It’s Happy Birthday to David Matthews, although by the time I get this posted, today, Thursday March 4th, Dave’s birthday will have passed where he lives in Japan. If Bob James was my gateway drug to the music of Creed Taylor productions, David Matthews was definitely my drug of choice in the 1970’s. Many will know Dave’s work, certainly from […]
Happy Born Day: Hank Crawford
Bennie Ross “Hank” Crawford, Jr. born December 21, 1934, Memphis, Tennessee, died January 29, 2009, Memphis, Tennessee. To celebrate the day of Hank Crawford’s birth, as well as my usual notes, research, and a few unique finds, I have a mix of some examples of Hank’s work, and a 4-part interview with Hank by visual artist Jomo Cheatham. Press play […]
Remembering Grover Washington, Jr.
Just 5-days after celebrating his 56th birthday, Grover had a heart attack in the green room, after performing and recording four songs for “The Saturday Early Show”, at CBS Studios in New York City. He was pronounced dead at 7:30pm that day, December 17th, 1999, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. I hadn’t planned to mark his passing, especially […]
The Grover Washington Birthday Playlist
Playlist and notes for Happy Born Day: Grover Washington, Jr. – Creed Taylor Produced (ctproduced.com) # Title Artist Notes Time 1 Who Is Sylvia Johnny Hammond Recorded just a month after Grover’s “Inner City Blues” album, and before the album was released, Washington was again sideman to Hammond for his 2nd KUDU album “Johnny Hammond – Wild Horses Rock Steady […]
Happy Born Day: Grover Washington, Jr.
Unusually, I have two audio tracks to celebrate Grover Washington’s birthday. A full mix of tracks that Grover played on, I tried to pick less well known tracks rather than the GWJ classics. At the end of the post is retrospective by Christian McBride, show host of WBGO Jazz 88.3FM‘s JazzNight, and fantastic bass player himself. PRESS PLAY AND READ […]
On This Day: Mr Magic run ends
The October 23rd, 1975 issue of Jet Magazine was the last to list Grover Washington, Jr “Mister Magic” as #1 in their Soul Brother Jazz chart. The album had been #1 in their jazz chart for a remarkable 3-months. It first entered their chart in the August 15th issue, and on October 30th was replaced by the Crusaders “Chain Reaction” […]
CTI For You?
Need some artwork for a bare wall? CTI and Kudu Records fan? I had these original pages from Billboard Magazine framed a few years back. They are standard frames but with custom mats made. The advertisements are genuine CTI/KUDU advertisements from Billboard magazines, they are not prints or reproductions. I’ve finally, after many years splashed out and had frames and […]
CTI on TV: Grover Washington, Jr.
Just a short post for this week to share this video. Thanks for the clue to the appearnce John. Grover Washington, Jr. Plays “In A Secret Place” the title song to his sixth and final studio album as a leader for CTI/KUDU, not including his 1977 album“Live At The Bijou”. Washington would return to CTI later in his career, as […]
Remembering Esther Phillips
Esther Phillips died 34-years ago today, on August 7th, 1984, aged just 48. Esther lead a storied, and troubled life. Aged just 13, Esther Mae Jones won an amateur talent contest in 1949 at the Barrelhouse Club in Los Angeles, owned by Johnny Otis. That started an on, off troubled working relationship between Otis and “Little Esther”. Over the next […]
CTI Artists on TV
Enjoy two great live performances from artists from CTI. Both comes from VHS tapes I managed to buy from ebay. I was hoping to avoid getting into converting VHS tapes, as they are often more trouble than they are worth. On the full length video of the 1976 awards, George Benson performs his hit “Breezin’” but his years of work […]