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JLaine
Jonathan Ernest Laine (born August 15, 1975) is a Washington DC-based Hip hop music, Hip hop producer and drummer. Background Jon was born an only child to Haitian parents in Falls Church, Virginia. He has three close cousins. Only recently (in 2009) he connected with his half sister. In 2011 Jon married Allison Gallo Laine and they reside in Northern Virginia. There are no musicians in his family. Nevertheless, Jon started having an interest in being a musician early on. He taught himself how to play drums listening to his mother's collection of vinyl and watching metal and rap videos on MTV while emulating the drummers he saw. It was not until his senior year of high school that he began classical percussion lessons. During that time he played as the pit percussionist in plays and musicals. Jon was heavily influenced in marching band and drum corps style drumming. Some of his first major musical experiences were in the ''National Symphony Orchestra Summer Youth Ensemble'', the ' ...
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Falls Church, Virginia
Falls Church is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Washington metropolitan area. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Church of England (later Episcopal Church) parish, Falls Church gained township status within Fairfax County in 1875. In 1948, it was incorporated as the City of Falls Church, an independent city with county-level governance status although it is not a county. The city's corporate boundaries do not include all of the area historically known as Falls Church; these areas include portions of Seven Corners and other portions of the current Falls Church postal districts of Fairfax County, as well as the area of Arlington County known as East Falls Church, which was part of the town of Falls Church from 1875 to 1936. For statistical purposes, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the City of Falls Church with Fairf ...
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Frédéric Yonnet
Frédéric Yonnet (born 30 April 1973) is a French musician, producer and recording artist who is best known for his use of the harmonica as a lead in jazz, R&B, funk, gospel and hip-hop influenced music. His ability to play chromatic scales on a diatonic harmonica gives him access to twice as many notes as the instrument is designed to deliver. Described by ''Rolling Stone'' as Prince's "killer harmonica player", Yonnet gained popularity for his on-stage performance with music icon Prince and his harmonica duels with the legendary Stevie Wonder. Yonnet has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including David Foster, Robbie Robertson,Erykah Badu, John Legend, India Arie, Angie Stone, Kindred The Family Soul, Justin Bieber, Randy Jackson, The Jonas Brothers and Grand Corps Malade. Career Early life Yonnet was born in Pont L'Eveque, Normandy, France. He is the younger of two sons born to French-Guyanese mother, Armande (Galas) Yonnet and Dominique Yonnet, a Fr ...
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Jimmy Heath
James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath. Biography Heath was born in Philadelphia on October 25, 1926. Allmusic biography/ref> His father, an auto mechanic, played the clarinet, performing on the weekends. His mother sang in a church choir. The family frequently played recordings of big band jazz groups around the house. Heath's sister was a pianist, while his brothers were bassist Percy Heath (older) and drummer Albert Heath (his youngest sibling). During World War II, Heath was rejected for the draft for being below the minimum weight. Heath originally played alto saxophone. He earned the nickname "Little Bird" after his work for Howard McGhee and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1940s, during which his playing displayed influences from Charlie Parker (Parker's nickname was "Bird"). He then s ...
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Frank Wess
Frank Wellington Wess (January 4, 1922 – October 30, 2013) was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. In addition to his extensive solo work, Wess is remembered for his time in Count Basie's band from the early 1950s into the 1960s. Critic Scott Yanow described him as one of the premier proteges of Lester Young, and a leading jazz flutist of his era—using the latter instrument to bring new colors to Basie's music. Biography Wess was born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, the son of a principal father and a schoolteacher mother. He began with classical music training and played in Oklahoma in high school. He later switched to jazz on moving to Washington, D.C. and by nineteen was working with big bands. His career was interrupted by World War II although he did play with a military band in the period. After leaving the military, he joined Billy Eckstine's orchestra. He returned to Washington D.C. a few years afterwards and received a degree in flute at the city's ...
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Fred Wesley
Fred Wesley (born July 4, 1943) is an American trombonist who worked with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970s. Biography Wesley was born the son of a high school teacher and big band leader in Columbus, Georgia, and raised in Mobile, Alabama. As a child he took piano and later trumpet lessons. He played baritone horn and trombone in school, and at around age 12 his father brought a trombone home, whereupon he switched (eventually permanently) to trombone. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was a pivotal member of James Brown's bands, playing on many hit recordings including " Say it Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud," " Mother Popcorn" and co-writing tunes such as "Hot Pants." His slippery riffs and pungent, precise solos, complementing those of saxophonist Maceo Parker, gave Brown's R&B, soul, and funk tunes their instrumental punch. In the 1970s he also served as band leader and musical director of Brown's band the J.B.' ...
