2019 is almost over and I have a ton of albums that I've acquired throughout the year that I haven't yet gotten around to writing about. In the waning days of the decade, I'm attempting to correct that. The last time I was back home in California this past March, I made a stop by [...]
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 [...]
Building off of the success from the previous year, 1955 was a year of continued growth. The Brubeck Quartet continued their numerous club appearances while simultaneously touring college campuses. Although signed to Columbia Records, Brubeck still had obligations to Fantasy Records. Fantasy thus continued to release "new" material from the Brubeck group, much of it [...]
There aren't very many albums that I can listen to nonstop repeatedly day and night for years without needing to shelve it for a while. Even fewer are albums that continue to surprise me with each listen, almost becoming more fresh with each play. This record is one of those rarities. The Music The Tune: [...]
September has been good to me this year. Besides being my birthday month, I paid a few visits to a few record stores. Those trips were quite productive, and I've been extremely excited about it ever since. Luckily, I have this blog where I can write about said excitement! First up, my trip down to [...]
The great Horace Silver. That's it. That's the intro. To the music. The Music The Tune: "Strollin'" Recorded: 8-9 July, 1960 at Englewood Cliffs, NJ Personnel: Junior Cook - Tenor SaxBlue Mitchell - TrumpetHorace Silver - PianoEugene Taylor - BassRoy Brooks - Drums By a happy coincidence, the day I finally got around to writing [...]
It's been a while since I've done a 'Record Storing' feature, not because I haven't been to a record store (as my wallet laughs..) but because I haven't had the time. I now have some time. Me, in full tourist mode.(All photos of me taken by my friend Rachel) I've just come back from my [...]
Taking a break from grails and expensive records, I want to get back to the main reason why I started writing about records in the first place- my love for the albums that I don't see talked about much, the underappreciated or plain ignored jazz records and artists that deserve another listen. Like George Shearing. [...]
If 1953 was a banner year for the Brubeck quartet, 1954 was a year seismic proportions. Having left the independent record label Fantasy for industry-giant Columbia Records at the beginning of the year, Brubeck was ready for big leagues. In November of 1954, America met the Dave Brubeck Quartet after Time Magazine featured Brubeck on [...]
In the jazz record collecting circle, there are records that everyone wants, there are records that are rare, and there's records that are expensive. Then there's holy grails. Ask a record collector what a grail is, and they'll probably rattle off a few Blue Note albums, like Lee Morgan's 'Vol. 3' (which I accidentally grabbed [...]
It's A Raggy Waltz 