This is a great compilation album of jazz artists who all recorded for Roost Records. These are some major stars that appeared on a minor label. And once I try to figure out what the characters are doing on the album cover, I’ll try to explain it to you. So get ready...

One of the unique aspects of my dad’s collection is how many historically significant records he has in it. In this episode, we feature an example of this. This comedian, and this album, were the first to win a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance - Spoken, when...

This is a special edition. Its timing only has a little to do with the fact that it’s the beginning of Halloween season around here. The musicians you will hear have all been heard in previous episodes of this show. A few of them might have played together at one time...

Of course my dad loved his opera. What music collection in any Italian household was without some of the world’s finest music. Several of the songs on this album had special meaning for my parents. It’s music from a singer they saw at least once in concert. He held a...

Here’s another gem of a find from my dad’s collection. Not only is the album cover attention grabbing with five stuffed TIGERS playing various instruments. But how they’re the wrong animals according to the album title. Faulty album cover aside, this is true roots of...

This is the third of eight records my dad had of this orchestra leader. He was an innovator who used the voice as an instrument, not as a vocalist. The previous episode we featured Ray on is my most viewed on YouTube…by a lot! Let’s hope this one gets past the...

Here’s another album in my dad’s collection that featured a group of jazz musicians recording an album before playing the same music on live TV days later. This time, the live TV show was a drama about a jazz trumpet player in the 1920s. Several of the musicians...

While my dad had a handful of polka records, I had at least heard of the songs and musicians on them. Not this one. In fact, I’ll have to use the album cover to…uh…cover the info I usually do on each episode. The internet not only had no idea who the band leader was,...

Latin jazz, especially Cuban music, was wildly popular in the 1950s and my dad’s collection has plenty of examples of that. That popularity is partly because of the artist you are about to hear. He’s really known for his mambo recordings. This style of music is just a...

We pull out the second of five records my dad has from this artist. His career started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. So get ready for him to meander through...