Creed Taylor Produced

I was initially alerted to this by Chris Rizik, the founder and publisher of SoulTracks website. It is an excellent resource for general soul music and artists. They’ve made “Grover Live (Vol.2) their album of the month for September 2024 ^[1]https://soultracks.com/featured-album-grover-washington-live-2/.

Stream it or buy it and read-on^[2]As always, no affiliate link or compensation for plays or purchases. Play it, buy it because it’s good, it’s very good.

As of today, September 21st, 2024, the album is ONLY available in digital and streaming formats. I got mine as MP3 format files from Amazon. I can load the files directly into my home streaming server’s file system on download. It is available in FLAC (HiRes) format from all the usual sources.

The concert followed on from the “Grover Live” released in 2010 ^[3]https://www.discogs.com/release/16280137-Grover-Washington-Jr-Grover-Live by producer Jason Miles. That concert was recorded at the Paramount Center for the Arts, 1008 Brown St., Peekskill, on Saturday, 7th of June 1997.

Producer, Jason Miles told me by email there was a mix-up with the labelling of the original DAT tapes, which led originally to the belief this concert was recorded at the Kiva Auditorium, Friday, August 14th, 1998 – In fact, it seems that the concert was recorded at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts ^[4]https://www.nps.gov/wotr/planyourvisit/index.htm in Virginia on Friday June 26th, 1998.

Grover and his band also appeared at Wolf Trap in 1997, in July. What gives this away is Grover, in his welcome, says something to the effect of “give another nice round of applause for Cassandra Wilson.” He also says it’s good to be back, referring to the 1997 appearance at Wolf Trap.

The Wolf Trap band for the concert is Adam Holzman – keyboards; Donald Robinson – piano; Pablo Batista – percussion; Gerald Veasley – electric bass; Richie Morales – drums; Richard Lee Steacker – guitar; Donald Robinson – Musical Director.

The concert was part of the Wolf Trap’s 1998 Jazz & Blues Festival and as well as Cassandra Wilson, Grover and band, Donald Byrd’s Jazz Train, Cubanismo and Los Van Van were performing during the 3-day event June 25-28. Wolf Trap park is just 25-minutes from the White House and is located off Route 7 or the Dulles Toll Road. Tickets were $16(lawn) $28(in-house).

I could not find any press reports or pictures from the Wolf Trap event, but Grover Washington and the band played at the Hampton Coliseum, Virginia on the Saturday, the same weekend, along with Bob James Fourplay, who played Friday. Tickets were $38. The Jazz Crusaders All-Stars featured Wayne Henderson, Wilton Felder and Eloise Laws, whose brother is of course Hubert Laws.

Album Review

George Cole has a full review of the album on the Jazz Views website you can read using the embed below.

Grover Washington Jr – Grover Live Vol.2

Jason Miles Producer

You can stream or buy copies of “To Grover With Love (Live)” below ^[5]As always, no affiliate link or compensation for plays or purchases. Play it, buy it because it’s good, it’s very good.