... always after hours, always

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m-CYVXneMfr7eRmiRhDrUdVx6-WnY6t2E Hank Crawford "After Hours" With the blues it is always after hours, always (as Scott Fitzgerald wrote) three o'clock in the morning, that dark, lonely time when the horns seem to sing, "Go down sunshine and see what tomorrow brings." It's not time on a clock, it's a time of the soul. For soul is not obsolete, or, if it is, then Man is obsolete and doesn't know it. "Blues" and "soul" are not mere words nor merely the trade toys of fashion, but the realest of real things. This, as the straightest line, brings me to Hank Crawford, a man of soul who knows the blues and happens to be a jazzman. Crawford, of course, is well-known nowadays as alto saxophonist, and pianist, of top rank, a musician who for a number of years was at the center of the Ray Charles organization. To me personally (and to many others) he is that increas ingly rare type of artist, who, far from having to take far-out leaps to establish his identity, is creative enough to fit into a still viable jazz mainstream and yet completely realize himself. Penetrating writers like Ralph Gleason have written how "Hank Crawford's music really does speak for itself...eloquently, elegantly ..." Others have noted that Crawford can live a ballad without needing to replace it with a new composition squeezed from the old chords. Still others, like Nat Hentoff, have observed that "there's no telling where Hank Crawford's blues stop, and where his ballads begin." The recorded saga of Hank Crawford began five years ago with More Soul (Atlantic 1356) and this present album is Chapter Seven. He has inscribed some memorable blues, ballads, and soul, with each successive album adding to the story's completeness. ... Hank Crawford can also be heard on the following Atlantic LPs: Dig These Blues (1436); True Blue (1423); Soul Of The Ballad (1405); From The Heart (1387): The Soul Clinic (1372); More Soul (1356). ... I would like to speak in general terms of what I believe Hank Crawford's music is about. First of all, whether on alto or keyboard, it is strongly and clearly communication of a most personal kind. Yet it carries the import of broadly universal statement. This can only be because in a faceless age Crawford remains a whole person; in a landscape of fragmentation he clings to continuities; in a time of destruction he keeps on building. He is affirmative. He is the "true believer." If the blues are at the heart of his music, that is in part because the blues are at the heart of all human life, black or white, anywhere in the world. The blues, as Crawford shows, are even the key to the strong vernacular of American popular music. He does not transform a ballad into blues. He simply penetrates to the blue core that has been at the heart of our popular song in the long half century since W. C. Handy first wrote out the song of his people and made it everyone's song. Crawford knows where the night hides in the bright measures, and where the cry lingers so darkly on the half-minor thirds and sevenths of most American music, from spiritual to blues to ballad. The light and shadow, the joy and the blues, are all here. You will hear them in the chanting brass-and-reed antiphonies of Soul Shoutin', in the dark canticles of After Hours, and in the amazing rightness with which Makin' Whoopee goes home again. That frothy little song that Eddie Cantor sang, here becomes a slow-swinging majestic kind of spiritual. Why not? Mainstream is mainstream. Meaning is where you find it. But music's meanings are music's own. I can only say: Hank Crawford's meanings are his. There they are in his music — no matter how inexpressible in words — frank, full, open and honest, for everyone to hear. Don't miss them! -- RUDI BLESH (album notes) -------- Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. (December 21, 1934 – January 29, 2009) was an American alto saxophonist, pianist, arranger and songwriter whose genres ranged from R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, and soul jazz. Crawford was musical director for Ray Charles before embarking on a solo career releasing many well-regarded albums for labels such as Atlantic, CTI and Milestone. Crawford was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. He began formal piano studies at the age of nine and was soon playing for his church choir. His father had brought an alto saxophone home from the service and when Hank entered Manassas High School, he took it up in order to join the band. He credits Charlie Parker, Louis Jordan, Earl Bostic and Johnny Hodges as early influences. Crawford appears on an early 1952 Memphis recording for B.B. King, with a band including Ben Branch and Ike Turner. In 1958, Crawford went to college at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee. While at TSU, he majored in music studying theory and composition, as well as playing alto and baritone saxophone in the Tennessee State Jazz Collegians. He also led his own rock 'n' roll quartet, "Little Hank and the Rhythm Kings". His bandmates all thought he looked and sounded just like Hank O'Day, a local saxophonist, which earned him the nickname "Hank". This is when Crawford met Ray Charles, who hired Crawford originally as a baritone saxophonist. Crawford switched to alto in 1959, and remained with Charles' band — becoming its musical director until 1963. When Crawford left Ray Charles in 1963 to form his own septet, he had already established himself with several albums for Atlantic Records. From 1960 until 1970, he recorded twelve LPs for the label ... -- Wikipedia ----------/ Great Instrumental Music