‘WOW!’ Al Jarreau’s Lost Live Recording

It will be released on November twenty ninth, Yes Black Friday, as a limited edition to LP set at select independent record stores, but you can pre order it online now. Joining me to talk jazz and diro Is music journalist and musicologists.

the most incredible interviews I've ever had. I most particularly remember having him break down every lyric that he wrote for a song called Oh Remarking Me that was written by Jose Aweno and then heed it into a song called something that You Said, and for him to break down every single line of it because it was very metaphorical and poetic and win in so many directions. And he loved doing it because I don't think anybody had

ever asked him to do anything like that before. And I just had a ball listening to him as a lyricist, you know, really breaking down lyricists. We all know that he was an incomparable singer, but just a really warm guy, a smart guy, a lot of humanity for the world, just an honor man. And I saw him a concert at least ten times, and it was always like Uncle Ale on stage, rocking it and bringing you good times, you know, just bringing the good times.

and stuff. My parents had great had a great record collection as well, but we did not have Algio and that record was a two album set live in Europe, and I just felt like the hips kid on the planet getting into him doing things like take five, the great Dave Grupbek song, and all of his gymnastic vocals on that, you know, his mouth percussion and a whole solo of this acapella you know, mouth beats, you know, before the human and beat box, before hip hop, al

was doing this thing, man, And then beautiful songs like We Got By, and particularly one called you Don't See Me, which is also on this new project, and it's one of the songs I was most interested in bringing to your attention because it's a song he recorded many times, but most people kind of never got it or you know, it wasn't ever really talked about in the press, and it's probably his most you know, militant socio political tune from a black man's point of view. You know, it's

talked about you don't see Me. You know, I'm out here doing the best I can. I'm beating the pavement and you don't care. And so guess what, you know, I'm just going to flip the script, and it's kind of about how the seeds of gangsterism and crime and whatever well up and certain brothers in the hood because they haven't been seen, they haven't been given a chance. It's kind of like a chin to songs like Little Child Running Wild from Superfly or The Whispers had a

song that was also along the same lines. But most people think about Bro like you said, moonlighting and they're in this love together and mourning, and you know, they think of him as his great jazz vocalist of that. But when he wrote his own material, a lot of it was very deep. And that particular song is on the new project. It's on originally from his album, his very first album, We Got By. He did it on Look to the Rainbow. He did it again on Tenderness Like.

He never let that song leave his live performances in Cannon, but for whatever reason, it never got a lot of focus. I definitely want to point your listeners in the direction of that particular song. The album has love songs, it has a lot of fun things on it, and you get to hear Al sing al on stage and just personable, good humored guy. But I definitely direct people to the

song you Don't See Me. It'll be eye opening for a lot of people, and I think it's super relevant once again with what we have going on and about to go on in this country.

but he's really not. He's just somebody that incorporated jazz in a very fluid and proactive way in his music. But his music had some of everything in it. And because of that, I think he touched a lot of different niches, but there's very few people that just have really absorbed a wail of what that brother was about. Just an incredible, all around original, one of a kind musician.

jazz scene. I know that first dand but it struck me that this performance of Algio was his first in Washington, DC. And I think he was around thirty six at the time. Why do you think, and there's no way to know, but why do you think it took him so long to make his way to DC.

was playing, you know, once a week. He had a residency, and you know, he just really started there and his music was very grassroots, so he didn't initially once he got signed to Warner Brothers, he wasn't getting to do a whole lot of traveling because his records didn't warrant the sales. You know, they're trying to figure out what to do with them. They knew they had a talented cat, but they didn't quite know exactly how to promote him and get him heard. So it's through the radio station.

I think it was WHYZ, but also have to say that the Quiet Storm station most likely had something to

do with it as well. Was WHR. Howard University. They you know, you have a cosmopolitan kind of an audience in that area and people that are arts oriented and people that are open minded and into new things, and it was a natural kind of peach dish for an artist, a black man from Milwaukee who's doing, you know, cover material of James Taylor in a soulful way and also writing songs and as a little gospel and little R and B and little jazz in the mid seventies when

you know, there are aspects of the country that are coming together a little bit more, a little more unity, a little more being into what's going on the other sides of the fences. I was like the perfect artist to blossom in that kind of environment. And he was conscious, but he was also artful, and he was also you know, I think he just had an appeal as an artist that everybody could get into because he wasn't threatening, but he also wasn't a pushover.

