To fully understand the romance of West Coast jazz of the early 1950s, you have to walk the beaches of Hermosa, Huntington, Laguna and Redondo in California. I did that in the 1980s with a Walkman. As I walked the sand in tan Converse sneakers, I listened to home-made cassettes of Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne, Stan Kenton and Johnny Richards, among other…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to JazzWax to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.