Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for March 9th

"You say it's your birthday..." Jazz/sax, Pop/vocal, Rock/guitar edition.

3/9/1930 - Born this date, Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, composer and premier innovator of the free jazz movement of the 1960's (a term Ornette invented by naming one of his albums as such); his 2007 release "Sound Grammar" won the Pulitzer Prize for music. Musical icons like Leonard Bernstein and Lionel Hampton called Ornette "a genius and an innovator". Coleman was 85 years old when he died in New York City from a heart attack on June 11, 2015; his funeral was a three-hour event featuring performances and speeches by his contemporaries and collaborators. Truly legendary.

3/9/1942 - Happy Birthday to Mark Lindsay, lead singer for Paul Revere And the Raiders, 74 years old today. Had a pretty good run back in the day: 14 Top 30 singles including the classic No. 1 "Indian Reservation". While the group was known for dressing up in Revolutionary War-style garb, Mark kicked it up a notch by having a real signature look -- his hair was so long he was able to tie it back into a ponytail, which got quite a bit of notice back in the mid-Sixties -- who else was doing that back then? For the record, "Paul Revere And The Raiders Greatest Hits" is one of the all-time great party albums; these guys convincingly nailed it with a great run of two-and-a-half minute bits of pure-punk-like-rock: "Kicks", "Just Like Me", "Steppin' Out", "Hungry", all great stuff, definitely underrated.

3/9/1945 - Born on this date, guitarist extraordinaire Robin Trower, 71 years old today. His formidable talent gave the first five Procol Harum albums a rather distinctive sound compared with the other British bands of the 1960's; by '71, he was confident enough to go solo and unleash a catalog of power trio recordings that were so intense guitar-wise, many listeners mistakenly believed they were listening to Jimi Hendrix! Yes, he's that good. 1973's "Bridge Of Sighs" remains the high water mark, though his recent recordings with Bryan Ferry and the late Jack Bruce also highlight his virtuosity and style. One of the most convincing and fluid players of his generation, no doubt, absolutely worth checking out more deeply...

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"The moon don't move the tides/To wash me clean...", xoxo!