#2 A Foggy Day

Art Tatum generally preferred to play solo piano, but he did work with other musicians from time to time, and here we have a recording of him from the compilation album "The Best of Art Tatum" with Bill Douglass on drums, Buddy DeFranco on clarinet, and Red Callender on bass, doing a Gershwin tune to bless this mess.

Allo, paulsc!

#3 Numb Fumblin'

Fats Waller from a March 1, 1929 recording session plays his slow blues composition as a solo. Listen for the beautiful, rapid weaving four note riffs in 32nd notes in the last chorus, which some people have called "hummingbird runs." This was definitely a little ornamental technique later picked up by such piano greats as Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. From a 1987 RCA/BMG Treasury Series compilation.

Hi, phoenixc!

#4 Let's Begin

Ella Fitzgerald with a Nelson Riddle led orchestra, sings this Jerome Kern tune from the Broadway show "Roberta." I think this song fits her voice wonderfully. But like many Kern songs, it's deceptively difficult, and it never became a standard with jazz singers.

#5 Gypsy Heart

I met New England pianist Deborah Franciose one snowy winter evening in 1993 at the Charles Hotel, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was in Boston on business, and I usually made it a point to visit The Regatta Bar, which was a key venue for jazz in Boston, and still is. Deborah was downstairs playing in the Noir Lounge where I stopped for a quick drink, before heading upstairs. Normally, I might not have paid much attention to a solo pianist, but she was doing a great rendition of Manha de Carnival (Black Orpheus), and I moved to a table closer to the piano to escape the hotel lobby noise.

Between one of her sets, she introduced herself, and I asked her if she had any original compositions. "Well, I don't usually play them here." she said, "But, maybe..." And I said "Sure, consider it a request." So, she played this, and I'm glad she did. She later used it as the title track for her 1994 CD "Gypsy Heart." She put out two other CD's on North Star, "Almost Home" and a later one in 1995 or 1996. Since then, I've lost track of her, as has her alma mater (she was a 1976 graduate).

#6 Afro Blue

Here is the John Coltrane Quartet from the 2005 release "One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note", from which we've previously heard a couple cuts in prior programs, doing a Mongo Santamaria tune recorded several times by Coltrane, in various groups, and by dozens of other jazz artists, too.

#7 Don't Worry 'Bout Me

From their 1976 25th reunion LP, the Dave Brubeck Quartet does this tune by Rube Bloom and Ted Koehler, written for a 1939 Cotton Club review, called The Cotton Club Parade.

#8 Black Orchid

In this tune from his 1982 CD "When Elephants Dream of Music," which he dedicates to Billy Strayhorn, New England percussionist Bob Moses offers some of the big, slow melodic feel of classic Strayhorn tunes, in partnership with Chris Rogers on trumpet, David Gross on alto sax, and David Friedman on vibraphone, particularly.

#9 Sweet and Lovely

This Gus Arnheim tune from the late '20s is familiar to many fans of Bugs Bunny as the Wascally Wabbit's music for cross dressing. Nearly every time Bugs gets dolled up as a female character in his cartoon adventures, Gus Arnheim heard the cash register ring as the sound track played this tune. This take on the old chestnut by Thelonious Monk is from the 1962 album "Monk's Dream" with sidemen Charlie Rouse on tenor saxophone, John Ore on bass, and drummer Frankie Dunlop, but in it's extensively reharmonized form, I doubt even Bugs ever recognized it.

#10 A Wonderful Guy

Milt Jackson with the Oscar Peterson Trio from the 1962 album "Very Tall" with a Rogers and Hammerstein tune from their musical "South Pacific.". There's not a single note of this tune, by any of the four guys playing, that doesn't belong right where it happens.

Sweet, but never sappy.

#11 Like Minds

This is the title track from the 1998 collaboration between Gary Burton on vibraphone, Pat Metheny on guitar, Chick Corea on piano, and the amazing Roy Haynes on drums.

#12 Pavane

This 1971 adaptation of a composition for a processional dance ( "Pavane" ) by Gabriel Fauré by the flautist Hubert Laws was one of the CTI record label's biggest selling records.

Jazz artists have frequently set pieces in a quasi-classical setting, I think because so many of the great jazz instrumentalists start out with some classical training, and want to be able to show their chops to "high brow" audiences. And, I suppose it broadens their market, for dates with all those "Pops" orchestras in the summer months. I enjoy this tune for the "big wind" flute sound Laws achieves.

#13 When Sunny Gets Blue

A month or so ago, someone over on AskMe was looking for suggestions for an audition song, and I suggested this one, but miss lynnster counseled otherwise. I don't agree with her necessarily, that this is a difficult tune, but I've never heard it done better than it is here, by vocalist Billy Hill, singing with Benny Carter on alto sax, Kenny Barron on piano, Rufus Reid on bass, and Kenny Washington on drums, from the 1991 CD, "All That Jazz: Live At Princeton."

That's Clark Terry with the fluglehorn solo.

#14 David

John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola need no introductions to long time jazz fans, but even at the time of their 1983 collaboration "Passion, Grace and Fire" (recorded as a follow up to their live 1981 "Friday Night in San Francisco" venture) Paco De Lucia was less well known, still, at least in the U.S. And despite the technical brilliance of the members of this trio, "flamenco-jazz" was hardly a category with a wide popular appeal. Nevertheless, in this McLauglin tune, once your ear accepts the instrumentation and the stylistic flamenco guitar adornments, there's an undeniable jazz musicality to the piece, that makes it worth listening.

