This is the second time around for covers of Donny Hathaway’s spiritual anthem. Sure, we forget the song when we list our top tens, but let Donny’s tones come ringing thru a speaker or headphone and before we know it, we are singing along. And not just quietly singing, but declaiming with all our hearts: “one day we’ll all be free.”

When I did the first roundup back on June 11, 2006 (man, we’ve been doing BoL for a bunch of years, especially when you consider how long a calendar year is in internet terms; we’re getting old, damn near ancient); at that time I had no intention of ever doing a follow-up. But as always, life has its little tricks waiting around a previously unimagined corner, unforeseen developments be ready, willing and able to knock some sense into your hard head.

What had happened was: I was searching for something else, saw the tune, clicked on, and before I knew it a momentary accident had me secure in its auditory grip. Next thing I know, I’m wondering are there enough versions I haven’t already posted to put together a second Mixtape. Lo and be-hear, we had a sho-nuff, mother lode of previously un-posted material.

Of course we start off with the classic Donny Hathaway original. Some sensitive piano musings from maestro Bobby Lyle gently nudge us into a meditative mood. Then sister Puff Johnson throws down a vocal challenge taken from the soundtrack to the movie The Promised Land. Puff even offers up a soaring, Minnie Riperton-like high note on the outro. Who better to respond than brother George Benson, guitar in hand doing his scatting in parallel with his finger picking.

And just like Benson responded to Johnson’s vocal work, guitarist Charlie Hunter responds to Benson’s guitar plucking with an amazing solo version that recasts the familiar melody. And then, who would have thunk that Brazil’s Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’77 could have dropped such a soulful version but here it is. From Rio we jet over to Paris, France for a jazz-drenched instrumental from pianist Laurent Coq.

The closing belongs to two R&B icons: Bobby Womack and Aretha Franklin. Ever the preacher, Bobby Womack delivers a deeply moving, gravely-voiced sermon of hope and redemption and is followed by Aretha ushering us homeward in an all-out shout of deliverance taken from Spike Lee’s Malcolm X Soundtrack.

If you’re not feeling better after listening to this, you must have already crossed over.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Some Day We’ll All Be Free Mixtape Playlist

01 Donny Hathaway – Extension Of A Man

 02 Bobby Lyle – Pianomagic

03 Puff Johnson – The Promised Land Soundtrack

04 George Benson – Songs And Stories

05 Charlie Hunter – Charlie Hunter

06 Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’77 – Sergio Mendes

07 Laurent Coq – Versatile

08 Bobby Womack – Someday We’ll All Be Free

09 Aretha Franklin – Music from Malcolm X Soundtrack

I was intrigued when I first heard Sean Haefeli’s music but also a bit irritated that I couldn’t immediately identify what all was going on. Then I saw a photo of Sean and that significantly upped my confusion index. And that last name, was it Middle Eastern? But he was from Chicago—as if there were no Muslims of color in Chi, whose Southside back in the day was one of the headquarters and concentrations of the Nation of Islam.

Bit by bit I learned a little more about Mr. Haefeli. His father Carl Haefeli was a trumpet player with the funk ensemble the Ebony Rhythm Band.

Carl Haefeli, white cat on the left

About his childhood, Sean candidly acknowledges “the two things I’ve done the longest and am strongest at are martial arts and music, both of which I started when I was seven years old.”

Sean mother, a music enthusiast enrolled him in classical piano lessons. By high school he was singing and during his first year of college studied opera for a year before completing a bachelor’s in literature from Depaul. After a six month stint in France the musician decided to return to school. He’s studying jazz piano at Indiana University Bloomington.

When I searched for photos on the internet I saw the chiseled physique of a male model—but at times he also exudes the charm of the boy next door who went away to college and molded himself into someone who was obviously going places in life. Who was this cat?

