Artist - Tune - Album
Sarah Vaughan & Michel Legrand - The Summer Knows - Sarah Vaughan & Michel Legrand
Dave Holland - Conference of the Birds - Conference of the Birds
Russell Gunn - Neo-So - Krunk Jazz
Steps Ahead - Modern Times - Modern Times
Bill Evans - Gloria’s Step - Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Ella Fitzgerald - Some Of These Days - Live at Carnegie Hall, July 5, 1973
Phronesis - Charm Defensive - The Behemoth
Tom Waits - Down In The Hole - Big Time
Carlos Santana - Shere Khan, The Tiger - The Swing of Delight
Jay Clayton - Freedom Jazz Dance - In and Out of Love
Hilton Ruiz - Stolen Moments - Crosscurrents
Stevie Wonder - Love Having You Around - Music Of My Mind
Freddie Hubbard - Hub-Tones - Hub-Tones
Etienne Charles - Kaiso - Kaiso
The ode to musical styles past and present that introduces Jazz Gumbo is “Music Evolution” by Branford Marsalis and Buckshot Lefonque.
Playlists for all past Sets of Jazz Gumbo will be found at jazzgumbo.blogspot.ca
This Set serves as a gentle, invitational offering to Spring. As I listen back to it – a few weeks after it originally aired, unfortunately, but with Spring still struggling for full expression against a tenacious Winter – an opening doorway is evoked, and I’m more than ready to walk through.
A few of these musical offerings have overtones of Springtime for me: of fresh beginnings, corners turned, re-births…
- The liner notes to the Vaughan-Legrand album refer to the singer being introduced to a recording by the composer/conductor/arranger and deciding to devote the whole of her next album to his work.
- Stevie’s “Music Of My Mind” marked the beginning of an extraordinary period of volcanic creativity. Though it was his 14th album, he was only 22, and eager to break out of the Motown mold. And the album title is literal, in that Stevie composed, arranged and performed every note of it, except for the trombone solo on the featured cut and one other guest solo elsewhere.
- “Conference” was Dave Holland’s first album as leader, and I don’t think he’s stopped exploring since.
- And you’d hardly recognize Santana in the cut bearing his name, he remains so much within the ensemble of jazz greats he’s invited to play, in this foray beyond his wheelhouse.
I hope that there is a beautiful Spring sensibility available to you too, wherever you might be in the world.
Love & Peace
Kirby Obsidian
