Author: mick

Leo Wright (December 14, 1933 in Wichita Falls, Texas – January 4, 1991 in Vienna) was an American jazz musician who played alto saxophone, flute and clarinet. He played with Booker Ervin, Charles Mingus, John Hardee, Kenny Burrell, Johnny Coles, Blue Mitchell and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1950s, early 1960s and in the late…

Phineas Newborn Jr. (December 14, 1931 – May 26, 1989) was an American jazz pianist, whose principal influences were Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Bud Powell. Newborn was born in Whiteville, Tennessee, and came from a musical family: his father, Phineas Newborn Sr., was a drummer in blues bands, and his younger brother, Calvin, a…

Cecil Payne (December 14, 1922 – November 27, 2007) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist born in Brooklyn, New York. Payne also played the alto saxophone and flute. He played with other prominent jazz musicians, in particular Dizzy Gillespie and Randy Weston, in addition to his solo work as bandleader. Payne received his first saxophone…

Clark Virgil Terry Jr. (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American swing and beboptrumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator. He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–51), Duke Ellington (1951–59), Quincy Jones(1960), and Oscar Peterson (1964–96). He was with The Tonight Show Band on…

Mamadou Sanou, better known as Baba Commandant, on November 26, 2023, of malaria fever in his hometown of Bobo-Diulasso. Baba Commandant was an influential and highly respected Manding musician in Burkina Faso. Baba Commandant, or Mamadou Sanou by birth, carved a niche for himself as a highly esteemed musician within the vibrant Burkinabé music scene….

The large emission nebula on the left, catalogued as IC 1805, looks somewhat like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element,hydrogen, but this long-exposure image was also blended with light emitted by silicon (yellow) and oxygen (blue). In the center of the Heart Nebula are young…

Joseph Lucian Messina (December 13, 1928 – April 4, 2022) was an American guitarist. Dubbed the “whitebrother with soul“, he was one of the most prolific guitarists in Motown Records‘ in-house studio band, the Funk Brothers. Messina was born in Detroit on December 13, 1928. He started playing the guitar when he was thirteen, after…