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Hank Crawford: Help Me Make It Through The Night
by Arnaldo DeSouteiro
One of the first artists signed by Creed Taylor for CTI's subsidiary Kudu label, Hank Crawford suffered violent criticism during the period (1971-1978) he recorded for the label, being accused of making mellow and commercial albums. On the other hand, Hank achieved a new level of popularity during his CTI/Kudu years. Some of the eight albums he cut for the label sold over 100,000 copies with almost no promotion. And his Kudu debut, Help Me Make It Through The Night, ...
Continue ReadingJohnny "Hammond" Smith: Wild Horses Rock Steady
by Arnaldo DeSouteiro
Born John Robert Smith on December 16, 1933 (in Louisville, KY), formerly known as Johnny Hammond Smith, and later as Johnnny Hammond, one of the all-time best jazz organists passed away on June 4, 1997, in Chicago, Illinois. For some of his early fans, some of the best albums he recorded were done for Prestige in the Sixties. A younger generation, who grew up listening to the hip-hop influenced jazz sounds of the 1990s, prefers Johnny's over-produced sessions for Milestone ...
Continue ReadingJazz Dispensary Top Shelf: Bernard Purdie and David Axelrod
by C. Andrew Hovan
As part of Concord Music and Craft Recordings, the Jazz Dispensary line was developed in 2016 to mine some of the funkier and more soul-influenced music housed in the catalogs of Prestige, Milestone, and Fantasy. Their initial offerings were mix tape-style collections frequently tapping into the mystique of the '70s and often appearing on Record Store Day. Previous projects have included reissues from Azymuth, Charles Kynard, and Johnny Hammond Smith. The label's Top Shelf series gets underway in ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell: Improvisations: Best of the Vanguard Years
by Josef Woodard
There have been many smoother operators in the world of jazz guitar than Larry Coryell, the brainy rough rider who was a natural-born fusioneer, in the best sense. There have been cleaner technicians on the instrument, with a more lucid sense of identity and careers that have followed a logical, rolling landscape. But not many have quite attained Coryell's strange, madly eclectic state of grace: into music he came, he saw and heard things not yet articulated, he conquered on ...
Continue ReadingBenjamin Koppel: The Ultimate Soul & Jazz Revue
by Chris M. Slawecki
Listen to music long enough, and it's almost bound to happen: You're not sure exactly what you want to listen to, but you know that whatever you listen to needs must bump and groove. The Ultimate Soul & Jazz Revue, an anthology of American jazz, soul and R&B recorded live at a Copenhagen music festival by Danish saxophonist Benjamin Koppel and his big band, is some first-rate scratch for that itch. Ultimate Soul & Jazz neatly packages Koppel's ...
Continue ReadingPurdie Fabian Oswanski: Move On!
by Chris M. Slawecki
In a 1977 magazine interview, New York Yankees Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson (in)famously referred to himself as “the straw that stirs the drink" for his team. On this trio set with organ player and composer Ron Oswanski and bassist-composer Christian Fabian (who also shaped the arrangements), the one and only original funky drummer Bernard Purdie keeps stirring his drum pots to help this trio's funky and rhythmic grooves to Move On!. The leadoff “The Red Plaza" and ...
Continue ReadingPurdie / Fabian / Oswanski: Move On!
by Jack Bowers
No one receives top billing in this tight-knit trio, which embodies organist Ron Oswanski, bassist Christian Fabian and drummer Bernard “Pretty" Purdie. And that is as it should be, as each of them is indispensable to its success. That success is further predicated on how well the three amigos enhance an agenda that is heavily laden with funk and soul including five greasy compositions by Fabian and others by Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and even Julia Ward Howe (a gritty ...
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