I feel like everybody knows this song. But if you’re anything like me, you’re not sure how you know it. It certainly wasn’t from the time Nancy Wilson had her first hit with it back in 1964 because I was a tiny kid at the time.

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Billie Holiday’s song Easy Living has gone on to become a jazz standard. It was also the favourite song of one of the two central characters in the film of Patricia Highsmith’s lesbian romance novel The Price Of Salt.

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When it comes to jazz and classical music, the examples I like best are when they incorporate subtle electronic undertones. That’s the case here with German composer Ralph Heidel, though that element is almost  subliminal on this track, Wake Up.

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Full disclosure: not being a jazz buff, I had never heard of Lou Donaldson who died this week at the ripe old age of 98. This is his masterpiece. (more…)

If there’s one artist I wish I’d seen live more than any other, it’s probably Nina Simone. Especially when she was a regular at Ronnie Scott’s in the 1980s. Except I had probably not heard of her back then.

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This is the perfect soundtrack for a summer’s day, with the sun shining, and the perfect video for a summer night in the city. And today seems like it might (fingers crossed) be that day – and night – at last.

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This funky tale of a vengeful black god coming to fix the injustices of the world comes from another of those lost masterpieces – an obscure album of jazz-funk matched to black-consciousness lyrics called Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse.

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Here’s a slice of smooth summery jazz-funk from Southern California’s so-called Inland Empire – the area south-east of LA that includes Palm Springs and San Bernadino.

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It’s always dangerous to try messing with perfection but this take on a Gil Scott-Heron classic stands up alongside his tribute to Lady Day and John Coltrane.

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Annette Peacock’s steamy, sinuous blues-funk jam My Mama Never Taught Me How To Cook is a sultry coming-of-age tale of sexual liberation with disturbing undertones.

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