Ah, a new year. With a new year comes the promise to... yeah you're not here for inspirational fluff. You're here for jazz records. So to the West Coast we go, where some of the best jazz of the 1950's was being played! The Music The Tune: "Full Count" The Tune: "Groovin' Higher" Recorded: 26 [...]
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: [...]
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!
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 [...]
Continuing the exploration of jazz clubs via records in my collection, and after checking clubs out on the eastern side of the United States, this post marks our foray into the West Coast scene. Naturally, we start in California, and if we're in California, naturally we begin in San Francisco. And if we're in San [...]
As a record collector, I collect records. Obviously, right? But as my friends say, there's a message in there somewhere. In the course of collecting records, there are albums that get played once, twice, or for a season, only to be put back on the shelf, forgotten and neglected. Having bought a new turntable that's [...]
After writing a piece profiling a 10-inch record, my interest in the other 10-inchers in my collection grew. Those clunky relics of the early 1950's are actually pretty neat. Especially when they come in crazy colors, like this album! The Music Tune: "Chopsticks Mambo" Recorded: November 1951 in California Personnel: Cal Tjader- Bongos Vince Guaraldi- [...]
This record marked the fruitful beginning of both Gerry Mulligan's West Coast piano-less sound and the Pacific Jazz Records label. Both would do much to popularize the laid-back, more academic sound of jazz that blew in from the Coast. All of that began in 1952 with this album. The Music Tune: "Walkin' Shoes" Recorded: 15-16 [...]
Talking to a friend after class the other day, she made a comment that I looked like the type to play cello in a jazz band. That made me think about West Coast jazz and how funny her comment was in that context, which led me to a hankering for some West Coast jazz. The [...]
The Music Hampton Hawes, a fellow Californian, may be closely tied to West Coast jazz, but there's nothing cool or relaxed about his playing. Especially on this series of records, his playing sounds more like a horn, spitting out line after line of percussive piano. Only the easy swing and the presence of Jim Hall's [...]
It's A Raggy Waltz 