5 Songs Friday Oct. 18, 2024
Soul, Jazz, Pop, Jazz, and Bluegrass - Good sounds!
Sly & the Family Stone – “Pressure” recorded 1968 released 2007 from Life expanded CD reissue. This band was so ridiculously good. The album Life was probably the least successful on the charts of the records they released between 1967 and 1973, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t on top of their game musically. This song didn’t make the cut at the time, but it’s an infectious groove with Sly and Cynthia doing a call and response thing about doing your own thing. I can just imagine them going wild on stage with this one, with Sly dancing behind his keyboards and Cynthia bouncing between vocals and joining her trumpet to Jerry Martini’s saxophone for the horn riffs. Of course on record, she can sing and play trumpet at the same time, through the magic of overdubs. There’s also a lot to be said for brother Freddie Stone’s indelible guitar riff here. Like so many Sly songs, this sounds like a fun party.
Chick Corea – Song For Thad 1972 from Piano Improvisations Vol. 2. Every once in a while, I get this crazy idea to track down every available record streaming online by Chick Corea, and listen to them in the order he recorded them. (So far I’ve resisted due to the immensity of the idea.) I love the sound of his piano playing so much, and even in the ten or so albums I’ve heard by him, he explores so many different styles of music. This particular short solo piano piece is eloquently lyrical, full of cascading filigrees and beautiful chordings in the left hand. I assume the Thad in question must be Thad Jones, but I don’t know what Corea’s relationship to that trumpeter. Whoever he had in mind, though, it’s obvious Corea felt this person was special and deserving of a beautiful little tribute.
Sandy Posey – “Are You Never Coming Home” 1967 single available on The Best of Sandy Posey. The follow-up to her breakthrough hit “Born a Woman,” this record didn’t sell much, and Sandy Posey was pretty much done with her pop career before having decent but not explosive hits on the country charts in the 70s. I can see why this weird arrangement didn’t get much play on Top 40, and it’s also clearly too pop for underground radio at the time. I happen to like it quite a bit. There’s the spoken word intro over organ, piano, and strings setting the mood – “Just sitting here alone and downhearted / I should be out somewhere tonight having a party.” Then the record gets upbeat as she talks herself out of her funk before reminding herself he’s gone again. Back and forth the record goes, from upbeat to somber. On the minimal chorus, she adds a double-tracked country harmony that points to her future. She wants him to explain, but that’s not happening, since he’s clearly never coming home.
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – “Dream a Little Dream of Me” 1950 single available on Cheek to Cheek: The Complete Duet Recordings. This was a few years before Ella and Louis made their iconic duet albums for Verve. The song was written in 1931 by Fabian Andre & Wilbur Schwandt (and is almost the entire reason for each to have a Wikipedia page), with lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was first recorded by Ozzie Nelson long before he and Harriet had their own TV show, and is probably best known to those of us alive today because Cass Elliot had a big hit with it. I love the relaxed take here by these two magnificent titans of jazz. Ella sings it with a sweetness a lot of people don’t credit her with, as Louis comments with pitch perfect trumpet lines. Then they switch, and his wondrous vibrato is answered by Ella singing as if she was a trumpet with words. Best of all, they start scatting around each other, displaying two of the most inventive practitioners of the art at the top of their game.
The Stanley Brothers – “Shamrock” 1963 from 5-String Banjo Hootenanny. I have friends who know much more about bluegrass than I do – most especially Keith Dudding and Walter and Willa Volz, current and former hosts of great shows on KDHX. But I know what I like, as they say, and I like this, a speedy instrumental of great virtuosity and enthusiasm. Carter Stanley plays guitar here, and Ralph is the hero on the banjo. There’s a great fiddle solo in the middle, too. I’m not sure if this “Shamrock, “credited to Ralph Stanley was carried over from Ireland or not – it sounds American to my ears, but Irish music was always an influence on the Appalachian players. There’s no question that this little recording will put some pep in your step right away.