Bloggerhythms

When people think of 1967 in the world of music the discussion almost always starts and ends with The Summer of Love and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . However, the year wasn't all about San Francisco, wah-wah pedals, and psychedelic rock. The proof is that one of the most highly regarded bands in jazz history was still playing at its full strength even though it was nearing the end of its eleven year run. Drummer Joe Morello, bassist Eugene Wright, and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond were all still working together with their leader, pianist Dave Brubeck, for a series of concerts in Mexico City. The Dave Brubeck Quartet was quite eclectic. When a sweet and quiet passage almost lulled you to sleep Brubeck's piano playing would suddenly turn frenzied and then just as quickly he would return to more traditional territory. Desmond's sax work was never as intense as Brubeck's playing so he often was able to make the music more palatable for those listeners ...

I'd like to make one additional comment regarding my post of of September 9, 2008 titled Are The Beatles Really The Greatest Of All Time? I acknowledge that The Beatles are not everyone's favorite artist. When I posed the question of whether or not they are the greatest act of all time it wasn't only because their music is so loved by so many people. It's because of their undeniably huge influence on pop music that continues to this day. Even if you like someone else a whole lot more than The Beatles it isn't a stretch to say they are the most influential and most important artist of the last half of the Twentieth Century. If you don't believe me read your music history. But enough of living in the past. Let's move on to the the new millennium. It's been a couple of months since I got my first ipod, a charcoal, 3rd generation, 8 GB nano. So far I've loaded over a thousand songs onto it and there is still a lot of space left. Maybe it...

The Beatles are acknowledged to be the greatest musical act of the rock & roll era. Thirty-eight years after the release of Let It Be , their last official original album, let's take a look at their lofty status, as well as some of their huge accomplishments, and ask ourselves why. Were they really better than everybody else? The Beatles were the first rock band to make writing and performing their own music fashionable. The only other rock band to regularly record their own original songs were Buddy Holly and The Crickets about a half a decade earlier, but tragedy cut short their leader's career. No one else seemed to follow suit until The Beatles who almost made it a requirement for an artist to write their own music in order to receive any kind of critical approval. The Liverpool quartet had three outstanding composers. A lot more has been written about the much-loved duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney but George Harrison was no slouch either. He didn't really sh...