ABOUT THE ALBUM This is an easy-listening jazz album. The quintet consists of guitar, vibes, keys, upright bass and percussion. Nothing avant garde about it, just good music. (Total time: 58:41) This music is very much in the West Coast Cool Jazz mode, i.e., a minimalist, less frenetic, calmer style than the East Coast hard bop, more heavily arranged, and more often compositionally based. My formative years were the fifties, listening to just about everyone who recorded on the Pacific Jazz and Contemporary labels. Guys I was influenced by were the ones I thought got it right -- Ben Webster and Lester Young (tenor), Paul Desmond (alto sax), Jimmy Giuffre (clarinet), Red Mitchell (bass), Shelly Manne (drums), Billy Bauer (guitar), Chet Baker (trumpet), Gerry Mulligan (bari sax), Pete Jolly (piano), Don Elliott (mellophone), Lennie Tristano (piano) and Cal Tjader (vibes), to name just a few of the many. ABOUT THE ARTIST Bob Burford is a self-taught finger-style jazz guitarist who grew up with a guitar in the house. He was surrounded by uncles on both sides of the family who played Texas Swing and Hillbilly (that was before the term \"Country & Western\" was coined). He started playing in clubs at the age of 15 in the resort area of southwestern Michigan in the early 1950s. At age 17 he began working with show bands playing rhythm and blues and jazz. Later, he studied privately with renowned guitarist Charlie Byrd who, with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, introduced bossa nova to North America with their “Jazz Samba” album in the early 1960s. Byrd introduced him to John Marlow at American University in Washington, D.C., with whom he studied classical guitar. From there he went to Las Vegas where he worked for Al Ramsey who contracted a stable of musicians who backed all of the casino headliners. Ramsey later became director of entertainment at Caesar’s Palace. Burford\'s claim to fame comes more from who he did not work with rather than who he has worked with. He got the call from Ramsey\'s office to work the Sinatra show but he missed that date because his answering service failed to give him the message until 26 hours later. He is most proud of his two-year association with legendary guitarist George Barnes (Chet Atkins\' favorite guitarist) at Concord Jazz in California. That collaboration produced what came to be known as “the Concord Sound.” Burford is semi-retired now but still owns a private investigative agency in Nashville where he is actively involved in the music scene. ABOUT THE TUNES 1. DREAMSVILLE - If the Peter Gunn series had a love theme, this was it, one of about two dozen tunes Henry Mancini wrote for the show. 2. SYMPHONY NO. 40 - Notwithstanding the fact that Mozart\'s been dead for about 250 years, I co-wrote this tune with him ... kinda. It needed a functional bridge, so I wrote one. If this tune seems vaguely familiar, think of Schroeder sitting over his piano in Charles Schultz\' “Peanuts”, you\'ll hear Vince Guaraldi playing the classical version. 3. MORAYA - Once upon a time there was a lady, a fine lady, 27 years old, 5\'9\", 127 pounds, blonde, blue-eyed, legs up to her ears. She was a dancer at Caesar\'s Palace. Her nervous system was centered in her legs. If there was a rhythm in the air, Moraya\'s legs were moving to it. 4. GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY - In the late 1940s Stan Jones was a park ranger for the U.S. Park Service and occasionally had bit parts in about a dozen movies. He also wrote this tune. In the opening scenes of Gene Autry\'s “Riders in the Sky”, Gene comes riding into town to find a friend lying on the ground dying from a gunshot wound. He had been accused of a crime he didn\'t commit. His dying words to Gene was, “... I think it\'s time for me to join those ghost riders in the sky.” 5. THAT\'S FUN - I had the singular pleasure of working with George Barnes at Concord Jazz the last two years of his life. He and his lovely wife, Evelyn, had spent the weekend in Los Angeles. While Evelyn was driving back up to the Bay Area Sunday evening, George wrote out the arrangement for “Concord Sound”, the first tune of his two-guitar Concord Sound project. They spent the night in the Big Sur area and around 5:30 Monday morning George called me and, in his own inimitable voice, said, “Bob! Meet me at the studio ... 7:30!” This is the tune we were working on at the time of his death. The hardest part about writing an instrumental tune is coming up with a title. George and I had been working on this tune for about two hours when he decided it was time for a break. Pushing himself up off his chair, he said with a sigh, “Ahhhh, that\'s fun!” ... thus, the title. The two-guitar arrangement can be heard on the “Twin Guitars” album. 6. MY FUNNY VALENTINE - Lorenz \"Larry\" Hart and Richard Rodgers - from the 1937 movie \"Babes in Arms\" 7. WAITING FOR TRACY - No comment. As the Falstaff stated in \"Henry IV\", \"The better part of valor is discretion.\" Far be it from me to argue with that wisdom. 8. EASE ON BY - 9. BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC - Years ago in another lifetime I had my alarm set to go off at 5:30 a.m. to catch the Dan Sorkin\'s show on WCFL in Chicago. His theme was Cal Tjader\'s version of this tune. Trivia: Dan would occasionally have a local accountant on his program who was very very funny - Bob Newhart. Some years later, when Newhart got his own TV series, Sorkin would fly out to L.A. as the show\'s announcer. 10. IN THE POCKET - 11. ELA ME DEIXOU (SHE IS GONE) - When I went to Charlie Byrd\'s house to audition to study with him, I really didn\'t know what tunes to choose. I considered classical, but that\'s not why I was there. I was wrapped up in bossa nova and thought that would be more appropriate. But which bossa tunes? I finally decided to include a couple of tunes he had recorded. Not only did he record this one, he also wrote it. 12. ANYTIME - I\'ve always had a great liking of and respect for Eddy Arnold. Since I see him on average of about twice a week, I thought it apropos to do one of his big hits.