Author: mick

6,523 light years from Earth This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed…

Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967 Dawson, GA) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Redding’s style of singing gained…

Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004 Pontiac, MI) was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed an interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family’s home in Pontiac, Michigan. He served in the United States Army from 1946 to 1949 and…

Badie Muhammad El Tayb, is one of the Haqibah generation, he performing one of the traditional Haqibah songs, Nour Jabienou Sabah HAQIBAH Modern Northern Sudanese music has its roots in haqibah (pronounced hagee-ba). It originated in the early 1920s, and was originally derived from the Muslim gospel style known as madeeh. Haqibah is essentially a…

The RCW 120 bubble seen by ESA’s Herschel space observatory. It lies about 4300 light-years away. A star at the centre, not visible at these infrared wavelengths, has blown a beautiful bubble around itself with the mighty pressure of the light it radiates. The pressure is so strong that it has compressed the material at…

Edward Rudolph “Butch” Warren Jr. (September 8, 1939 – October 5, 2013) was an American jazz bassist who was active during the 1950s and ’60s. Warren’s mother was a typist. His father, Edward Sr., was an electronics technician who played piano and organ part-time in clubs in Washington, D.C. The Warren home was often visited…

James Earl Clay (b. Sept. 8, 1935, Dallas, Texas – d. there, Jan. 1, 1994) was an American hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist and flutist. While in school Clay played alto saxophone, became a professional musician, and played with local bands in Dallas, including with Booker Ervin. Later, he went to California, there he played…

Wilbur Bernard Ware (September 8, 1923 – September 9, 1979) was an American jazz double-bassist[1] known for his creative use of time and space, his angular, unorthodox solo technique and a distinctive percussive sound. He was a staff bassist at Riverside Records in the 1950s, playing on many of the label’s sessions, including LPs with…