Welcome to Jazz West Coast

First a little history. The initial Jazz West Coast list was established on a server at the University of California, Irvine, in the summer of 1994. Many current members were charter members of that initial list. That same server hosted the Kentonia list for awhile when the founder of that list was unable to continue to host it at his institution. Prior to my retirement from UCI in 2002 the founder and I had to find another home for Kentonia and it was moved to Yahoo Groups in January of 2001 where it resides today. My friends at UCI continued to host the JWC list which had its ups and downs with server problems. During one of these down times I registered the JWC list here at Yahoo as a back up solution if the server at UCI could not be restored. That is why the date of founding here at Yahoo is given as August 12, 2005. UCI is no longer able to host us due to security concerns at the campus, so we have made the permanent move to Yahoo. Now, what we are about.

This list was created to help focus jazz discussion regarding the years 1945-1960, as delineated by Ted Gioia's book, West Coast Jazz, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992. This period in jazz history has been the topic of a number of recent books beginning with Robert Gordon's Jazz West Coast, Quartet, London, 1988, which re-examine the legacy of jazz that captured world wide attention in the 1950s. The list will not be moderated, and discussion on any aspect of west coast jazz during these years is encouraged. Jazz is on the endangered species list, support your local jazz musicians and get out into the clubs in your area as often as possible.

Owner-moderator: Jim Harrod
(JazzWestCoast-owner@yahoogroups.com)