Latin jazz Archives - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

George Duke – Peace

Our last post looked at Billy Cobham’s fusion classic ‘Heather’ from his album Crosswinds (1974) which featured the mellow tones of keyboardist George Duke. Flashing back a couple of years earlier to January 1971, a young George Duke had just left Frank Zappa’s group The Mothers Of Invention and joined saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s new quintet, replacing pianist Joe Zawinul. The months that followed would prove formative for this young pianist and in this year he recorded two albums: Solus and The Inner Source, originally intended to be two separate albums but were later merged, released on German jazz label MPS in 1973.

Pete La Roca – Lazy Afternoon

One of the many attractive qualities of jazz, more than any other musical genre, is how the same song can be interpreted in many different ways. Whether this is Bill Evans and Yusef Lateef offering their personal takes on a classic soundtrack, or Ahmad Jamal and Bobby Hutcherson reworking a Herbie Hancock original, the musical freedom that underpins jazz allows its musicians to constantly reinvent and offer fresh perspectives on popular classics. In his last post, Dan wrote on guitarist Grant Green’s version of the ballad ‘Lazy Afternoon’. Whilst Green’s version is excellent, the definitive version in my opinion of this well known standard is found on drummer Pete La Roca’s album Basra, released in 1965 on Blue Note.

Devadip Carlos Santana – Love Theme From “Spartacus”

Our last post focussed on Santana’s heady fusion offering ‘Going Home’. Now we fast-forward eight years to an underrated gem of the Santana catalogue, his version of Alex North’s ‘Love Theme From “Spartacus”‘ from his 1980 album The Swing Of Delight.

Joe Henderson – Fire

The same year as Pharoah Sanders’ Elevation (1974), saxophonist Joe Henderson enlisted that record’s violinist (Michael White) and percussionist (Kenneth Nash) for an ambitious, conceptual collaboration with the great Alice Coltrane.