And his music; the lyrics sound like modern poetry, sort of a cross between Ezra Pound in the metro and some alternative spoken word down by the Green Mill in Chicago. Jazz is the major influence but there are strong pop elements as well. Like I said, something different. Moreover, the music is adventurous. He takes unexpected twists and turns, puts lyrics you have to listen to at least thrice in order to decipher the deeptitudes being discussed. Some times it swings, some times it grooves but there is always something emotionally moving going on.

Sean has one 4-track EP, Sound Strategy (2006), and one full length album, Hunger (2004). I’ve heard snippets of selections from his forthcoming release. The man is definitely doing something different and if you give his sounds half a chance, you just might find yourself embracing some wonderfully idiosyncratic, other kinds of contemporary music. Don’t be reluctant to dig the different.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Sean Haefeli Mixtape Playlist

 Natural Hunger

01 “Let Go”

02 “Bedroom Window”

03 “Game”

04 “Carousel”

05 “Enough”

06 “Density”

07 “Guess I Was Supposed To Love You”

Sound Strategy

08 “Speaking of Race”

09 “Balance”

The food is not the same, both the physical food and the spiritual food. People drive differently, on the wrong side of the road; oh, and the words they use, especially the words they speak even to your face to tell you who they think you are, even friends and lovers can hurt with a few callous or careless utterances. Exile. It’s not a pretty picture.

In 1964 a sextet of young jazz musicians left apartheid South Africa. They were all black except for the pianist. They were an integrated group and therefore banned from publicly performing in South Africa. They were Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto sax, Nick Moyake on tenor sax, Chris McGregor on piano, Johnny Dyani on bass, and Louis Moholo on drums. Only one of them, Moholo, survives today.

They had been invited to a jazz festival in Antibes, France, which led to other opportunities. For five of them the lure of practicing and performing their art internationally was stronger than the pull to return home; Moyake fell ill with a brain tumor and went back (he died in South Africa in 1969). While work was sporadic as a South African jazz quintet, they each made their marks as innovators on their instruments.

Those were difficult days in the late sixties. They were jazz men and foreigners working in a competitive environment of struggling artists. Their exuberant music was lauded as distinctive but they were also shunned aside as too different; being African in Europe has never been easy. Their music reflected both their expertise and their unease.

Although they are considered the greatest jazz ensemble South Africa has produced, recordings of the group at work are rare. The five CD box set, The Ogun Collection, on London-based Ogun Records is the most extensive documentation available that illustrates the strengths of and the severeties suffered by this exiled band.

Only the first of the five CDs, Legacy-Live In South Africa 1964, features the full original sextet and it was informally recorded mere months before they left on their foreign travels. The music is decidedly post-bop in the vein of the famous American-based jazz label Blue Note Records. You can hear the influence of John Coltrane’s 1957 Blue Train recording and even the landmark 1959 Miles Davis Kind Of Blue recording. All these blues are no accident. As joyful and life-affirming as their music sounds, at the core of their sonic expressions burns a blue flame of pain, of suffering, but also of resistance and determination to survive and succeed against the odds.

On the fourteenth of December 1975 Mongezi Feza died. On the twenty-third of December the four remaining members came together in a studio in London and without rehearsal, or charts, or even any previous discussion they played straight through for three and a half hours. What did they play? Blue Notes For Mongezi is what the document is called. They played their lives, their loves, their struggles, their memories of their dear brother. Sometimes they sang, sometimes they shouted (literally), themes arose and receded, erupting from the sea of their experiences and the emotions those experiences engendered. It was a singular, artistic achievement.

The third and fourth CDs are of the surviving quartet of Pukwana, McGregor, Dyani and Moholo performing a gig in London at the 100 Club on sixteenth of April 1977. Although they were internationally recognized as modernists most of the music on this session are adaptations of traditional South African music, altered and re-cast in a jazz mode but roots-based nonetheless.

The fifth and final recording was another eulogy, this time for the recently departed bassist Johnny Dyani who died on October 25, 1986 in Berlin, Germany. Appropriately, the three remaining members gathered themselves to do a tribute recording the following year on August 18, 1987 in London.

