Friday Night Double Act: The Crusaders and Steely Dan

The Crusaders
BB King
Steely Dan

Without trying to sound like a disc jockey on the local oldies station, I must say I’m very excited to announce: it’s a double disc Friday!

First up, Royal Jam a hot, jazzy album featuring The Crusaders and B.B. King live at the Royal Festival Hall in London.  The Crusaders epitomised the slick, dinner-club jazz sound 1970s. Formed by keyboardist Joe Sample, and trombonist Wayne Henderson in Houston in the early 1950s, the group saw several other giants of modern American jazz such as flautist Hubert Laws and guitar whiz Larry Carlton spend considerable time in the group.  Their sound was driven by the fluent keyboard runs of Sample and the clear melody lines of Wilton Felder on tenor sax and summed up the dying stages of the years of American confidence. When the world still thought America not only had something of value to add to most conversations but indeed, was the last word on most conversations.  A time when hope and a broad and bright horizon, rather than gritty resolve and slow crumble, defined the United States.  Crusaders music was bright, up-market and spirited. And very catchy.

The Crusaders version of popular jazz not only added funk and finesse to many recordings beyond their own, but kept the very notion of a non-rock style of music alive and somewhat in the public sphere. This was a time when ‘jazz’ was about the slowest selling genre in American record stores and several years before Wynton Marsalis stormed the scene with his revivalist fire and trumpet flare. This record was made in 1981 and features The Crusaders in top form before an adoring British audience. Chief guest, Mr. B.B. King, adds an extra layer of grooviness, which together with the smooth strings of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, make for a heady, swoony atmosphere. You can just about feel the very velvet of the band’s lapels!

The next selection is a stone classic from the same era.  Aja was the best selling album made by Steely Dan and the one that increased their gravitas several times over. Its tone and atmosphere was spare. The music featured several members of The Crusaders (Joe Sample and Larry Carlton) as well as a whole roster of the Good and Great of American music including Bernard Purdie, Wayne Shorter, Clydie King, Michael McDonald, Steve Gadd and Tom Scott just to identify a few.  Aja is considered to one of those albums that did much to keep a jazz sensibility, if not jazz itself, alive in a time when it was on its deathbed.  In 2011, the album was deemed by the Library of Congress to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" and added to the United States National Recording Registry for the year 2010.

Sophisticated pop. Slick jazz.  Enjoy your Friday evening.

            Track Listing (Royal Jam):

            01 Overture (I'm so Glad I'm Standing Here Today)

02 One Day I'll Fly Away

03 Fly With Wings of Love

04 Burnin' Up the Carnival

05 Last Call

06 The Thrill is Gone

07 Better Not Look Down

08 Hold On

09 Street Life

10 I Just Can't Leave Your Love Alone

11 Never Make a Move Too Soon

here

            Track Listing (Aja):

            01 Black Cow

02 Aja

03 Deacon Blues

04 Peg

05 Home at Last

06 I Got the News

07 Josie

here

           

Iraqi Pop: Hatem al Iraqi

Hatem al Iraqi

Any guesses where Hatem al Iraqi comes from? 

Going into Baghdad from Amman in 1991 after the first Bush War took 14 hours by jeep across the desert.  For the first couple of hours we were allowed by the drivers to listen to our tapes of Nina Simone and Leo Kottke.  But the kindnesses ceased around midday. From then on it was Iraqi pop music that sounded very much like tonight’s selection.

Hatem has enjoyed a good career since the early 1990s and is popular across the Middle East. I picked up this album in the duty free shops at Dubai airport several years ago.

Don’t know anything more about him but this is straight ahead Arabic pop music which is always fun and lively.

            Track Listing:

            01 Ahdhoni Heyl

02 Rayih

03 Bil Salama

04 'Ala 'Enadak

05 Mashguleen El Bal

06 Kad Al Maqam

07 Marayid

08 Takhayal

09 Habibity

10 Ela Habibi

11 Mawal El Rooh

12 La Etsadik

here

Saturdaynight Sundaymorning: Chip Young, Carrie Rodriguez,Sofie von Otter, Elvis Costello

Chip Young, Carrie Rodriguez
Sofie von Otter, Elvis Costello

I used to buy Mojo magazine very regularly.  My favorite feature was to be found on the very first pages of every edition. The same set of questions would be posed to three singers or figures of popular culture. The first record you ever bought? Who, besides yourself, you wanted to be? What do you sing in the shower? Your favorite Sunday morning record? Your favorite Saturday night record?

