Billy Merziotis, guitarist and singer with many years of live performance experience. He is a composer and lyricist, has released 2 studio albums in rock/blues style and 2 singles in Greek. He is a guitar instructor with 20 years of experience.He considers Gary Moore his biggest influence. Passionately studied Moore's style until I met him personally after one of his concerts in Athens in 2008.Performing Gary's masterpieces, Billy Merziotis conveys the spirit of the great guitarist. Through lifelong devotion, Murano was not only able to achieve a fiery phrase, he was also able to create a tone that would awe the crowd. A true vocal performer, he is closest to Gary.
Half of this LP contains the famous session on which Sonny Rollins teamed up with his idol, the great tenor Coleman Hawkins. Actually, the competitive Rollins did everything he could during these performances to throw Hawk off with plenty of sound explorations and free playing, but Hawkins keeps from getting lost and battles Rollins for a tie; pianist Paul Bley plays well too. The remainder of this LP (three selections apiece from the former LPs Now's the Time and The Standard Sonny Rollins) is more conventional but has its moments of interest. The young Herbie Hancock is on piano for all of these tracks and guitarist Jim Hall helps on "Trav'lin Light." Rollins's RCA recordings of the '60s are all worth picking up.
This CD contains some interesting material not found elsewhere. Recorded live at Palace of Festivals Theatre in Cannes, France in January 1981 and January 1983, the disc features Metheny, Gary Burton, the Heath Brothers, Ahmad Jamal, and the Hum Trio. It is very hard to find and available only on the Fruit Tree (Italy) label (1999). Highly recommended, this CD will be irrestible to fans of quartet-format jazz or any of the artists, who seem to have been captured at their best.
Kellee Patterson’s rise into the public eye came in 1971 when she was the first black girl to become Miss Indiana when she entered the Miss America pageant with merits for her singing talents. Her singing started professionally when she was just 16 and following the sucess in the Miss America pageant she toured the world where she both sung and gave speeches. Kellee broke into TV to host Harambee in Chicago and continued on with her singing career later when she moved to the West Coast. Her musical recording total only four albums, that have remained fairly underground gems that sported afew minor singles.