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Charlie Byrd
Charlie Lee Byrd (September 16, 1925 – December 2, 1999) was an American jazz guitarist. Byrd was best known for his association with Brazilian music, especially bossa nova. In 1962, he collaborated with Stan Getz on the album '' Jazz Samba'', a recording which brought bossa nova into the mainstream of North American music. Byrd played fingerstyle on a classical guitar. Early life Charlie Byrd was born in 1925 in Suffolk, Virginia, and grew up in the borough of Chuckatuck. His father, a mandolinist and guitarist, taught him how to play the acoustic steel guitar at age 10. Byrd had three brothers, Oscar, Jack, and Gene "Joe" Byrd, who was a bass player. In 1942, Byrd entered the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and played in the school orchestra. In 1943, he was drafted into the United States Army, saw combat in World War II, and was stationed in Paris in 1945. There he played in an Army Special Services band and toured occupied Europe in the all-soldier production ''G.I. Ca ...
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Louie Bellson
Louie Bellson (born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, July 6, 1924 – February 14, 2009), often seen in sources as Louis Bellson, although he himself preferred the spelling Louie, was an American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums.National Endowment for the Arts biography of Louis Bellson
, January 1994; accessed January 2009.
Bellson performed in most of the major capitals around the world. Bellson and his wife, actress and singer Pearl Bailey (married from 1952 until Bailey's death in 1990), had the second highest number of appearances at the



Dwele
Andwele Gardner (born February 14, 1978), better known by his stage name Dwele, is an American R&B singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan. Biography Gardner was raised on the west side of Detroit in a musical family. He played piano from the age of six, later taking up trumpet, bass and guitar. He was deeply affected by the fatal shooting of his father outside his home when he was age ten, later stating "I learned to put my emotions into music; it was my therapy." He cites Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Roy Ayers, Miles Davis, and Freddie Hubbard as favorite artists, and took inspiration from hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, becoming an MC, and working with Slum Village. Gardner recorded a demo in his bedroom, called, ''The Rize'', and sold it out of the trunk of his car. He had about 100 copies, which sold out within a week. He caught the ears of local hip hop group Slum Village and their producer J Dilla. Slum Village invited Dwele to si ...
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Meshell Ndegeocello
Michelle Lynn Johnson, better known as Meshell Ndegeocello (; born August 29, 1968), is a German-born American singer-songwriter, rapper, and bassist. She has gone by the name Meshell Suhaila Bashir-Shakur which is used as a writing credit on some of her later work. Her music incorporates a wide variety of influences, including funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, reggae and rock. She has received significant critical acclaim throughout her career, being nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, and winning one. She also has been credited for helping to "spark the neo-soul movement". Biography Ndegeocello was born Michelle Lynn Johnson in West Berlin, Germany, to US Army Sergeant Major and saxophonist father Jacques Johnson and health care worker mother Helen. She was raised in Washington, D.C. where she attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Oxon Hill High School. Ndegeocello adopted her surname, which she says means "free like a bird" in Swahili. Early pressings of '' Plantation ...
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Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman (born September 20, 1956) is an American saxophonist, composer, bandleader and music theorist. In 2014, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. Early life Steve Coleman was born and grew up in South Side, Chicago. He started playing alto saxophone at the age of 14. Coleman attended Illinois Wesleyan University for two years,. followed by a transfer to Roosevelt University ( Chicago Musical College). Coleman moved to New York in 1978 and worked in big bands such as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Slide Hampton's big band, Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea Orchestra, and briefly in Cecil Taylor's big band.Steve Coleman in: Fred JungMy Conversation with Steve Coleman July, 1999, M-base.com Shortly thereafter, Coleman began working as a sideman with David Murray, Doug Hammond, Dave Holland, Michael Brecker and Abbey Lincoln. For the first four years in New York Coleman spent a good deal of time playing in the streets and in tiny clubs with a band that he put together with t ...
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Common (rapper)
Lonnie Rashid Lynn (born March 13, 1972), known by his stage name Common (formerly known as Common Sense), is an American rapper and actor. He debuted in 1992 with the album '' Can I Borrow a Dollar?,'' and gained critical acclaim with his 1994 album ''Resurrection.'' He maintained an underground following into the late 1990s. He achieved mainstream success through his work with the Soulquarians. His first major-label album, '' Like Water for Chocolate'' (2000), received commercial success. In 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for the Erykah Badu single " Love of My Life". His 2005 album '' Be'' was also successful and was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards. He received his second Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Southside" (featuring Kanye West), from his 2007 album '' Finding Forever''. His best-of album, '' Thisisme Then: The Best of Common'', was released in late 2007. In 2011, he launched Think Common Enter ...
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Angie Stone
Angela Laverne Brown (born December 18, 1961) known professionally as Angie Stone, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. She rose to fame in the late 1970s as member of the hip hop trio The Sequence. In the early 1990s, she became a member of the R&B trio Vertical Hold. Stone would later release her solo debut '' Black Diamond'' (1999) on Arista Records, which was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and spawned the single "No More Rain (In This Cloud)". After transitioning to J Records, she released her second album, '' Mahogany Soul'' (2001), which included the hit single "Wish I Didn't Miss You"; followed by the albums ''Stone Love'' (2004) and '' The Art of Love & War'' (2007), her first number-one album on the US ''Billboard'' Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Stone ventured into acting in the 2000s, making her film debut in the 2002 comedy film '' The Hot Chick'', and her stage debut in 2003, in the role of Big Mama Morto ...
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