With maybe the exception of James Brown, smooth jazz torch carrier Bob James has probably been sampled more often than anybody on the planet. And mainly by the hip hop fraternity: it's been said, on more than one occasion, that hip hop owes a massive debt of gratitude to this most unlikely outlier. His numerically sequenced albums One, Two, Three & BJ4 released between 1974 and 1977 have been mined mercilessly.
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But it's this song that he's probably still best known for. Here's a quite beautiful pared back arrangement of the theme from Taxi.
On the back of my last two posts featuring Bob James and Joe Sample, I thought it would be remiss of me not to mention Larry Carlton. Carlton was, and still is, the go to guitarist for any discerning jazz musician. Indeed, when Sample hired him for his band the Crusaders in the 70s it wouldn't be long before they were the biggest thing in jazz fusion; no small accolade when you consider the stiff competition knocking around at the time. Likewise, Bob James signed him up in the 90s when his pick-up group, Fourplay, were in the market for a new guitar maestro.
Larry Carlton has played with everyone. His CV reads like a Who's Who of musical greats - he's worked with Quincy Jones, Sammy Davis Jnr., Michael Jackson, Andy Williams and Dolly Parton to name but a few. He even lent his guitar sound to one of the defining American TV series of the 1980s.
In 1977, like Joe Sample, he got a call from Donald Fagen to come and play on Steely Dan's latest long-player (Carlton had previously given them a dig out on both Katy Lied and The Royal Scam). Aja would go on to become the Dan's Sergeant Pepper, or even Abbey Road, take your pick. In fact Larry liked it so much he even 'borrowed' one of its tunes for his next solo album. No prizes for guessing which one.
Room 335 came out in 1978. The original is a thing of wonder, but, then again, so is this version recorded live nearly 30 years later.
Larry Carlton (with the SWR Big Band) - Room 335 (2017)
As lists go, it's pretty short. As lists go, it's also very niche; in fact, as lists go it probably can't even be described as a list. Let me explain. The list to which I refer is headed up "Smooth Jazz Keyboard Players I Need to See Live Before I/They Die". The 'list' used to have two names on it: Joe Sample. And Bob James. But as Joe Sample bowed out in September 2014, the list (hell, it doesn't even warrant a scrap of notepaper in my wallet) now bears but one name.
So imagine my delight when I saw that Robert McElhiney James was playing a two night residency at London's Pizza Express on December 1st & 2nd (a couple of weeks before the maestro's 80th birthday - on Christmas Day). So far so smooth. However, such is the interest in the man who's best known for this, it's SOLD OUT! Bloody lists.
I don't know what tunes he'll be playing to the Soho pizza eating fraternity next month, but if I was in the room I'd be baying for these two, that much I do know.
Take Five, the jazz standard everyone associates with Dave Brubeck, was actually written by his sax player Paul Desmond. It's been appearing on TV soundtracks and movie scores as well in clubs around the world ever since it was first released in 1959. However, written in quintuple (5/4) time (like Lalo Schifrin's Mission Impossible theme) it's virtually impossible to dance to.
After leaving the Dave Brubeck Quartet Desmond would go on to play and record with some of the biggest names in jazz including Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Jim Hall and The Modern Jazz Quartet. But he and Brubeck did get back together again in 1976 for a handful of sell-out reunion gigs and and a live album. In fact the last gig he played was with Brubeck in February 1977, only weeks before the fifty two year old sax man succumbed to lung cancer; three packs of Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes a day finally taking their toll.
In 1963 Desmond wrote and recorded a pastiche of his own remarkable signature tune - Take Ten - from his Skylark album featuring Bob James on piano.
