Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter - Deep Down In Florida

And to celebrate the New Year! Cheers! Welcome 2016!

Hope you keep "Faithful" with us and the Blues, Jazz, Classic Rock and so on....

Musicians:
Johnny Winter - guitar & vocals
Muddy Waters - guitar & vocals
James Cotton - harmonica
Charles Capice - bass
Willie Smith - drums
Bob Margolin - guitar
Pinetop Perkins - piano

Tower Theater - Philadelphia, PA - March 6th, 1977

Now You Has Jazz - That's Jazz 1956 - Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was born in a poor section of New Orleans known as “the Battlefield” on August 4, 1901.

By the time of his death in 1971, the man known around the world as Satchmo was widely recognized as a founding father of jazz—a uniquely American art form. His influence, as an artist and cultural icon, is universal, unmatched, and very much alive today.
Louis Armstrong’s achievements are remarkable. During his career, he:

• developed a way of playing jazz, as an instrumentalist and a vocalist, which has had an impact on all musicians to follow; 
• recorded hit songs for five decades, and his music is still heard today on television and radio and in films; 
• wrote two autobiographies, more than ten magazine articles, hundreds of pages of memoirs, and thousands of letters; 
• appeared in more than thirty films (over twenty were full-length features) as a gifted actor with superb comic timing and an unabashed joy of life;
• composed dozens of songs that have become jazz standards;
• performed an average of 300 concerts each year, with his frequent tours to all parts of the world earning him the nickname “Ambassador Satch,” and became one of the first great celebrities of the twentieth century. 

Through the years, Louis entertained millions, from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in Corona. Despite his fame, he remained a humble man and lived a simple life in a working-class neighborhood. To this day, everyone loves Louis Armstrong—just the mention of his name makes people smile.

To most Americans, he was the eternal Crooner: a much celebrated and beloved performer of unparalleled popularity. Yet Bing Crosby was far more than that: He was an architect of 20th century entertainment, a force in the development of three industries that barely existed when he came into the world: recordings, motion pictures, and broadcasting. As the most successful recording artist of all time; an abiding star of movies, radio, and television; and a firm believer in the wonders of technology, he helped to transform and define the cultural life not only of the United States, but of the world.

Nina Simone - Central Park Blues

Nina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic. Simone was a singer, pianist, and songwriter who bent genres to her will rather than allowing herself to be confined by their boundaries; her work swung back and forth between jazz, blues, soul, classical, R&B, pop, gospel, and world music, with passion, emotional honesty, and a strong grasp of technique as the constants of her musical career.

The Official Home of Nina Simone | The High Priestess of Soul

Sonny Boy Williamson II - Your Funeral, My Trial

Aleck "Rice" Miller, a.k.a. "Sonny Boy Williamson"

According to his gravestone, Rice Miller was born March 11, 1897, in the country between Glendora and Tutwiler, Mississippi. He was raised by his mother Millie Ford and stepfather Jim Miller, and acquired the nickname "Rice" as a young child. Miller, who was interested in music as a toddler, taught himself to play harmonica at the age of five. Interestingly, W.C. Handy heard early blues played on a train platform in Tutwiler about this same time. Miller became quite adept at the harmonica, playing spiritual music at parties for tips as a child. As he grew older, he began playing spirituals at schools and street corners as "Little Boy Blue." During the 1920s he left his parents' home and began to hobo, playing blues to support himself.

Miller hoboed through Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri during the 1920s, playing levee and lumber camps, juke joints, and parties. He claimed to have made unissued test recordings in the late 1920s, but these have never been found. During the 1930s Miller teamed up with guitarists Elmore James and Robert Johnson for short periods. He also developed a partnership with a young Johnson protégé, guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood. During the late 1930s, Jackson, Tennessee, harmonica wizard John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson recorded several hits including "Good Morning Little School Girl" and "Bluebird Blues" for the Bluebird label in Chicago. During the early 1940s, Rice Miller began calling himself "Sonny Boy Williamson" and responded to anyone who questioned it that he was "the original Sonny Boy."

