Jazz On The Beach 124: Gene Harris, The Three Sounds, new releases, Blues Beach 45
The evolution of Jazz On The Beach
First, a little recap…this Jazz On The Beach newsletter started life on Substack in December 2020 as ‘Aww, Pick It, Wilson!’, referring to the moment halfway through Stephen Stills’ great guitar solo on Bob Dylan’s It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, (track one, side two of the Super Session album), when Al Kooper exclaims, ‘Aww, Pick it, Wilson!’ flipping the soul icon Wilson Pickett’s name into an exhortation of encouragement. I wrote about musicians I had worked with and records or live performances that had made a major impression on me.
In September 2021 I launched the Jazz On The Beach weekly radio show on my local internet radio station DealRadio.co.uk, and after a while a few ‘Aww, Pick it, Wilson!’ subscribers suggested I include weekly playlists and links to both Jazz On The Beach and its biweekly spinoff Blues Beach that launched the following summer. And so the newsletter acquired a dual identity, before eventually rebranding fully as Jazz On The Beach, which is where we are today. As for tomorrow, let’s see what the future brings, this is jazz and I’m just another improviser.
Keep sending me your feedback and comments, it’s greatly appreciated. You can email me at jazzonthebeach@icloud.com
This week’s show starts and ends with music from The Three Sounds, one of Blue Note’s most popular artists of the late ‘50s and ‘60s, featuring the warm, relaxed, deeply bluesy and soulful playing of pianist Gene Harris. Both tracks were released many years after they were recorded, and opening proceedings is Funky Pullett from Live At The ‘It Club’ (Blue Note, 1996), recorded in 1970 with double bassist Henry Franklin and drummer Carl Burnett. The second is Blue Hour recorded during the sessions for the album Blue Hour (Blue Note, 1960) with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, but only released in 2000 on The Complete Blue Hour Sessions featuring the trio’s original rhythm section of double bassist Andrew Simkins and drummer Bill Dowdy.
I saw Gene Harris play at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho during the late ‘90s, fronting a top UK lineup of guitarist Jim Mullen, double bassist Andrew Clyendert and drummer Martin Drew. Resonance Records later released the excellent Live In London and Another Night In London from around this time with the same lineup, showing just how truly great a player Harris was and how hard that Dean Street basement could swing.
There are new releases this week from the exciting Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, whose intriguing The Solitary Seeker comes from her upcoming Echoes Of The Inner Prophet album for Blue Note (April), and from the Seattle keyboardist/producer Oliver Crosby’s explosive Expand! from the electric jazz fusion of Locana (Radio Juicy, March).
New music too from The Lynne Arriale Trio with the pianist’s wonderful Passion from Being Human (Challenge Records, March) and a single from singer Lizz Wright with bassist Meshell Ndegocello and harpist Brandee Younger on Your Love from Shadow (Blues and Greens, April).
Last week I played Pharoah Sanders’ deeply moving The Light At The Edge Of The World from A Prayer Before Dawn (Theresa, 1987), a more reflective side of the great saxophonist but no less powerful. This week there’s another track in a similar mood, Dedication To James W. Clark, which like most of the album is a one take only duet with pianist William Henderson, who then overdubbed Kurzweil synth layers. I’ve tried to discover who James W. Clark is, if you know, please let me know.
Another chance to play two of my favourite things from the last couple of years, singer Lauren Bush’s Keep It To Yourself (what a great song) from her second album Dream Away (self-released, 2021), and saxophonist Binker Golding’s truly wonderful My Two Dads from Dream Like A Dogwood Wild Boy (Gearbox, 2022).
There was a second cut from last year’s sensational multi album set Mingus Takes Manhattan: The Complete Birdland Dates 1961-1962 (New Land) with an astonishing version of Fables Of Faubus, and Wayne Shorter’s iconic Footprints from Adam’s Apple (Blue Note, 1967) that was recorded before but released after Miles Davis recorded it for Miles Smiles (Miles to Wayne: ‘bring the book’) and Bill Evans’ marvellous solo Here’s That Rainy Day from Alone (Verve, 1970).
As always, enjoy the music, and tell your friends!
Blues Beach is back this week for its 45th show with a playlist that ranges from Henry Thomas’ Fishing Blues, Geoff Muldaur’s Wild Ox Moan and former partner Maria Muldaur’s Lover Man, to some automobile inspired tracks with Taj Mahal’s Chevrolet, Mose Allison’s V-8 Ford Blues and ZZ Top’s Arrested For Driving While Blind.
From the guitar heroes there’s Johnny Winter with his slide guitar tour de force on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Mike Bloomfield’s Really from Super Session demonstrating how great a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Super Reverb can sound and Roy Buchanan’s Tribute To Elmore James from Second Album with his Fender Telecaster through a Fender Deluxe Reverb sounding pretty amazing too. But it’s all in the fingers and the soul.
You can listen live to Jazz On The Beach every Wednesday evening from 10.00pm - midnight and to Blues Beach every other Thursday from 6.00pm - 7.00pm on DealRadio.co.uk or via the TuneIn Radio app.
Or you can ask your smart device to ‘Play Deal Radio’.
Both shows are broadcast live from the Deal Radio Studio at 69a High Street, Deal, Kent CT14 6EH, a stone’s throw from the beach.
Jazz On the Beach and Blues Beach radio shows are sponsored by our good friends at Wellingtons with two fine locations: Park Avenue at Welly’s Coffeehouse and Bar, 6 Park Avenue, Deal and Wellingtons Coffeehouse and Bistro, 9 High Street, Dover.