The core four members Pukwana, McGregor, Dyani and Moholo recorded extensively either with ensembles that they individually led or as sidemen with other musicians but unfortunately there are no other major recordings of the group after they left South Africa in 1964. There is one recording, Township Bop, from 1964 as the band was in formation and features Pukwana compositions in the main.

The impact and influence of the Blue Notes far exceeds their meager recorded output. Although their major recordings were not done as a group, but rather as individuals working within other context, nevertheless together or apart, they represented a major achievement in jazz. They achieved legendary status internationally in a USA-dominated cultural artform.

There are not many (if any) non-American jazz bands that have had a similar impact and certainly no non-American ensemble that has achieved the same artistic success. That they were South African marks them as even more of a rarity. As the most industrialized country on the African continent, and as the most racist, the South African experience is concordantly closely aligned with the USA experience, thus it should be no surprise that jazz from South Africa is not only distinctive but also is analogous in both impact and individual expression as the American artform.

In a sense they might be considered siblings separated only by circumstance of birth place or, at the very least, close cousins who share common experiences under different but congruent racial conditions. Jazz is 20^th century expression based on a collision of cultures and economic forces under a western and racist political regime. Although born in the United States of America, it is really not surprising that jazz also flowered in a place once also known as the USA, i.e. the Union of South Africa.

Blue Notes. Considering the social conditions. It makes sense and sound, soundly so.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Blue Notes Mixtape Playlist

The Ogun Collection

Legacy

01 “Now”

02 “I Cover The Waterfront”

03 “Vortex Special”

04 “B My Dear”

Blue Notes For Mongezi

05 “Second Movement”

Blue Notes In Concert

06 “Kudala (Long Ago) > Funky”

Blue Notes For Johnny

07 “Boots Blues For Nick”

08 “Funk Dem Dudu > To Erico”

Hugh Masekela has had an amazing career in music. Louis Armstrong donated a trumpet to a school Masekela attended in South Africa. Who could have known at that time that a gifted young trumpeter was destined to develop into one of the most popular and influential musicians to emerge from the restrictive, albeit culturally rich, apartheid state of South Africa?

In 1960, after joining pianist Dollar Brand (later more widely known as Abdullah Ibrahim) and others in founding the Jazz Epistles, Hugh Masekela went into exile. The catalyst that flung him out of South Africa was the 1960 Sharpville Massacre during which 69 unarmed demonstrators were slaughtered by the police forces. Landing first in London before moving on to New York, Masekela attended school at Guildhall School of Music (England) and Manhatan School of Music (United States).

By the late sixties, Hugh Masekela began his recording career as a leader. In 1968 he produced a multi-million selling, major hit with “Grazin’ in the Grass.” Now in his fifth decade as a recording artist, Masekela is almost legendary.

The trumpet (and a little less so, the flugelhorn)is a brutal instrument to maintain over the decades. Few professionals are able to blow hard night after night and maintain both a creative edge and technical mastery beyond twenty years. Hugh has doubled-down on the average and is still going strong with Phola, a 2009 release, as well as with We Are One, a collaboration with South African producer and contemporary music sensation Black Coffee.

While we have featured Masekela before, this Mixtape will focus mainly on Masekela’s interpretation of USA Soul Music. What will be quickly apparent is regardless of the origins of the song, Masekela brings a brio to the music is infectious. Masekela understands that at root Soul music is dance music. Hugh makes you want to jump up and shake something.

