It's February 1st, which is the beginning of Black History Month here in the States. At the Raggy Waltz offices, we're celebrating Black History Month by highlighting albums made by black artists. To kick off the official start of February, here's quite possibly the most unpretentiously black album I own. With that, to the music! [...]
UPDATE: Yesterday, at 86, Michel Legrand passed away in Paris, France. A new post is forthcoming, but in the meantime, I thought it appropriate to bring this one back. It's my personal favorite Legrand album and it features Legrand's piano on all the tracks. Rest easy, Michel Legrand! Full disclosure. This post was completely inspired [...]
Over here in the United States, the month of February is Black History Month. The month of February is also the shortest month of the year. As a result of both of these facts, the staff of Raggy Waltz decided to celebrate Black History Month by spotlighting jazz albums made by black artists. Beginning now. [...]
Wrapping up the Brubeck Birthday series, I thought I'd finish with what I consider to be the Brubeck Quartet's best live album and one of the best live jazz albums of the 20th century. High praise, I know. Let's jump to the music then! À la musique! The Music The Tune: "Blue Rondo a la [...]
Back to the 'Better Than 'Time Out'' series of Brubeck albums, which is Raggy Waltz's (admittedly protracted) celebration of Dave Brubeck's December birthday. For this installment, here's an album that was recorded a year before 'Time Out' and like that album is all-original material. Music to the! The Music The Tune: "Nomad"Recorded: 25 July, 1958 [...]
Starting the New Year with a post about an album I've been playing on repeat since I bought it last month. West Coast Jazz lives!
I know this is supposed to be a Brubeck record in accordance with my series of 'Better Than 'Time Out' Brubeck Albums', but a recent trip to the local record store yielded some fantastic finds that I have been spinning on the turntable nonstop ever since. Two albums in particular have been in constant rotation [...]
Here at Raggy Waltz, we're celebrating the birthday of Dave Brubeck all month long by profiling different albums that I think are just as great or better than Brubeck's much-acclaimed 'Time Out' album. We know about that one, so let's hear about the other ones. Last week I talked about another time-themed album of Brubeck's. [...]
Born on this day 98 years ago in 1920, David Warren Brubeck has the rare honor of truly having revolutionized jazz while at the same time writing part of jazz's songbook. Although Brubeck died a day shy of his birthday in 2012, his legacy will live forever. The ways he revolutionized and altered jazz -and [...]
Collecting jazz records, and collecting records in general, is an interesting hobby. I don't know any serious jazz vinyl fiends in real life, but I've read about them and know that the jazz record-collecting community seems to have an unpublished set of rules and codes on what is and isn't kosher. As a younger dude [...]
