Episode 24, Jazzies Who Play Outside the Genre Part 1

This is part 1 a series of three, maybe four, programs featuring contributions made by jazz artists to non-jazz recordings—-mostly in the pop and rock genres.

It may be a jazz musicians only success in becoming a ‘rock and roll star’.   Although ‘star’ doesn’t fit because their contribution rarely gets mentioned.

The program starts with The Byrds and So You want to be A Rock and Roll Star, with “the father of South African Jazz”, Hugh Masekela—who played trumpet in that original 1967 recording.  A major part of the program features the late great alto sax player, Phil Woods playing one of my favourite jazz compositions, Stolen Moments, then featuring his cameos on two well known pop recordings.

I play some Miles Davis—-but not because he would ever ‘stoop ‘ to doing studio work.  I play Freddie Freeloader from the best selling album of all time because the tune’s pianist–Wynton Kelly—along with the rest of the rhythm section, put out a ‘pop’ instrumental that received a bit of radio play in 1963.

Who else?  You’ll learn how jazz pianist Neil Cowley became for a little while ‘the most listened to pianist on the planet’.  And a Vancouver drummer, Tom Foster, played on a folk/singer-songwriter album.  You’ll hear a track from that plus some more recent work he’s done with jazz pianist George McFetridge.

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