Articles by Daniel Gould

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Percy France: Live from the West End

by Daniel Gould
August 27, 2026

If you know Percy France, most likely you are a fan of “greasy" organ jazz, particularly on Blue Note Records during their classic era. He was an integral part of Jimmy Smith's Home Cookin' (1959) and Freddie Roach's Down to Earth (1962). Or perhaps you came to jazz through r&b acts like the Bill Doggett combo. The album Hot Doggett (King Records-1956) features France's driving, big-toned tenor saxophone. Or if you came to the West End Café from the 1970s through ...

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Phil Schaap: A Life in Jazz

by Daniel Gould
July 28, 2026

Phil Schaap, a jazz historian, radio host, record producer, archivist, six-time Grammy Award winner, and 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, called himself “a Johnny Appleseed through the transmitter." Of course, the subject of his proselytizing was jazz, and few did it as long, or through so many different media--broadcasting, teaching, audio engineering, and sound preservation--as did Philip Van Noorden Schaap. Schaap was born April 8, 1951, and raised in the Hollis section of Queens, New York. ...

History of Jazz

Honky Tonk at Seventy

by Daniel Gould
May 17, 2026

Seventy years ago this summer, a group of jazz men made a record that became the genre's first million-seller. The group was the Bill Doggett Combo, and the track was “Honky Tonk, Parts 1 & 2" (King, 1956). It sold 4 million copies worldwide and went to #2 (Pop) and #1 (R&B). While Bill Doggett always said that the group spontaneously created the song on a bandstand in Lima, Ohio, the full story is perhaps a bit more nuanced and ...