Jazz Gumbo

Artist - Tune - Album Gato Barbieri & Don Cherry - Togetherness–First Movement - Togetherness David Friesen - In The Place of Calling - Amber Skies Erykah Badu - On and On - Baduizm Dewey Redman - Daystar Nightlight - Musics Jack DeJohnette - Dancing - Parallel Realities The Friends of Distinction - It’s Time To See Each Other - Friends & People Gary Burton - Summer Band Camp - Easy As Pie Weather Report - Domino Theory - Domino Theory Taj Mahal - Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue - The Natch’l Blues Jean-Luc Ponty - Ethereal Mood - Cosmic Messenger Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim - Desafinado - Getz / Gilberto Charlie Christian - Stardust - Solo Flight Pharoah Sanders - Thembi - Thembi Dianne Reeves - Feels So Good - Beautiful Life Tony Williams - Dreamland - Angel Street Frank Lowe - Fresh - Fresh The ode to musical styles past and present that introduces Jazz Gumbo is “Music Evolution” by Branford Marsalis and Buckshot LeFonque. Playlists for all past Sets of Jazz Gumbo will be found at jazzgumbo.blogspot.ca During the live Set, I neglected to mention that the DeJohnette piece features Herbie Hancock as well as Pat Metheny. (Sometimes it seems that Hancock is featured on half the numbers I play, he’s been a guest artist to so many of his colleagues over the decades) Essentially, this is a trio album, and DeJohnette and Metheny co-produced. I can’t help but wonder sometimes, why an album is attributed to one artist instead of another. In this case, DeJohnette and Metheny each wrote three tunes, and they co-wrote the seventh. And in my opinion, the best of them, including “Dancing”, are Metheny’s. Another curious example is “Desafinado”, a huge hit that’s been covered by dozens of artists. It, and almost all the other music on the album, including the even more massive hit, “The Girl from Ipanema”, were composed by Jobim. But the listing above is no mistake. The album is titled “Getz / Gilberto”, while Jobim is ‘featured’. Even more egregiously, Astrud Gilberto, the female voice to her husband’s on “Ipanema”, isn’t properly credited at all, only mentioned in passing in the liner notes. In fairness, she only sang on the one tune, and this was in fact her first ever recording, and it launched a career. A third variety of missing attribution was completely the norm in the 60’s and 70’s. Pop, Rock and Soul groups often failed to list the names of the group’s members. So the name Jessica Cleaves is nowhere to be found in the credits or listings of The Friends of Distinction album (nor those of her male colleagues, Harry Elston and Floyd Butler) though you will find the names of producers, arrangers, technicians, album artists and the guy who wrote the liner notes. Kind of odd, isn’t it? Enjoy the beautiful music, friends! Thrive! Kirby Obsidian