Office Naps
Sound files are posted for educational purposes only and will be removed upon request. Are you a member of a band or an artist that I’ve featured? Get in touch and set the record straight!
Follow/contact
The other site
From '50s NYC clubland, a Yma Sumac-inspired version of "Babalu" by jazz/calypso singer Phyllis Branch.The radio show
The show is Lost Frequencies. Every Monday night from 9pm to 11pm (CST) on Marfa Public Radio I explore the atmospheric side of post-War music: bop & vocals, soul/R&B heartbreak, exotica & soundtrack moods, Latin jazz, oddball instrumentals, honky-tonk ballads, early electronics - even some dreamy '60s psychedelic pop. Tune in at Marfa Public Radio or at KRTS 93.5fm.Categories
Archives
Elsewhere
Category Archives: Jazz Obscura
Midnight in the Naked City
The common tropes of Asphalt Jungle, Peter Gunn, D.O.A., The Maltese Falcon, This Gun for Hire, Johnny Staccato and dozens of other classic crime and detective serials and movies are well documented. Watching how certain motifs – the chase scenes, … Continue reading
Vibraphones, flutes and California Latin jazz
I’ve posted extensively about Afro-Latin music in California (here, here, here and here). The subject fascinates me, so I’ll try not to belabor the point too much. Latin jazz in the post-War Bay Area and Los Angeles was a diffuse, … Continue reading
Naked City Latino
Few of Tinseltown’s directors, writers, cinematographers or creative minds – and certainly none of its soundtrack and television composers – turned a blind eye to opportunism in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Each location or genre came with its familiar set … Continue reading
Message from the ghetto
What ties this week’s selections together is not merely their spoken word component (though it’s significant, certainly). Nor is it just their cause of change and greater societal welfare. Awareness-raising ballads, agitprop invective, activist commentary, summons-to-action and subversive parody are … Continue reading
West Coast boogaloo, part two
(Ed. Note: More this week on West Coast versions of the quintessential ‘60s Spanish Harlem musical phenomenon, the boogaloo, that fusion of black R&B; aesthetic with Latin rhythms and orchestration. Broadly speaking, the boogaloo’s West Coast cousins tended to be … Continue reading
Ed Bland
Ed Bland is an American composer, musical arranger and producer with a considerable catalog of contemporary classical compositions – “Art Music,” as Bland would note – to his name. Bland is, at least among a coterie of vintage soul fans, … Continue reading
Office Naps Fall 2007 Psychedelic Pop mix
This is the rose-colored soundtrack I strive to cocoon my life in, a CD-length metaphor for the first time you watched Solaris. Part of the ongoing Office Naps psychedelic pop mix series. Office Naps Fall 2007 Psychedelic Pop Mix The … Continue reading
Bossa America, part two
(Ed. Note: This is essentially a continuation of an earlier Office Naps installment on American versions of the Bossa Nova. That first post can be found here.) It’d started in the mid-‘50s with sophisticated young Rio musicians hooked on American … Continue reading