This is not a collection of greatest hits, nor a sampling of major recordings from his Masekela’s storied career. No, this is just a batch of exuberant, toe-tapping music where the emphasis is on having a good time. Enjoy.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Masekela Soul Covers Mixtape Playlist

I Am Not Afraid

01 “Night In Tunisia”

Is Alive And Well At The Whiskey A Go-Go

02 “Up-Up And Away”

03 “Little Miss Sweetness”

Lasting Impressions Of Ooga Booga

04 “Cantelope Island”

05 “Masquenada”

Reconstruction

06 “Keep Me Hangin’ On”

The Promise Of Future

07 “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

Revival

08 “For The Love Of You”

Still Grazing

09 “Felicidade”

Uptownship

10 “Ooo, Baby, Baby”

11 “No Woman, No Cry”

Hugh Masekela & The Union of South Africa

12 “Hush (Somebody’s Calling My Name)”

Main Event Live

13 “People Make The World Go Round”

Almost Like Being In Jazz

14 “Betcha By Golly Wow”

Based on what I know about myself right now, what I really want to do is reach people. I want to make great music, but I also want of hope where there might not be any in their lives. My name to use that talent to lift people up, and maybe show them some degree means ‘hope’ in Spanish, and it’s a name I want to live up to.

—Esperanza Spalding

I remember when I first delved into the music of Esperanza Spalding (go here to view my lengthy profile of Esperanza Spalding). I was both impressed and curious. Of course I liked how she handled up on the bass however my curiosity was flavored with a bit of skeptical anxiety. I liked what she was doing butcould not discern what she was ultimately striving to achieve.

Her third album, Chamber Music Society, is not a music box I open on a regular. I have never liked classical music as a genre even though I appreciated some classical compositions and am very impressed with the artistry of a handful of classical musicians. When I heard that Esperanza’s third album was promoted as having a contemporary music cast, i.e. sounds that could find their home on urban radio, I thought oh no, here we go with another attempt to mix hip hop and jazz, which inevitably ends up diminishing the jazz content.

Another wrinkle in my assessment was created by the fact that Robert Glasper’s new album was Black Radio. Could it be that both Esperanza and Robert were separately attempting to create a jazz-based fusion of contemporary sounds? Now that I have heard both, I realize that these are two very, very different approaches and that I am personally much more comfortable with what Esperanza has achieved.

Part of my attraction/repulsion is that whereas Glasper is heavily hip hop influenced, Esperanza is drawing on other sources to shape her approach. In Glasper’s case I hear more hip hop and less jazz whereas Esperanza definitely draws on a wider range of jazz and popular music styles. Although neither could be categorized as mainstream jazz, and indeed might more accurately be characterized as jazz-based contemporary music, both are obviously aimed at a broad, popular audience.

I think one way to underscore their diverging approaches is that Glasper offers club music whereas Spalding presents concert hall music. Style-wise, Glasper reminds me of Herbie Hancock during his funk/fusion period and Spalding is analogous to Stevie Wonder.

My initial impression as I listened to Spalding’s new album was that she had found a way to utilize all of her musical training and diverse proclivities in the service of producing radio-friendly music that is not dumbed down to a back beat (or boom bap) with cameos by rappers and/or pop vocalists. Indeed, what immediately came to mind was “art” music in the broadest sense of “art.”

You can hear touches of classical chamber music mashed up next to Broadway show tunes, supper club/lounge lyrics followed and/or preceded by conscious protest music, classic R&B co-existing with big band jazz. Spalding’s album is an attractive quilt of musical genres unified by her attempt to use everything that’s part of her musical tastes within the context of creating music that one could possibly hear on the radio in any major metropolitan area worldwide.

Esperanza is on a major label and since winning last year’s Grammy award currently has a major marketing push behind her new album. Undoubtedly there is a tremendous amount of pressure on her to be a commercial success. Fortunately, rather than crumble or stumble and produce trendy pap, Spalding’s response is to shine diamond bright.

For example, at the 58th Academy Awards she was offered two major spots, the first a pre-telecast duo jam with Bobby McFerrin, and second a tribute solo rendition of “What A Wonderful World,” a song indelibly associated with Louis Armstrong.

The “Wonderful World” turn was pure Hollywood, which means nothing of substance, yet she managed to imbue her vocals with a sincere optimism that made the lyrics sound believable. With McFerrin she did saxophonist Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance” featuring McFerrin beat-boxing and singing with Spalding mostly playing acoustic bass and offering backing vocals. Both performances are included on the Mixtape, as is her performance at the Nobel Prize awards program at which she presented “Espera,” an original song advocating peace—and again she is on acoustic bass.

