Jazz On The Beach 135: Weather Report, Ronnie April's Positive Energy, Jack Wilson
New releases, hard bop, jazz radio from Deal
This week’s Jazz On The Beach radio show opened with a big favourite, pianist Jack Wilson’s title track from Easterly Winds (Blue Note, 1968), featuring trumpeter Lee Morgan, trombonist Garrett Brown, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, double bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Billy Higgins. This was Wilson’s second (and possibly best) of the three albums he recorded for Blue Note, the others being Something Personal (1966) and Song For My Daughter (1969). He also recorded as a leader for Vault, Atlantic and Discovery and was a prolific Los Angeles studio cat and sideman. One session in particular stands out, his fine playing with saxophonist Curtis Amy and trumpeter Dupree Bolton on Katanga! (Pacific Jazz, 1963) that also features our good friend and Broadstairs resident Doug Sides on drums.
Back to Easterly Winds - a sensational album from a wonderful pianist who deserves to be far better known, and hopefully last year’s incredible sounding Tone Poet reissue will help put that right. But you can help too, why not be a jazz messenger and tell your friends!
There are a few more Blue Notes this week (once you start it’s hard to stop) but they’re all great and include the aforementioned Jackie McLean with Eco from Right Now! (Blue Note, 1966), guitarist Grant Green’s title track from Idle Moments (Blue Note, 1965), trumpeter Lee Morgan’s hard boppin’ Hocus-Pocus from The Sidewinder (Blue Note, 1964) and Joe Henderson’s Recorda Me from his Blue Note debut Page One (Blue Note, 1963). The great Bob Cranshaw was the bassist on all of these and wins our ‘ubiquitous bass player of the week award’, that’s usually the preserve of Ron Carter.
Also from Blue Note is The Three Sounds’ Willow Weep For Me from Introducing The Three Sounds (Blue Note, 1958), featuring pianist Gene Harris with what was probably his best rhythm section of double bassist Andrew Simkins and drummer Bill Dowdy. It’s worth remembering that although The Three Sounds were unfairly considered lightweight by some, they were among the best selling artists on the label and helped make it possible for Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff to produce so many great records.
This week’s jazz rock fusion milestone is Weather Report’s Cucumber Slumber from their fourth album Mysterious Traveller (Columbia, 1974). It started as a studio jam (hence the fade-in) with new bassist Alfonso Johnson (taking over from founder member Miroslav Vitous) playing the deeply funky bassline before drummer Ishmael Wilburn joins in (reminiscent of John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham on Miles Davis’ Right Off). Joe Zawinul plays electric piano and EML synthesiser, Wayne Shorter is playing both soprano and tenor saxophones and the percussionists are Dom Um Romão and Ray Barretto. I once heard the quadraphonic mix on an appropriate high end ‘70s quadraphonic hifi system and it sounded fantastic.
Among the new releases on the show this week…guitarist Lee Ritenour and pianist Dave Grusin fly down to São Paulo for a fine version of Milton Nascimento’s Cravo E Canela (Clove and Cinnamon) from Brasil (Candid, May 31st), Londoner Ashley Henry covers Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddamn (Naive records) as a taster for a new album coming in October and there’s a third track from Ben Sidran’s excellent Rainmaker (Unlimited Media, April 26th) with the wry Ever Since The World Ended.
There’s more from singer Zara McFarlane’s Sweet Whispers: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan (Eternal Source Of Light, June 14th) with If You Could See Me Now, trumpeter Daniel Cano’s Cardenio from The History Of Cardenio (Honolulu, April 19th) and the beautiful Knowingness from alto saxophonist and flautist Jasmine Myra’s Rising (Gondwana, May 3rd) which I reviewed last week for London Jazz News (soon to be renamed UK Jazz News).
Reissue of the week is the funky Rasmonde by Ronnie April’s Positive Energy from the album Vol. 1 (Jude Records, 1983) that’s about to be reissued by Jazz Room Records on June 21st. Only a small number had been pressed up and distributed around New York by the saxophonist, flautist and clarinettist Ronnie April (aka Ronnie Aprea) for his project that put ‘voices and horns in a contemporary setting’. Snowflake became a jazz dance classic, but the whole album is terrific and Rasmonde features a great groove with fine solos from April playing soprano saxophone, trumpeter Virgil Jones and pianist James Wydeman. It’s just great fun.
Here’s the full playlist, just click the link below to listen.
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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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