News & Updates — Celebrate Icons

Happy birthday to Louie Ramirez, one of the great figures in salsa as a producer, arranger, vibraphone player, percussionist, composer and mentor to many. He's been called "the Quincy Jones of salsa" for the diversity of his work and because he worked with many of the biggest names in salsa including Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri, Joe Cuba, Tito Rodriguez, Willie Colón, Jimmy Sabater, Hector Lavoe, Fania All Stars,Tipica 73, Sonora Ponceña, Ray Barretto, Sabu Martinez, Ralfi Pagan and many more. If rare grooves of funky salsa and boogaloo is what you want then surely you'll find him working on deep...

The "Jimi Hendrix of the accordion", Steve Jordan in fact claimed to play 35 instruments (he even played guitar in Willie Bobo's band in the mid-'60s!). He was also a good singer and could even play the cello. He was born to migrant farm workers in Texas and learned accordion as a partially-blind kid, becoming professional at a very young age although he didn't record until the late '50s. He recorded some great soul, blues and even doo-wop early on (check out his version of "Ain't No Big Thing" by The Radiants). He took his conjunto's music and fused it...

Ernest Kador, better known as Ernie K-Doe, is a New Orleans legend. Famous for his hits "Mother-In-Law", "Later For Tomorrow" and "Here Come The Girls", he was a singer, wacky performance character, club owner, radio personality and Drum Buddy ally. "Here Come The Girls" became a hit after his death but remains a popular DJ cut and dance groover. A NOLA native and son of a Baptist minister, he started singing in church at seven and sang in gospel groups as a teen. In the early '50s he moved to Chicago and broke into the scene there, singing with the...

Happy birthday to the great Nina Simone!! Pianist, singer, anti-war and civil rights activist, an inspiration to generations. This great talent from North Carolina captivated everyone that came in her path or heard her music. A gifted arranger, she could take any tune, or combination of tunes, and turn them into epic statements. Her music melded gospel, jazz, classical, blues and pop, with the clear purpose of many politicized folk artists of her day. Born Eunice Waymon, she aspired to be a pioneering black concert pianist and only reluctantly became a jazz singer after racist rejection from a prestigious school....

Not necessarily a household name and not quite a flashy player, Tadd Dameron was one of the great arrangers in jazz and wrote a few standards. The pianist's own compositions include "Hot House", "Lady Bird", "Soultrane", "Fontainebleau", "If You Could See Me Now", "Good Bait" and "Mating Call", but he was an in-demand arranger who worked with Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn, Milt Jackson, Benny Goodman, Billy Eckstine and others before the dope got the best of him. From Cleveland, Dameron learned piano from his mother as a child. His saxophonist brother and he would...