Welcome to this week’s newsletter and I hope you enjoy listening to the latest Jazz On The Beach and Blues Beach first broadcast on Deal Radio - just click the links.
After highlighting four very special guitar performances last week from George Benson, John McLaughlin, Johnny Smith and Gilad Hekselman, more a few of you chimed in with ‘where’s Charlie, Tal, Grant, Pat, Kenny, Django or Joe?’ But the loudest cry of all was ‘where’s Wes?’ So without further ado (as Peter Wallis of Pizza Express Dean Street would say), here’s Wes Montgomery with the title track from Full House (Riverside, 1962) recorded at Tsubo’s in Berkeley, California (soon to become the Jabberwock folk club), and featuring tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and the Freddie Freeloader rhythm section of pianist Wynton Kelly, double bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb.
Kelly, Chambers and Cobb also appear this week with Softly As In A Morning Sunrise from Kelly Blue (Riverside, 1959), the eighth version of the Sigmund Romberg operetta classic from 1928 that’s appeared on the show so far, following those by Sonny Rollins, Kenny Barron & Regina Carter, Larry Young, The Great Jazz Trio, Steven Feifke, Cyrille Aimée & Michael Valiant and The Takehiro Hondo Trio. What can I say, it’s a great tune.
Among the new releases this week is the dense and deeply rhythmic Silhouette from drummer Jake Long, a good introduction to his new album City Swamp (New Soil, May 10). There are some of the London scene’s finest players involved including saxophonists Tamar Osborn and Binker Golding, guitarists Shirley Tetteh and Artie Zaitz, pianists Al MacSween and Amané Suganami, bassist Twm Dylan and percussionist Tim Doyle (aka Chiminyo). A few of them were members of Long’s band Maisha, whose album There Is A Place (Brownswood, 2018) is one of the most exciting releases in the current renaissance of British jazz.
Speaking of large line ups, there’s Brighton’s Hill Collective with the joyous Duality from their debut Tonal Prophecy (Fin du Monde, April 20th). They’re an eight piece jazz collective led by alto saxophonist Pete Piskov, with drummer Joe Edwards, bassist Federico Micheli, pianist Luke Congdon, trombonist Will Roberts, trumpeter Phil Smith, harpist JoJo Circle and percussionist Sudhi Pooniyil. There’s also the twenty member Grand Unison Choir that ‘chant, laugh, scream and sing’. Great fun, but that’s Brighton for you!
The Messethetics and James Brandon Lewis are positively steaming on The Time Is The Place from the imaginatively titled The Messethetics and James Brandon Lewis (Impulse!, March). It’s a match up that works, tenor saxophonist Lewis and the former Fugazi rhythm section of drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally plus guitarist Anthony Pirog all sound great together.
Alto saxophonist Jim Snidero has recorded his first trio album with double bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth - not a pianist or guitarist in sight. Here’s the wonderful slow swinging title track from For All We Know (Savant, February 16th). Highly recommended are Ethan Iverson’s post and Morgan Enos’ interview from London Jazz News.
Plenty of classic tracks too this week, starting with vibraphonist Johnny Lytle and Tawhid from People And Love (Milestone, 1972) that’s just been reissued by Craft Recordings in their Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf series. And following on from last week’s Mahavishnu Orchestra selection, here’s bassist Stanley Clarke’s Lopsy Lu from his second solo album Stanley Clarke (Nemperor, 1974) with guitarist Bill Connors (before he went acoustic), the great Tony Williams reinventing rock drumming and Jan Hammer playing electric piano and Minimoog in the days before before polyphonic synthesizers arrived with the Oberheim.
There’s Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida and alto saxophonist Bud Shank’s gorgeous Speak Low from the album Laurindo Almeida Quartet Featuring Bud Shank (Pacific Jazz, 1955), and baritone saxophonist Leo Parker’s tone is huge on the title track from Rollin’ With Leo (Blue Note, 1980) that was recorded in 1961 and sat in the vaults for 19 years.
A few days ago my good friend, the editor/publisher of London Jazz News Sebastian Scotney, suggested I play something on the show by the German guitarist Philipp Schiepek and the pianist Walter Lang from their album Cathedral (ACT, 2021). He said that listening to Schiepek’s new album had sent him back to listen again to this lovely duo album, and that it hardly seems right or fair that Lang died so soon after it was recorded. Sebastian was quite right, this really is a very special album from which I’ve chosen the deeply soothing Pilgrimage.
Blues Beach is always great fun to put together, and as it’s only an hour long every two weeks there are always far too many tracks to fit in. So only the best make it, and this week that means Wille Dixon performing his own version of Spoonful, Koko Taylor’s rewrite of Bo Diddley’s I’m A Man as I’m A Woman, a sixteen year old Rory Block with an amazing version of Robert Johnson’s Walking Blues and Roy Rogers’ take on Johnson’s 32-20 Blues. There’s new music from Sue Foley with her solo acoustic interpretation of Memphis Minnie’s In My Girlish Days and Eric Bibb’s live rendition of Tampa Red’s Things Is ‘Bout Comin’ My Way.
Listen Live
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. (*UK time)
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: Welly’s Coffeehouse and Bar, 6 Park Avenue, Deal and Wellingtons Coffeehouse and Bistro, 9 High Street, Dover.
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