Joe Sample
I recently picked up a copy of Sample’s 2002 CD The Pecan Tree, and listened to it while out of town last week at Myrtle Beach. A very good album; recommended. You can find clips from the CD here to test drive.
Also recommended is his 1996 CD “Old Places, Old Faces” (sample clips here), and if you like jazz with orchestration (my personal feeling is generally “Meh.”), his 1993 CD Invitation. He also has a greatest hits album you might want to check out, and his earlier work with the Crusaders is worth trying out as well. There are “Live at the Lighthouse `66” and “Lighthouse `68” CDs, as well as a “greatest hits” CD, if you want to get a feel of what the Crusaders sounded like in the day. (The Lighthouse was a jazz club in Hermosa Beach, CA.) You can also get sound samples to test drive for those on Amazon as well.
BTW, the image on the cover of Lighthouse ’68 is a fresnel lens, which is how the light in a lighthouse focuses its rays into a spotlight to beam out to sea without the light scattering. They’re also used in some projectors, and for those flat plastic magnifier sheets your granny uses with the telephone book.
Here’s a short biography; a longer one is available here:
One of the many jazzmen who started out playing hard bop but went electric during the fusion era, Joe Sample was, in the late ’50s, a founding member of the Jazz Crusaders along with trombonist Wayne Henderson, tenor saxman Wilton Felder, and drummer Stix Hooper. The Crusaders’ debt to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers wasn’t hard to miss — except that the L.A.-based unit had no trumpeter, and became known for its unique tenor/trombone front line. Sample, a hard-swinging player who could handle chordal and modal/scalar improvisation equally well, stuck to the acoustic piano during the Crusaders’ early years — but would place greater emphasis on electric keyboards when the band turned to jazz-funk in the early ’70s and dropped “Jazz” from its name. Though he’d recorded as a trio pianist on 1969’s obscure Fancy Dance, 1978’s Rainbow Seeker was often described as his first album as a leader. In contrast to the gritty music the Crusaders became known for, Sample’s own albums on MCA and, later, Warner Bros. and PRA have generally favored a very lyrical and introspective jazz-pop approach. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
Anyone got some recommendations for me this week?
Also – Anyone passing thru Knoxville going to or from Bonnaroo and want to meet up?
