Grover Washing, Jr. ‘live in 1998. This recording is released only in digital format (for now?). It really is a great set of GWJ classics. Lot’s of detail and streaming links etc.
Grover Washington, Jr – Kudu Live!
In April 1973, Grover Washington Jr. was preparing for the big stage at the 20th Newport Jazz Festival with performances at Boston’s Jazz Workshop. This live broadcast set includes early collaboration with bassist Charles Fambrough. Washington, a soul-jazz pioneer, filled in for Hank Crawford on “Inner City Blues” and had just recorded “Soul Box” featuring top jazz musicians. The album’s release coincided with the Newport Festival. Following the festival, he continued to perform, including a notable CTI All-Stars concert in Boston.
Born Day: Grover Washington, Jr.
Born: December 12, 1943, Buffalo, New York, U.S.Died: December 17, 1999, Manhattan, New York, U.S. (Age 56) This year marks 22-years since the sudden passing of Grover Washington Jr. I’ve written many times about Grover in the past[1]Grover Washington Jr. – Creed Taylor Produced (ctproduced.com), especially my 2020 remembrance tribute and story of how Grover met and got started with […]
My Career, My Music, My Sidemen – ‘Bijou’ and Philly
I’ve written about Grover Washington Jr. numerous times[1]Grover Washington Jr. – Creed Taylor Produced (ctproduced.com), including on his born-day in 2020. In that article I pulled together various threads to document how Grover got his chance to record for and be produced by Creed Taylor. This article originally appeared in Black Stars magazine, November 1978, Volume 28, Issue 1 and […]
Dr Smith Has Left The House
Success takes the right people, with the right skills, at the right time and the right place. You can’t copy or replicate success. And so it was that in 1965, having left Jack McDuff’s Quartet, George Benson set out on his own. Benson hired Buffalo NY native, Lonnie Smith to play organ in his quartet, along with Ronnie Cuber on […]
Farewell, But Not Goodbye, Doc Gibbs
The last few weeks have bought sad news of the passing of more people from the jazz world. Of course all the major websites and even traditional news outlets covered the death of legendary jazz elder, George Wein. Many also covered the loss of George Mraz, double bass, and occasional sax player. I’ll have my personal favorite pieces on both […]
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 […]
Record Store Day 2020 – dot.next
Record Store Day 2020 turned into three days due to Covid-19, and a fourth day is coming. Black Friday 2020 is November 27th. Currently there are some 133 releases scheduled for that day, including a few of interest. The releases are the usual spread of old tracks never released, tracks remixed, and live performances, and a few compilations. Many are […]
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” […]
One Night With Blue Note
Strictly not a Creed Taylor produced effort, but a tribute to Blue Note founders, Alfred Lion, Max Margulis, and Francis Wolff. Notwithstanding that, the recordings here were recovered from laserdiscs, and feature many artists, both leaders and sidemen that were signed to, or performed for CTI, including Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, Kenny Burrell, Grover Washington Jr, and many more. As […]
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 […]
On This Day: Motown Distribution
It was reported on October 13th 1974, Creed and his team had been convinced either through challenges with their own distribution, or by promises of greater sales, to form a distribution deal with Motown Records. What turned to be a short term deal, lasting only a couple of years had long term ramifications for both companies. As noted when CTI […]
Bob James – Birthday mix
Bob James/Don’t Mess With Mister Bob. To celebrate Bobs birthday on December 25th, I put together this 3-track mix of some great tracks he bought us, among many. I have more than one hundred albums in my collection that Bob has worked on. I’ve seen him live three times, once in the early 1980’s and twice recently. Bob is still […]
Baddest – Grover Washington, Jr.
Baddest likely took its lead and title from earlier CTI albums, “The Baddest Hubbard” and “The Baddest Turrentine” and was the last in the line. Right at the point where the CTI Records was struggling financially, and Washington was leaving the label for Motown, a temporary stop before settling at Electra. His first Motown release, “Reed Seed” was as a […]