For her new album she has switched primarily to electric bass. I hope that she remains primarily an instrumentalist but I also know there will be more and more pushes from marketing to make her over into an attractive songbird, i.e. ditch the bass, just sing (and smile, and look adorable).

Although her singing voice is attractive, she’s really a middleweight whose artistry is in how well she uses her instrument rather than the pure power of her sound. Like many, many jazz artists before her, she not only makes the best of her particular sound, she turns what might be thought of as a limitation into an idiosyncratic identifying strength. Clearly, rather than rely on schmalzy bombast or extra-musical schtiks, Esperanza relies on professional musicianship as the foundation on which she builds her performances.

Clearly she has made the right choices. She is a strong performer, indeed, her live television presentation on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show of “Black Gold” and “Crowned and Kissed,” two songs from her new album, is even better than the studio recording. While the arrangements of both songs was generally the same as recorded, there was much more freedom and improvisation thusly emphasizing the jazz content.

With her pixie-like statue tiara-ed by a massive afro, Esperanza Spalding is on the verge of making the major transition from primarily a jazz artist to a popular entertainer, a cross-over epitomized by Nat King Cole. Now the question is can she sustain her success, all indications thus far are that she will exceed our expectations.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Radio Society Mixtape Playlist

Radio Music Society

01 “Radio Song”

02 “Cinnamon Tree”

03 “Crowned & Kissed”

04 “Land Of The Free”

05 “Black Gold” (special guest: Algebra Blessett)

06 “I Can’t Help It”

07 “Vague Suspicions”

Nobel Prize Performance

08 “Espera (Hold On)”

84^th Oscars

09 “Freedom Jazz Dance” w/Bobby McFerrin

10 “Wonderful World”

Jon Stewart Daily Show

11 “Black Gold”

12 “Crowned & Kissed”

The music on the 1959 Mingus Ah Um album, and to a lesser extent on the follow-up 1959 Mingus Dynasty recording, are widely considered major achievements not just as classic work in Mingus’ extensive oeuvre but also, and more importantly, as a perennial selection of critics’ top jazz albums of all time.

Coming on the heels of the forties bebop revolution, jazz bifurcated into a cool style featuring complex harmonies and intricate arrangements. Often known as West Coast jazz, the main voices were white and generally played in soft and subdued tones. An opposite approach came to be known as hard bop. These guys were heavy on the solos and played in a fiery, blues-based style.

Apropos of the commercially dominant cool jazz approach, the leading jazz group of the fifties was undoubtedly the Modern Jazz Quiartet (MJQ), an all-black ensemble who were the coolest of the cool and ended up being the longest lasting quartet in jazz history with the same four members together for over twenty years. Their music was a blend of the technical mastery of bebop with classical music but played in a cool style.

Born in Arizona, and early on associated with the West Coast, Mingus’ music was anything but cool. Even though Charles Mingus was one of the major composers in jazz history, he mostly passed on his music by ear. Although he had major arrangements, he featured long, improvised solos. Mingus’ earlier recordings on Atlantic Records featured quartets and quintets, often with only three or four long, blowing tracks that were heavy on improvisation and light on arrangements.

Ah Um and Dynasty were a major departure from well received albums such as Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956) and The Clown (1957). These 1959 recordings featured Mingus’ compositions adroitly arranged to highlight both the startling originality of the compositions themselves as well as the short but very potent solos.

Throughout the session, Mingus’ audible exhortations to his band members can be heard urging the musicians to higher and higher emotional outpourings. Rarely are we presented with such a sterling and moving recorded achievement. Noteworthy is how often the sidemen deliver some of their best recorded solos while working with Mingus. Mingus had the ability to inspire the musicians to go far beyond where they normally go on other recordings.

