Died On This Date (April 13, 2010) Steve Reid / Notable Jazz Drummer
themusicsover Steve Reid
January 29, 1944 – April 13, 2010
Steve Reid was an accomplished jazz drummer who, over the course of a long career played with the likes of Miles Davis, Sun Ra, James Brown, and Ornette Coleman. He also served as a house drummer for Motown. Reid was still a teenager when he started drumming, and by the time he went off to college, he had already worked in the house band at the Apollo Theater. Reid released several albums under his own name including those he self-distributed on his own label. During the 2000s, Reid performed with electronic wiz, Kieran Hebden, also known as Four Tet. Steve Reid passed away on April 13, 2010 at the age of 66.
What You Should Own
Miss Josephine Baker was born into poverty in 1906 but would grow up to be one of the most in-demand French cabaret performers of her time. Off stage she devoted her life to fighting prejudice. The slums of St. Louis could not hold this woman down as she left home at the age of 13 to pursue her dream of the stage. Her break came in 1921 when she began to get notice on the stages of New York City. She quickly became a star throughout Harlem and began to grace the stage of such jazz landmarks as the Cotton Club. Baker made the move to Paris in 1925 to perform for audiences more accustomed to her brazen sexuality and minimal costumes. By the ’30s, Baker was owning her own club, starring in films, and recording her own records. Back in America to perform alongside Bob Hope in Ziegfeld’s Follies, Baker began to meet resistance due to both her sexuality and skin color, as conservatives rallied against the show. She quickly fled back to Paris and became a naturalized citizen. About that time, the Nazis invaded so Baker found herself working for the resistance and going as far as to smuggle sensitive documents out of France. She even worked as a sub-lieutenant for the French Air Force’s Women’s Auxiliary, volunteered for the Red Cross, and performed for the troops. She was later awarded military medals for her brave work. By the ’50s, Baker was back in America where she used her fame in the fight for Civil Rights by demanding to perform in front of segregated audiences. After retiring from the stage, Baker spent her time raising her racially mixed brood of 12 adopted children and stayed active in the struggle for equal rights. Josephine Baker passed away of natural causes in her sleep in the early hours of April 12, 1975, following the opening night of a revue in honor of her fifty years in show business. In the crowd that night were the likes of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, 
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