West Coast jazz. Maybe it's because I'm a Californian, but I think some of the most stimulating, consistently interesting jazz was made near the Pacific Ocean. The glory days of West Coast jazz were the early 1950's, hitting their stride in the latter half of the 1950's, and they ended around 1960. The West Coast [...]
A string orchestra in a jazz setting has always been an uneasy relationship, going back to the 1930's. Many critics deride such Mozart-meets-jazz mashups, claiming the strings sound too sweet and syrupy, that they don't swing, or that they overpower the music so that it's not jazz anymore. For the most part, those are fair [...]
The Music Lullaby of Birdland // Cal Tjader Quintet. Recorded 1956 Minor Goof // Cal Tjader Quintet. Recorded 1956 Cal Tjader - Vibraphone Manuel Duran - Piano Carlos Duran - Bass Luis Miranda - Conga Drums Bayardo Velarde - Timbales Ah, Cal Tjader. My favorite vibraphone player and a fellow Californian. A drummer-turned-vibraphone player, Callen [...]
Miles Davis. What's there to be said about Miles that hasn't been already said? He was a cool dude who played an even cooler trumpet. Throughout his nearly fifty-year career, Miles touched on and explored numerous styles of jazz, from bebop in the 1940's to a fusion of rock, electric, and jazz in the 1970's. [...]
To start off this journey as College Jazz Collector, I figured I should start off with this Brubeck album, for a few reasons. First (and most importantly), it's the Dave Brubeck Quartet; I almost HAD to. Secondly, this is probably my all-time favorite jazz album. And thirdly, this album was recorded exactly 60 years ago [...]
While I've been a jazz fan since around 4th grade and a voracious consumer of jazz on CD and even cassette tape (yes, young people do in fact know what those things are), I recently began collecting jazz vinyl in earnest about 3 years ago. A hipster/hippie friend of mine told me about a record [...]
Reading the great website of LondonJazzCollector (here), a site with all types of fantastic and interesting information about jazz vinyl and the collection of same, I came across some interesting information concerning labels and ways to date your Riverside album. My copy has conflicting information. According to the knowledgeable folks, albums after 12-272 had the [...]
It's A Raggy Waltz 