As Sonny Boy Williamson, he and Lockwood auditioned for executives of Interstate Grocer, the makers of King Biscuit flour, in the Interstate Grocer Co. Building. Interstate Grocer agreed to sponsor the pair and in 1941 they began broadcasting from the Floyd Truck Lines Building on KFFA radio. King Biscuit Time was arguably the most influential radio show in blues history, reaching as-yet unrecorded blues artists Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, and Jimmy Rogers, as well as the large Delta blues audience. As remuneration for hawking King Biscuit flour and cornmeal, Williamson was allowed to announce his upcoming gigs on the air. He became an established star throughout the Delta and recruited guitarist Joe Willie Wilkins to augment the group.

Williamson left KFFA in 1944, and hooked up with Elmore James after the latter's discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1945. By 1947, Williamson had taken lodgings in the Belzoni, Mississippi, boarding house where James lived. Ever the promoter, he and James broadcast from O.J. Turner's drugstore in Belzoni, over a hookup to Yazoo City's WAZF and Greenville's WGVM, hawking Talaho Syrup. Williamson toured the Delta with James and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup during the late 1940s before leaving for West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1948. In West Memphis, he secured another radio job, this time pitching Hadacol Tonic on KWEM. It was here that he met B.B. King, who had approached Williamson for work as a sideman. Typically, Williamson had a more lucrative job offer in Clarksdale, Mississippi, but was scheduled the same night for the 16th Street Grill in West Memphis. He gave the 16th Street Grill job to King, admonishing the young guitarist not to fail.

Williamson first recorded on January 5, 1951, for Lillian McMurry's Trumpet label. The session took place at Trumpet's studio at 309 Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi, and featured backing from pianist Willie Love, Elmore James, Joe Willie Wilkins, and drummer "Frock" O'Dell. Although nothing was issued from this session, McMurry continued recording Williamson for several more years. Many of the sides he recorded for Trumpet, such as "Eyesight to the Blind," "Nine Below Zero," and "West Memphis Blues," have since become blues harp standards. After Trumpet suspended operations in 1955, Williamson moved to Milwaukee and began recording for Chess subsidiary Checker Records.

At Checker, Williamson began a series of hit singles, beginning with "Don't Start Me to Talking," which featured sympathetic backing from Muddy Waters's band. His harp style featured a phenomenal technique that layered a wide dynamic range, complex phrasing, and a variety of effects, all held together by his impeccable timing. Williamson's singing lacked the dynamism of his playing and his gruff, hoarse vocals conveyed a broad range of emotion unmatched by the range of his voice. He was also an accomplished songwriter, and many of the songs he recorded for Checker, including "One Way Out," "Fattening Frogs for Snakes," and "Your Funeral And My Trial," are considered blues classics. Backed by Lockwood and ace Chess session musicians including guitarist Luther Tucker, pianists Otis Spann and Lafayette Leake, bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Fred Below, Williamson created a modern sound that revolved around his harmonica shuffles.

Williamson continued to tour the Delta, working his way back to Milwaukee through Helena, Memphis, and St. Louis. He toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival package in 1963 and 1964, remaining for some time in England, where he became a sensation. He returned to Helena in 1965 and rented a room at a boarding house at 427 ½ Elm Street, telling everyone who asked that he had "come home to die." He resumed playing King Biscuit Time, now broadcast from KFFA's studio atop the Helena National Bank Building.

Sonny Boy Williamson died May 25, 1965, at his boarding house. Aleck Miller's grave is near Tutwiler, Mississippi, just off Highway 49.

Bessie Smith - Yellowdog Blues

Bessie Smith, the "EMPRESS OF THE BLUES".

Born on April 15, 1894, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bessie Smith was one of ten children. Both of her parents had died by her eighth birthday, and she was raised by her older sister Viola and encouraged to sing and dance by her oldest brother Clarence. He soon joined the Moses Stokes traveling show, leaving Smith and their brother Andrew to sing for pennies on Chattanooga street corners.

Clarence later arranged an audition for Smith with the Moses Stokes Company and she was hired as a dancer in 1912. She became friends with an older Moses Stokes veteran, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, who was called the Mother of the Blues and likely exercised some influence over the young singer. Smith had her own voice, however, and owed her success to no one. Her heavy, throaty vocals were balanced by a delightful sense of timing. Her live shows were a blend of comedy and drama in song. Smith was popular in Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore, but she was beloved in the South. In 1923, her vaudeville touring led her to Memphis, where she played packed houses at the Palace Theater on Beale Street.

