After the floodgates opened in 1955, the song quickly became a staple. The amazingly varied arrangements featured in this week’s Mixtape attest to the popularity of the song. We kick off with one of my personal favorites: Ahmad Jamal’s subtle albeit swinging 1958 interpretation showcasing the classic trio of Jamal, bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernell Fournier. As always, pick your own favorite—which ever you choose, please don’t sleep on Tito Puente’s rousing latin-jazzy arrangement and I’m sure you’ll enjoy luxuriating in the intimate and intricate entwining of keys and voice offered by Jacky Terrasson and Cassandra Wilson dueting (together they are a veritable sonic definition of smoldering sexiness).

Yes, yes, Billie was right, oohhh what a little moonlight can do.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

“Old Devil Moon” Playlist

01 Ahmad Jamal – Cross Country Tour

02 Fay Victor – In My Own Room

03 Eddie Lockjaw Davis – With Shirley Scott – The Complete Cookbook Sessions

04 Tito Puente & His Orchestra – Cha Cha Cha Live at Grossinger’s

05 Henry Franklin – Music To The 5^th Power

06 Carmen McRae – The Carmen McRae-Betty Carter Duets

07 Sonny Rollins – A Night at the Village Vanguard Complete Sessions

08 Ella Fitzgerald – Live in San Francisco

09 Terell Stafford – Centripetal Force

10 Jacky Terrasson & Cassandra Wilson – Rendezvous

I spent a number of delightful hours caressed by the aural touch of Natalie Gardiner’s pithy lyrics of life. Although her work has the emotional impact of a laser-guided sledgehammer, subtly is her middle name. We don’t swig and swallow her brew, Natalie’s is a smooth elixir designed to be slow sipped and savored.

At first, or even on a second listen, her songs may not seem fully developed. Some are only a phrase or two long. The melodies are short, simple sequences oscillating within a very small sonic range. You don’t have to be a trained vocalist to sing along—except somehow our normal voices don’t match the depth of her expressiveness.

I’ve thought about Natalie’s magic. Born of a father from Ghana and a mother from Sweden, Natalie is a deep blues singer who did not grow up in a traditional blues culture and does not sound like what we mostly think of when someone says blues. But if you listen to Natalie’s themes, most of the time she is talking about loss—missed moments in emotionally broken lives: revealing the realities when the light has faded, sweetness has soured, unforgettable times have contracted into blurred and indistinct memories.

Listen closely and you can tell she is flying the flag of the survivor, the person who has spent a lifetime wading through the muck of disappointment, swimming against the tide of reoccurring unconsummated relationships, nevertheless she manages and celebrates life. She glories in carrying on; her themes may be of loss and loneliness but ultimately this is triumphant, optimistic music.

There are only three albums here. The eponymous debut album is the most heavily electronic. Her vocals are enticing and in distinct contrast to the electronics and beats, which seem cold next to the breathy warmth of her voice abetted by an acoustic guitar.

The oddly named California (odd because she has no obvious connection) is a gorgeous album, especially considering that it is the dreaded sophomore album. Matching, not to mention superseding, the debut albums is usually a difficult feat. Natalie easily clears the bar not just in  her individual performance but in overall conception and production. On California instead of sticking with a fifty/fifty vocals/electronic direction, Natalie offers us multi-tracks of her voice arranged the way the bulk of today’s artists employ electronic keyboards and horns. The effect is stunning.

California is a stylistic advance for Ms. Gardiner on which the musical accompaniment is minimized to the point that the sounds resemble hand-percussion augmented by atmospheric chords and discrete, instrumental filigrees of decorative aural ribbons. Throughout the emphasis is on the beauty of Ms. Gardiner’s enchanting voice. On one song, “Let’s Not Worry About Tomorrow,” horns are employed to stunning effect.

Then there is the third album, Northern Skies, that sounds as though it was recorded with a hidden microphone in the silence of a sad and lonely room where two usually rested but now one solitary figure moans to herself while caressing an old piano. Again, the overall sound might be subdued but this is not the sound of surrender. A diary of pain yes but at the conclusion comes “This Too Shall Pass,” a song that let’s us know that Natalie is swimming, not drowning.

