In 1963, we heard about the Beatles, and later the Rolling Stones. To use the terms English and Rock & Roll in the same sentence seemed to be an oxymoron. The Brits were so, reserved. Guess again! The Beatles and the Stones and The Who were really good as were the other groups. But I stuck to my Jazz guns. I was living a half hour away from San Francisco and some of the best Jazz clubs on the planet were in North Beach. I went to town as often as I could considering I was carrying a extremely heavy academic load as a student at the Navy's Missile Technician's B School. It was an Electrical Engineering curriculum without the humanities crammed into nine months of 40 hour a week classroom time. Five years later, when I did get to go to college, a 14 hour week was a walk in the park. About November of 63, the Beatles and right behind them came the British Invasion. I was stationed on an aircraft carrier in San Diego, the USS Constellation, and spent a lot of time at sea. Still listening to Jazz.
Six months later in February of 64, I was sent up to new construction at Todd Shipyard in Seattle and found more Jazz clubs up there in Washington state. By November we were back down in Long Beach and life in So. Cal. kicked the pace yet up another notch. We found a lot of good Jazz clubs around.
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