given to him by his father Bob Marley, meaning “little spliff”. However, Ziggy stated the following to Melody Maker magazine in 1988: “Me name David but me big Bowie fan. So at the time of the Ziggy Stardust album, me call meself Ziggy and now everyone do.
see full post...Emmanuel “Rico” Rodriguez MBE (17 October 1934 – 4 September 2015), also known as Rico, Reco or El Reco, was a Cuban-born Jamaican skaand reggae trombonist. He recorded with producers such as Karl Pitterson, Prince Buster, and Lloyd Daley. He was known as one of the first ska musicians. Beginning in the 1960s, he worked with The Members, The Specials, Jools Holland, and Paul Young.
Rodriguez was born in Havana, Cuba, and at an early age moved with his family to Jamaica. He grew up there in Kingston, and was taught to play the trombone by his slightly older schoolmate Don Drummond at the Alpha Boys School. In the 1950s, Rodriguez became a Rastafarian and was closely associated musically to the rasta drummer Count Ossie.
In 1961 Rodriguez moved to the UK, where he joined live bands such as Georgie Fame‘s Blue Flames and started to play in reggae bands.[5]Rodriguez also began recording with his own band, Rico’s All Stars, and later formed the group Rico and the Rudies, recording the 1969 albums Blow Your Horn and Brixton Cat. In 1976 he recorded the album Man from Wareika under a contract with Island Records. In the late 1970s, he recorded a song called Offshore Banking Business with The Members and with the arrival of the 2 Tone genre, he played with ska revival bands such as The Specials including their single “A Message to You, Rudy“.
see full post...Barney Kessel (October 17, 1923 – May 6, 2004) was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups as well as a “first call” guitarist for studio, film, and television recording sessions. Kessel was a member of the group of session musicians informally known as the Wrecking Crew.
In the early 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where for one year he was a member of the Chico Marx big band. He appeared in the film Jammin’ the Blues, which featured Lester Young. Soon after, he played in the bands of Charlie Barnet and Artie Shaw. During the day, he worked as a studio musician and at night played jazz in clubs. In 1947, he recorded with Charlie Parker. He worked in Jazz at the Philharmonic and for one year in the early 1950s he was a member of the Oscar Peterson trio. After leaving the trio, he recorded several solo albums for Contemporary. He recorded a series of albums with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne as The Poll Winners because the three of them often won polls conducted by Metronome and DownBeat magazines. He was the guitarist on the album Julie Is Her Name (1955) by Julie London, which includes the standard “Cry Me a River“, selling a million copies and demonstrated Kessel’s chordal approach to guitar.
see full post...William Randolph “Cozy” Cole (October 17, 1909 – January 9, 1981) was an American jazz drummer who worked with Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong among others and led his own groups.
William Randolph Cole was born in East Orange, New Jersey, United States. His first music job was with Wilbur Sweatman in 1928. In 1930, he played for Jelly Roll Morton‘s Red Hot Peppers, recording an early drum solo on “Load of Cole”. He spent 1931–33 with Blanche Calloway, 1933–34 with Benny Carter, 1935–36 with Willie Bryant, 1936–38 with Stuff Smith‘s small combo, and 1938–42 with Cab Calloway. In 1942, he was hired by CBS Radio music director Raymond Scott as part of network radio’s first integrated orchestra. After that he played with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars. Cole performed with Louis Armstrong and his All Stars with Velma Middleton singing vocals for the ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. The concert was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 7, 1953. Also featured that day were Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, Earl Bostic, Nat “King” Cole, and Shorty Rogers and his Orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWATen-GR84
see full post...The Pleiades (/ˈpliː.əˌdiːz, ˈpleɪ-, ˈplaɪ-/), also known as The Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. It is among the star clusters nearest to Earth, it is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.
Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades were probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula.Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood.
Together with the open star cluster of the Hyades, the Pleiades form the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic.
Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music in 1997 and in 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, especially performing jazz standards on his 1990s albums.
Hargrove was the bandleader of the progressive group the RH Factor, which combined elements of jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul, and gospel music. Its members have included Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, Pino Palladino, James Poyser, Jonathan Batiste, and Bernard Wright. His longtime manager was Larry Clothier.
Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan Hargrove and Jacklyn Hargrove. When he was 9, his family moved to Dallas, Texas. He took lessons on trumpet and was discovered by Wynton Marsalis when Marsalis visited the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. One of his most profound early influences was a visit to his junior high school by saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman, who performed as a sideman in Ray Charles‘s Band.
see full post...When Ruben Angel “Cachete” Maldonado died Friday, January 11 (2020), Puerto Rico lost a giant. The visionary, master drummer, educator, and co-founder of the groundbreaking groups, Batacumbele, and Los Majaderos was 67.
According to his widow, Carmín Colón, “The teacher of teachers continues in our hearts. He was a person well given to music, culture, people and liked to teach. He left a very large legacy for this country.” Also, she revealed Maldonado died in peace with a characteristic smile on his face.
Maldonado was born on October 16, 1951, in Barrio Obrero in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He grew up in the street called Calle Cortijo (named after Rafael Cortijo). His father, (Ruben), was a bassist in several bands, and his sister and aunt were vocalists.
Initially, Maldonado studied the bass and the piano, but he naturally gravitated to percussion. He studied under Julio César “Maco” Rivera, a master drummer well versed in the art of Afro-Cuban drumming, who taught Maldonado the rudiments of the congas, bongos, timbales, and other hand drums. Also, he introduced him to the batá drums and the Yoruba sacred ceremonial rituals of Orisha.
According to an interview with Maldonado in the newspaper, El Nuevo Dia, the nickname “Cachete” is a reference to Maldonado’s prominent cheeks!
In Puerto Rico, he performed with Johnny El Bravo and Danny Gonzalez. In the 1970s, he relocated to New York, where he studied with Carlos “Patato’ Valdés, Julito Collazo, and performed with the group, La Conspiración. This led to a collaboration with the pianist Larry Harlow and the highly acclaimed record “Hommy.” Also, tours of North and South America.
In 1973 he traveled to Cuba with the group, Tipica ’73, as part of a cultural exchange program. There, he immersed himself in Afro-Cuban percussion. Shortly after that, he joined Gato Barbieri’s band and played with “El Gato” for four years. The experience opened doors for “Cachete” in the jazz community.
see full post...Carlos C. Muñoz, better known as Carli Munoz or Carli Muñoz (born October 16, 1948), is a self-taught Puerto Rican jazz and rock pianist, best known for touring with the Beach Boys in the 1970s.
Although born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Muñoz’ music of choice was jazz.
At age 16, Muñoz travelled to New York City with a rock band he co-founded with Jorge Calderon called The Living End, AKA: Space, which for 18 months served as a house band at a New York club. Muñoz later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked with Wilson Pickett, Jan and Dean, the Association, George Benson, Charles Lloyd, Chico Hamilton, Wayne Henderson, Les McCann, Peter Cetera and Evie Sands.
From 1970 through 1981, Muñoz toured with the Beach Boys, playing Hammond B3 and piano.[1][2] Following his return to Puerto Rico in 1985, Muñoz stayed out of the spotlight. In December 1998, he opened a restaurant, Carli Cafe Concierto, where he performs jazz music. He often returns to the mainland to perform and record.
see full post...Joseph Lee “Big Joe” Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over four decades, he recorded the songs “Baby Please Don’t Go“, “Crawlin’ King Snake” and “Peach Orchard Mama”, among many others, for various record labels, including Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige and Vocalion. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.
The blues historian Barry Lee Pearson (Sounds Good to Me: The Bluesman’s Story, Virginia Piedmont Blues) described Williams’s performance:
- When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield’s “blues night” at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music I have ever heard.
Born in Oktibbeha County, a few miles west of Crawford, Mississippi, Williams as a youth began wandering across the United States busking and playing in stores, bars, alleys and work camps. In the early 1920s he worked in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels revue. He recorded with the Birmingham Jug Band in 1930 for Okeh Records.
see full post...Carlos Pedrell (16 October 1878 – 9 March 1941) was a Uruguayan composer, guitarist and educator. Pedrell was born in Minas, Uruguay; he was the nephew of the Spanish guitarist and composer Felipe Pedrell. Initially, he studied harmony at Montevideo before he went to Spain to study with his uncle. He then worked in Paris at the Schola Cantorum under Vincent d’Indy.
He returned to South America in 1906. Much of his career was spent in Argentina, where he taught at the National University of Tucumán and served as an inspector of schools in Buenos Aires. He returned to Paris in 1921 and died in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.
see full post...Performing tonight for Shabbat for the Soul with Kim Salisbury
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