You know those marvelous miniature model ships built in a bottle, Natalie’s music is like those tiny vessels: exquisitely detailed, expertly painted, amazingly constructed in a constricted place. Not many singers would dare offer such naked music as these songs are. Thank you Natalie Gardiner for this gift of quietly beautiful music.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Natalie Gardiner Mixtape Playlist

Natalie Gardiner

01 “Down On Me”

02 “
Can’t Get Rid”

03 “
I’m Satisfied”

California

04 “
Summer Rain
”

05 “On the Low”

06 “
Slowly Softly”

07 “
Come Find Me Again”

08 “
Let’s Not Worry About Tomorrow”

09 “Lonely Coming Home”

10 “Honey”

Northern Skies

11 “
You”

12 “
Say you will”

13 “
Circles”

14 “
If I ever
”

15 “Help me breathe”

16 “
Back to zero”

17 “More than you’ll ever know”

18 “Stay
”

19 “This too shall pass”

It’s hard to find new ways to write about the two us. The clarity of mind one experiences when the sunlight of a deeply moving experience hurts one’s eye. That’s the aural brush with which Bill Withers paints as he intimately, albeit pithily, describes two hearts looking and being looked at.

Sometimes he even sounds country, meaning unsophisticated, i.e. saying what is just the way it is without the adornment of pretty sentiments, sans effusive complements or even feel-good phrases of praise. No. Bill offers just the simple truth, all while avoiding the drag of worn-out lover’s lines.

While others brag about expensive champagne, Bill tells us candidly sometimes a simple glass of water is what we really need to cool us down. As we listen to Bill declaiming “Two people getting done, trying to figure who’s doing who?” we look over our shoulders to see if anyone is looking at us looking at ourselves embarrassed about all the personal quagmires we’ve stomped through.

Moreover, it’s not just the songwriting craft, Bill also has a rough-hewn voice that is beautiful in its naked sincerity. His is what you might more likely hear down to the mechanic’s shop than on a concert stage—a working man tussling with a broken motor or hacking at the stubborn shrubbery in the back yard. Hey, hand me that song about sunshine, the one with the forty-seven “I knows.”

It takes a brave man to admit his weaknesses to a person he really wants to impress. That is Bill Withers’ secret ingredient. It’s not just that his songwriting is direct and to the point. The really distinguishing factor is that most of his songs deal with contradictions, whether begging not to be pushed away or bemoaning why he’s got to go, underlying every declaration is an opposite reality that makes his songs feel stronger than they would seem if they were just a few words scribbled on a page.

Who knows, maybe it’s the halting request to pretend that everything is okay just for the moment, this moment of a chance encounter while acknowledging that yesterday didn’t work and tomorrow he will be gone. Or like he admits with a wry smile as he softly says hello, “I never would have come here if I’d have known you would be here.” Oh how too often we find ourselves doing something, going somewhere we never would have had we known. But that is life, we can never know the totality of life experiences in advance.

You can hear it in the way Bill bears down on syllables of intense expressions or backs off to near whispers expressive of vulnerability. Oh, the timeless appeal of raw honesty, especially in the midst of contradictions and inadequacy. Which is indicative of why Bill Withers walked away from the recording business when the suits tried to get him to be something other than he was. All the money in the world wasn’t worth faking it or even fooling oneself about who one really is and what one really wants to achieve in life.

So anyway, here is our first full-length Bill Withers Mixtape. We have done considerations of particular Bill Withers songs before and of course featured him amid a number of our compilations, but this is the first straight up, full length exploration of master songwriter Bill Withers. Need I say enjoy?

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Bill Withers Mixtape Playlist

01 “I’m Her Daddy” – Just As I Am

‘Justments
02 “You”
03 “Ruby Lee
”
04 “Can We Pretend”

Live At Carnegie Hall
05 “Use Me”
06 “Lean On Me”
07 “Ain’t No Sunshine”
08 “Let Me In Your Life”
09 “Hope She’ll Be Happier”
10 “Grandma’s Hands”
11 “World Keeps Going Around”
12 “Harlem/Cold Baloney”


Making Music
13 “She’s Lonely
”
14 “Paint Your Pretty Picture”
15 “Hello Like Before
”

Menagerie
16 “Lovely Day”
17 “Let Me Be The One You Need”
18 “I Want To Spend The Night”

