Last spring I was challenged by a friend on Facebook to list seven discs for a pandemic. Looking back, I don't see any good reason to change my mind here.
Seven favourite discs, Day 1: Hope by Hugh Masekela. Recorded live in a Washington DC club in 1994 when Mandela was still in jail and Masekela didn't dare go home. Gorgeous trumpet and flugelhorn, Western jazz layered on to African rhythms, all superb music in support of strong political content. I love Frank Zappa but sometimes the political content got in the way of the music... not a problem here. This includes Masekela's only top 40 hit, Grazin' in the Grass, an instrumental trumpet number that ironically displaced a Herb Alpert number from the #1 spot. And the last track, Stimela, about migrant workers from all across Southern Africa taking the steam train (stimela) to work in the mines of Johannesburg, is the most heartbreaking railway song I've ever heard. Totally infectious. (My kids are probably thoroughly sick of it by now).
Seven
favourite discs, Day 2: Ry Cooder and Corridos Famosos, live in San
Francisco, 2011. Cooder is well known for backing obscure artists (the
Buena Vista Social Club series of discs, Cuban guitarist Manuel Galbán
on Mambo Sinuendo, Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré on Niafunké, among
many others) and for his trenchant political commentary (My Name is
Buddy). This disc sees him up front with a Latin band backing him,
instead of being in the background. Great stuff! And it even has a
decent accordion version (!) of Wolly Bully (!!). Bet you never thought
I'd say anything even remotely like that. 
Seven
favourite discs, Day 3: N'Awlinz Dis Dat or D'Udda, by Dr John. It's
hard to pick just one disc by the good Doctor. Every disc is a veritable
gumbo, sort of a funky jazz blues soul Creole Cajun Voodoo swamp rock fusion thing.
Each disc starts with a solid funk base but continued with a different
main ingredient. (Remember Right Time, Wrong Place?) But he has put out
two discs dedicated to his musical sources in New Orleans. Some may
prefer the earlier Goin' Back to New Orleans, but this one covers the
gamut and includes guest appearances by Mavis Staples, BB King, Clarence
Gatemouth Brown, Cyrille Neville and his brothers, and even Willie
Nelson and Snooks Eaglin. It covers the whole range: foggy string-laden
Quatre Parishe, creepy Marie Laveau, soulful Lay My Burden Down, a
proper dirge-like version of When the Saints
Go Marching In (straight off Bourbon Street), the list goes on. Superb. 
Seven
favourite discs, Day 4: Black Ivory Soul, by Angélique Kidjo. Kidjo has
a tremendous voice and pushes a solid West African dance vibe on most of her discs.
(She also does gorgeous versions of Gimme Shelter and Voodoo Chile, both
of which could have been the "original" version). On this disc she
crosses the Atlantic from her home in Benin to work with the Brasilian
Bahia community to wonderful effect. Think The Girl From Ipanema cranked
up to, say, 6, but still a lot more subtle than her other offerings;
and she ends with a version of Ces Petits Riens that sounds as if it had
been written by João Gilberto. A gorgeous example of trans-Atlantic
collaboration that doesn't involve the US or Western Europe. And I
suspect my kids are completely sick of this disc as well.
Seven
favourite discs, Day 5: Jazz Party, Duke Ellington. It's hard to pick
one Duke Ellington disc. This one is perhaps atypical, although Duke experimented at lot more than people give him credit for. Two tracks are
perhaps more traditional, written for jazz orchestra and tympani section
(Malletoba Spank, Tymperturbably Blue), and take full advantage of the
timbre of all the different instruments. The rest of it is a bit of a
jam session and thus looser than the usual Ellington effort. You can see
the band is having a riot. Toot Suite has six parts, each written for a
specific soloist, and culminates with Ready Go!, a blistering 8 minutes
of Paul Gonsalves' sax propelled by the rest of the band egging him on.
The last piece, called Hello Little Girl, illustrates the breadth of
the jazz format: starting off as a slightly loungy piano trio (with
Jimmy Jones, not Duke, on piano), it becomes a swing band as the horns
lean in, then suddenly it's a Kansas City blues piece as Jimmy Rushing
shouts the lyrics. Dizzy Gillespie turns up and presto! it's a bebop
number. (The first couple of bars of Dizzy's contribution are marred
because he was too far from a microphone, and one can imagine a tech scrambling to get him a mike). The song wraps up with all the different strands woven together. Brilliant! Beautiful music as always
from Duke, but in a somewhat more relaxed, unrehearsed setting. The
title says it all. 