But I mean, in that place, man, I'm sure he was loving it, but also very nervous because Quince he put him right there. You're right there with Bob Billon, You're right there with Tina Turner, You're right there with Lionel all the big people of the day. And he was an anomaly, you know, because people were still looking at him as a jazz musician, and the early fans,

some of them kind of resented, you know. You get you know, the fans that like you certain way, and they might have felt he got too commercial and he got tupop and he has videos on MTV and BET and VH one more likely more VH one be et and it's like, you're getting away from the jazz, You're getting away from the adult music that we really like from you, you know. But at heart, Al always had

an identity issue. You know. There were audiences that really looked at him as a jazz artist, but his heart was way bigger and it didn't always sit well with him that people wanted him to just go back and be that guy that he started off as. He really had superstar aspirations and that's why his music took the changes that it did, and it they did him a larger audience, but of course he never became as big

as the others. He was a platinum seller and a multi Grammy winner, but I think at the end of the day, by the end of his career, he was back to doing pretty much jazz material, working with jazz bands, big bands, classical orchestras in that sort of thing.

edition two LP set at select independent record stores. Music journalists and musicologists. A. Scott Galloway has been joining me since the top of the hour. We're talking about the life, career and legacy of Algio. Now, Scott, let's get into Algiou Wow Live at the Child Herald in Washington, d C. Give us some context as to why this album is and what it is.

But in the case of al Gireau, what we've all learned over the years is that his records were one thing, but seeing him live was another. And to hear the material that he is doing in this concert, with the reprotee that he has and the vibe that he gets and develops with the audience, it's just really special. I mean, his next official album, after Blow, which is the one that he was throwing for at the time, was a live record and he was before a much bigger audience

in Europe. But this one captures him two years earlier, actually about just a little over a year earlier, and he's developing all the things that became special. You hear some of the editing that happened with him later, where he was refining things. Here on Wow, it's more raw. You hear him working things out that would become staples of his act. His balancing act of all different styles of music, is balancing act of humor and social commentary, is balancing act of R and B and pop and

all that jazz. And it's just him with a trio. Tom Canning is the keyboard player that he brought with him from Los Angeles. They got two pickup musicians on bass and drums, and they just we're just going to town. Man. It's like hearing somebody just about to truly be born. It's just like nothing that you're going to hear. If you're an algi Ro fan already, you're going to be

thrilled to hear this. And if you haven't really gotten into him before, they're going to be like, wow, you know, this is a raw document of something amazing that was just about to break on the bubble.

the tapes were actually lost. It was a radio broadcast and so it was and it happened to be recorded very well, and it happened because it was for broadcast, and then it was just kind of set aside, and it was not the kind of thing that anybody ever back in the day thought was going to be you know, released as a commercial viable product, you know, but you know, to the radio station and the venues, good credit, you know, it was something that was never wiped, never he raised.

It was just set aside. And the story is that zeb Feldman, who's the producer of this project, uh and he's world famous as his nickname the Jazz Detective. He happened to have a conversation with Algero where al told him about the first time he played in Washington, DC and at the Child Herald and and what a great performance it was. And then Zev was having a conversation with someone else decades later. It happened to be someone that said, oh, yeah, we you know, we have I

have a recording of that. You know, I was the engineer for that particular radio station at the time, and you know we still have the tapes. And Zev, a big Algio fan, you know, lost his mind. It was such a beautiful coincidence, such an incredible find, you know, for Ou to have mentioned that to him and then for him to meet this guy that actually has the tape. They didn't have to do a whole lot of fixing

or digging or whatever. They really just had to deal with making sure that the rights were fine with the Alt d Row of State and with Warner Brothers, who he was signed to you at the time. Warner's you know, huge company. Now, I don't think they were necessarily just had to sign off on it. They it wasn't something

they were going to try to claim. And it's perfect for it to be coming out through Residence Records and everything that Zev is doing because he's been covering everybody from Bill Evans to Wes Montgomery and all these other things that he's been so awarded and honored for finding these old tapes and everything. So it's perfect for this kind of a project to come out thro him because it's a little different for Zev, you know, mostly straight

ahead jazz things he's done. This is an amazing crossover project that will have a broader appeal some of the more traditional jazz pieces that he's done.

I've known you for at least I want to say thirty years at this point, and absolutely I've never shied away at the opportunity to talk music with you. You love music arguably more than I do, and I love it a hell of a lot, so there was no one else I would want to have this conversation with than you.