Yesterday I had a relentless melody stuck in my head from my music student days. I remember it had trilling flutes on it and was not quite a “big band”, but a combo with “Greek chorus”(lol). I remember I had made a cassette copy of the album and played it on a tape recorder in my knapsack as I tooled around on my bicycle on NDG’s streets hunting for an apartment. 

I thought the tune might be from Dexter Gordon at first, and I listened  to “Homecoming” and “Sophisticated Giant” which were both in heavy rotation around the same time and had similar elements to the melody that was both nagging and eluding me. I enjoyed revisiting these records and my memories of having seen and heard Dexter over several nights at “The Rising Sun” but this was not the melody in my head. 

Next I thought maybe it was McCoy Tyner whose “Fly Like The Wind” also was mid-seventies and was on my turntable a lot and featured a larger band. Not him. Great to hear McCoy, though. I went back to Dexter and checked the personnel on “All Music Guide”. Woody Shaw was the trumpet/flugelhorn player and I remembered having seen him in 1977 and had two of his albums that I listened to frequently around that time, “Blackstone Legacy” and “Rosewood” . I was pretty sure it was “Rosewood”, so I cued it up and sure enough that was the melody. It was like unexpectedly meeting an old friend after a long absence and catching up as if it were yesterday. The whole album brought back memories on the one hand, but also brought new surprises as if hearing it for the first time. Headphones can sometimes help you hone in on one element or the other. Last night it was Woody’s angular and daring lines and the crispness of the snare drum that I brought to the fore. I remember the large ensemble was an acquired taste at the time and I sort of shut it out. It was not what I had heard live at “The Rising Sun”. I was very into small jazz groups at the time. Miles, Coltrane, Horace Silver, Jazz Messengers, etc. The larger context has ceased to bother me. I accepted it easier now than I did then.

I felt compelled to write this and share what I feel is compelling and overlooked music that should not be forgotten. I have only included a link to the first song “Rosewood”, but I encourage you to seek out the rest of the album if you like this.