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David Fiuczynski
Biography
David Fiuczynski (born March 5, 1964) is an American contemporary jazz guitarist, best known as the leader of the Screaming Headless Torsos and David Fiuczynski's KiF, and as a member of Hasidic New Wave. He has played on more than 95 albums as a session musician, band leader, or band member.
Though born in the United States, his family moved to Germany when he was 8 years old and remained until he was 19. He returned to the US to study at Hampshire College and later the prestigious New England Conservatory. He received a Bachelor of Music from the latter in 1989. After living in New York City for more than a decade, he now resides in Massachusetts and is a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Fiuczynski describes himself as "a jazz musician who doesn't want to play just jazz." Many of his albums have thematic material associated with one or more additional genres. For example, Screaming Headless Torsos emphasizes jazz-funk fusion; and Hasidic New Wave blends jazz with Semitic and African music. His album Jazz Punk is a collection of standards and covers written by his idols and mentors where each tune was reworked in distinctive musical combinations.
In 2005, Fiuczynski was hired by former Police drummer Stewart Copeland for the band Gizmo, which toured in Italy in July 2005. Starting in 2007, he has toured with trumpeter Cuong Vu and with jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara, and appeared on the latter's albums Time Control and Beyond Standard.
In 2012 he started Planet MicroJam, an institute exploring the use of microtones in jazz, ethnic folk and other contexts.
Fiuczynski is the guitarist on the 2013 album Gamak by alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.
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Sean Connery
Biography
Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 – October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. Connery was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again), between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His films also include Marnie (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000).
Connery was polled in a 2004 The Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a 2011 EuroMillions survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was voted by People magazine as both the “Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century” in 1999. He received a lifetime achievement award in the United States with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.
On October 31, 2020, Connery died at the age of 90.
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Hiromi Uehara
Biography
Hiromi has been taking classical piano lessons since the age of six, and her teacher also encouraged her understanding of jazz. At twelve, she performed with an orchestra for the first time. At 14, she played with the Czech Philharmonic. At 17, she met Chick Corea and recorded an improvisation for two pianos with him. After further experience, including composing commercials for Nissan, she moved to the United States in 1999 to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Among her mentors at Berklee was Richard Evans, who teaches orchestration. Her debut with the Telarc record label was facilitated by Ahmad Jamal. Richard Evans co-produced her first record, which she recorded before she even graduated. It achieved gold status in Japan in 2003. In 2007, she married Japanese fashion designer Yasuhiro Mihara, and she performed live at Mihara's fashion show in Paris that same year.
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Wes Montgomery
Biography
Montgomery often worked with his brothers Buddy (Charles F.) and Monk (William H.) and with organist Melvin Rhyne. His recordings up to 1965 were oriented towards hard bop, soul jazz, and post bop, but around 1965 he began recording more pop-oriented instrumental albums that found mainstream success. His later guitar style influenced jazz fusion and smooth jazz.
Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. According to NPR, the nickname "Wes" was a child's abbreviation of his middle name, Leslie. The family was large, and the parents split up early in the lives of the children. Montgomery and his brothers moved to Columbus, Ohio, with their father and attended Champion High School. His older brother Monk dropped out of school to sell coal and ice, gradually saving enough money to buy Wes a four-string tenor guitar from a pawn shop in 1935. Although Montgomery spent many hours playing that guitar, he dismissed its usefulness, saying he had to start over when he got his first six-string several years later.
He and his brothers returned to Indianapolis. By 1943, Montgomery found work as a welder and got married. At a dance with his wife, he heard a Charlie Christian record for the first time. This motivated him to buy a six-string guitar the next day. For nearly a year, night and day, he tried to imitate Christian and teach himself the guitar. Although he hadn't intended to become a musician, he felt obligated to learn after buying the guitar. He received no formal instruction and couldn't read music. By the age of twenty, he was performing in clubs in Indianapolis at night, copying Christian's solos, while working during the day at a milk company. In 1948, when Lionel Hampton was on tour in Indianapolis, he was looking for a guitarist, and after hearing Montgomery play like Christian he hired him.
He worked as a welder during the day to support his wife and seven children, then performed at two clubs at night until well into the morning. He was a smoker who had blackouts while trying to maintain this busy schedule. During one performance, the audience included Cannonball Adderley, George Shearing, and Lennie Tristano. Adderley was so impressed by Montgomery's guitar playing that he persuaded Orrin Keepnews to sign him to Riverside. Keepnews was also persuaded by a gushing review written by Gunther Schuller. In New York City Montgomery recorded A Dynamic New Sound, the Wes Montgomery Trio, his first album as a leader after twenty years as a musician. In 1960, he recorded The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery with Tommy Flanagan, Percy Heath, and Albert Heath.
