The Playboy Jazz All-Stars // Various Artists (Playboy Records PB #1957)

This is an album I've been looking forward to writing about from the moment I created this blog.  The product of Playboy Magazine's first jazz poll, Hugh Hefner decided to create an album to honor the winners of the poll.  By releasing such a project, Hefner and the folks at Playboy provided a snapshot of [...]

Happy Birthday Cal Tjader!

Say what you want about social media and its terrible effect on culture, but today it proved its worth.  Scrolling through Twitter this morning, I was informed through a tweet that it was Cal Tjader's birthday.  Born 93 years ago on this date, July 16, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri, Tjader's family relocated to the [...]

Brubeck’s Notes – Someday My Prince Will Come

Following up on Mr. Lodge's excellent analysis of Paul Desmond's solo on a live performance of "Someday My Prince Will Come" dating from the 1970's, here's another post with another look at another live performance of "Someday My Prince Will Come". This performance stems from an early 1960's appearance by the Dave Brubeck Quartet at [...]