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Good morning all. A little too smooth and contrived for die-hard Pharoah Sanders’ fans, ‘Moon Child’ has a great sound for this armchair jazz fan. By 1989 and the release of the album from which this title track is taken, Sanders had nothing to prove as a jazz saxophonist. He had played a key role in the development of free jazz a couple of decades or so before. Have a great week.
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Drummer Isaac “Redd” Holt had already moved the world with the soul-jazz ensemble The Ramsey Lewis Trio. In 1970s, he formed confidently named with guitarists Jose Holmes and Larry Frazier, bassist Randy Ford and Eugene Curry on keyboards. In 1974 album Isaac, Isaac, Isaac, which features the jazz funk song ‘Flo’ which they released as a B-side to a single they year before. The sound would have a renaissance in 1993 when Norman Cook lifted the groove for Freak Power’s ‘Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out’. Have a great weekend.
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Written in 1954 by Bart Howard, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ was originally entitled ‘In Other Words’. It was first performed by Kaye Ballard and subsequently covered by Chris Connor, Johnny Mathis, Portia Nelson, Nancy Wilson, Peggy Lee, Connie Francis, Joe Harnell, Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra amongst others. Joe Harnell’s arrangement in 1962 was the first in a bossa nova style – and by 1965, the genre’s royalty were on it. A year after the LP Getz/Gilberto had turned the singer Astrud Gilberto into a star, she produced this cover; my favourite.
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One of Marvin’s best. The title track of his 1972 album Trouble Man for your pleasure.
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My barber played this song on replay three times last week. (It does not take too long to cut my hair.) After a few years away from the top of the charts, Bill Withers agreed to do the vocals for the William Salter and Ralph MacDonald-penned track, ‘Just the Two of Us’. The song was recorded in 1980 and made its debut on Grover Washington, Jr.’s album Winelight. Together with soul-jazz saxophonist, Withers had struck gold again. Cream always floats to the top.
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With his Experiment band, Robert Glasper has been mashing up jazz, hip-hop, soul, and rock for some time now. In 2012, with vocalist/saxophonist Casey Benjamin, drummer Mark Colenburg, and bassist Derrick Hodge, he put out the band’s first Black Radio album and their first Grammy followed. The album includes the Erykah Badu collaboration ‘Afro Blue’. Transcendent vibes.
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I was no Steely Dan fanatic and so my first introduction to ‘Peg’ was the homage sample by De La Soul in 1989’s ‘Eye Know‘. The original song features on the band’s jazz rock touchstone LP Aja from 1977. It’s about an aspiring actress who is breaking into the business, all from the perspective of the jilted boyfriend who was still hanging around. Nice. Have a great weekend folks.
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Recorded on 16 June 1968 at the 2nd Jazz Festival in Montreux, this Nina Simone rendition of the Styne-Comden-Green song ‘Just In Time’ is the best of all versions IMHO. The High Priestess of Soul’s voice somehow sticks long after the song is finished. “No more doubt. No more fear. I’ve found my way.” It also happens to play a big part in the emotional closing scene of the Richard Linklater’s marvelous movie Before Sunset.
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Hello – good evening/good morning. Something went awry with this posting yesterday, so apologies if you’re receiving again. I was hoping to pick up a new Chet Baker pressing in the recent Record Store Day, but no chance unless you were lucky stateside or like to spend liberally. It had me revisiting the classic Chet Baker Sings which I do have on vinyl. CB was at the height of his powers in 1956 delivering tunes that he would immediately turn into jazz standards. The LP includes his cover of the 1944 Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn number ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily’. So smooth.
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I have not followed the career of Canadian singer-songwriter Patrick Watson, but like so many I was once wrapped up in the ubiquity of the piano he performed on ‘To Build A Home’, The Cinematic Orchestra’s signature track. Released on Ninja Tune in 2007, the song quickly became celebrated for its haunting sound and the emotional vocals that Wilson penned.
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By the end of the 1960s, Robert Moog’s modular synthesizer was so en vogue that new versions of jazz and classical standards were flooding record stores. More interestingly, some were using the technology to create. Step forward the French composer, Jean-Jacques Perrey. Albeit a little kitsch and gimmicky in places, his 1970 LP Moog Indigo would find its place in DJ and hip-hop collections a decade later. His tribute to Neil Armstrong ‘E.V.A.’ is a classic example of why. It would be sampled to great effect on Gang Starr’s 1990 single ‘Just To Get A Rep’. Have a great weekend.
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It’s a odd fact that Bob Dylan never had a UK Number 1 hit as an artist, but did have two as a songwriter: ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ by The Byrds and ‘Quinn The Eskimo’ by Manfred Mann. What’s more, I don’t like either of these renditions. I do however love Ramsey Lewis’s jazzy interpretation of the latter. ‘Quinn The Eskimo’ aka ‘The Mighty Quinn’ features on his 1968 album Maiden Voyage.
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Berlin-based Conic Rose are led by trumpeter Konstantin Döben. The jazz injection is obvious but the contemporary dusty beats of ‘Gleisdreieck’ make for a very enjoyable listen. The track will feature on their album Heller Tag released later this week. Thanks for the recommendation WK.
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Work drinks reception last night and I need some calm today. Martin Duffy played keyboards for Felt, Primal Scream and The Charlatans – quite the roll call. His musical influence tended to be central to the sound of his band – think Primal Scream’s ‘Star‘ or The Charlatans Tellin’ Stories. Before the glory of Britpop, he had established himself as a creative force behind the success of Felt as they signed to Creation Records. The B-side of their 1988 album The Pictorial Jackson Review features two Duffy instrumentals, incl. the sublime ‘Sending Lady Load’. In 1993, Duffy was the victim of a near-fatal stabbing in NYC while there with Primal Scream. I read recently that he died in December after a fall at home in Brighton. His story was not fortunate and hence perhaps that’s why it’s said that Duffy brought the blues to his bands.
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Nowadays, Herbie Hancock is probably best known as the creator of jazz standards ‘Watermelon Man’ and ‘Cantaloupe Island’, two reference points throughout his career and beyond, particularly because of hip-hop reverence. Originally released in 1962, the first of these tracks also went on to be unrecognisably reworked for the fusion touchstone Head Hunters (1973), the biggest-selling jazz album of all time.
Samuelsounds 