All About Jazz is celebrating Cal Tjader's birthday today!
Cal Tjader crafted one the sleekest and most distinctive sounds in Latin jazz. His cool, shimmering, jazz vibes, gliding fluidly atop fiery, hot Afro-Cuban rhythms, made for a sonic signature that helped introduce the genre into a mainstream audience.
Cal Tjader’s mother was a concert pianist, his father a vaudeville performer. He grew up with them on the road, tap- dancing his way through early childhood. Later, the family settled down in San Mateo on the San Francisco Peninsula, and his father opened a dancing school. After high school and a stint in the Navy, Cal ended up at San... Read more.