Seven
favourite discs, Day 6: Robert Charlebois and Louise Forrestier. If you
are of a certain age and grew up in Québec, you've heard this, if not
the entire disc then certainly the single Lindberg. My Dad the English
professor turned me on to this ... For the rest of you: Lyrics, of
politics and love, by famous Quebec poets and singers; killer backing
vocals by Louise Forrestier; Le Nouveau Jazz Libre du Québec supporting
it all. A gem -- every time I put it on it's 1968 again. (I've still got
Dad's vinyl copy with the lyrics printed on a separate sheet inside). And my son, born in 1990, had heard it when I dug it out for the first time about 20 years ago.
Seven favourite discs, Day 7: Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis. 'Nuff said. 
So what are your seven (or ten) desert island discs?
Seven
favourite discs, Day 3: N'Awlinz Dis Dat or D'Udda, by Dr John. It's
hard to pick just one disc by the good Doctor. Every disc is a veritable
gumbo, sort of a funky jazz blues soul Creole Cajun Voodoo swamp rock fusion thing.
Each disc starts with a solid funk base but continued with a different
main ingredient. (Remember Right Time, Wrong Place?) But he has put out
two discs dedicated to his musical sources in New Orleans. Some may
prefer the earlier Goin' Back to New Orleans, but this one covers the
gamut and includes guest appearances by Mavis Staples, BB King, Clarence
Gatemouth Brown, Cyrille Neville and his brothers, and even Willie
Nelson and Snooks Eaglin. It covers the whole range: foggy string-laden
Quatre Parishe, creepy Marie Laveau, soulful Lay My Burden Down, a
proper dirge-like version of When the Saints
Go Marching In (straight off Bourbon Street), the list goes on. Superb.
Seven
favourite discs, Day 4: Black Ivory Soul, by Angélique Kidjo. Kidjo has
a tremendous voice and pushes a solid West African dance vibe on most of her discs.
(She also does gorgeous versions of Gimme Shelter and Voodoo Chile, both
of which could have been the "original" version). On this disc she
crosses the Atlantic from her home in Benin to work with the Brasilian
Bahia community to wonderful effect. Think The Girl From Ipanema cranked
up to, say, 6, but still a lot more subtle than her other offerings;
and she ends with a version of Ces Petits Riens that sounds as if it had
been written by João Gilberto. A gorgeous example of trans-Atlantic
collaboration that doesn't involve the US or Western Europe. And I
suspect my kids are completely sick of this disc as well.
Seven
favourite discs, Day 5: Jazz Party, Duke Ellington. It's hard to pick
one Duke Ellington disc. This one is perhaps atypical, although Duke experimented at lot more than people give him credit for. Two tracks are
perhaps more traditional, written for jazz orchestra and tympani section
(Malletoba Spank, Tymperturbably Blue), and take full advantage of the
timbre of all the different instruments. The rest of it is a bit of a
jam session and thus looser than the usual Ellington effort. You can see
the band is having a riot. Toot Suite has six parts, each written for a
specific soloist, and culminates with Ready Go!, a blistering 8 minutes
of Paul Gonsalves' sax propelled by the rest of the band egging him on.
The last piece, called Hello Little Girl, illustrates the breadth of
the jazz format: starting off as a slightly loungy piano trio (with
Jimmy Jones, not Duke, on piano), it becomes a swing band as the horns
lean in, then suddenly it's a Kansas City blues piece as Jimmy Rushing
shouts the lyrics. Dizzy Gillespie turns up and presto! it's a bebop
number. (The first couple of bars of Dizzy's contribution are marred
because he was too far from a microphone, and one can imagine a tech scrambling to get him a mike). The song wraps up with all the different strands woven together. Brilliant! Beautiful music as always
from Duke, but in a somewhat more relaxed, unrehearsed setting. The
title says it all.
Seven
favourite discs, Day 6: Robert Charlebois and Louise Forrestier. If you
are of a certain age and grew up in Québec, you've heard this, if not
the entire disc then certainly the single Lindberg. My Dad the English
professor turned me on to this ... For the rest of you: Lyrics, of
politics and love, by famous Quebec poets and singers; killer backing
vocals by Louise Forrestier; Le Nouveau Jazz Libre du Québec supporting
it all. A gem -- every time I put it on it's 1968 again. (I've still got
Dad's vinyl copy with the lyrics printed on a separate sheet inside). And my son, born in 1990, had heard it when I dug it out for the first time about 20 years ago.
Seven favourite discs, Day 7: Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis. 'Nuff said.
So what are your seven (or ten) desert island discs?
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