Jazz On The Beach 133: Gábor Szabó, Return To Forever, Ben Sidran
Jazz On The Beach 133: Gábor Szabó, Return To Forever, Ben Sidran
Jazz radio from the Kent coast
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Gábor Szabó, one of the most original guitarists of the ‘60s whose unique sound was built on playing a Martin D-45 acoustic fitted with a DeArmond pickup and making great use of open drone strings. His music regularly features on the show and a few weeks ago I played How Can I Tell You, from saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s live 1965 recording Manhattan Stories (Resonance, 2014) that features Szabó, double bassist Ron Carter and drummer Pete ‘La Roca’ Sims.
For this week’s show there’s drummer Chico Hamilton’s Conquistadores from El Chico (Impulse!, 1965) with Szabó, double bassist Albert Stinson and percussionists Willie Bobo and Victor Pantoja. It was improvised on the spot and is pure Szabó, capturing many of the elements of his solo records that followed like Spellbinder (featuring Gypsy Queen), Jazz Raga and Sorcerer.
Szabó continued to make some excellent albums deep into the ‘70s for Blue Thumb and CTI, but sadly died in 1982 at only 45 years old, due to liver and kidney problems after years of heroin addiction. If you want to dig deeper into his life story, Doug Payne’s the man - go here.
Here’s Szabó’s original version of the Bobby Womack composition Breezin’ from the album High Contrast (Blue Thumb, 1971) that would become a massive hit for George Benson five years later.
On to this week’s new releases, and saxophonist Kenny Garrett goes electronic with producer Svoy on Attendance from Who Killed AI? (Mack Avenue, April 12th), and there’s another track from pianist and vocalist Ben Sidran’s wonderful new album Rainmaker (Unlimited Media, April 26th) with Victime de la Mode. Here’s the story:
‘Fifty years ago, a friend and I wrote and recorded a song together called Hey Hey Baby. The track was later sampled and looped for MC Solaar’s hit Victime de la Mode. Thus began a kind of musical dialogue, a back and forth across generations and genres. Just as MC Solaar imprinted his vision onto our original statement, I returned the favor here and wrote a new version of the song as a response to his. It is a song about a song, a commentary on a commentary, and a cover of a cover’.
Looking forward to seeing him at Ronnie Scott’s on June 11th, you may still one abler to get tickets here.
Also this week, there’s exceptional new music from artists that may be not be so familiar (yet), starting with the 11 piece London-based Levitation Orchestra led by Tomorrow’s Warriors trumpeter Axel Kaner-Lidstrom with Premeditato Malorum (self released single, May 1st), and the Amsterdammer drummer and composer Guy Salamon’s octet with Productive Procrastination (wait for the ending) from Free Hugs (May 31st).
There’s Spanish trumpeter Daniel Cano (recently moved from Canterbury to Granada) with his trio’s symphonic poem Don Fernando from The History Of Cardenio (Honolulu Records, April 19th), and the Finnish trumpeter and vocalist Kirsi-Marta Harju’s Kama Kollectiv with Eick, the first single from As If I Lived A Different Life (Sonna, May 10th).
This week’s jazz rock fusion milestone is Return To Forever’s Vulcan Worlds from Where Have I Known You Before (Polydor, 1974), keyboardist Chick Corea’s fifth RTF album (if you include Return To Forever, ECM, 1971) and the first steps of 19 year old guitar wunderkind Al DiMeola, with the terrifying rhythm section of bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White. As with The Mahavishnu Orchestra, this is music for stadiums alongside rock artists and for massive stereo systems, it’s loud, dramatic and played at lightning speed - very much of its era, yet still manages to thrill.
We’re deep in blues territory with a pair of Blue Notes from tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson’s version of Muddy Waters’ Country Girl from A Look Within (Blue Note, 1996) that features a sensational vocal by Cassandra Wilson, while organist Jimmy Smith is Messin’ Around from Home Cookin’ (Blue Note, 1961) with guitarist Kenny Burrell and Bill Doggett’s former tenor saxophonist Percy France.
Incidentally, Mr Smith is standing outside Kate's Home Cooking, an 8th Avenue luncheonette that was a Harlem institution, situated around the corner from the Apollo Theatre and where the bands would drop by after they played.(Thanks to Harlem and Bespoke).
Here’s the complete Jazz On The Beach playlist, just click the link below to listen:
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