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Babatunde Lea
Babatunde Lea (born Michael Wayne Lea; February 18, 1948) is an American percussionist who plays Afro-Cuban jazz and worldbeat. He took his name from Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji. Biography Michael Lea was raised in Englewood, New Jersey, while regularly commuting to 116th and Amsterdam in New York, where the rest of his family lived after moving from his birthplace, Danville, Virginia. His aunt was one of the first women to play in a marching band. He began drumming at the age of 11, when he, without drumming experience helped a drumline get a rhythm right. That same year, his cousin took him to see Babatunde Olatunji and his "Drums of Passion", and Olatunji's influence was so great that Michael took on his first name. At 16, he first participated in a professional recording session with Ed Townsend. In 1968, he moved to San Francisco, where he joined Bata Koto, led by Bill Summers. He joined a band called Juju, which relocated to Richmond, Virginia in the early 1970s ...
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Danville, Virginia
Danville is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The city is located in the Southside (Virginia), Southside Virginia region and on the fall line of the Dan River (Virginia), Dan River. The city was a center of Tobacco in the United States, tobacco production and was an area of Confederate activity during the American Civil War, due to its strategic location on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. In April 1865, Danville briefly served as the third and final capital of the Confederate States of America, Confederacy before its surrender later that year. Danville has maintained an African American majority population since the Reconstruction era. During this time, the city was represented politically by African American members of the Readjuster Party. However, this changed following the Danville Massacre of 1883, after which Democrats regained control both locally and statewide. Decades later, during ...
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Bill Summers (musician)
Bill Summers (born June 27, 1948) is an American Afro-Cuban jazz/Latin jazz percussionist, a multi-instrumentalist who plays primarily on conga drums. Career In the 1970s, he founded Bill Summers & Summers Heat together with Bo Freeman, Calvin Tillery, Carla Vaughn, Claytoven Richardson, Earl Freeman, Freddie Washington, George Spencer, Hadley Caliman, James Levi, Jeff Lewis, Larry Batiste, Leo Miller, Lori Ham, Michael Sasaki, Munyungo Jackson, Paul Van Wageningen, Ray Obiedo, Rodney Franklin, Scott Roberts and Tom Poole. The group produced 7 albums between 1977 and 1983 : * ''Cayenne'' * ''Straight to the bank * ''On Sunshine'' * ''Jam the box'' * ''Call it what you want'' * ''Seventeen'' * ''London Style'' During the 1990s, Summers played with Los Hombres Calientes along with co-leader of the group, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and Jason Marsalis. However, Summers has a much longer musical career, often working behind the scenes on film scores for various movies such ...
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Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1832, the campus is adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield. Gettysburg College has about 2,600 students, with roughly equal numbers of men and women. Gettysburg students come from 41 states, Washington, D.C., and 39 countries. The school hosts 24 NCAA Division III men's and women's teams, known as the Bullets, and many club, intramural, and recreational sports programs. History Founding and early roots Gettysburg College was founded in 1832 as a sister institution for the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Lutheran Theological Seminary; the latter is now a campus of the United Lutheran Seminary. Both owe their inception to Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republicans, Radical Republican and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist from Gettysburg. The college's original name was Pennsylvania College; it was f ...
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Vallejo, California
Vallejo ( ; ) is a city in Solano County, California, United States, and the second largest city in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area. Located on the shores of San Pablo Bay, the city had a population of 126,090 at the 2020 United States census. Vallejo is home to the California State University Maritime Academy, California Maritime Academy, Touro University California and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Vallejo is named after Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the famed Californio general and statesman. The city was founded in 1851 on Gen. Vallejo's Rancho Suscol to serve as the capital city of California, which it was 1852–1853, after which the Government of California, Californian government moved to neighboring Benicia, California, Benicia, named in honor of Gen. Vallejo's wife Francisca Benicia Carrillo de Vallejo, Benicia Carrillo de Vallejo. The Mare Island Naval Shipyard was founded in 1854, and defined Vallejo's econ ...
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501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 501(c) organization, 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the US. 501(c)(3) tax-exemptions apply to entities that are organized and operated exclusively for religion, religious, Charitable organization, charitable, science, scientific, literature, literary or educational purposes, for Public security#Organizations, testing for public safety, to foster national or international amateur sports competition, or for the prevention of Child abuse, cruelty to children or Cruelty to animals, animals. 501(c)(3) exemption applies also for any non-incorporated Community Chest (organization), community chest, fund, Cooperating Associations, cooperating association or foundation organized and operated exclusively for those purposes.
