{"id":29105,"date":"2025-03-06T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T10:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29105"},"modified":"2025-02-24T10:44:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T15:44:53","slug":"album-review-al-jarreau-wow-live-at-the-childe-harold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/06\/album-review-al-jarreau-wow-live-at-the-childe-harold\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Al Jarreau \u2013 Wow! Live at the Childe Harold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29106\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/al_jarreau_wow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/al_jarreau_wow.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/al_jarreau_wow-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/al_jarreau_wow-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>I\u2019ve written many times of the important work being done by Zev \u201cJazz Detective\u201d Feldman. Zev is an archivist par excellence, and in recent years he has brought a bounty of heretofore unheard music to market. Tirelessly traversing the globe, Feldman has succeeded in unearthing top-quality recordings few even knew existed. Among his latest discoveries is a live radio broadcast of an Al Jarreau concert.<\/p>\n<p>Recorded at the Childe Harold club (weird name, but whatever), Wow! documents at 1976 concert in Washington DC. Backed by a trio of Tom Canning (Rhodes and ARP String Ensemble), Ben Atkins (bass) and drummer Tom Drake, the versatile vocalist serves up eleven tunes. Listeners expecting to hear Jarreau\u2019s best-known material are advised to look elsewhere; at the time of tis concert, the then-36 year old vocalist had yet to break as a major star. His best-known hits (including \u201cWe\u2019re in This Love Together,\u201d \u201cMornin\u2019\u201d and the theme song from <i>Moonlighting<\/i>), his Grammy Awards and his honorary degrees were all yet a few years ahead of him.<\/p>\n<p>But the qualities that would fuel those successes were already well in place in 1976. With the superb backing of his band, Jarreau showcased his amazingly versatile vocal prowess. His extensive vocalization defines \u201cjazzy,\u201d and while it\u2019s not for all tastes, for those who appreciate it, it\u2019s brilliant. Jarreau\u2019s readings of others\u2019 songs (James Taylor\u2019s \u201cFire and Rain\u201d) are distinctive; the phrase \u201cmaking the songs his own\u201d is oft-used, but it\u2019s especially apt here. Were it not for Jarreau\u2019s brief spoken introduction, one might not immediately recognize the song. Same for Dave Brubeck\u2019s \u201cTake Five,\u201d which can only be described as\u2026 <i>weird<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>This crystalline recording captures Al Jarreau shortly before his big breakout, and is a fine addition to the man\u2019s body of work. Jarreau passed away far too young in 2017 at age 76.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve written many times of the important work being done by Zev \u201cJazz Detective\u201d Feldman. Zev is an archivist par excellence, and in recent years he has brought a bounty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,49,65],"tags":[5636],"class_list":["post-29105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-review","tag-al-jarreau","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29107,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29105\/revisions\/29107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}