America the Beautiful, billed by its composer as “America’s first protest symphony,” is certainly Gary McFarland’s magnum opus. But it is not the McFarland album most people remember nearly some six decades later. That honor probably belongs to either the Stan Getz and Bill Evans albums he waxed for the jazz diehards or Soft Samba…
Gary McFarland & Co. – “Does The Sun Really Shine on the Moon?” (1968)
Depending on how you count, Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? is the first of either three or five discs composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist Gary McFarland (1933-71) recorded for the Skye Recordings label he co-owned with friends and fellow performers vibraphonist Cal Tjader and guitarist Gabor Szabo. The three records include this…
Armando Peraza – “Wild Thing” (1968)
Wild Thing (1968) is the only disc Cuban percussionist Armando Peraza (1924-2014) released under his own name during his lifetime. It is also the fifth disc released on the short-lived Skye Recordings, the label founded earlier that year by musicians Gary McFarland, Cal Tjader and Gabor Szabo. If it did nothing other than offer a…
Gary McFarland – “Today” (1970)
This mostly melancholy – sometimes even downbeat – album boasts vibraphonist, vocalist, composer and arranger Gary McFarland (1933-71) in a set devoted largely to pop covers of the day and “Soft Samba”-styled Bossas (despite that fad having largely been done by 1970). It is peopled, however, with a superb cast of A-list jazz talent, including…