The answers are revealing not only of the person’s musical tastes but personality foibles. Some give irritated answers, “I don’t sing in the shower, thank you!”. Others, wax lyrical about the obscure or pedestrian leaving a lingering smell of BS.

It is Saturday night here in Australia. Tomorrow is Sunday.  Here are my current answers to a couple of those questions.

Saturday night record: Chip Young and Carrie Rodrigues The Trouble with Humans.  Unabashed, eloquent, wry, joyfully sung country duets by one of the better combos of voices to come together in recent years. They sing as if they were born to do so, together. They understand each other intuitively and bring the same playful intensity to the music, most of which is by Mr Young, himself.  Their voices blend and bounce off each other just perfectly. Her’s is aching. His laconic, and tired.  Perfection!

Sunday morning record: Anne Sofie von Otter and Elvis Costello For the Stars. This record came out more than a decade ago and sank with barely a trace. Deemed a bit pretentious and too ‘constructed’ by rock critics and too ‘lame’ by classical critics, it fell between the cracks of the labels in the record store.  Costello is very much the driver but his voice is only heard on a couple of tracks, giving the honors to the Swedish opera star, van Otter. The material covers a wide range of writers (Tom Waits, Costello included) and while this record will not get your blood racing who needs/wants that on a Sunday morning?  It is music to sit with in quietness and a cup of coffee. Especially in front of a window with a nice scene to gaze upon.

            Track Listing:

            (Saturday night)

            01 Don't Speak In English

02 Memphis, Texas

03 All The Rain

04 Curves & Things

05 The Trouble With Humans

06 Oh Ireland

07 Fall

08 Laredo

09 Dirty Little Texas Story

10 Confessions

11 I Need A Wall

12 We Come Up Shining

13 Find Me A Killer

here

            Track Listing:

            (Sunday morning)

            01 No Wonder

02 Baby Plays Around

03 Go Leave

04 Rope

05 Don't Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulder)

06 Broken Bicycles/Junk

07 The Other Woman

08 Like an Angel Passing through My Room

09 Green Song

10 April After All

11 You Still Believe in Me

12 I Want to Vanish

13 For No One

14 Shamed Into Love

15 Just a Curio

16 This House is Empty Now

17 Take it With Me

18 For the Stars

here

Model Sufi: Ali Zafar

Never judge a book by its cover. Or, in this case, a CD.

Take a look at tonight’s feature and I wouldn’t be surprised if you clicked on to another blog or simply through your hands up in exasperation.  Looks like a chunk of Pakistani beefcake. Perhaps a refugee from a Bollywood Boy Band. But nothing worth my time. 

But hold on. Look beyond ever-so-cool stare (yes, Mr Ali Zafar is a model, among many other things) and give the lad a fair go.

Within this very unlikely package lies some very unexpected music.  I came across Ali Zafar in one of the Coke Studio discs I have lying about the shelves but had forgotten his name. After listening to Jhoom (2011) several times I googled the guy and found the following (paraphrased and condensed by your’s truly):

·       Ali is 32 years old

·       Born and raised in Lahore

·       Ali is aka ‘Prince of Pop’

·       Studied at the National College of Arts and did quick portraits for passersby at one of Lahore’s pricey hotels

·       Starred in couple of Pakistani movies before being sucked up into the Bollywood dream machine.

·       Everything he touches seems to turn to gold. His movies are cult classics and win awards.

·       He has won more awards than an 80 year war hero.

·       Voted 5^th sexiest Asian man in the world (2011)

·       He’s got a voice as pure as the Indus river at its source.

·       He’s been an actor, artist, composer, singer and model.

Ali Zafar

The sobriquet ‘Prince of Pop’ rings true, for like Prince (or the artist once known as such) Ali Zafar composes, sings, arranges and plays all his own music.  He’s got an amazing range of styles and is comfortable with every idiom from sufi to folk and rock’n roll to R&B. His arrangements are tasteful and fit the spiritual aura of this collection of sufi-inspired songs.  You’d never guess it by looking at the cover photo but this is record full of classy, contemporary, innovative interpretations of Bulleh Shah and Ghalib to mention just a couple of luminaries.

It is one of my favorite records of the week.  Really really nice.

Really!

            Track Listing:

01.  Jhoom

02.  Tu Jaaney Na

03.  Jab Se Dekha Tujh Ko

04.  Jee Dhoondta Hai

05.  Koi Umeed

06.  Jaan-e-man

07.  Nahin re Nahin

08.  Yar Dadhi Ishq

09.  Dastan-e-Ishq

10.  Allah Hu

11.  Jhoom (R&B mix)

12.  Dastan-e-Ishq (Dhol version)

Here.