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John Giblin
Biography
John Giblin (26 February 1952 – 14 May 2023) was a Scottish musician who worked as an acoustic and electric bass player spanning jazz, classical, rock, folk, and avant-garde music. He was a member of Brand X in 1979 and Simple Minds from 1985 to 1988. Giblin also worked as a session musician for a variety of artists including Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Kate Bush and Elkie Brooks.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Giblin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Ahmed Helmy
Biography
Helmy was born in Banha, Egypt. He graduated from the Higher institute of Dramatic Arts in Egypt, from the decoration department. Ahmed also graduated of the Academy of Arts, High Institute for Theatre Art in 1993.
As an actor and performer, Helmy is notable for his fast-thinking and witty comedy.[citation needed] His career in mainstream Egyptian film began when director Sherif Arafa spotted him on the children's program Leib Eyal (Kids' Play) on the Egyptian Satellite Broadcast[citation needed]. Sherif found in him the comedian actor he was looking for to star his film, Aboud Ala El Hodoud (Aboud at the Frontier). In that film Helmy made his first big screen appearance, co-starring alongside Alaa Waley El Din. Thereafter, he quickly made a jump to leading roles in films such as Omar 2000, El Nazer (The Headmaster), El Selem We Al Tho'ban (Snakes And Ladders).
In 2007, Helmy topped the Egyptian comedian market in number of audience and revenue, mostly due to the success of his movie Keda Reda.
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James Grixoni
Biography
James David Grixoni was born and raised in Seattle Washington. He attended his local conservatory for four years at the age of fourteen and began doing professional theatre at the age of eighteen with his debut of Peter-Pan at Book-it Theatre. After a couple years of professional theatre, James decided to stay true to his original focus, film. Whilst creating a comedy troupe, performing skits and starring in local indie films, James was granted the opportunity to shadow Tobey Maguire as his body double in "The Details", directed by Jacob Aaron Estes. The education he received was invaluable. A few years later, James found himself performing in a punk band in Philadelphia; and subsequently the film, "The Bhakti Boy", directed by Joy Marzec. The experience allowed him to grow as an artist and really work on honing his skills in front of the camera. Upon returning to the west coast, James had the pleasure of working on films, television series, music videos and shorts. A few favorites include "Worst Laid Plans" directed by Mark Jones and Nesib CB Shamah, "You Cant Win" directed by Robinson Devor and "Twin Peaks" directed by David lynch. James continues to grow in his craft and his community. He practices yoga and meditation and has noticed a significant improvement in his reality. He also practices comedy on the daily for he believes laughter is the foundation to health.
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Chang Cheng
Biography
Chang Chang, formerly known as Chang Lufeng, was born in August 1975. In 1997, he won the championship in the "National Talents Rookie" film and television actor selection competition held by Singapore National TV. Signed a Singapore National TV station, and the representative is "East Travel Notes" (Han Xiangzi). After the contract with the original owner in 2001, he signed a contract with Shanghai Hezhan Film and Television Co., Ltd., officially in the name of "常铖" in the TV series "Half-Life" as the male No. 2 Xu Shuhui. After the male No. 1 starred in the series "Love is a little bit more than hate." Other works include: "Six Fingers Devil", "Double Cannon", "My Naughty Angel" and so on. In December 1999, he released his first album.
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Angel Boris Reed
Biography
Angel Lynn Boris (born August 2, 1974) in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida) is an American model and actress sometimes credited as Angel Boris Reed.
While working for Hawaiian Tropic, she appeared in a Playboy pictorial featuring the women of Hawaiian Tropic, and in July 1996 she became Playboy's Playmate of the Month. Her centerfold was photographed by Richard Fegley. She appeared in many Special Editions of the magazine. She has also acted in several films and has appeared on numerous television shows and music videos. Boris also competed on the Playmate edition of the NBC show Fear Factor, coming in second to Lauren Michelle Hill.
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Davit Tadevosyan
Biography
Armenian actor Davit Tadevosyan was born October 17,1985, in Yerevan, Armenia. Being a very artistic and creative person, Davit decided to continue his education in Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinema. Being still a student he started his creative activity at the Yerevan State Youth Experimental Theater in 2004 and he quickly became one of the leading actors of the theater. Davit has acted in many famous plays which also participated in the world known festivals such as Hay Fest Festival and Art Fest International Youth Festival.
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