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Horace Parlan was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and came to prominence with the 1958/59 edition of the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop. after leaving Mingus he recorded prolifically as a sideman and signed a contract with Blue Note Records. His albums did well and he was a busy pianist. He developed a unique style of playing because of a handicap brought on by childhood polio which paralysed two fingers on his right hand. His albums for Blue Note sold well and yet this fine session was never issued until 1986 even though it was recorded in 1963. It was given a catalogue number and advertised bu...

The Dave Brubeck Quartet is our Jazz Feature from a live concert from The College of the Pacific on Dec. 14,1953 with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Ron Crotty on bass and Joe Dodge on drums playing his very first gig with the band. This concert was special for Brubeck as it was at his alma mater. Desmond in particular loved the acoustics of the hall too as it brought out special properties of his alto saxophone. Brubeck, with the help of his wife, Iola had opened the doors in the early 1950s to presenting Jazz to college audiences and he had done a few cross country tours at universities th...

Tonight for the month of March, The Jazz Show's Jazz Features will be albums that are one of a kind. Mostly albums by fine musicians that only had one recording issued in their lifetime. This was in no way that these players were second rate but simply circumstance and the vagaries of the Jazz recording business. Ron Jefferson is a case in point. He was a fine and in demand drummer who really increased his profile when he moved to Los Angeles from his home town of New York in the late 1950's. Jefferson became a founding member of one of the most popular bands of the time, Les McCann Ltd. (pia...