RECORDING: Backgrounder: Shorty Rogers – Cool and Crazy

One of Shorty Rogers’s finest albums was available originally in the new 10-inch LP format or as a pair of extended-play 45s. Cool and Crazy dates back 70 years to March and April of 1953 and features a slam-bang band at the dawn of West Coast jazz. Rogers’ compositions and arrangements are glorious, with loads of contrapuntal lines, and his band delivers enormous instrumental punch. …