Still Bill
19 “I Don’t Know
”
20 “Kissing My Love”

21 “Just The Two Of Us” – Winelight

22 “Watching You Watching Me” – The Ultimate Bill Withers Collection

This Badu Re-Do Mixtape is a collection of remixes and mash-ups scoured from hours of online trolling trying to come up with a truly amazing array of tunes, most of which folk have heard before in their original form. Those of us into the music are aware of the dust-up surrounding the recent video collaboration with alternative rock band The Flaming Lips that produced what became a scandalous music video (complete with full frontal nudity of Erykah’s sister Nayrok who functioned as a Badu quasi-body double). Over one weekend the video went viral and negative feedback rained down like ketchup in an ultra-cheap, home-made spaghetti western.

To me the most important aspect of the whole affair was how sad the music was. Yes, it was totally un-Badu weak and uninspiring; in fact, who would suffer through this were it not for the naked women—Erykah in a cheap bathtub and Nayrock writhing and rubbing down her body first with red (implying blood) and then cream-colored (implying ejaculate) thick liquids, obviously suggesting violence and kinky sex? Were it not for the spectacle of sex I don’t believe most Badu fans would have bothered to listen all the way through to this travesty of the Roberta Flack identified “First time” song.

And I won’t even go into a semiotic analysis of images of fully clothed white men juxtaposed with naked black women simulating sexual arousal.

Our BoL Badu Re-Do Mixtape was put together weeks before the flaming video escaped into the wilds of the internet. Moreover, this is actually the third BoL Badu Mixtape (see here and here) focusing on remixes, and this may also be the strongest of the three because of the quality of the remixes.

Erykah’s sound is distinctive not just in tone and timbre but also because of the drum in her throat. Her cadence and approach to phrasing is instantly identifiable, which means regardless of the surrounding sound-bed her vocals generate an emotional momentum of their own. It’s not just clever hooks or easy to hum melodies. Erykah’s music is a force field that encourages dreaming and experimentation. While listening to her one hears all kinds of possibilities far beyond the specifics of the original recording.

The force is so strong with Badu that the attraction is as definite and unavoidable as the earth’s gravity. Rappers fiend to spit over her beats, to have her voice wash over their flow. And don’t even talk about music producers with their favorite software and sound equipment—those cats drool for the opportunity to tweak a Badu cut. If you need evidence, simply go to the Soundcloud or Bandcamp web sites and search for Erykah, you’ll get pages and pages, and pages of Badu re-do’s.

Over the last year or so there have been literally hundreds of versions of “On & On” and maybe because I’m not an aspirant rapper I have not been bitten by the bug that causes someone to think they can come up with a killer verse to use on “Window Seat.”

That’s it. Listen to the Badu Re-do Mixtape. I rest my case.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

P.S. Seems like Badu lightening has struck twice. Over at the BamaLoveSoul music website they recently dropped a Mixtape of Badu remixes and covers. Guess what, although we present some of the same songs, there is not one duplication of versions, which reinforces my argument that Badu is the baddest force in contemporary music when it comes to attracting remixes and covers. Go here to get a free download of BamaLoveSoul Presents Y’all Feel That?: Erykah Badu Remixes, Flips & Covers.

P.P.S. *****EXTRA*****EXTRA*****READ ALL ABOUT IT > after this was posted while i was doing something else i ran into a third badu remixes mixtape and while we cover many of the same songs, there is only one song that is the same version. i can not stress too highly: if you dig badu, you must download “Chapter 2: The Wonderful Life Of Medulla Oblongata.” That is all. That is everything. You may resume the position, i.e. whatever position you was in before receiving this news flash. peace.

P.P.P.S. ****THIS SHYTE IS INSANE — now it’s the next day and i run up on this mix by japanese dj naiki (who has relocated to australia) and too is a killer diller.

badu is the absolute queen of remixes ain’t nobody else even much a silly millimeter close. what’s really crazy is that i did not set out to find a bunch of remix badu mixtapes but the universe has steered them to me or me to them, or whatever, in any case, enjoy, enjoy, go head and injure yourself with a superheavy over-dose of badu-izisms…

dj naiki has sho nuff put together something nice and nasty. check it yall… you can thank ms. badu later. see how she is changing/charging up the atmosphere on the other side of the planet. anyways go here to grab hold to some down under aural herb to zoom you up on a natural high, i.e. Badu  ’The Old and The New’ Mixtape by DJ NAIKI from Sydney. that is all for now, carry on.

