Jazz On The Beach 94 & Blues Beach 29
Jazz On The Beach 94 & Blues Beach 29
Dexter Gordon in Paris, Mike Flanigin in Texas, jazz & blues radio in Deal
A couple of weeks ago I included a link to Tone Poets: When Joe Harley met Darrel Sheinman on the Everything Jazz site. While talking about the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon’s One Flight Up album, Harley, the producer and curator of the Tone Poet reissue series, said: ‘anybody who doesn’t like Tanya, that side-long track on Side A… I mean, if you don’t like that, I can’t help you.’
I hadn’t heard Tanya for a while so played it last week and it really is something else…it swings and flows and sounds remarkably fresh. There are terrific unrushed solos from Gordon, trumpeter Donald Byrd (Tanya’s composer) and pianist Kenny Drew while the rhythm section of double bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Art Taylor maintain the tension throughout.
One Flight Up was recorded at the Barclay Studios in Paris on June 2nd 1964 and released by Blue Note in September of the following year. All of the musicians (apart from the Dane Ørsted Pedersen) were US expats - Gordon had moved to Copenhagen, Drew had just moved to Copenhagen from Paris and Byrd and Taylor were living in Paris. I’d like to think that the freedom of living in Europe, both culturally and musically, helped make this such a special record.
Incidentally, it’s one of the very few Blue Note albums that wasn’t recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, although he mastered the tape for release back at his Englewood Cliffs studio. The engineer at Barclay was Jacques Lubin who did an excellent job as it’s a wonderful sounding record.
New music on JOTB includes the title track from drummer Johnathan Blake’s new album Passage (Blue Note), Benny Benack III’s Scootin’ from Third Time’s The Charm (La Reserve) and more from two Mancunians - Matt Wilde’s Who Cares? from Hello World (Band on the Wall Recordings) and Matthew Halsall’s Calder Shapes from An Ever Changing View. Plus three 1970’s classics - Herbie Hancock’s Hang Up Your Hang Ups, Sphere’s Inside Ourselves and Hugh Masekela’s The Big Apple
On this week’s Jazz On The Beach I was joined in the studio by fellow Dealite and singer/songwriter Alice Gold who presents AWOL with Alice on Deal Radio which will be returning soon after a short break. Alice brought along with her some excellent music including Sarah Vaughan’s Lullaby of Birdland with trumpeter Clifford Brown from 1954, the title track from Alice Coltrane’s 1971 album Journey in Satchidananda written by and featuring Pharoah Sanders as well as Pharoah’s own Love Is Everywhere from the 1973 album Wisdom Through Music. (There’s a longer version of what is probably Pharoah’s best known song on Love In Us All released in 1972).
Listen to this week’s Jazz On The Beach on Mixcloud - here’s the link
This week’s Blues Beach show was inspired by a series of Instagram posts under the heading Top records that Texas blues players who came up in the 1990’s listened to by Hammond organist and proud Texan Mike Flanigin (West Texas Blues and The Drifter) who also plays with Jimmie Vaughan, Billy F. Gibbons and his partner Sue Foley. It’s a great checklist of essential blues listening and you’ll find Flanigin’s Insta here, just scroll all the way back to 2018.
Listen to this week’s Blues Beach on Mixcloud - here’s the link
And speaking of Hammond organs…..Ronnie Scott’s have bought a Hammond B-3 Organ
Radio Times
Broadcasting live from Deal Radio, 69a High Street, Deal, Kent CT14 6EH
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.
Alternatively, just ask your smart device to ‘Play Deal Radio’.
Catch Up on Mixcloud
All Jazz On The Beach shows - here’s the link
All Blues Beach shows - here’s the link