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Grover Washington Jr. (December 12, 1943 – December 17, 1999) was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Dave Grusin, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre. He wrote some…

Emmanuel N’Djoké Dibango (born 12 December 1933) is a Cameroonian musician and songwriter who plays saxophone and vibraphone. He developed a musical style fusing jazz, funk, and traditional Cameroonian music. His father was a member of the Yabassi ethnic group, though his mother was a Duala. He is best known for his 1972 single “Soul…

Toshiko Akiyoshi (秋吉 敏子 or 穐吉 敏子 Akiyoshi Toshiko, born 12 December 1929) is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. She has received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in Down Beatmagazine’s annual Readers’ Poll. In 1984, she was the subject of the…

What has this supernova left behind? As little as 2,000 years ago, light from a massive stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) first reached planet Earth. The LMC is a close galactic neighbor of our Milky Way Galaxy and the rampaging explosion front is now seen moving out – destroying or displacing ambient…

Alfred McCoy Tyner (born December 11, 1938) is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career. Tyner was born in Philadelphia as the oldest of three children. He was encouraged to study piano by his mother. He began studying the piano at age 13 and…

Willie Mae Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984), better known as Big Mama Thornton, was an American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog“, in 1952, which became her biggest hit, staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and…

Dámaso Pérez Prado (Spanish: [ˈpeɾes ˈpɾaðo]; December 11, 1916 – September 14, 1989) was a Cuban bandleader, pianist and composer who popularized the mambo in the late 1940s. He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre. The success of his orchestra and hits such as “Mambo No. 5” earned him the nickname…