Jazz On The Beach 98 & Blues Beach 31
Calvin Keys, Joe Zawinul, Hard Rockin' Blues
On JOTB 98 there’s another track from Gene Russell’s Black Jazz Label (fast becoming a regular feature) - this week it’s guitarist Calvin Keys’ Efflugence (‘the ability to shine brightly’) from the album Proceed With Caution which was released in 1974. As always on a Black Jazz record there are great players, alongside keys are double bassist Henry Franklin, drummer Leon Chancelor, pianist Kirk Lightsey, trumpeter Oscar Brashear, saxophonist Charles Owens and percussionist Owen Marshall.
Keys is a wonderful guitarist and he deserves far greater recognition. He has made a number of excellent albums and one of my favourites is An Evening With Calvin Keys recorded at Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley in 1994 for Dawn Muhammad’s LifeForce Jazz, the San Francisco Bay Area Jazz Artist Collective. And he's still making great music at 80 years old - last year’s Blue Keys (Wide Hive 2022) is an excellent set. There will be something on the show very soon, maybe even next week.
Also on this week’s show is pianist Joe Zawinul’s version of his composition In A Silent Way from the album Zawinul (Atlantic 1971), that was recorded two years after Miles Davis cut it. I’m surprised how many people haven’t heard this, it’s so good! Both Zawinul and Herbie Hancock are playing electric piano, there’s trumpeter Woody Shaw, saxophonist Earl Turbiton, flautist George Davis, double bassist Miroslav Vitouš and playing percussion are Billy Hart, David Lee and Joe Chambers. Incidentally, this album was released during the same month as his band Weather Report’s debut on Columbia. Not the greatest piece of scheduling, but that’s the competitive music biz for you.
Just click the link below to hear this week’s Jazz On The Beach, and please hit the ‘follow’ logo button on Mixcloud to be notified whenever there’s a new show.
Blues Beach this week takes a detour to focus on the hard rock acts that followed the British blues boomers and psychedelic blues bands of the mid sixties. It all started with The Jeff Beck Group (Truth, 1968 Columbia) who set the template for hard rock repertoire and performance, playing the blues louder, longer (and…harder) to larger audiences in bigger venues. All the songs on the playlist (with the exception of ZZ Top’s Brown Sugar) are by written by the great blues artists including Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and B.B. King, without whom these bands, and rock music as we know it, would have sounded completely different.
Just click the link below to hear this week’s Blues Beach, and please hit the ‘follow’ logo button on Mixcloud to be notified whenever there’s a new show.
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.
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