Jazz On The Beach 78 and Blues Beach 21
Jazz On The Beach 78 and Blues Beach 21
Let's all listen to more jazz music and play the blues
This week’s Jazz On The Beach playlist includes some excellent new releases, including The End Of Innocence by Billy Childs from his new album The Winds Of Change which came out last week on Mack Avenue. If Child’s name is not as familiar as some of his contemporaries, it’s probably because he has a led multifaceted career as a pianist, composer, arranger and conductor of jazz and classical repertoire earning a mantelpiece full of awards and honours. The quartet on this ‘melancholy paean to lost childhood’ features stellar players, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, double bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade.
You may well recognise Duke Pearson’s composition Idle Moments as the title track of an iconic Grant Green album. Saxophonist Wayne Escoffery revisits it on his terrific new album Like Minds with pianist David Kikoski, double bassist Ugonna Okegwo, trumpeter Tom Harrell, guitarist Mike Moreno and drummer Mark Whitfield, Jr. Like Minds will be out in April on Smoke Sessions Records.
Digging deeper, there are two Horace Silver cuts, his quintet’s Jungle Juice from 1968’s Serenade To A Soul Sister and his composition Song For My Father performed by Gary Crosby’s mighty Jazz Jamaica from the 1994 album The Jamaican Beat: Blue Beat Vol. 1.
And finally, a sad farewell to the great clarinettist and saxophonist Tony Coe who passed away last week aged 88. Here’s Night And Day from the album Dancing In The Dark, recorded with pianist John Horler in St Michael's Church at the Appleby Jazz Festival in 2007. It’s a performance that Coe considered one of his very best.
This week’s Blues Beach features the originals of three songs that became rock classics of the sixties that every budding guitar player needed to be able to play. Led Zeppelin covered Sonny Boy Williamson II’s Bring It On Home on Led Zeppelin II (1969), Cream recorded Blind Joe Reynolds’ Outside Woman Blues on Disraeli Gears (1967) and Jimi Hendrix cut Earl King’s Come On, Part. 1 on Electric Ladyland (1968).
There’s also Lead Belly’s first commercially recorded version of the traditional Black Betty covered by Ram Jam in 1977 and Blue Lu Barker’s close to the knuckle Don’t You Make Me High (Don’t You Feel My Leg) which was recorded by Maria Muldaur on her 1973 breakthrough album.
Recommendations
Album Review: Sultan Stevenson ‘Faithful One’
I wrote about Sultan Stevenson’s excellent debut for London Jazz News.
A great looking book celebrating jazz kissas (Japanese jazz cafes). It’s on the expensive side, so if you’d rather explore these wonderful venues and their amazing hifi systems online, look here.
TWYN - ASMR (Live at The Bridge)
I enjoyed this from the Miami jazztronica duo, give it a listen.
Castle Windsor Series Loudspeakers
A new UK made speaker by a classic brand.
Binker Golding’s guide to listening to John Coltrane
Six years since this first appeared it’s still good advice and very funny.
Radio Times
Listen live to Jazz On The Beach every Wednesday from 10.00pm - midnight and Blues Beach every other Thursday from 6.00pm - 7.00pm via the internet on DealRadio.co.uk or the TuneIn Radio app. Or alternatively, just ask your smart device to ‘Play Deal Radio’.