Chris Levey recalls his earliest interest in music. “My parents would tell the story … they had the marimba set up in my bedroom,” he says. “I was six or seven and I started to pick some of the melodies out of the books and play them on the marimba. [My] parents looked at each…
Grady Tate: 1932-2017
The soulful vocals of Grady Tate, who died this week at the age of 85, made memorable two Schoolhouse Rock segments, "Naughty Number Nine" and "I Got Six". The songs - both celebrating multiples of three! - were penned by Bob Dorough and originally featured on the Grammy-nominated 1973 album, "Multiplication Rock," which became the…
Schoolhouse Rock
Nearly four generations of viewers – and their parents and teachers - have enjoyed the catchy songs and lively images of the animated series Schoolhouse Rock. Inserted between the requisite Saturday morning cartoons on ABC, the three-minute shorts taught billions of kids their multiplication tables, parts of speech, and American history. Little known, however, is the…
Jordi Pujol
Growing up in Barcelona, Jordi Pujol listened to his father’s record collection, which was like a “who’s who” of popular American jazz. “When I was young, my father mostly listened to swing orchestras – Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Les Brown, Glenn Miller,” Pujol recalls. “He also had some records by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lois…
Alan Kaplan
Although he learned to play the trombone at the age of eight, Alan Kaplan did what many new high school graduates did and began to pursue a college degree in the late 1960s with an eye to a “stable” profession. But while attending Los Angeles Valley College, the engineering major was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…
Why Jazz on TV?
Many West Coast jazz musicians of the 1950s-60s ended up working in film and television, having in their wheelhouse the skills and talent needed to compose, arrange, conduct, and most of all, play innovative new forms of music.
