Al Green
Love And Happiness
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I’m Still In Love With You (1972)

Monty Alexander
Love And Happiness
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Rass (1974)

Jurassic 5
Baby Please
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Feedback (2006)

Al Green’s “Love And Happiness” is one of those tunes that’s loved by all. Enjoy the original, and consider adding a couple of clever reinterpretations to your MP3 collection.

Al owned the R&B charts in 1972, releasing two terrific LPs: I’m Still In Love With You and Let’s Stay Together. Al had so many hits in the early 70s that “Love And Happiness” wasn’t even released as a single. Bonkers.

Jamaican jazz organist Monty Alexander covered “Love And Happiness” a couple of years after its release. Ernest Ranglin’s rhythm guitar provides a subtle reggae backdrop for epic solos from Monty and guitarist “Trini” Clarence Wears.

“Love And Happiness” must have been massive in Jamaica; check out Al Brown’s full-on reggae version, also from 1974:

Jurassic 5 chopped up Al Green’s original “Love And Happiness” and reassembled it into an entirely different thing. The double-time rapping from MCs Akil, Zaakir, Mark 7even, and Chali 2na complement Exile’s bouncy production and DJ Nu-Mark’s razor-sharp scratching.

“Love And Happiness” has been covered by everyone from pop-jazz sax player David Sanborn to disco queens First Choice to this pretty awful house version. There seems to be a version of “Love And Happiness” to satisfy any musical taste.

Lady Day And John Coltrane
Pieces Of A Man (1971)
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Did You Hear What They Said?
Free Will (1972)
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Winter In America (Solo Version)
Recorded in 1978
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Back Home (w/Brian Jackson)
Winter In America (1974)
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I’ve been listening to Gil Scott-Heron’s music consistently for decades. I own about eight of his LPs, and have been on the hunt for at least two others. His recent passing merits a proper tribute.

Gil’s music was a gumbo of jazz, blues, R&B, and spoken word — Gil called it “bluesology, the science of how things feel.” He had a gift for melody and was among the most evocative lyricists that emerged from the civil rights movement. I don’t consider Gil to be a great album artist — there are many intolerable tracks in his repertoire  — but when the music, lyrics, and personnel clicked (usually when Brian Jackson was involved), the impact was super powerful.

I remember going to see Gil at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland circa 1998. I am almost sure Brian Jackson performed with him that night (which rarely happened post-1980), but the Internet has not been forthcoming with corroboration. Gil wasn’t all there but it didn’t take more than a few songs for him to find his equilibrium. His voice had become hoarse, yet was no less emotive. I had hoped to see him perform again, but he seldom performed in his later years due to substance abuse and related incarcerations.

Rather than replicate a greatest hits collection, I tried to pick tracks that capture some of the emotions that have coursed through me as I contemplate Gil’s life and career.

“Lady Day And John Coltrane” was one of Gil’s early singles, and speaks to the transcendent power of music. It’s fitting that Gil selected Billie Holiday and John Coltrane as the song’s symbols; all three pushed the boundaries of jazz by combining the personal with the radical. All three also struggled with substance abuse, and Gil’s lyrics could apply to both music or to getting high: “They’ll wash your troubles, your troubles away…”

“Did You Hear What They Said?” was written in reaction to the Vietnam War, but is a timeless dirge about losing a child on a faraway battlefield. Gil’s use of melisma highlights the agony, and creates an emotional analogue with the song’s key phrase: “This can’t be real.”

“Winter In America” is one of Gil’s most lyrically ambitious songs. Originally released in 1974, it grieves the loss of forceful, idealistic civil right leaders and hippie optimism. This elegiac solo version was recorded in 1978 — America still hadn’t thawed out in the four years since the original was released.

Despite purchasing the Winter In America LP sometime in the 1990s, I only clued into the near-perfect “Back Home” a few months ago. It has a catchy, singalong melody that belies its yearning for a simpler time. It’s poetic that “Back Home” would be the Gil track I’d be grooving on at the time of his death: “I gotta get back to see my people, someday and someway.”

Cochise
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North Carolina
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Get Yourself Together
(w/Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
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Album: Live At Montreux
Released in 1973

I’ve always dug Les McCann, and when I found this Live At Montreux double LP in a local record store ($5, near mint), I knew it would be quality.

The Montreux Jazz Festival is Switzerland’s prestigious annual event on stunning Lake Geneva. In recent years, Montreux has drifted a bit off brand; for its 44th season, jazz greats such as Coolio, Arcade Fire, and Ricky Martin are on the programme. (To be fair, actual jazz greats such as George Benson, Diana Krall, and Herbie Hancock are also on the bill.)

