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This six-panel mosaic shows the three stars in the center of the constellation Orion the Hunter. From left to right, they are Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Alnitak and Mintaka are 1,200 light-years away while Alnilam lies some 2,000 light-years distant. Orion’s Belt or the Belt of Orion, also known as the Three Kings or Three…

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and actor. His music is characterized by lyrics focusing on the underside of society, delivered in his distinctive deep, gravelly voice. During the 1970s, he worked primarily in jazz, but since the 1980s his music has reflected greater influence from blues,…

Louis Leo Prima (December 7, 1910 – August 24, 1978) was an American singer, actor, songwriter, bandleader, and trumpeter. While rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music, and jump blues, Prima touched on various genres throughout his career: he formed a seven-piece New Orleans-style jazz band in the late 1920s, fronted a swing combo in…

Blind John Davis (December 7, 1913 – October 12, 1985) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer. He is best remembered for his recordings, including “A Little Every Day” and “Everybody’s Boogie”. Davis was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and relocated with his family to Chicago at the age of two. Seven years later…

Edmundo Ros OBE FRAM (7 December 1910 – 21 October 2011), born Edmund William Ross, was a Trinidadian-Venezuelan musician, vocalist, arranger and bandleader who made his career in Britain. He directed a highly popular Latin American orchestra, had an extensive recording career and owned one of London’s leading nightclubs. Edmund William Ross was born in Port of…

This cosmic vista stretches almost 20 degrees from top to bottom, across the dusty constellation Taurus. It begins at the Pleiades and ends at the Hyades, two star clusters recognized since antiquity in Earth’s night sky. At top, the compact Pleiades star cluster is about 400 light-years away. The lovely grouping of young cluster stars…