Yesterday, November 25 2019, would have marked Paul Desmond's 95th birthday. Unfortunately, his penchant for smoking cigarettes cut his life short in 1977 at the age of 52. Here at Raggy Waltz, everyday is Desmond Day, so I struggled to come up with something special for his birthday this year. I didn't want to merely [...]
It's been a while since I wrote a blog about my favorite jazz musician and original inspiration behind this website. It's also been a while since I wrote anything at all on here. To correct both wrongs, here then is this post! It's from the archives, so to speak, so it's rather special. I sought [...]
This edition of 'Desmond's Quotes' is rather unique. How so? This one features Paul Desmond quoting from none other than himself! As always, there's a backstory that's worth exploring so let's get to it! It's 1964, and the Dave Brubeck Quartet is in London, England. They're in the TV studios of the BBC to film [...]
It's high-time for another installment of 'Desmond's Quotes', and this one's a bit unusual. This post features performances taken from radio broadcasts of the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Blue Note in Chicago, Illinois. Recorded in March of 1953, these recordings find the group on fire, Paul Desmond especially so. Aside from showing his tasty [...]
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 [...]
After a series of posts about jazz records, it's high-time I get back to writing about the Dave Brubeck Quartet's music and its star saxophonist Paul Desmond. As a 'welcome back', an ordinary 'Desmond's Quotes' wouldn't do. So, without further ado, let's dive into a unique Desmondism that I'm still unsure about: The Desmond Turnaround. [...]
It's May 4th, which means it's Brubeck & Desmond Day! What does the 4th of May have to do with Dave Brubeck or Paul Desmond? 5/4, of course. Brubeck and Desmond popularized and mainstreamed this unusual time signature into jazz and popular music in 1959 with Desmond's mega hit "Take Five", opening the door for [...]
Happy New Year! I hope these first twelve (or thirteen depending where in the world you are) days have been great for you. So, first things first- what happened to the posts about vinyl? I'm currently between turntables. That is, the record player I've been using isn't the best (at all) so I've finally scrounged [...]
Exactly 50 years ago today, the Dave Brubeck Quartet played their last concert date as a regular unit. After being on the road more or less constantly since 1951, Brubeck was ready for a break. Luckily, a tape machine captured the concert, as well as some fun and excitement. Having just completed a European tour [...]
After a slate of instances where the various band members made references to Christmas tunes in their solos on non-Christmas songs, here's an instance of the opposite. On this, the only commercially released recording of the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond playing a Christmas song, Desmond managed to squeeze something else in there, too. [...]
It's A Raggy Waltz 