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Mark Murphy (singer)
Mark Howe Murphy (March 14, 1932 – October 22, 2015) was an American jazz singer based at various times in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and San Francisco. He recorded 51 albums under his own name during his lifetime and was principally known for his innovative vocal improvisations. He was the recipient of the 1996, 1997, 2000, and 2001 ''Down Beat'' magazine readers' jazz poll for Best Male Vocalist and was also nominated five times for the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Jazz Performance.Jones, Peter. ''This is Hip: The Life of Mark Murphy'' (Equinox Publishing, 2018) He wrote lyrics to the jazz tunes "Stolen Moments (Oliver Nelson song), Stolen Moments" and "Red Clay". Early life Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1932, Murphy was raised in a musical family, his parents having met when his father was appointed director of the local Methodist Church choir. He grew up in the nearby small town of Fulton, Oswego County, New York, Fulton, New York, where his grandmother and then hi ...
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Oscar Brown, Jr
Oscar Brown Jr. (October 10, 1926May 29, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, actor, and civil rights activist (Brown was African-American). Brown discovered The Jackson 5. Aside from his career, Brown ran unsuccessfully for office in both the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Congress. Brown wrote many songs (125 have been published), 12 albums, and more than a dozen musical plays. Early life and education Brown was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Helen (née Clark) and Oscar Brown Sr., an attorney and real estate broker. His acting debut came on the Chicago radio show ''Secret City'' at the age of 15. After graduating from Englewood High School, Brown attended first the University of Wisconsin–Madison and then Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, but he dropped out of college and never returned. During Brown's twenties, he worked as the "world's first Black newscaster" for ''Negro Newsfront'', a Chicago radio program that he coproduced with Ver ...
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Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician whose recording career started in the 1960s. Morrison's albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK top 40, as well as internationally, including in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. He has scored top ten albums in the UK in four consecutive decades, following the success of 2021's ''Latest Record Project, Volume 1''. Eighteen of Van Morrison discography, his albums have reached the top 40 in the United States, twelve of them between 1997 and 2017. Since turning 70 in 2015, he has released – on average – more than an album a year. List of awards and nominations received by Van Morrison, His accolades include two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Honors & Awards, Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting, and inductions into both the Rock and ...
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Randy Weston
Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston (April 6, 1926 – September 1, 2018) was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection. Weston's piano style owed much to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, whom he cited in a 2018 video as among pianists he counted as influences, as well as Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Earl Hines."Randy Weston talks about his new solo double CD Sound"
YouTube video, March 27, 2018.
Beginning in the 1950s, Weston worked often with trombonist and arranger Melba Liston. Described as "America's African Musical Ambassador", Weston once said: "What I do I do because it's about teaching and informing everyone about our most natural cultural phenomenon. It's really about Africa a ...
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McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA Jazz Master and five-time Grammy Award winner. Tyner has been widely imitated, and is one of the most recognizable and influential jazz pianists of all time. Early life and education Tyner was born on December 11, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the eldest of Jarvis and Beatrice (née Stevenson) Tyner's three children. Tyner was encouraged to study piano by his mother, who had installed a piano at her beauty salon. When he was 13, Tyner began piano lessons at Granoff School of Music, where he also studied music theory and harmony. By the time he was 15, music had become the focus of his life. Tyner's decision to study piano was reinforced when he encountered bebop pianist Bud Powell, a neighbor of the Tyner family. Another major infl ...
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Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson (April 24, 1937 – June 30, 2001) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and very occasional flute player. In a career spanning more than four decades, Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note, Milestone, and Verve. Biography Early life Born in Lima, Ohio, Henderson was one of 14 children. He was encouraged by his parents, Dennis and Irene (née Farley) and older brother James T. to study music. He dedicated his first album to them "for being so understanding and tolerant" during his formative years. Early musical interests included drums, piano, saxophone and composition. According to trumpeter Kenny Dorham, two local piano teachers who went to school with Henderson's brothers and sisters, Richard Patterson and Don Hurless, gave him a knowledge of the piano.Original liner notes to '' Page One'' by Kenny Dorham He was particularly enamored of his brother's record c ...
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Stan Getz
Stan Getz (born Stanley Gayetski; February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott Yanow as "one of the all-time great tenor saxophonists". Getz performed in bebop and cool jazz groups. Influenced by João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim, he also helped popularize bossa nova in the United States with the hit 1964 single " The Girl from Ipanema". Early life Stan Getz was born Stanley Gayetski on February 2, 1927, at St. Vincent's Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Getz's father Alexander ("Al") was born in Mile End, London, in 1904, while his mother Goldie (née Yampolsky) was born in Philadelphia in 1907. His paternal grandparents Harris and Beckie ...
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