Rarely in the history of recorded jazz do we get such an awesome combination of quality compositions, inventive arrangements and impassioned solos. Mingus Ah Um is truly a jazz classic.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Mingus Small Band Mixtape

Mingus Ah Um
01 “Better Get Hit in Yo’ Soul”
02 “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”
03 “Boogie Stop Shuffle”
04 “Open Letter to Duke”
05 “Fables of Faubus”
06 “Pussy Cat Dues”

Mingus Dynasty
07 “Song With Orange”
08 “Gunslinging Bird”
09 “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be”
10 “Mood Indigo”

New York City-born “Jackie Mac,” as John Lenwood McLean (May 17, 1931 – March 31, 2006) was popularly known, was a renowned jazz alto saxophonist, composer and educator. Mr. McLean first recorded on Miles Davis’ Dig album when Jackie was a 19-year-old teenager. This write up is not an overview of Jackie Mac’s career but rather a brief focus on one specific composition, “Appointment In Ghana.”

From the late fifties on into the early seventies, the African independence struggles were a specific source of musical inspiration and cultural stimulation for people of African descent worldwide. Significantly, among blacks born in the United States, jazz musicians were way out front in their interest in and advocacy of African linkages. The late fifties began a major trend in bebop, hard bop and avant garde jazz circles of music dedicated to and often given African-oriented titles. A good overview of this trend is presented in the book A Night in Tunisia: Imaginings of Africa in Jazz written by Norman C. Weinstein.

Jackie McLean – Jackie’s Bag

Recorded September 1, 1960 on a Blue Note recording session for the album Jackie’s Bag featuring the leader/composer Jackie Mac on alto, Tina Brooks on tenor, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, with Kenny Drew on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. “Appointment In Ghana” is one of a major example of hard bop in all its harmonically advanced yet furiously swinging glory.

Jazz Crusaders – At The Lighthouse

The second take ups the stakes with a blistering 1962 reading by The Jazz Crusaders featuring a killer opening trombone solo from Wayne Henderson, which is matched in intensity by both Wilton Felder on tenor saxophone and Joe Sample at the piano when their respective turns arise. As strong as the front line is, it’s the unflagging swing of the bass and drum rhythm section that really makes for an exciting outing. That’s guest Victor Gaskin on bass and the founding Jazz Crusaders percussionist Stix Hooper on drums.

Howard Johnson & Gravity – Gravity!!!

Even though it was originally written and performed by a standard jazz sextet with an alto-tenor-trumpet front line, tuba player Howard Johnson and Gravity, Johnson’s surprisingly agile and melodious tuba ensemble take their turn rendering a beautiful reading of the fast paced, tricky changes on the 1996 recording Gravity!!!

Laika Fatien – Nebula

Up next is an innovative arrangement produced by Meshell Ndegeocello on French jazz vocalist Laika Fastien’s album Nebula. Here the emphasis is on the harmonic changes with suspended chords that float atop percolating rhythms. Laika voices long tones with her original lyrics offering a very fresh take on music that was over 50 years old when Nebula was released in 2011.

One Night With Blue Note, Volume 2

Jackie Mac returns for a stirring update as part of a February 22, 1985 celebration of the re-launching of the fabled Blue Note record label. The band was stellar. In addition to Jackie Mac on alto, there was Woody Shaw on trumpet, McCoy Tyner featured on piano, Cecil McBee on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. This may be a definitive reading.

Marc Carey – Focus

New millennium jazz stylings is ably represented by pianist Marc Carey on his 2006 recording Focus with David Ewell on bass and Sameer Gupta on drums. Carey manages to sound both pop and abstract; pop in the sense of an arrangement that emphasizes melodic hooks and abstract in that the solo is rhythm rich in the way Carey speeds up and slows down the tempo as the song progresses. It’s almost as if he is playing a teasing game of tag as we try to keep up with his twists and turns.

I won’t trot out the old saw that there’s something here for everyone. That’s not true. But if you are a jazz fan, I guarantee you will enjoy these fresh takes on “Appointment In Ghana,” an old and classic jazz standard.

—Kalamu ya Salaam