![]() Httpv://Tjader and his band were also captured at the Concord Jazz Festival, with the title tune from his posthumous album release, Good Vibes, featured here. (The other two are “Leyte” and “Mambo Mindoro.”) Httpv://The live album A Fuego Vivo, recorded at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in 1981 with his working band, features “Mindanao,” the third tune Tjader composed based on islands in the Philippines, where he was stationed in World War II. A unique 7/4 arrangement of “Theme From M*A*S*H” closes out the album. Not feeling too well at the time, Tjader returned to the studio at a later time to overdub some of his solos. Httpv://A subdued album, The Shining Sea featured Tjader with his then-current drummer Vince Lateano, along with Dean Reilly on bass, Hank Jones on piano and Scott Hamilton on tenor. Httpv://The follow-up studio album Gozame! Pero Ya… opened with “Shoshana,” penned by the group’s pianist, Mark Levine. (A Best Latin Jazz category would not appear at the Grammys until 1995.) Httpv://The fiery mambos were not left behind either, as witnessed on “Mambo Mindoro.” These two tunes helped the album win a Grammy in 1980 for Best Latin Album. La Onda Va Bien opens with a new version of a tune he covered in 1961, “Speak Low,” which alternated between sections of 6/4 and 4/4 time. Gary Foster (flute, saxophone) would appear on some of the later recordings. The members of his working band took part in this album as well as most of the others that followed – Mark Levine (piano), Robb Fisher (bass), Vince Lateano (drums), Roger Glenn (flute) and Poncho Sanchez (congas, percussion). Tjader’s first album for Concord Picante was La Onda Va Bien. Tjader had impressed Jefferson so much over the years that Jefferson created the Concord Picante label for Tjader’s Latin jazz recordings, as well as other Latin artists who would sign with the label in years to come. ![]() While Concord didn’t have the distribution or budget of larger labels, the royalty structure was better, and the label more jazz-friendly than the larger labels. Once he was without a label, he recorded Huracán, the direct-to-disc LP he recorded for Crystal Clear Records (featured in Part Three of our Cal Tjader series).Īs he was already a participant at the Concord Jazz Festival and friends with Concord Records founder Carl Jefferson, signing with Concord was a good move. At the time, however, the changing music scene made it difficult for established jazz musicians to get signed to other labels, so he stayed with Fantasy for a few more years as he really had no other offers. ![]() He had rejoined Fantasy in 1970, but by 1974 he was already anxious to move on to another label. Sam Moore has a blast with the sassy "Hitch It to the Horse," while Ray Charles adds his whimsical touch to the salsified blues tune "Mary Ann." The remaining question is, just where is the Godfather of Soul himself? Hopefully, he's proud of one of the most unique tributes to him ever fashioned.In our last installment (Issue 141), Cal Tjader had wrapped up his final album for Fantasy. "JB's Strut" funks out with the horniest of them, but Brown is paid even greater homage on blues/soul/big-band/Latin renderings of three of his tunes, "Saints and Sinners," "Out of Sight" (sung with a tongue-in-cheek Brown bravura by Sanchez), and "Conmigo." And while he's at it, Sanchez invites two legendary soul men to make things even more authentic. ![]() The opening track, the funky, brass-driven cha cha "One Mint Julep," features not only the organ arpeggios of Billy Preston, but also two of the horn guys from the James Brown band, Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis. Increasingly aware that classic R&B songs adapt well to the jazzy cha cha tempos that drive his ensemble, Sanchez evolves beautifully on the new collection into a style of Latin soul that's truly compelling. The legendary conguero may be known as one of the modern kings of all jazz that's Latin, but he's also an old-school soul junkie at heart, having grown up in southern California in the '60s while he was learning to play tropical Latin music professionally, his radio was full of classic Stax and Motown.
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