Episode 34, Spring and Summer Finds (digital)

Discovering Jazz

I’ve discovered some wonderful cd’s and individual downloads over the past spring and summer—-and I want to play you some of the highlights.

My favourite cd I’ve bought is by a 19 piece Toronto big band—Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School. And one that is really growing on me is a very unusual Phil Woods record from 2009 where he set the poems of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne to music–with vocals by Vickey Doney and Bob Dorough. Another cd by one of the finest new jazz singers is Jazzmeia Horn’s Betty Carter influenced “A Social Call”—and she does a lovely version of the Jimmy Rowles composition, The Peacocks (A Timeless Place). Then there’s a wild pianist I first discovered in my university years—Andrew Hill. I just bought his first cd—one that many critics put in their ‘must own’ list. With Kenny Dorham, Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson, Richard Davis, and Tony Williams. And I start the program with a track from an Ahmad Jamal digital release of two albums from 1969 and 1971.

I complement those great cd’s with a couple digital downloads sent to me by jazz afficionado and master bassist, Craig Paterson. One is by Herbie Hancock with Columbian singer Juanes. The other is a very recently discovered John Coltrane track. I end with another track Craig sent me by trumpeter Booker Little with Scott LaFaro, from 1960.

Last but not least—-in my quest to find a Canadian male jazz vocalists who I like—I try out Ori Dagan and something from his tribute to Nat King Cole. And with that favourite cd I mentioned at the beginning—-an expressive and smooth vocalist named Alex Samaras, from Toronto.