December's Underappreciated Music: the links

Patti Abbott: The Drifters, Bonnie Raitt, et al.

Brian Arnold: "It's a Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown"

Sean Coleman: Ravi Shankar

Bill Crider: Obscure Christmas Songs

"A M Dude": Xmas

Lee Hartsfeld: Ferde Grofe (performed by Barron Smith)

Jerry House: Mary Travers; the Limeliters;
Spider John Koerner

Randy Johnson: Chuck Mangione: Children of Sanchez

George Kelley: videogame soundtracks

Evan Lewis: Joe Turner; the Chordettes

Todd Mason: Dave Brubeck; cover versions; soundtrack music

Richard Pangburn: Henry Mancini and Peter Gunn

Lawrence Person: Ride

Charlie Ricci: Five '60s Pop Groups; Holidays Rule

Richard Robinson: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Ron Scheer: Jimmy Boyd, the Kalin Twins, et al.

Chris Stufflestreet: December 27, 1975


Fontella Bass, July 3, 1940 - December 26, 2012

Dave Brubeck, December 6, 1920-December 5, 2012

The last studio album, devoted to original compositions (save a reunion album they would record in 1976 for A&M), that the Paul Desmond/Joe Morello/Gene Wright quartet would record, 1966. This was the most famous and successful quartet, performing from 1958-66.

Dave Brubeck: “They Said I Was Too Far Out” by Ralph Gleason — 8/8/1957 An Exclusive Online Extra

A live recording of the quartet's arrangement of music from his oratorio, The Light in the Wilderness...one of the reasons for the end of the Desmond/Morello/Wright quartet, so that Brubeck could write some of his longer works, most with some spiritual import.


Iola Brubeck was the usual lyricist for her husband's songs...such as this from the song cycle, The Real Ambassadors. Louis Armstrong sings lead, supported by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross on "They Say I Look Like God."


An instrumental version of a work written in response to the murders at Kent State and Jackson State, Truth Is Fallen. This piece of the longer work is called, simply "Truth." Gerry Mulligan was actually not a "guest" here, but a regular member of the Brubeck/Mulligan quartet, with Allen Dawson and Jack Six.


The Octet was made up of largely of jazz players who were fellow students of Darius Milhaud, as Brubeck was, and was sort of a West Coast parallel to what the Gil Evans/John Lewis/Gerry Mulligan "Birth of the Cool" group was doing in NYC.


Brubeck and his sons performed for a while as Two Generations of Brubeck...this is an even larger, if slightly less purely Brubeckian, assembly.


A latter-day quartet version of one of the movements from Howard Brubeck's Dialogues.


And from the initial recording of Dave Brubeck's brother's composition, by the Brubeck Quartet and the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Bernstein.


The final track from the suite Miro Reflections, the lp having been released as Time Further Out...my default choice as a kid for my favorite record.


Teo Macero on how "Take Five" became a hit.