Les McCann’s Live At Montreux was recorded during an earlier, purer incarnation of the festival, in 1972. Les was already a legend at Montreux — and Switzerland in general — because he had released a hit live album from the festival, 1969′s Swiss Movement.

For his second recording from Montreux, Les brought along bassist Jimmy Rowser, drummer Donald Dean, and percussionist Buck Clarke. Like many jazz artists of the time, Les experimented with electric, amplified instruments and Live At Montreux is a showcase for the many colors and textures of the recently-invented clavinet keyboard.

“Cochise” kicks off the set at breakneck pace. (The title inexplicably refers to an Apache chief from the 19th century.) On this track, the clavinet occasionally sounds blown out and distorted, which may or may not be a by-product of the recording process.

On the first movement of “North Carolina,” the clavinet has more of a bubbly sound, which is probably its most familiar mode (think Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”). About halfway into the track, Les reconfigures the clavinet to a more elegant, brighter setting, and it sounds like an entirely different instrument.

For an encore, Les selected the epic “Get Yourself Together”. Can’t say I love his vocals, but thankfully Les’s singing is only a small part of his repertoire. Later in the track, fellow Montreux performer Rahsaan Roland Kirk jumped onstage and contributed a sax solo, showing off his unusual technique of breathing without losing his tone. (Today I learned this is called “circular breathing.”)

Les last performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1998, though he has toured sporadically in the U.S. and Japan as recently as 2009.

“T” Plays It Cool
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Cleo’s Apartment
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Trouble Man
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“T” Stands for Trouble
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Album: Trouble Man (1972)

In ranking the best Blaxploitation soundtracks, the cognoscenti usually select Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly or Isaac Hayes’s Shaft as the best from that era. Maybe James Brown’s Black Caesar. But rarely do I see Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man soundtrack at the top of the list. SImilarly, I rarely see Trouble Man listed among Marvin’s best LPs.

Both are errors in judgment. Trouble Man was Marvin’s follow-up to the seminal What’s Going On, and is a key milestone in Marvin’s evolution from Motown pop star to bold singer-songwriter. Trouble Man isn’t just a key achievement among Blaxploitation soundtracks, it’s one of Marvin’s most musically-adventurous albums.

One of the reasons Trouble Man may be underappreciated is that it doesn’t feature much of Marvin’s renown singing abilities. The primary track that features Marvin’s vocals is the title song, one of his biggest hits and an unequivocal five-star classic. But Trouble Man is best appreciated for its sophisticated musicality, and proves that Marvin was as accomplished a composer and instrumentalist as he was a singer.

On the instrumental track, “T Plays It Cool,” Marvin highlights his rhythmic skills via a fierce interplay between the drums (Marvin’s first role at Motown was as a session drummer), and the bubbling, kinetic Moog organ.

I always enjoy listening to “Cleo’s Apartment.” I remember seeing on Questove’s MySpace page that this track was his answer to “If You Were To Marry Now What Song Would Be Your Wedding Song?” Now I can’t listen to “Cleo’s Apartment” without picturing the most bad-ass wedding procession ever.

The title track may be my favorite Marvin song ever. Despite this, in researching this blog post, I discovered he’s saying “I come up hard;” I always thought he was saying “I come apart.” The actual lyric is way tougher!

The final selected track is the oft-sampled “T Stands for Trouble”. I recommend putting this one on with the top down as you’re driving along the coast.

As for the movie itself, Trouble Man has its merits. I appreciated all the 70s era Los Angeles location shooting, and you can see how the film influenced Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Ultimately, it’s Marvin’s soundtrack that gives the film its stature.

Common (w/Kanye West & John Mayer)
Go
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Album: Be (2005)

Linda Lewis
Old Smokey
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Album: Lark (1972)

Common has had quite the inconsistent career. But when Kanye West came knocking, Common stepped up his game, resulting in the pretty darn awesome LP Be. I fear Be may end up being the apex of Common’s recording career, but I’m still rooting for one of Chi-town’s finest.

Though Be has a number of enjoyable tracks, I’ve been surprised by how much its third single, "Go" has stuck with me. I think it’s the contrast between the mellow beat and the risqué lyrics that keeps it in rotation.

Kanye makes an able hype man and as for John Mayer, I think his contribution is limited to the echoed "Go" that is looped every two bars or so. (And he gets a songwriting credit?)

I hadn’t heard the Linda Lewis track Kanye sampled in "Go." To be honest, I hadn’t heard of Linda Lewis. But "Old Smokey" is a sweet, feel-good song that is ideally suited to a Sunday morning. Whatever led Kanye to isolate the short electric keyboard breakdown that appears towards the end of the song is a mystery to me, but I’m indebted to Yeezy for leading me to this rare groover.