What I was really struck by with this recording—particularly because it was from early in his career—was how much scatting Al did—how he would take the melodies of songs, and the lyrics then turn them into a kind of scatting. He smoothed his stylings out in later years and became more polished. But this is young Al. It's fabulous and it's free— totally free!
—Dee Dee Bridgewater
Includes Five Songs Never Before On a Live Jarreau Recording including James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and Count Basie’s “Shiny Stockings,” and Early Takes on “Take Five” and “You Don’t See Me”
Deluxe Set Includes Overview by Acclaimed Music Writer A. Scott Galloway, New Interviews with Longtime Jarreau Keyboardist Tom Canning; Plus Nile Rodgers, Dionne Warwick, Will Downing, Dee Dee Bridgewater and more!
In the pantheon of Jazz singers, Al Jarreau stood as a beaming giant of talent, inspiration, and crossover capability. The beloved platinum seller, known the world over for his hits “We’re in This Love Together,” “Mornin’,” and theme from the TV series Moonlighting, started along his path of music crafting an inebriating blend of jazz standards with pop hits of the day.
WOW!, a recently unearthed live radio recording discovered by Grammy-nominated producer Zev Feldman—“The Jazz Detective”—is a 10-song treasure. Releasing as a limited-edition 2-LP set on November 29 as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday Event, and as a deluxe CD and Digital Download on December 6, 2024 on Resonance Records, it captures a still-developing Jarreau captivating an audience on a hot August Saturday night in Washington, D.C. at the city’s intimate, historic, and cherished Childe Harold Club. Backed by a trio led by longtime collaborator Tom Canning on keyboards, Jarreau fervently and purposefully proves in this pristine recording why it was only going to be two more years before he catapulted to international superstardom.
“When I met Al in the early 2000s, I happened to be living in D.C. and we struck up a conversation,” Feldman recalls, “where he told me the very first show he ever played there was at a place called the Childe Harold. Well, 6 months ago, I was at the home of the former operations director for WHFS Radio, and he had this tape of Al's D.C. debut—professionally recorded, mixed, and mastered. It's a tour de force! He's absolutely swingin’ for the fences and has the audience in the palms of his hands. I can't believe that after Al told me about this particular show all those years ago, we found the actual recording—an amazing set of circumstances!”
In August of 1976, Jarreau had just released his second studio album, Glow, for Reprise Records. Brought into D.C. that album release week to play for a swiftly developing fan base he had from the local freeform FM radio station, the almightyWHFS,Al gave his all in a set consisting of “Letter Perfect,” “Rainbow in Your Eyes,” “Fire and Rain,” “Take Five,” “Lock All The Gates,” an interlude of“Gimme That Wine,” “Shiny Stockings,” “Aladdin’s Lamp,” “You Don’t See Me” and “We Got By.”
Al Jarreau – the only singer to win Grammy Awards in the Jazz, R&B and Pop categories—passed in 2017. In his lifetime, he recorded 6 live albums: Look to the Rainbow: Live in Europe (1977), In London (1985), Tenderness (1994), Live at The Half/Note 1965 with George Duke, Vol. 1 (2011), Al Jarreau and The Metropole Orkest Live (2012), and Live at Montreux 1993 (2016). The inclusion now of the scintillatingly intimate and loose WOW!—featuring every note of the music plus much of the master’s onstage repartee, reveals further excellence fans and connoisseurs will instantly clamor to add to their record collection.
Deluxe Set Includes Overview by Acclaimed Music Writer A. Scott Galloway, New Interviews with Longtime Jarreau Keyboardist Tom Canning; Plus Nile Rodgers, Dionne Warwick, Will Downing, Dee Dee Bridgewater and more!
In the pantheon of Jazz singers, Al Jarreau stood as a beaming giant of talent, inspiration, and crossover capability. The beloved platinum seller, known the world over for his hits “We’re in This Love Together,” “Mornin’,” and theme from the TV series Moonlighting, started along his path of music crafting an inebriating blend of jazz standards with pop hits of the day.
WOW!, a recently unearthed live radio recording discovered by Grammy-nominated producer Zev Feldman—“The Jazz Detective”—is a 10-song treasure. Releasing as a limited-edition 2-LP set on November 29 as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday Event, and as a deluxe CD and Digital Download on December 6, 2024 on Resonance Records, it captures a still-developing Jarreau captivating an audience on a hot August Saturday night in Washington, D.C. at the city’s intimate, historic, and cherished Childe Harold Club. Backed by a trio led by longtime collaborator Tom Canning on keyboards, Jarreau fervently and purposefully proves in this pristine recording why it was only going to be two more years before he catapulted to international superstardom.
“When I met Al in the early 2000s, I happened to be living in D.C. and we struck up a conversation,” Feldman recalls, “where he told me the very first show he ever played there was at a place called the Childe Harold. Well, 6 months ago, I was at the home of the former operations director for WHFS Radio, and he had this tape of Al's D.C. debut—professionally recorded, mixed, and mastered. It's a tour de force! He's absolutely swingin’ for the fences and has the audience in the palms of his hands. I can't believe that after Al told me about this particular show all those years ago, we found the actual recording—an amazing set of circumstances!”
In August of 1976, Jarreau had just released his second studio album, Glow, for Reprise Records. Brought into D.C. that album release week to play for a swiftly developing fan base he had from the local freeform FM radio station, the almightyWHFS,Al gave his all in a set consisting of “Letter Perfect,” “Rainbow in Your Eyes,” “Fire and Rain,” “Take Five,” “Lock All The Gates,” an interlude of“Gimme That Wine,” “Shiny Stockings,” “Aladdin’s Lamp,” “You Don’t See Me” and “We Got By.”
Al Jarreau – the only singer to win Grammy Awards in the Jazz, R&B and Pop categories—passed in 2017. In his lifetime, he recorded 6 live albums: Look to the Rainbow: Live in Europe (1977), In London (1985), Tenderness (1994), Live at The Half/Note 1965 with George Duke, Vol. 1 (2011), Al Jarreau and The Metropole Orkest Live (2012), and Live at Montreux 1993 (2016). The inclusion now of the scintillatingly intimate and loose WOW!—featuring every note of the music plus much of the master’s onstage repartee, reveals further excellence fans and connoisseurs will instantly clamor to add to their record collection.
For more information contact Le Noir Muzik Publicity.
