Jazz On The Terrace - 2 September 2015

The second day of spring 2015 and my first day back on JOTT since before Christmas last year. Nothing much has changed except the weather and as we say “I promise you Jazz Red Hot & Cool.” JOTT is an upbeat jazz program for the everyday listener, rather than for Jazz aficionados, and prepares you for a nice lunch or a sleep on the verandah or a cafe latte on the deck.

Today there is a mix of cool jazz from the 50s to the 80s. The New Dave Brubeck Quartet leads us off with Big Bad Basie a live track from an album titled For Iola (1985) and we follow with the real man himself – Count Basie with The Comeback from an album Basie in London (1956). It’s a cool start and stays that way with Herb Alpert leaning into Californian Blues from his 1982 album Fandango. It does not get any better!

But it does with Ray Charles, from his classic 1959 album Genius + Soul = Jazz, and the blues driven – I’m gonna move to the outskirts of town. There are two great guitar tracks – one amplified – George Benson in deep jazz mode and Plum from the 1973 album Body Talk, and then the great Charlie Byrd from a classic 1971 album For All We Know with George Harrison’s composition Here comes the Sun.

We drift into Australian musical history with a young Kate Ceberano and her Quintet and I’m beginning to see the light from her first solo album – Kate Cebrano & Her Septet (1987), backed up by the bluff loud crashing Daly Wilson Big Band and the gentle melodramatic Ode to Billie Joe – you know – “Mama said that she got some news this morning – from Choctaw Bridge – that Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”. Big sigh.

And then we leave that slough of despair and slip into Paul Desmond’s take on Simon and Garfunkel’s The 59^th St Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy) and the smoothest sounds of Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto and the lovely Corcovado. Life is good.

In our penultimate track the sensational Michelle Shocked from her 1989 album – Captain Swing – belts out Sleep keeps me awake – an excellent song to remind our listeners that we only have one last track to go – the smooth saxophone of Scott Hamilton with a big favourite – The Shadow of your Smile – the theme from the 1965 Elizabeth Taylor film – The Sandpiper. Stay Cool.