Soul Jazz is a development of jazz incorporating strong influence from the blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. It received mainstream popularity during the 50’s and 70’s and is often associated with hard bop. In fact, it has been referred to as an outgrowth of hard bop, and is described as music with “an earthy bluesy melodic concept with repetitive dance like rhythm”. The term “funk” and “soul” appeared in the jazz scene as early as the 50’s and was greatly influenced by the music of Ray Charles, Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Hank Crawford. Other musicians who later joined this group were Grover Washington, Stanley Turrentine, Kenny G and a few more. It should be noted however, that some people make no distinction between soul jazz and funky hard bop. Our feature this week is on someone with strong roots to Gospel music and also someone whose music has been very influential and contributory to what is known as soul jazz.
His birth name was Grover Washington and he was born in Buffalo, New York, U.S.A. on December 12th, 1943. His mother was a member of their church choir and performed as a chorister. His father was a part time saxophonist and a collector of old jazz gramophone records. As a child growing up, Grover had music all around him and was fond of listening to great jazzmen and big band leaders like Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson and others. When he turned eighteen, his father gave him a saxophone which he used to practice and would at times sneak into clubs in Buffalo to see and hear famous Buffalo musicians. His younger brother Darryl would follow in his footsteps and became a drummer.
Grover would later leave Buffalo and first played with a group from the Midwest of the country called The Four Chefs, and then with the Mark 111 Trio from Mansfield, Ohio. Soon after, he was drafted into the U.S. army where he met drummer Billy Cobham who was already part of the music mainstay in New York City. Billy introduced him to a lot of New York musicians and after leaving the army, he freelanced his talent in the New York area, eventually landing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1967. In 1971, he featured in Leon Spencer’s first two albums on Prestige Records with Idris Muhammad and Melvin Sparks. His first break came when alto saxophonist Hank Crawford was unable to make a recording date with Cred Taylor’s Kudu Records where Grover was billed as a backup. He was then called to fill in for Crawford and this gave him a chance to display his talent on the soprano, alto, tenor and baritone in his first solo album- Inner City Blues.
In the 70’s and 80’s Grover made some of the most recognized and memorable music in the smooth jazz genre, including Mister Magic- Reed Seed- Black Frost- Winelight - Inner City Blues and Let it Flow. Although his early albums had established him as a force in Jazz and Soul music, it was his fourth album in 1974, Mister Magic which proved to be a major commercial success. The album climbed to number 1 on the Billboard’s R&B album chart, and number 10 on Billboard’s top 40 album chart. The title track reached number 16 on the R&B singles chart. In all these albums, he had Eric Gale on guitar who would become a permanent fixture in Washington’s music. In 1975 he did a follow up on Kudu Records with the album – Feel So Good which also made number 1 on Billboard’s R&B album chart. Both albums Mister Magic and Feel So Good, became major parts of the Jazz Funk Movement of the mid 70’s.
Washington had a string of acclaimed records in the 70’s culminating in the signature tune for everything he would do from then on-Winelight. This defined all that he was about after having signed with Elektra Records which was part of the major Warner Music Group. The album was smooth, fused with R&B and easy to listen to. His love for basketball especially the Philadelphia 76ers led him to dedicate the second track – ‘Let it Flow’ to Dr. J (Julius Erving) The highlight of the album was his collaboration with Bill Whithers in 1981 in the song - ‘Just the Two of Us’ which peaked to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 listing. The album went platinum in 1981 and won a Grammy award in 1982 for best R&B song and Winelight was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
Along with Wes Montgomerry and George Benson, Grover is considered by many as one of the founding fathers of the smooth jazz genre. He was a song writer who wrote most of his own material and later became an arranger and producer. In addition to recording, he also performed frequently with other artists including Bill Whithers, Patti Labelle and Phyllis Hyman. He also made his own rendition of Dave Brubeck’s classic –‘Take Five’. He is credited for bringing Kenny G to the forefront as well as other musicians such as George Howard, Najee, Walter Beasley and Pamela Harris.
Grover passed away on December 17th 1999 after suffering a massive heart attack at the studios of CBS television in New York City.