Badu Re-Do Mixtape Playlist

Unfortunately these tracks are not commercially available and in a number of cases I do not even know who produced the remixes.

01 “Old School” 2Pac & Erykah Badu

02 “Real Thang” (Doo-Wop Remix)

03 “Southern Girl” (Opolopo Remix)

04 “Southern Girl” 3-4-2012

05 “On & On” (Da Boom Squad Remix)

06 “On and On” (Mercutio’s remix)

07 “Real Thang” (Mista Bright remix)

08 “Soldier (of Love)” (Sade vs Badu)

09 “Pick Your Afro” (Baduuuu Badu)

10 “Out My Mind, Just in Time” (DJ Kiva)

11 “The Healer”

12 “On & On” (Khainz & Clari Ann Bootleg remix)

13 “On & On” (Blu Mar Ten remix)

14 “Window Seat” (Soulem)

15 “Honey” (Reckonize Real remixes)

16 “Ye Yo”

17 “Next Lifetime” (Krucial Remix)

18 “On and On” (Donyea Remix)

I was never in band as a child/teenager, never had music lessons, and don’t read music or know formal theory or arrangement. What you hear is whatever comes out of my imagination and through my fingers as I play all parts on keyboard.

—Ahmed Sirour

His t-shirt tells the truth, but Sirour’s reality is deeper than face value. Obviously his attire is an announcement that this musician/producer/engineer is an authentic artist and not simply a momentary media hype. Second, the image is a reference to the iconic Blue Note jazz recordings in general and pianist McCoy Tyner specifically. Also behind the musical allusions, there is the original meaning of the phrase “real McCoy” that refers to the industrial machinery of turn of the 20^th-century black inventor Elijah McCoy whose devices were so popular and so copied that the phrase became American slang to denote authenticity.

Who is Ahmed Sirour? There’s not much I know about the background of this emerging artist except what I hear in his music and what I glean from snippets of info on diverse internet sources. His father is from the Sudan and his mother is of Barbados heritage. Sirour started late as a professional musician. He had actually been working in the corporate world but resigned to try his hand at the arts.

Ahmed Sirour is literally a self-taught keyboardist as well as a formally trained audio engineer (on the basis of his audio resume he was able to enter a master level engineering program in London that did not require a bachelor’s degree).

What attracted me to Sirour was an anomaly—very few of his peers, indeed, I would say almost none of his peers, specialize in either acoustic piano work or in focusing on the genre of ballads, which used to be called “mood music.” Sirour excels as both an instrumentalist and a quiet storm music producer.

If you listen to the mainstream radio you will seldom hear pop songs that are acoustic piano driven. Scratch “driven”; you will seldom hear an acoustic piano period. Those who used to be “pianists” are today identified as “keyboardists,” as in so-and-so “on keys.” The majority of the sounds are electronically produced, not acoustic.

While I do not believe that acoustic sounds are inherently superior to electronic sounds, I do understand that they are different disciplines. For example, most acoustic keyboards are touch sensitive while the physical keys on electronic keyboards are simply on/off devices. On the majority of keyboards audio dynamics is controlled by twisting a knob, pushing a lever, not by how hard or how soft you press down as you play. Keyboardist don’t have to develop a “touch” the way acoustic piano players do.

Moreover, when you perform ballads the dynamic range is often quite wide especially because the slowness of the tempo necessarily calls attention to the texture of the melody, if for no other reason than the listener has a longer time to consider a given note: to check out its duration and decay (does it fade or stop abruptly), to feel the use of space between notes, and to note the loudness or softness of any given note, as well as time to consider other factors.

Ahmed Sirour’s work immediately attracted me because of its gentle, wistful character. His music reminds me of Thom Bell, who was famous for revolutionizing the Philly soul sound, and of Charles Stephany, who was legendary on the Chicago scene of the seventies. Two stellar examples are Sirour’s remixes of songs by John Legend (“Shine”) and by Lalah Hathaway (“My Everything”). Until you hear the originals you may not fully appreciate how beautifully Sirour has reinterpreted these performances.

