Located around 5000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan), Abell 78 is an unusual type of planetary nebula.  After exhausting the nuclear fuel in their cores, stars with a mass of around 0.8 to 8 times the mass of our Sun collapse to form dense and hot white dwarf stars. As this process occurs, the dying star will throw off its outer layers of material, forming an elaborate cloud of gas and dust known as a planetary nebula. This phenomenon is not uncommon, and planetary nebulae are a popular focus for astrophotographers because of their often beautiful and complex shapes. However, a few like Abell 78 are the result of a so-called “born again” star.  Although the core of the star has stopped burning hydrogen and helium, a thermonuclear runaway at its surface ejects material at high speeds. This ejecta shocks and sweeps up the material of the old nebula, producing the filaments and irregular shell around the central star seen in this Picture of the Week, which features data from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and PANSTARSS.

Ryland Peter Cooder (born March 15, 1947 LA, CA) is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer and record producer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.

Cooder’s solo work draws upon many genres. He has played with John Lee Hooker, Captain Beefheart, Gordon Lightfoot, Ali Farka Touré, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, David Lindley, The Chieftains, The Doobie Brothers, and Carla Olson & the Textones (on record and film). He formed the band Little Village. He also produced the Buena Vista Social Club album (1997), which became a worldwide hit. Wim Wenders directed the documentary film of the same name (1999), which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000.

Cooder was ranked eighth on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 list of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” (David Fricke’s Picks). A 2010 ranking by Gibson placed him at number 32.

Sylvester Stewart (born March 15, 1943), better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia, and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s.

Raised in California, Stone mastered several instruments at an early age and performed gospel music as a child with siblings (and future bandmates) Freddie and Rose. In the mid-1960s, he worked as both a record producer for Autumn Records and a disc jockey for San Francisco radio station KSOL. In 1966, Stone formed Sly & the Family Stone, among the first racially integrated, male and female acts in popular music. The group would score hits such as “Dance to the Music” (1968), “Everyday People” (1968), “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” (1969) and “Family Affair” (1971) and acclaimed albums such as Stand! (1969) and There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971).

By the mid-1970s, Stone’s drug problems and erratic behavior effectively ended the group, leaving him to record several unsuccessful solo albums. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the group. He took part in a Sly and the Family Stone tribute at the 2006 Grammy Awards, his first live performance since 1987.

Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career.

After the band’s disbanding in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of Grateful Dead family music with side project Phil Lesh and Friends, which paid homage to the Dead’s music by playing their originals, common covers, and the songs of the members of his band. Lesh operates a music venue called Terrapin Crossroads. He scaled back his touring regimen in 2014 but continues to perform with Phil Lesh & Friends at select venues. From 2009 to 2014, he performed in Furthur alongside former Grateful Dead bandmate Bob Weir.

Lesh was born in Berkeley, California, and started out as a violin player. While enrolled at Berkeley High School he switched to trumpet and participated in all of the school’s music-related extracurricular activities. Studying the instrument under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band, he developed a keen interest in avant-garde classical music and free jazz. After attending San Francisco State University for a semester, Lesh was unable to secure a favorable position in the school’s band or orchestra and determined that he was not ready to pursue a higher education. Upon dropping out, he successfully auditioned for the renowned Sixth Army Band (then stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco) with the assistance of Hansen but was ultimately determined to be unfit for military service.

Charles Lloyd (born March 15, 1938) is an American jazz musician. Though he primarily plays tenor saxophone and flute, he has occasionally recorded on other reed instruments, including alto saxophone and the Hungarian tárogató. Lloyd’s band since 2007 includes pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland.

Charles Lloyd grew up in Memphis, Tennessee and was exposed to blues, gospel and jazz. He is of African, Cherokee, Mongolian, and Irish ancestry. He was given his first saxophone at the age of 9 and was riveted by 1940s radio broadcasts by Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. His early teachers included pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr. and saxophonist Irvin Reason. His closest childhood friend was trumpeter Booker Little. As a teenager Lloyd played jazz with saxophonist George Coleman, Harold Mabern, and Frank Strozier, and was a sideman for Johnny Ace, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVEKGYZI2yM

Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.

Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase “eighty-eight tuned drums” to describe Taylor’s style. He has been referred to as being “like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings”.

Taylor was raised in the Corona, Queens neighborhood of New York City. As an only child to a middle-class family, Taylor’s mother encouraged him to play music at an early age. He began playing piano at age six and went on to study at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor majored in composition and arranging. During his time there, he also became familiar with contemporary European art music. Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen notably influenced his music.

Samuel John “Lightnin’” Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Centerville, Texas. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

The musicologist Robert “Mack” McCormick opined that Hopkins is “the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act”.

Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas, and as a child was immersed in the sounds of the blues. He developed a deep appreciation for this music at the age of 8, when he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. That day, Hopkins felt the blues was “in him”. He went on to learn from his older (distant) cousin, the country blues singer Alger “Texas” Alexander. (Hopkins had another cousin, the Texas electric blues guitarist Frankie Lee Sims, with whom he later recorded.) Hopkins began accompanying Jefferson on guitar at informal church gatherings. Jefferson reputedly never let anyone play with him except young Hopkins, and Hopkins learned much from Jefferson at these gatherings.

In the mid-1930s, Hopkins was sent to Houston County Prison Farm; the offense for which he was imprisoned is unknown. In the late 1930s, he moved to Houston with Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the music scene there. By the early 1940s, he was back in Centerville, working as a farm hand.

Hopkins took a second shot at Houston in 1946. While singing on Dowling Street in Houston’s Third Ward (which would become his home base), he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum of Aladdin Records, based in Los Angeles. She convinced Hopkins to travel to Los Angeles, where he accompanied the pianist Wilson Smith. The duo recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in 1946. An Aladdin executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins “Lightnin'” and Wilson “Thunder”.

Thione Ballago Seck (March 12, 1955 – March 14, 2021) was a Senegalese singer and musician in the mbalakh genre. Seck came from a family of “griot” singers from the Wolof people of Senegal. His first job was with Orchestre Baobab, but he later formed his own band, Raam Daan, of which he was a member until his death in 2021.

Seck’s album Orientation was one of four nominated for BBC Radio 3‘s World Music Album of the Year in 2006. In much of his music, and notably on this album, Seck experiments with the use of Indian & Arabic scales. This supplements his laid back vocals and the band’s intense sabar driven rhythms, and displaces the band’s more usual guitars, horns, and synthesizers. This album was made in collaboration with a range of more than 40 North African, Arab, and Indian musicians, playing diverse instruments and creating a fusion of styles. Seck has stated that Bollywood films were a longstanding musical influence for him, and the experiment in a fusion style reflects this.

Other albums include XV Anniversary Live! (his second international release) and Daaly. He contributed “Laye M’Boup,” a tribute to the late Orchestre Baobab leader, to The Music in My Head soundtrack. Seck also wrote “Entends-tu le monde?” which was the lead single from Australian singer Tina Arena‘s seventh studio album 7 vies.

On June 22, 2020, Thione Seck was convicted of “attempted scam”, “money laundering”, “criminal association” and “attempted circulation, possession and reception of falsified monetary signs.” He was sentenced on appeal to three years in prison, including eight months in prison (covered by the nine months served upon his initial arrest in 2015).

On 14 March 2021, Seck died in Dakar following an illness, at the age of 66.

March 14th 1951

According to Rootz Reggae & Kulcha magazine (2004), “Eugene Grey is yet another of the many genius guitarists of world class status that Jamaica has produced” playing professionally from the age of 14. Born in Green Island Jamaica in 1951, he went to Ruseas High School in 1963 where he started playing the harmonica in the School Band. After winning 1st place in the Pop and Mento competition in 1964, he taught himself to play the trombone, drums, piano and lastly the guitar, which he made.

Eugene has an eclectic style that combines Jazz, Reggae and Classical music. This style has led to him touring worldwide as lead guitarist with such artists as Grammy Award winners Burning Spear and Toots and The Maytals, Ras Tesfa, Culture, Fab 5, Irving Burgie and Kid Creole and The Coconuts. Other artists Eugene has performed with include Big Youth, The Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, America’s Singing Poet Steve DePass, West Africa’s Abdou M’Boup and Vieux Diop, Tony Cafresi and His Latin Orchestra, The Wailers, Burning Spear and The Skatalites. While with The Skatalites Mr. Grey performed with Charlie Palmieri and Arthur Blythe at New York’s club ‘Village Gate’. In 1992 Eugene performed with his group, POWER REGGAE as the opening act and backing band for Jamaica’s Gregory Issacs in Switzerland.

He has recorded on all of the albums by Kid Creole and The Coconuts including arranging the song “Haiti” on their 1994 project. Also, the album “Voice of the Rastaman” by Shanachie artist Ras Tesfa and on the 1995 album “Via Jo” by Triloka artist Vieux Diop from Senegal, West Africa. Mr. Grey composed and arranged an original piece “Song For Jah” which was featured on the album “Another One Gone” by Shanachie Records artist Safi Abdullah. He also arranged the 1993 Christmas album for one of Jamaica’s premier male singers, Vic Taylor. vAnother aspect of his career was performing as a member of the orchestra in several Off-Broadway plays and musicals such as “In A Pigs Valise” in 1989; “Pecong” in 1991 at Newark Symphony Hall and the Off Broadway Classical musical “Sally and Tom” at Castillo Theatre in 1995/96. He also was Musical Director for the Off-Broadway musical “Rasta” in 1995.

Eugene was commissioned to arrange 42 of the original songs of his longtime employer, Irving Burgie to market as a Broadway Musical review. These songs were made famous by Harry Belafonte 50 years ago. His arrangements garnered extensive praise from Cherry Lane Records.

