Continuing on through the annals of the music of a lifetime, keep in mind that these songs are just one man’s opinion, not necessarily favorites, but rather songs that made an Inspirational impact on my life in music.

Clearly, many of these songs are oldies but goodies.  Perhaps I too am an oldie but goodie.  Today’s music is still as impactful on my life as it ever has been, but the songs listed here are ones that inspired me in one way or another over the years.  Perhaps I needed more inspiration all those years ago, but in 40 odd years of music making, these are the ones that really made a difference to the way I listened to and perceived music.

Tonight: R&B and Jazz

R&B
1. All Night Long – Lionel Ritchie

Still today whenever I hear this song played anywhere I go, I just stop whatever I’m doing and just have to listen.  With its Caribbean flavor, infectious groove and totally terrific performance by Mr. Ritchie himself, this song set the standard for me as both song and great record.  They just don’t make ‘em any better.

2. After The Love Has Gone — Earth, Wind and Fire / David Foster, Jay
Graydon, and Chicago band member Bill
Champlin

This song is, for me, the ballad counterpart to All Night Long.  I don’t get jealous very often of other people’s work, but this one I one I would have given anything to have written.  It’s an original idea gorgeously supported by an ageless and sophisticated melody that stays in my bones always.  It’s just a beautiful song done by a great band.

3. Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder

“Sir Duke” is a song composed and performed by Stevie Wonder from his 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life. The track topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Black Singles charts.  It was written in tribute to Duke Ellington, the influential jazz legend who had died in 1974. The lyrics also refer to Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

This is Stevie, the funk master, at his best.  My favorite part?  The blistering jazz influenced horn section that is so killer that it just makes me laugh with joy every time I hear it.  Everything about this song works – from the cookin’ track to the composition to the magical voice and keyboard work of the master himself, Stevie Wonder.

Again, this is such a tough category for me to just pick 3, so I’ve had to include 3 runner ups.

RUNNER UPS

Dance To The Music – Sly and the Family Stone / Sly Stone
How Will I Know — Whitney Houston / George Merrill and Shannon
Rubicam
Up On The Roof – The Drifters / Gerry Goffin and Carole King

JAZZ
1. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue – Duke Ellington

In what has since become jazz folklore, Duke Ellington, preparing for the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, told sax man Paul Gonsalves to blow as long as he wanted during the interlude of this masterful Ellington orchestral piece.  Gonsalves created a riot as he played a tenor sax solo for 27 perfect choruses that stirred up the normally staid crowd into a frenzy.  Legend has it that the solo made a striking platinum blonde woman in a black evening dress jump from her box seat and start dancing which helped serve as a catalyst for the crowd frenzy that grew as Gonsalves played on and on.  It’s all there in the recording.

As a kid, I listened to this LP so many times that I memorized Gonsalves’ sax solo and could probably sing all 27 choruses still today.  It is music improvisation at its best supported by one of the great bands of all time.

2. The Köln Concert – Keith Jarrett

Cologne, Germany: Preliminaries to the concert were not promising.  Keith Jarrett arrived at the opera house late and hungry, and needed to eat a hasty meal before going on stage. When he was on, he found that the wrong piano had been delivered.  But his performance that night was the performance of a great improvisational artist at the height of his powers, and the subsequent recording was acclaimed by the critics and subsequently became an enormous commercial success. With sales of more than 3.5 million, it became the best-selling solo album in jazz history.

It is yet another record that I played so much that the grooves wore out and so I bought another one.  To this day, I take it out at least once a year and soak myself in the heady atmosphere of Keith Jarrett’s amazing musical gift.

3. My Romance – The Hi-Lo’s / Rodgers and Hart

The Hi-Lo’s were a close-harmony vocal quartet of the 1950’s and early 1960’s who brought the arrangement and harmonics of popular song to a standard which has seldom been equaled and never surpassed. In their time, only the Four Freshmen had acquired a comparable reputation.   They opened for Judy Garland on tour, sang at Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl and the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, the Gatlin Brothers, Manhattan Transfer and Take Six all cite the Hi-Lo’s as a major musical influence in their own harmonic and musical awakening.

As a kid, while Elvis was grinding it out and rock n’ roll was taking it’s first booming baby steps, I was up in my room entranced by the music and harmonic vocal depth of the Hi-lo’s.  My Romance was my favorite.  I didn’t even know what romance was yet, but I understood that there was something very magical about the Hi-lo’s.

And then there’s Coltrane and Miles, Ella and Frank, and Gene Krupa, my hero, and Julie Christie and Louis Prima with Keeley Smith, Chick Corea, Bobby McFerrin and so much great music that I’m completely overwhelmed by all the incredible influences in my life.

Enuf for now.  Come back tomorrow night and try it again.