Just as the combination of an experienced contractor and an innovative interior designer can completely remake a house and produce stunning results, Ahmed Sirour has the talents and skills to completely remake a musical recording. He can keep the basic vocal track and introduce a new audio context that makes you think you are not only hearing the music anew but that you are hearing the song the way the song was actually meant to be performed.

Consider what Sirour has done with the Beatles classic, “Eleanor Rigby,” or better yet ruminate on how Sirour set a John F. Kennedy speech to music—the results are proof that you are in the presence of a musical magician. Who would have thought of mashing up The Supremes and Heavy D or completely recasting “Move Love” from Robert Glasper’s Black Radio album that features the new, female vocal ensemble of King. Sirour reconstructs “Move Love’s” bomp bap, heavy backbeat into a lilting bossa nova meets hip hop groove that is utterly captivating.

The track that completed the trifecta of winning results was the vocal version of “Love One Another” featuring vocalist Cleveland Jones. While I really dug what Ahmed did with the Eric Roberson “A Tale of Two” track, what happens on “Love One Another” is in another galaxy of accomplishment.

The lyrics don’t rely on rhyme. The vocal arrangement is a heavenly mix of acoustic bass entwined with finger snaps, enveloped by soft synth sounds surrounding subdued acoustic piano counterpoints. Jones’ plaintive and sincere vocal lead is cushioned by a female chorus. The lush song lingers in our consciousness even as it evaporates like a morning mist in the face of a glorious spring dawn.

“Love One Another” is from The After 2am Sessions LP, Ahmed Sirour’s debut release, a contemplative and even tender, intimate recording that is a unique and unusual outing for contemporary popular music. Additionally the album is mostly instrumental. Indeed, overall the music might accurately be described as soothing and that was Sirour’s intention.

The album revolves around three themes of Love: The Romantic, the Erotic, and the Spiritual. This is great music for unwinding at the end of the work day or for an early morning meditation.

Ahmed Sirour if you have not heard that name before, you will and it won’t take much longer.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

Ahmed Sirour Mixtape Playlist

01 “Move Love”

02 “Eleanor Rigby”

03 “JFK 2012”

04 “WE REP BROOKLYN!”

05 “One in a Million” (Aaliyah)

06 “Nuttin But Reflections” – The Heavy Supremes (Heavy D and The Supremes) –

07 “Little Dragon’s Twice”

08 “A Tale of Two” (Eric Roberson)

09 “Shine” (John Legend and The Roots)

10 “My Everything” Lalah Hathaway

The After 2am Sessions LP

11 “In the Moonlight”

12 “Almost Love (a one-take serenade)”

13 “Slow & Steady”

14 “Groove Nocturnal”

15 “Love One Another”

16 “Meditation”

17 “I Believe in You & Me” (an acoustic tribute to Whitney Houston)

18 “Love One Another” (The Vocal Re-Edit featuring Cleveland Jones)

This is the third of a three-part consideration of the music of composer and bassist, Charles Mingus. The previous two parts are here and here.

In jazz circles Mingus is widely acknowledged as a master bass player, band leader and composer. Three of his many recordings are regularly cited as major albums in the history of jazz recordings: Tijuana Moods, Mingus Ah Um, and today’s focus, The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady.

There is nothing else like Black Saint in recorded history. Hell, Mingus had his therapist, Dr. Edmund Pollock, write about Mingus as a therapy patient for the liner notes. If you Google The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady you will find oodles of accolades and effusive praise. This six part, four-track album deserves every kudo.

Indicative of Mingus’ mercurial and sometimes contradictory nature, the liner notes list six parts but there are three tracks on side one of the original LP and one track taking up the entire side two. It is impossible to break the fourth part down into three distinct parts. The Mixtape includes the entire eighteen-minute track four.

The band consists of eleven musicians who give their all in the service of this masterpiece. The personnel is: Mingus (double bass, piano), Jerome Richardson (soprano and baritone saxophone, flute), Charlie Mariano (alto saxophone), Dick Hafer (tenor saxophone, flute), Rolf Ericson (trumpet), Richard Williams (trumpet), Quentin Jackson (trombone), Don Butterfield (tuba, contrabass trombone), Jaki Byard (piano), Jay Berliner (acoustic guitar) and Dannie Richmond (drums).

