Thelonious Monk : Palo Alto

In 1968 Thelonious Monk was in poor health, with little money in the bank, and sadly seen in the jazz world as “stale” and “out of touch” by the jazz snobs at Downbeat Magazine(the same ones that thought Miles Davis was violating jazz protocol with the masterpiece Bitches Brew.) Thelonious Monk, the man who just […]

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Eric, Ron, and Me

Back in the mid-2000s there was a guy that started working at our facility named Ron. Now Ron was quite the character; shorter, boisterous, and always up for a good laugh. Ron was from Chicago originally and my guess back then was that he was in his mid-50s. He was African American and would often […]

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F*&#$!g Epic

So I’ve been nibbling here and there on Kamasi Washington’s The Epic for close to a year now. It’s one of those albums that I think you have to take in a little at a time, otherwise you’ll get that heavy musical bloat and maybe not go back to it for fear of feeling uneasy […]

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Giants on my front porch

When I got home from work I saw a couple square packages waiting on the front porch. Oh boy! My recent Discogs purchases arrived! As you may or may not recall, I’ve been on a real jazz kick lately. I’ve been perusing back catalogs of some of my favorite guys; Davis, Coltrane, Monk, Winklehammer. So […]

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