His official debut release “Timeless” was nominated for a 2003 Reggaesoca Music Award. This instrumental album has enjoyed rave reviews as well as extensive airplay in the US, Canada and Jamaica. 2004 saw his performance at the Suntrust Jazz Brunch at Riverwalk in Fort Lauderdale which coincided with the release of his new project, “Shades of Grey” which was nominated for 2005 Reggaesoca Music Award. Later that same year Eugene was in England as Musical Director for Irving Burgie’s musical “Day-O”.

Shirley Scott (March 14, 1934 – March 10, 2002) was an American jazz organist.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Scott studied trumpet and piano in school. As a performer in the 1950s, she played the Hammond B-3 organ. Her recordings with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis included the hit “In the Kitchen”. Influenced by gospel and blues, she played soul jazz in the 1960s with Stanley Turrentine, who became her husband during the same decade; the couple divorced in 1971.

Although organ trios declined in popularity during the 1970s, they resurged in the 1980s and she recorded again. In the 1990s, she recorded as pianist in a trio and performed at venues in Philadelphia.

Scott won an $8 million settlement in 2000 against American Home Products, the manufacturers of the diet drug fen-phen. She died of heart failure in 2002. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Shirley Scott among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW1ugIujS-I

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992.

Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before moving on to work in pop music and film scores. In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African-Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “The Eyes of Love” from the film Banning. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film In Cold Blood, making him the first African-American to be nominated twice in the same year. In 1971, he became the first African-American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. In 1995, he was the first African-American to receive the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the second most Oscar-nominated African-American, with seven nominations each.

Jones was the producer, with Michael Jackson, of Jackson’s albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987), as well as the producer and conductor of the 1985 charity song “We Are the World“, which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time. Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on the South Side of Chicago on March 14, 1933, the son of Sarah Frances (née Wells), a bank officer and apartment complex manager, and Quincy Delight Jones Sr., a semi-professional baseball player and carpenter from Kentucky. Jones’ paternal grandmother was an ex-slave in Louisville, and Jones would later discover that his paternal grandfather was Welsh. With the help of the author Alex Haley in 1972 and Latter-day Saint researchers in Salt Lake City, Jones discovered that his mother’s ancestors included James Lanier, a relative of poet Sidney Lanier. Jones said, “He had a baby with my great-grandmother [a slave], and my grandmother was born there [on a plantation in Kentucky]. We traced this all the way back to the Laniers, the same family as Tennessee Williams.” Learning that the Lanier immigrant ancestors were French Huguenots who had court musicians among their ancestors, Jones attributed some of his musicianship to them.

Robert Pete Williams (March 14, 1914 – December 31, 1980) was an American Louisiana blues musician. His music characteristically employed unconventional structures and guitar tunings, and his songs are often about the time he served in prison. His song “I’ve Grown So Ugly” has been covered by Captain Beefheart, on his album Safe as Milk (1967), and by The Black Keys, on Rubber Factory (2004).

Williams was born in Zachary, Louisiana, to a family of sharecroppers. He had no formal schooling, and spent his childhood picking cotton and cutting sugar cane. In 1928, he moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and worked in a lumberyard. At the age of 20, Williams fashioned a crude guitar by attaching five copper strings to a cigar box, and soon after bought a cheap, mass-produced one. Williams was taught by Frank and Robert Metty, and was at first chiefly influenced by Peetie Wheatstraw and Blind Lemon Jefferson. He began to play for small events such as Church gatherings, fish fries, suppers, and dances. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Williams played music and continued to work in the lumberyards of Baton Rouge.

The stunning Atoms for Peace galaxy was given its nickname due to its superficial resemblance to an atomic nucleus, surrounded by the loops of orbiting electrons. “Atoms for Peace” was the title of a speech given by President Eisenhower in 1953, in an attempt to rebrand nuclear power as a tool for working toward global peace. Somewhat ironically this galaxy has had anything but a peaceful past — it was formed in a catastrophic merger between two smaller galaxies nearly 1 Gyr ago. Distance: 220 Million ly

Stephen Scott (born March 13, 1969) in is an American jazz pianist. Scott played piano from the age of five. While attending New York’s High School of the Performing Arts he was introduced to jazz by alto saxophonist Justin Robinson, in particular the music of Wynton Kelly and Red Garland. Later, he took private lessons at the Juilliard School of Music.

In 1986 he received the Young Talent Award from the National Association of Jazz Educators and within the year was hired as accompanist to Betty Carter. Scott was soon playing with bands led by Kenny Barron, Terence Blanchard, Ron Carter, Lou Donaldson, Benny Golson, Craig Handy, Roy Hargrove, the Harper Brothers, Joe Henderson (appearing on the Grammy-winning tribute to Billy Strayhorn, Lush Life, Jon Hendricks, Bobby Hutcherson, Victor Lewis, appearing on Eeeyyess!, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins and Bobby Watson.