So without further ado, lets get back to the audio. This time its Scott Walker performing ‘Mathilde’ from Jacques Brel.

Yeah, call me a repeat offender since I’ve already posted these tunes before, in a way. However, the performance and the stylings show how Brel is an influence to many people.

Also, don’t you just love a performance that’s being introduced by the Queen of Blue-Eyed Soul herself?.

Here we have a hit song featuring a duo that only plays drum and bass. No, its not Dillinja or Goldie because these are actual instruments. Also, its not Local H or The White Stripes because the time period is the late 1930’s.

Now, I’m not sure which Winnteka they’re talking about… either the droll suburb of LA or the suburb of Chicago where Laurie Dann did that killing spree that motivated their cops to regulate Uzi machine guns for their officers after that tragedy. Maybe that explains the “big sound.”

I bring you Bob Haggart & Ray Bauduc!

Bob Haggart & Ray Bauduc were part of the rhythm section for a band called The Bob Crosby Orchestra who did some swing stuff from the late-thirties into the fifties. He was especially known for a Dixieland Jazz group called The Bobcats which featured these two backup men, one on bass and the other on Drums.

Bauduc is very well known for his drumming style, and this song was even a radio hit. His colourful style, making full use of woodblocks, cowbells, the Chinese cymbal and tom-toms, marked him out from most drummers of the swing era, and made him one of the few white drummers (George Wettling, Dave Tough and Gene Krupa were the others, but they were not so obvious) to be directly influenced by Warren “Baby” Dodds.

Imagine Sammy and friends doing a medley of “Chim Chim Cheree” and “The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Plain.”

I don’t know what’s funnier. When the lads speak in their Newcastle Northern-English accents, or the great translation in Swedish. Especially when Sammy says “Ni driver med mig!”

You can’t miss Scott Walker’s baritone and how singers like Jarvis Cocker, Morrissey and David Bowie have all been influenced by his unique voice. I just liked the fact that when he went solo, he released 3 albums simply titled “Scott.” Whats the hurt in that?

What some people may not realize is that The Walker Brothers were not even real brothers. It was all marketing, kinda like how all of The Ramones weren’t related. But like The Webb Brothers (who are related), the band had more chart success in the UK than the US. Maybe its because you had other bands like The Everyl and Righteous Brothers over here who some may have thought were similar, but the songs here are more moody and better in a lyrical sense.

Dig this early music video from the guys and don’t giggle when Scott makes emotional hand gestures.

Here we have a 1961 performace of ‘Take Five’, the most notable hit single from The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Not only is it my favorite candy bar in the world, its by far the most recognizeable jazz song for just about any set of ears. You’ve heard it in countless films, commercials and TV shows.

Wikipedia notes that Take Five was released on The Dave Brubeck quartet’s 1959 album Time Out. Composed by Paul Desmond, the group’s saxophonist, it became famous for its distinctive, catchy saxophone melody and use of quintuple time, from which the piece gets its name. While “Take Five” was not the first jazz composition to use this meter, it was the first of any mainstream significance, becoming a hit on the radio at a time when rock music was in fashion. “Take Five” is also known for the solo by noted jazz drummer Joe Morello.

I think its one of the few jazz songs I can think of that has a 45 pressing used for jukeboxes.

Regarding the show, Jazz Casual, For National Educational Television (now known as PBS), a gentleman named Ralph Gleason produced a series of twenty-eight programs on jazz and blues that featured B.B. King, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Sonny Rollins, among others. The series ran from 1961 to 1968. He also produced a two-hour documentary on Duke Ellington, which was twice nominated for an Emmy. Other films for television included a four-part series on the Monterey Jazz Festival, the first documentary for television on pop music, Anatomy of a Hit, and a two-hour performance and documentary on San Francisco rock, Go Ride the Music and A Night At The Family Dog.