You have ears, you can judge (and, more importantly, enjoy) the music yourself without the aid or hindrance of my notes, however I would like to make two meta (context, context, context) observations.

First, as was normal for Mingus, somehow he is able to inspire the assembled musicians to play some of their best music on record. Lead alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano is absolutely superb. I can remember vainly trying to find other recordings that feature him blowing with the passion he exhibited on Black Saint. I never found any other recordings that even hold a candle light compared to the blow-torch intensity of Charlie’s Black Saint solos.

There are many theories about how Mingus excelled as a bandleader but regardless of why or how, the solos on Mingus albums eloquently make the case: like Ellington and Miles, Mingus was able to extract massive contributions from a variety of musicians and Mariano’s incandescent alto solos are merely one set of examples.

Mingus’ regular drummer Dannie Richmond did it so consistently that he is too often taken for granted but perhaps only Elvin Jones’ twinning with John Coltrane is an equally profound match of drummer and leader. In the maelstrom of this music, three bass instruments bellowing on the bottom (tuba, baritone saxophone and Mingus’ acoustic bass) or a trio of trombone and two trumpets snarling startling exclamations, it is easy to overlook both the sensitivity and the raw power of Richmond’s drumming, always offering the proper propulsion to power the music forward. The audio engineering keeps the horns in the forefront and the percussion in the background but if you listen with earphones you can hear both how nuanced and how powerful Danny Richmond’s contribution is.

And I could go on describing other instrumental touches such as Jay Berliner crisp flamenco guitar passages or Jaki Byard’s short but superbly stunning piano solo. Suffice this brief review to point out that everyone who participated in this recording probably points to this work as a master achievement and perhaps even has the cover framed on their living room wall.

The second meta note is simply that it is easy to overlook the intricate and dynamic arranging of this compositional masterpiece. The blowing easily bowls the listener over but both the theme and the subject matter are at an awesome level of musical portraiture. You will never forget portions of this potent music once you experience The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady.This composition is no mean feat, no easy achievement. From the enticing opening drum rhythm that introduces the thematic statement on the first track to the concluding cadenza of a lone alto wailing into what sounds like the emptiness of individual deathly diminishment disappearing into an overwhelming eternity of silence, we are presented with a musical composition that is melodically rich, harmonically daring and rhythmically overwhelming; how could one man conceive of and then lead a group of musicians to articulate this profound and audacious vision of human struggle and achievement. This is one of the most profound statements of human striving for relevance ever achieved artistically. This is the music that emphatically states: I Am.

Mingus upheld the oral tradition. He taught by ear not by reams and reams of manuscript. Throughout you can hear Mingus urging on the congregated musicians as they craft a masterpiece that is simultaneously the epitome of compositional authority mated to arrangements that are redolent in rich and intricate melding of instrumental motifs. Most startling of all is the frankly sexual nature of the music. Throughout the performance, the music has all the primal power of fucking. From moments of wistful tenderness to cathartic outbursts of collective howls, this is a frankly sexual statement unmatched by any other recording I know of.

Like a major love affair this music must be experienced from beginning to end in order to be fully absorbed and appreciated. The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady: one of the true musical masterpieces of any genre or any era of recorded music.

Not as an afterthought but rather as a note of personal preference I have added a fistful of tracks from Mingus’ solo piano recording Mingus Plays Piano. I’ve always been smitten by the emotional vulnerability of that recording. Mingus is no virtuoso in terms of raw technique but in terms of nakedly expressing his visceral emotions, this recording excels.

The listener can both be impressed with the structure of the solos as Mingus develops thematic statements and simultaneously touched by the bold display of emotions inherent in Mingus’ expressive touch on the piano keys. Here is profound passion without the pretense of romance.

Think of Mingus Plays Piano as a final sip of wine after the feast of the musical banquet that is The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady.

 —Kalamu ya Salaam
Mingus Mixtape #3 Playlist

The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady

01 “Trio and Group Dancers”

Mingus Plays Piano

02 “Myself When I Am Real”

03 “I Can’t Get Started”

04 “Roland Kirk’s Message”

05 “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blues”

06 “Compositional Theme Story: Medleys, Anthems and Folklore”

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