Despite the gloomy UK weather, this time Cosmic Jazz is in a summer party mood. The mix includes contemporary and classic tunes all designed to make you move and feel good.
1. Kenny Garrett – Backyard Groove from Do Your Dance
Alto sax player Kenny Garrett is one of the jazz greats and a CJ favourite. We have featured much of his music on the show over the years – from a stunning solo playing with Miles Davis to several of his own releases. His influences and tastes are eclectic. The 2016 album Do Your Dance draws upon the many dance styles that have influenced him and, by association, it recognises their links to jazz. Philly soul, bossa, calypso, waltz and Persian steps are the ones acknowledged in the track titles. The tune selected here, Backyard Groove, is a driving, heavy number in which drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. (brother of bassisit Thundercat) forcefully and powerfully leads us through an urban-sounding landscape.
2. Roy Haynes – Quiet Fire from Quiet Fire
This a jazz dance favourite from one of jazz music’s greatest legends. Now aged 98, drummer Roy Haynes has been a major player since the 1940s. He was a member of Charlie Parker’s celebrated quintet, played with Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Chick Corea and Pat Metheny – and hundreds more jazz greats. His son Graham is a well known cornetist and his grandson Marcus Gilmore has followed in Haynes’ footsteps as a drummer. Quiet Fire is a compilation of two 1970s releases on the Galaxy label and is well worth looking out for on CD. Neither have appeared as a vinyl reissue – yet. On Quiet Fire (what an appropriate title!) Cecil McBee provides the propulsive bass and the great George Cables is on piano.
3. Herbie Hancock – Actual Proof (live) from Flood
Herbie Hancock is a true elder statesman of jazz. Always at the forefront of innovation in the music, he has (like his old boss Miles Davis) championed the new and the experimental. Currently on tour with a hot new group that includes Lionel Loueke on guitar, Terence Blanchard on trumpet and James Genus on bass, he’s been joined by young drummer Jaylen Petinaud. Neil was lucky enough to see him in London in late July where he delivered a terrific show. This take on Actual Proof (originally on the 1974 album Thrust) comes from what was for many years a Japanese only release. It’s a live version from 1975 concerts in Tokyo and it’s close to what Neil heard in London just a few weeks ago.
4. The Crusaders – Stomp & Buck Dance from Southern Comfort
Neil first heard this tune on the Somethin’ Else radio show way back in the 1980s. It comes from what is often acknowledged as the Crusaders’ best album – Southern Comfort, and also released in 1974. Neil featured it on his Neil is listening to… selection in last show’s blogpost – you can still access all ten choices right here. Stomp… is a composition by trombonist Wayne Henderson who is joined by the Crusader regulars – Joe Sample on piano and keys, Wilton Felder on bass and sax and Stix Hooper on drums. For this album they were joined by guitarist Larry Carlton – who played on Steely Dan’s Aja album, including on Home at Last.
5. Sarah Tandy – Bradbury Street from Infection in the Sentence
We move to contemporary London for our next two tunes. Sarah Tandy is a piano/keyboards player we love and make no apologies for returning to her album – named after a poem by Emily Dickinson. Sarah combines her love of music – which made a journey from classical to jazz – with a love of literature drawn from her Cambridge degree studies. Infection in the Sentence emerged in 2019 on the jazzre:freshed label and Bradbury Street is the location of Servant Jazz Quarters, the London club where she first started playing jazz once she returned to London following university. Check out this feature on the launch of that album. We eagerly await news of a follow-up record (Sarah informs us there is one on the way), but in the meantime you can find her playing in groups led by Camilla George and Binker Golding among others. She is an incredible talent and watching the seemingly effortless spontaneity of her playing is very special.
6. Kokoroko – War Dance from Could We Be More
Kokoroko, whose name means ‘be strong’ are a London-based eight-piece band, whose album Could We Be More was released on Brownswood Records in 2022. West African Afrobeat and Highlife coalesce with jazz but with a sound that feels spontaneous and free to fit in with the contemporary London scene. Up front is the horn section of Sheila Maurice-Grey on trumpet, Cassie Kinoshi on alto saxophone and Richie Seivwright on trombone but throughout there are strong rhythmic beats from Onome Edgeworth on percussion and Ayo Salami on drums. It’s music that fits in with the feel of this Cosmic Jazz programme – uplifting for body and soul at any time and place.
7. Sleep Walker – Eclipse from Into The Sun
The Japanese band Sleep Walker were long favourites of the show until their disbanding in 2009. Indeed, we were lucky enough to see them at London’s Jazz Café a few years ago. Into the Sun features a guest contribution from Pharoah Sanders and is a consistently entertaining record, full of good danceable tunes and lively soloing – especially from saxophonist Masato Nakamura and group founder Hajime Yoshizawa on piano and keys. Yoshizawa went on to release several records under his own name including the recent Double Moon from 2017. Here’s Minna No Jazz from that album which features Tomiko Sanders on tenor sax – and, yes, that is Pharoah’s son!
8. Metropolitan Jazz Affair – Escapism from Saint-Germain-des-Prés Cafe 7
The mention of the Paris neighbourhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés conjures up images of cool, hip cafés, bars and small jazz clubs frequented by pre- and postwar avantgarde artists and intellectuals. A series of CD compilations emerged in the 1980s designed to (vaguely) invoke the essence of the place. This tune comes from Volume 7, released in 2005. The musical medium chosen to evoke Saint-Germain-des-Prés was nu-jazz with attitude through both contemporary compositions and remixes of classic jazz artists. Metropolitan Jazz Affair is a band from Lyon France created in 2002 and their measured up-tempo sounds of percussion and Hammond organ lets us dance the show away – until next time.
Neil is listening to…
My top ten tunes for this CJ checks out some great new vinyl reissues from the Jazz dispensary label and Blue Note’s Tone Poets; a couple of tunes that didn’t make it into our summer funk set above; two great Coltrane versions from Marc Johnson’s Bass Desires group (featuring the twin guitar lineup of Bill Frisell and John Scofield) and Wes Mongomery; another tune featured in Herbie’s London show; Miles at his funkiest from the 1971 Live/Evil set; and a Chaz Jankel Compass Point recording that will leave you dancing.
- Woody Shaw – New World
- Sonny Clark Trio – Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise
- Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land – Ummh
- Herbie Hancock – Come Running to Me
- Miles Davis – What I Say
- Weather Report – Cucumber Slumber
- Charles Earland – Leaving This Planet
- Bass Desires – Resolution
- Wes Montgomery – Impressions
- Chaz Jankel – Too Woo Lady Kong