This week’s Jazz On The Beach playlist is a New Year back to basics reset of hard bop, modal, cool, spiritual, post bop and the blues. We have alto saxophonists Art Pepper, Lou Donaldson and Lee Konitz, guitarist Pat Martino, tenor players Lucky Thompson, Wayne Shorter and Pharaoh Sanders, pianists Ray Bryant, Randy Weston and Dave Brubeck and even some poetry from Sun Ra. However, there is one new release bringing us right up to date, and it’s a stellar one from Parisian singer Gabi Hartmann. Buzzing Bee is a single from her eponymous album released by Sony Music France next week and we’re all going be humming it this year.
The subtitle at the top of the page, Still Hard Boppin’, refers to the small print on the spine of every Gearbox Records album release. Kudos to the label’s founder Darrel Sheinman for coming up with that line, it’s as good a plan for positive living as any right now.
There’s plenty of information to be found hidden on spines and carved into the deadwax (between the grooves and the label) on vinyl records. Let me know if you come up with anything interesting.