Like a lot of other music fans, Kind of Blue was the first jazz album I purchased. I selected my copy from the Columbia House music catalog which seems rather comical today, but it’s the truth. Over the years I heard plenty of rumors as to how quickly this album was recorded, but the time … Continue reading Miles Davis Recorded Kind of Blue in Just Nine Hours (and a few other things I learned)…
It’s time for another edition of Concentration Beats! This is the third volume of my beats playlists designed to allow you to plug in and play during those times when you need to lock out distractions and focus on that project you’ve been putting off all week. This will play for about an hour and … Continue reading Concentration Beats Vol. 3
New playlist time and this is a Valentine’s Day special which makes me worry it will turn out like a bad soundtrack to a Zach Braff movie (ha) but I carry on in the hopes it won’t. This is an updated playlist I made for my wife back in 2015 so when you get to … Continue reading Valentine’s Day Jams
This 1958 Muntz is a four tube super-heterodyne AM radio. “Muntz” is short for Earl William “Madman” Muntz (pictured below) who made millions selling cheap cars, radios and televisions between 1934 and 1985. When testing the tubes, I noticed someone had subbed in a 50EH5 output tube instead of using the 50C5 as listed on … Continue reading Muntz R-10 Radio Restoration
It’s the Monday following the Super Bowl and you may be excited the Eagles won or you’re disappointed in the Patriots’ loss, but either way we’re all recovering in one way or another. I thought it would be a great time to post a new playlist of Concentration Beats, this being Volume 2 (Volume 1 … Continue reading Concentration Beats Vol. 2
My wife’s aunt recently asked me to repair an antique radio she was using for decoration in her house. The radio is a Crosley 10-136E, a standard AA5 tube radio which was produced in Cincinnati, OH, in 1950. I plugged her into my variac and slowly brought her back to life but she wouldn’t play … Continue reading Crosley 10-136E Radio Restoration
I decided to officially “start listening” to jazz in high school. I started with the staples, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. This was in the CD era so I invested in buying jazz carefully because it’s easy to find something that looks great but in reality isn’t. And in … Continue reading Hartley’s Jazz Jams Vol. 1
This week’s playlist is all Eighties Babies with jams I hope would have persuaded Elizabeth Shue or Molly Ringwald to invite me on their next adventure. Appropriate for playing at work but also goes well with long night drives. Follow along below: Continue reading Hartley’s Eighties Babies Vol. 1
I have a lot of hobbies and at times I feel guilty spending time on them. Why? My best guess is I imagine others questioning the time that I could be spending on my job, working for others, networking, etc. If you google “benefits of having a hobby”, you will get plenty of articles that … Continue reading Understanding My Hobbies
I recently DJ’d a holiday party who requested all soul music to play in the background. I had to pull together over three hours of music and decided to pare those songs down to a playlist I could share. You’ll recognize of plenty of names here like Sam, Dave, Mavis, Mary and Otis, but … Continue reading Hartley’s Soul Jams Vol. 1
Aaron Hartley 