Yesterday, the Raggy Waltz staff brought to my attention that it was Cal Tjader's birthday. Today, the Raggy Waltz staff have alerted me to the fact that it's the birthday of another famous Northern Californian jazz musician. Born 90 years ago on July 17, 1928, pianist Vince Guaraldi was not only a contemporary of Cal [...]
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 [...]
Out of all the songs Dave Brubeck penned over his lengthy career, my favorite is his tune "Nomad". Written by Brubeck during their tour of Eurasia in the spring of 1958 while in Afghanistan, the tune was first heard by the masses on Brubeck's album 'Jazz Impressions of Eurasia'. It has a haunting melody, interesting [...]
One of the most famous tunes Paul Desmond 'wrote' was a song named 'Audrey'. Paul had a big crush on Audrey Hepburn, and at a recording session in 1954, he and the Brubeck Quartet improvised a minor blues with her in mind. In the ensuing years, the Dave Brubeck Quartet would occasionally return to the [...]
Any true Dave Brubeck fan will tell you that the Dave Brubeck Quartet always sounded its best when it performed live. Brubeck himself made the observation that the "audience is the fifth member" of his group, spurring him and the other members of the quartet to greater heights of musical inspiration. As a true fan, [...]
Great interview piece of Dave Brubeck
A recent press release from the Detroit Jazz Festival stated that 90-year-old Dave Brubeck, advised by his doctors that it would be a bad idea for him to travel, had cancelled his scheduled concert, A vivid force in American music since the latter ’40s, and a charismatic performer, Brubeck shines in the public eye, and it will be a shame if his performing career is over.
I had a wonderful opportunity to interview Brubeck four years ago, for a Jazziz story focusing on his involvement in education. It was a narrative article — the unedited transcript appears below, following four expository paragraphs.
* * *
Few jazz musicians can discuss the whys and wherefores of jazz education so eloquently as pianist-composer Dave Brubeck, whose career could serve as a case study in how to blend the conservatory and the working world beyond.
A household name since Time magazine placed his…
View original post 12,871 more words
This may have just saved my life
It is possible to mend a scratched record – and I’ve done it!
Mending a broken record is the holy grail for many record collectors. Whilst it isn’t as miraculous as walking on water, turning water into wine or any of the other aquatic stunts that Dynamo: Magician Impossible (and some other guy apparently) has performed, it is nevertheless far more useful than the first feat, unless you are a Tory MP who lives in a moat-surrounded castle, unable to risk claiming on expenses the repair bill for a faulty drawbridge.
It also gives you a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when you succeed, similar no doubt to the one Alexander The Great had as he looked across his domain and wept, with no more worlds to conquer.
When I say “broken” I’m not referring to one that was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a traditional Greek…
View original post 775 more words
One of the things that I liked about this African-American Literature class was that the things I learned in class almost always became relevant and useful afterwards. It was uncanny. One of these uncanny moments was when, a day after learning about the poet Amiri Baraka, born LeRoi Jones. I was reading a book about [...]
One thing I appreciated about this class was the absolutely fantastic discussions that we had. I looked forward to class primarily because of these discussions, in fact. Well, they started off as discussions, anyhow. Without fail, the discussions rapidly morphed into vociferous debates. I found myself learning a lot from these pseudo-discussions, and at the [...]
Second semester of my junior year of college undergrad is now wrapping up. In particular, my time in African-American Literature II is one project and a final away from being a happy memory. That class has been a blessing and a curse -a blessing more than a curse. In short, it was a blessing because [...]
