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 [...]
After a summer full of traveling and other activities, it's time to get back to writing more regularly. Here in northern Alabama, it's a dreary, gray day with lots of rain, which made me want to put a record on that was a solid swinger but in a mellow groove. Enter the dependable Billy Taylor. [...]
After a momentary break, it's time to get back to some Brubeck, the reason why I began this website! This is one of those rarer bootleg albums, where the information surrounding the recording is actually pretty well-documented. It's the album pressing itself that is confusing and unclear. With that, on to the music we go! [...]
Before politics completely prevents it, here's another album that was not made in America, but in the land out back, down under, but not in the upside down- Australia! There's not much more to add, so to the music we go! The Music The Tune: "Decidedly" Recorded: 1960 in Sydney, Australia Personnel: Don Burrows- Clarinet [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Full disclosure. This post was completely inspired by the World Cup, specifically the winners of the World Cup. If you weren't happy with the outcome of the game/series, don't get mad at me. I've been looking for an excuse to profile this album, and the World Cup gave me that excuse. I'll try not to [...]
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 [...]
Whenever I travel, I like to find the local record store and see what's what. You never know what you'll find. On a recent trip to San Francisco, not only did I want to check out a local record store- I wanted to find records by San Francisco's native jazz sons. I succeeded, in more [...]
