Part 1 - Shelly Manne: The Lighthouse and Shorty Rogers Giants Years
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From the standpoint of 70+ years later, it's hard to imagine what the world was like in 1951 in terms of the burgeoning developments in Southern California.
A little over 5 years earlier, the Second World War - a catastrophe that claimed an estimated 75 million military and civilian deaths - had drawn to a close.
Many of the U.S. servicemen who had served and fought in the war's Pacific campaigns remembered the bountiful sunshine, blue skies and yearlong mild temperatures of SoCal from their stationing at navy bases in San Diego and Long Beach, or at the Camp Pendleton US Marines Base in Oceanside, CA or at US Army and Army Air Force bases throughout the area.
The aircraft companies of Hughes, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed and a host of war materials support companies were now making the transition to commercial production, the Hollywood movie [and soon to be television] studios were gearing up for a huge outpouring of feature films and the fresh fruit and vegetable growers in the five county area in and around Los Angeles [in conjunction with those in the Central Valley of the state] would soon be supplying 85% of the nation's needs for such produce.
Manufacturing, construction, retail and service jobs abounded, developmental land was plentiful and cheap which fueled a a spectacular boom in affordable housing; all prime ingredients for those seeking normality following years of ruinous war.
It was a great place to start a new life as a young man or woman, to marry and raise a family and to rejoice in 56,500 square miles of beautiful beaches, inland valleys, mountains and desserts.
It was also soon to be a great place to be a Jazz musician especially if you had good music reading skills because artistic and commercial gigs were continuing to grow and develop as the decade of the 1950 in southern California bore witness to one of the largest internal migration in the nation's history.
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