A Morning with Hammond Heroes leads the Safari to “Bag of Jewels” from Lou Donaldson!

So this morning started with a cold walk to my office. I left the car at the office yesterday and walked home during the snowstorm!  While that may have been a good idea yesterday, it didn’t seem that good this morning, when I faced a ten minute walk to work with single digit wind chill temperatures. But like I always say when I struggle through a run  “At least the music was good!” The music came from an album released back in November titled Hammond Heroes. The album somehow got accidentally downloaded on to the iPhone a while ago and I didn’t delete it because of the title! Well am I glad I didn’t, because it’s got some great tracks on it. It’s has tracks on it from guys like Jimmy and Dr Lonnie Smith, Larry Young, and Jimmy McGriff where they are the top dog and then it has tracks where the organist is a member of the band or trio, pairing with folks like Pat Metheny. John Scofield, Lou Donaldson and Pat Martino. I was constantly looking at the tracks as great ones kept coming on, to see who was playing this time. Well, one of the tracks I liked right away was “Bag of Jewels” from Lou Donaldson. Donaldson is one of those oh, too many jazz artists whose name I know but not their music. the other track that caught my attention was “Oleo” from Pat Martino. Pat was another artist like Lou, and after listening to him play a few weeks ago on that tribute to Wes, I tracked down his music and listened to his album El Hombre and he is that!! Read More

The Safari Goes “into the morning” with Jim Alfredson’s Dirty Fingers: A Tribute to Big John Patton

So yesterday when I was reviewing this weeks JazzWeek Chart the band at number 23 caught my eye. The band was Jim Alfredson’s Dirty Fingers and their album is A Tribute to Big John Patton. Jim Alfredson, name is familiar, I know  now – Organissimo!! Love their music!! I listened to their latest album Dedicated back in April of this year. Great stuff!! Read More

On this Date in Music – December 8, 1928 – Organist Jimmy Smith was born!!

Jimmy Smith

On this date in 1928 the master of the Hammond B3, Jimmy Smith was born. I have been listening to Jimmy Smith’s music since he late 60s when I discovered Wes Montgomery and then Jimmy & Wes an album by the two masters that they released in 1966. I love to put on a Jimmy Smith album at work and well just let it flow!! So let’s have some morning music to start our Sunday and to honor Jimmy on his birthday. But first some background….. from AllMusic Read More

A Night of Jazz starts with Walter Smith III and ends with Larry Goldings and I have a lot to listen to!!!

Walter Smith III Live in ParisSo last night I visit MOG and jumped around checking out jazz musicians,  it started with Walter Smith III Live in Paris which led to bassist Hans Glawischnig led to Antonio Sanchez, who actually appears in my library as he is part of Gary Burton’s Quartet and appears on his album Quartet Live. Antonio in turn led to Ari Hoenig.…Reading Hoenig’s biography at Wikipedia I saw that….. Read More

Lunchtime Hammond -B3 Music from Brazil’s Hammond Grooves and Jimmy Smith!!

Hammond Grooves 2So the other day when I was looking for YouTube videos of Eddie Harris, I came across the jazz trio Hammond Grooves from Brazil. Since I live in a town that has a large, and very important to the community, Brazilian population the band being from Brazil caught my attention. And that it was an organ trio also raised my curiosity! Since the band is from Brazil the information on online at the usual locations was sparse. I did find the band on Twitter and then found there website and their Facebook page. The only problem was that all the information was in Portuguese!! Now I usually use the Opera browser which does not offer translation of pages, so I tried to translate some of the information on Babel fish and got some basics. i.e. the leader of the band is Daniel Latorre ao (the) Hammond B-3, Wagner Vasconcelos: Bateria (drums) and Daniel Daibem:guitarra (guitar). Read More

Today in Music – 1940 – Jazz Organist Larry Young was born!

Larry YoungOn this day in 1940 jazz organist Larry Young was born. I was unfamiliar with Young’s music until recently. That may have been a result of his early passing. Young died in 1978, after entering the hospital with stomach pains, he died from untreated pneumonia However, after reading some of the information below I did hear his music back in the day, when he played on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and also playing  in Tony Williams’ Lifetime .  From Wikipedia: Read More