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Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast – Episode 1

Welcome to the first episode of Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast, where we connect two of our favourite tracks via a selection of musical stepping stones. Today marks Blue Note Records’ 83rd birthday so what better place to start than a swinging classic from the legendary label, plus an auspicious debut from a pioneering pianist.

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Tracklists below (SPOILERS!)

Cannonball Adderley – The Black Messiah

The year before pianist George Duke featured on Frank Zappa’s The Grand Wazoo, he recorded two solo albums and spent the best part of the year playing in the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. If Zappa was Duke’s mentor in all things rock, Cannonball was his teacher in jazz and soul. Joining Adderley’s Quintet gave the young Duke an opportunity to develop not only as a performer, but also as a composer and arranger. In the summer of 1971, Cannonball and his band recorded a live album at The Troubadour club in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. The album was named after its title track, a composition by Duke, and was released later that year as a double album on Capitol Records.

George Duke – Peace

Our last post looked at Billy Cobham’s fusion classic ‘Heather’ from his album Crosswinds (1974) which featured the mellow tones of keyboardist George Duke. Flashing back a couple of years earlier to January 1971, a young George Duke had just left Frank Zappa’s group The Mothers Of Invention and joined saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s new quintet, replacing pianist Joe Zawinul. The months that followed would prove formative for this young pianist and in this year he recorded two albums: Solus and The Inner Source, originally intended to be two separate albums but were later merged, released on German jazz label MPS in 1973.

John Abercrombie – Timeless

‘Changeless’ and ‘endless’ were the defining terms of our last post on virtuoso pianist Keith Jarrett. Continuing this theme, we follow with ‘Timeless’, the beautiful final track on guitarist John Abercrombie’s 1975 album of the same name, which like Jarrett’s Changeless, was also released on ECM and featured Jack DeJohnette on drums.

The Keith Jarrett Trio – Endless

Here’s a fun musical connection: the pianist Keith Jarrett sued Steely Dan over similarities between ‘Gaucho’ (1980) and his track ‘Long As You Know You’re Living Yours’ from the album Belonging (1974). Walter Becker and Donald Fagen acknowledged the influence and officially credited Jarrett, admitting: “Hell, we steal. We’re the robber barons of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Steely Dan – Gaucho

In our previous post, Dan wrote on the Steely Dan (not to be confused with British folk rock group Steeleye Span) Silver-inspired classic ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’. Last weekend marked the 40th year anniversary of their 1980 album Gaucho and so it seemed a natural way to continue our journey of musical connections.

The Horace Silver Quintet – Song For My Father

In October 1963, coinciding with the recent release of his debut album as leader on Blue Note, a young Joe Henderson was scouted by influential pianist Horace Silver to play in a new quintet he was putting together. From the sessions which followed came Song For My Father (1965), Silver’s most famous album and a bona fide Blue Note classic.

Joe Henderson – Jinrikisha

All roads lead to Joe here on Jazz Impressions, as we segue from Pete La Roca’s Basra (1965) to another Blue Note debut as leader, which also features La Roca on drums: Joe Henderson’s Page One (1963).

Pete La Roca – Lazy Afternoon

One of the many attractive qualities of jazz, more than any other musical genre, is how the same song can be interpreted in many different ways. Whether this is Bill Evans and Yusef Lateef offering their personal takes on a classic soundtrack, or Ahmad Jamal and Bobby Hutcherson reworking a Herbie Hancock original, the musical freedom that underpins jazz allows its musicians to constantly reinvent and offer fresh perspectives on popular classics. In his last post, Dan wrote on guitarist Grant Green’s version of the ballad ‘Lazy Afternoon’. Whilst Green’s version is excellent, the definitive version in my opinion of this well known standard is found on drummer Pete La Roca’s album Basra, released in 1965 on Blue Note.

Grant Green – Lazy Afternoon

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Bobby Hutcherson’s genius graced some of Blue Note’s finest sessions, from McCoy Tyner’s Time for Tyner (1969) to Grant Green’s Street of Dreams (1967).