On February 16, 1923, Smith recorded "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Down Hearted Blues," accompanied by Clarence Williams on piano. Although recorded by Memphis singer Alberta Hunter a year before, Smith's "Down Hearted Blues" sold more than 780,000 copies in six months. Her sales made her a blues star on par with Mamie Smith (no relation), a vaudeville singer who had ignited the race records market with her 1920 recording "Crazy Blues."

Although Smith recorded extensively for Columbia - nearly 160 songs between 1923 and her last session in 1933 - her live performances were equally successful. During the 1920s she commanded fees of $2,000 a week and played sold-out theaters across the South, North, and Midwest. Her stage success influenced women blues singers like Memphis Minnie, but male blues singers like Leadbelly, who only heard her on record, emulated her too. She recorded with the best jazz sidemen, including pianists Fletcher Henderson and James P. Johnson, clarinetists Benny Goodman and Buster Bailey, guitarist Eddie Lang, saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Don Redman, and cornetist Louis Armstrong. In May 1925, she made the first electronically recorded record, "Cake Walking Babies," by singing into the newly invented microphone.

During the Depression of the 1930s, Smith's drawing power in the large cities of the North and Midwest began to wane, but she remained popular in small towns and throughout the South. Furry Lewis proudly recalled playing with Smith in Chicago during the 1930s. She even made an early movie when W.C. Handy asked her to play the lead in a short film called "St. Louis Blues" loosely based on his song. On Sept. 26, 1937, after finishing a performance in Memphis, Smith and her manager were driving south on Highway 61, north of the Crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi, when their car struck an oncoming truck. The crash nearly severed Smith's right arm. She was taken to G.T. Thomas Hospital (now the Riverside Hotel) in Clarksdale where she died the following morning.

Bessie Smith is buried in Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.

Bessie Smith (v), Joe Smith (c), Charlie Green (tb), Buster Bailey (cl), Coleman Hawkins(ts), Fletcher Henderson (p), Charlie Dixon (bjo), Bob Escudero (bb) - Performed at 1925

Li-Fi

pureLiFi, the home of LiFi, is recognised as the leader in the field – the use of the visible light spectrum instead of radio frequencies to enable wireless data communication. pureLiFi provides ubiquitous high-speed wireless access that offers substantially greater security, safety and data densities than Wi-Fi along with inherent properties that eliminate unwanted external network intrusion. In addition, the integration of illumination and data services generates a measurable reduction in both infrastructure complexity and energy consumption.


LiFi is a disruptive technology which will shift business models and create opportunities ripe for exploitation. The dominance and lifetime of LED lighting has created a need for new business models in the lighting industry. The need to offer services, including new payment and financing models, creates an unprecedented opportunity for LiFi.


Features

Li-Fi features include benefits to the capacity, energy efficiency, safety and security of a wireless system with a number of key benefits over Wi-Fi but is inherently a complementary technology.

Capacity
Bandwidth: The visible light spectrum is plentiful (10,000 more than RF spectrum), unlicensed and free to use.
Data density: Li-Fi can acheive about 1000 times the data density of Wi-Fi because visible light can be well contained in a tight illumination area whereas RF tends to spread out and cause interference.
High speed: Very high data rates can be achieved due to low interference, high device bandwidths and high intensity optical output.
Planning: Capacity planning is simple since there tends to be illumination infrastructure where people wish to communicate, and good signal strength can literally be seen.

Efficiency
Low cost: Requires fewer components than radio technology.
Energy: LED illumination is already efficient and the data transmission requires negligible additional power.
Environment: RF transmission and propagation in water is extremely difficult but Li-Fi works well in this environment.

Safety
Safe: Life on earth has evolved through exposure to visible light. There are no known safety or health concerns for this technology.
Non-hazardous: The transmission of light avoids the use of radio frequencies which can dangerously interfere with electronic circuitry in certain environments.

Security
Containment: It is difficult to eavesdrop on Li-Fi signals since the signal is confined to a closely defined illumination area and will not travel through walls.
Control: Data may be directed from one device to another and the user can see where the data is going; there is no need for additional security such as pairing for RF interconnections such as Bluetooth.


What if every light bulb in the world could also transmit data? At TEDGlobal, Harald Haas demonstrates, for the first time, a device that could do exactly that. By flickering the light from a single LED, a change too quick for the human eye to detect, he can transmit far more data than a cellular tower — and do it in a way that's more efficient, secure and widespread.