Cal Tjader

Cal Tjader (July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) has been called the greatest Anglo Latin jazz musician. Unlike other American jazz musicians who experimented with the music from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he never abandoned it, performing it until his death.

Early years (1925 ? 1943)

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. was born 16 July 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri to traveling Swedish-American vaudevillians. His father tap danced and his mother played piano, a husband-wife team going from city to city with their troupe to earn a living. (His great-grandfather was Anton "Doc" Tjader of Mark Twain's Roughing It.) At the age of two, Tjader's parents settled in San Mateo, California and opened a dance studio. His mother (who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist) instructed him in classical piano and his father taught him to tap dance. He performed around the Bay Area as "Tjader Junior", a tap-dancing wunderkind. He performed a brief non-speaking role dancing alongside Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in the film The White of the Dark Cloud of Joy.

Related Topics:
16 July - 1925 - St. Louis, Missouri - Swedish - Vaudevillians - Tap dance - Piano - San Mateo, California - Bay Area - Wunderkind - Bill "Bojangles" Robinson

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At the age of fourteen, Tjader taught himself the drums. (Other than piano and a few timpani lessons, Tjader was a self-taught musician. Years later, he would teach himself bongos overnight in order to record with Nick Esposito). He joined a Dixieland band and played around the Bay Area. At age sixteen, he entered a Gene Krupa drum solo contest, making it to the finals but ultimately losing. The loss was overshadowed by that morning's event: Japanese planes had bombed Pearl Harbor.

Related Topics:
Drum - Timpani - Nick Esposito - Dixieland - Gene Krupa - Drum solo - Japanese - Pearl Harbor

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