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Hank Crawford: Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing
by Dan Bilawsky
Saxophonist Hank Crawford will forever be linked to his one-time employer, the great Ray Charles, in the minds of R&B lovers, but soul-fusion fans are likely to remember him for a string of albums he recorded on the Kudu label in the 1970s. Crawford and tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine proved to be the two pillars of potent saxophone soul in label head/producer Creed Taylor's stable during this era, but Crawford's work is often overlooked now, while Turrentine's albums still get ...
read moreJohnny Hammond: Breakout
by Jim Santella
The CTI jazz catalog holds many surprises. This one features a strong 8-piece band led by organist Johnny Hammond (1933-1997), who was known earlier as Johnny “Hammond" Smith. Recorded in 1971, the album emphasized swinging mood music with a flair for popular sounds. It marked a turning point in the career of Grover Washington, Jr. He, Hank Crawford and Eric Gale are all over the place, alongside Hammond's B-3. It’s a party. A previously unissued track, recorded shortly after the ...
read moreJohnny Hammond: Breakout
by David Rickert
A prime example of the CTI label’s indulgence in the commercial possibilities of jazz, Breakout gave Johnny Hammond the opportunity to escape from the long shadow cast by Jimmy Smith. Sticking with the Hammond B-3, by this time a bit old-fashioned as many had become enchanted with the Fender Rhodes, Hammond and his band contribute an album’s worth of soul jazz workouts. By this time, rock tunes had become the new would-be standards and Hammond proves that such unlikely candidates ...
read moreHank Crawford: Low Flame High Heat
by AAJ Staff
If Low Flame High Heat proves nothing else, it proves the consistency of Hank Crawford. Listen to his most recent CD, The World Of Hank Crawford on Milestone. Then listen to Label M's Low Flame High Heat from the early 1960's. Crawford's urgent tone and spiritual feel haven't changed in decades, proving that he was extremely good early in his career and that even today no one quite sounds like him. Low Flame High Heat compiles tracks from ...
read moreHank Crawford: Memphis, Ray and a Touch of Moody
by Douglas Payne
director from 1958-64, already had his own sound on alto sax by 1960 when he started his own Atlantic recording career (quite a feat in the wake of Bird and the dawn of Cannonball). During the next decade, he produced a consistent catalog of soulful sets for Atlantic, almost all well worth hearing.This excellent two-disc set brings back four (!) of the best and earliest of Crawford's long out-of-print Atlantic LPs: his debut, More Soul (1960); his third, ...
read moreHank Crawford: Down on the Deuce
by Douglas Payne
Although Hank Crawford's second Milestone LP was made in 1984, it's never been available on CD until this 1998 release. It's a welcome, enjoyable date that finds Hank digging into what he does best. There's a bit 'a funk ("Survival"), a bit 'a blues ("Used To Be Love" and “Down Home Blues"), some ballads (the yucky Kenny Rogers hit “Through The Years") and a little boogaloo (the title track). With producer Bob Porter at the helm, a first-rate cast of ...
read moreHank Crawford / Jimmy McGriff: Road Tested
by Douglas Payne
Alto man Hank Crawford and organist Jimmy McGriff are made for each other. Mixing the right brew of blues, swing and funk, they compliment one another's soulful sound in distinctive style. Road Tested, the seventh pairing under both their names, is exactly what you'd expect from these two: the tried and trues of funk and blues. What gives it an edge, though, is Crawford and McGriff riffing in the excellent company of Wayne Boyd on guitar and funkmaster Bernard Purdie ...
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