Various Artists - California Cool (1993)

BLUE SERIES MONTH (FEBRUARY, 2025)

UK import

"Presenting the hip jazz sounds of the West Coast"

Here's how the theme of this particular compilation is explained in the liner notes:

While somewhat familiar with most of the artists on this disc, it reminds me that my knowledge of West Coast jazz (a.k.a. "cool" jazz) is greatly lacking when compared to jazz of the time coming out of New York and New Jersey. Guess I'll start with the books mentioned above. In the meantime, this compilation - along with the few Chet Baker and Dave Brubeck albums I own - will have to serve as a primer.

Tracks:

	Title	Artist	Year
1	This Could Be The Start Of Something	Mark Murphy	1959
2	Main Title From The Man With The Golden Arm	Billy May	1956
3	Black Nightgown	Gerry Mulligan & Shelly Manne	1958
4	The Squimp	Chico Hamilton Quintet	1956
5	But Not For Me	Chet Baker	1954
6	Ironic	Jimmy Guiffre	1959
7	I Hear Music	Hampton Hawes Trio	1955
8	Lover Man	Lee Konitz with The Gerry Mulligan Quartet	1953
9	Hey Bellboy	Gloria Wood with Pete Candoli	1953
10	Diablo's Dance	Art Pepper & Shorty Rogers	1957
11	Our Love Is Here To Stay	Teddy Edwards with Les McCann Ltd	1959
12	Route 66	Bobby Troup	1956
13	Two Can Play	Bob Gordon & Jack Montrose	1954
14	Take Five	Bud Shank	1966
15	Jimmy's Theme	Chet Baker & Bud Shank Orchestra	1956
16	Something Cool	June Christy	1954
17	Mambo De La Pinta	Art Pepper Quartet	1956
18	Do I Love You?	Peggy Lee with George Shearing	1959
19	Katanga	Curtis Amy with Dupree Bolton	1963
20	Handful Of Stars	Serge Chaloff	1956
21	West Coast Blues	Sonny Criss	1956

My top picks on today's listen are tracks 1, 5, 7, 10, 13, 17, 20, & 21.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.

Previously revisited for the blog:

Blue Bacharach (1999)	Capitol Rare (1999)
Blue Brazil (1999)	Capitol Rare Vol 2 (1999)
Blue Break Beats (1992)	Capitol Rare Vol 3 (1999)
Blue Beat (1991)	Blue Bossa (1991)
Blue Boogie (1999)	Blue Bossa Vol 2 (1999)
Blue Series Sampler (2001)	Midnight Blue (1999)
Blue Valentines (1999)	Blue Movies (1999)
So Blue So Funky (1991)	Blue 'N' Groovy Vol 2 (1999)
So Blue So Funky Vol 2 (1994)