I love the sound of flamenco guitar...brings to mind the swishing of the dancers' full skirts. I've still got flamenco dance lessons to cross off my to-do list. ;)

#15 Oye Como Va

This is another track from the 1992 CD Tito Puente's Golden Latin Jazz All Stars "Live" at The Village Gate which we heard another cut from a couple programs past, doing a Tito Puente tune that Carlos Santana had some success doing. In fact, I saw Tito do a funny little two minute bit introducing this song, a couple of times, in which he told the story of a fan thanking him profusely for playing that "Carlos Santana song," and having to straighten the guy out about its authorship, without hacking him off, and while signing an autograph for the guy, and shaking his hand.

But on this record, as I said before in a previous program, you get the "Who's Who" of Latin Jazz on stage, live, kickin' it, including Tito Puente on timbales, Mongo Santamaria, congas; Giovanni Hidalgo, congas, drums & bongos; Paquito D'Rivera, alto saxophone; David Valentin, flute; Claudio Roditi, trumpet; Hilton Ruiz [link is to his June 6, 2006 obituary], piano; Mario Rivera soprano sax. It'd be hard to put together a better Latin jazz band, anywhere, anytime.

My first guitar teacher was an older Greek guy who had studied in Spain with Andres Segovia, but he had also worked as a flamenco guitarist, for dancers, while he was there. Anytime I asked him about Spain, and dancers, my hour lesson went to 90 minutes or two hours, at the same price, and his eyes shone, and his fingers danced, showing me things, for the love of it.

Good stuff, phoenixc.

#16 Poinciana

And here is McCoy Tyner from a 1999 CD with a slightly different line-up of Latin All-Stars, that still included Claudio Roditi, trumpet, Giovanni Hildago, conga, drums, Paquito D'Rivera, alto sax, Dave Valentin, flute, but also had Johnny Almendra, Gary Bartz, Ignacio Berroa and Steve Turre on trombone. This tune by Buddy Bernier (more famous for another tune)) and Nat Simon is from 1936, and is also credited as Poinciana (The Song of the Tree), and has been recorded by everybody from Frank Sinatra to Ahmad Jamal.

#17 Blues for Duane

When he was "on," there was no better trumpet/flugelhorn player than Freddie Hubbard. And he's pretty much "on" in this recording of his own tune, from this 1958 compilation album "The Best of the Jazz Trumpets". And he gave young trumpeters some valuable advice in a 1995 interview for Downbeat magazine.

#18 Lullaby

In this little tune by Mary Hennigson, Toots Thielemans is on harmonica, Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen [link is to a wonderful eulogy of Pedersen by the great jazz pianist Oscar Petersen in Petersen's online journal] is playing bass, Rob Franken is on electric piano, and Bruno Castellucci is on drums. Recorded September 23, 1976 in Borrenhofstede, Laren, Holland, and included on the Compact Jazz: Toots Thielemans compliation.

#19 Shine

In August, 1955, Stan Getz enjoyed one of his greatest days in a recording studio, with a quintet that had spent previous weeks filming "The Benny Goodman Story" in the mornings, and performing at Zardi's [a famous jazz club of the day on Hollywood Boulevard] in the evenings. While "West Coast Jazz" was chosen as the album title for the sessions they recorded, it was something of an inside joke, as Getz, Conte Candoli (trumpet), Lou Levy (piano), Leroy Vinnegar (bass), and Shelly Manne (drums) had all been born and raised back East.

This cut is a powerhouse tenor saxophone performance, Getz playing 18 choruses of endlessly inventive be-bop, at a ridiculously quick tempo. The feeling was so strong on this date however, that Getz said later that creating "Shine" was "as easy as falling off a log."

#20 God Bless The Child

Perhaps my favorite Billie Holiday song, which I first heard filtered through the "jazz rock" band Blood, Sweat and Tears, waaaaaay back in the '60s. But nobody does this better than Lady Day herself, and her wry, knowing phrasing gives has always "sold" this tune's meaning better than anyone else I've ever heard sing it.

#21 I Will Say Goodbye

As is becoming customary, The Bill Evans Trio, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, takes us out with the title track from the 1977 album of the same name. To recap, in this set, we heard:

1. McCoy Tyner - The Greeting (2:27)
2. Art Tatum/Bill Douglass/Buddy DeFranco/Red Callender - A Foggy Day (3:23)
3. Fats Waller - Numb Fumblin' (Piano Solo) (2:52)
4. Ella Fitzgerald - Let's Begin (2:58)
5. Deborah Franciose - Gypsy Heart (3:41)
6. John Coltrane - Afro Blue (12:42)
7. Dave Brubeck Quartet - Don't Worry 'Bout Me (6:49)
8. Bob Moses - Black Orchid (5:59)
9. Thelonious Monk Quartet - Sweet and Lovely (7:51)
10. Oscar Peterson - A Wonderful Guy (4:56)
11. Gary Burton - Like Minds (5:50)
12. Hubert Laws - Pavane (7:40)
13. Benny Carter - When Sunny Gets Blue (5:51)
14. John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, Paco DeLucia - David (6:34)
15. Tito Puente - Oye Como Va (6:23)
16. McCoy Tyner - Poinciana (6:58)
17. Freddie Hubbard - Blues For Duane (Hubbard) (7:41)
18. Toots Thielemans - Lullaby (3:33)
19. Stan Getz - Shine (8:54)
20. Billie Holiday - God Bless the Child (3:59)
21. Bill Evans Trio - I Will Say Goodbye (3:30)

Until next time, kids, be swell, do tell, and don't dwell.

Merci et bonne nuit.