RANDY CRAWFORD & JOE SAMPLE — Feeling Good (2006) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

After a quarter of a century in the Warner Bros. camp and five years on the recording sidelines, Randy Crawford drew a circle back to the beginning, reuniting with keyboardist Joe Sample. In turn, the old Crusader put together a genuinely distinguished rhythm section, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Steve Gadd, and called upon Tommy LiPuma to produce the disc. That combination ought to guarantee a certain floor of competence from the get-go -- and it's great to report that this disc always rises above it, sometimes considerably above it. By this time, both Crawford and Sample were established veterans -- and the music they make here seems to come so easily from within, with only minimal backing and nothing getting in their way. Gadd puts out a propulsive beat on brushes that pushes the title track along just fine -- and his work on "See Line Woman" and "Last Night at Danceland" generates something resembling the irresistible Crusaders groove, giving Sample something to trip lightly and soulfully through. Every track seems to change style with a smooth movement of the clutch -- the slinky R&B funk of "Lovetown," the gentle Latin beat of "Rio de Janeiro Blue," the pure mainstream piano trio jazz of "But Beautiful," the heavy blues atmosphere of "Tell Me More and More and Then Some," a trip back to the 1960s' Top 40 with "Everybody's Talking" (dig Randy's fervent high note that Harry Nilsson once hit in falsetto). A very gratifying release -- considering how tempting it would have been to crank this out on autopilot. Richard S. Ginell
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RANDY CRAWFORD & JOE SAMPLE — No Regrets (2008) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Randy Crawford and Joe Sample go back a long way; Crawford was featured on the Crusaders' 1979 hit "Street Life," a gem that held up pleasingly well 30 years later. And even though Crawford has generally been more of an R&B singer than a jazz singer, she is certainly quite capable of singing jazz -- which is what she does to a large degree on No Regret, a session Crawford co-leads with pianist Sample. It would be inaccurate to say that this 2009 release, which Sample produced with Tommy LiPuma, is the work of jazz purists. The musical recipe is jazz meets soul meets the blues -- in other words, soul-jazz -- and Crawford and Sample (who are joined by bassist Christian McBride and drummer Steve Gadd) enjoy a strong rapport on material that ranges from Memphis Slim's "Every Day I Have the Blues" and Clyde Otis' "This Bitter Earth" to the Staple Singers' "Respect Yourself" and Mel & Tim's "Starting All Over Again." There are some interesting surprises on No Regret; Crawford and Sample also tackle Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" with memorable results, and they even find the soul-jazz possibilities in Charles Dumont's Edith Piaf-associated "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien." That French classic, which was a major hit for Piaf in 1960, has a lot of history attached to it; it is considered Piaf's anthem (much like "My Way" was for Frank Sinatra), it has been adopted as an anthem by the French Foreign Legion -- and of course, it's a great song to crank when you want to give the middle finger to all the racist, wacky neo-cons who have an obsessive and downright irrational hatred of France (evidently, neo-cons forget where the Statue of Liberty came from). But Crawford doesn't try to emulate Piaf; she embraces an English-language version, and a song that came out of French pop works surprisingly well in a soul-jazz setting. No Regret is a consistently rewarding follow-up to Crawford and Sample's previous collaboration Feeling Good. Alex Henderson    Tracklist & Credits :

RANDY CRAWFORD & JOE SAMPLE With STEVE GADD & NIKLAS SAMPLE — Live (2012) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Randy Crawford's and Joe Sample's musical paths have been intertwined for 36 years; they began with his keyboard work on her debut album Everything Must Change in 1976. She returned the favor a couple of years later with her vocal on the Crusaders' 1978 smash "Street Life." The pair have worked together intermittently since then, but only formally recorded as a dual entity on 2007's Feeling Good, a collection of (mostly) jazz tunes and standards. They followed it with No Regrets in 2008, a collection of blues, soul, and pop tunes. Both albums were highly regarded critically. Sample's piano was aided by drummer Steve Gadd and bassist Christian McBride. Live was recorded on various European stages between October and December of 2008, immediately prior to and just after the release of No Regrets. Gadd is present here, but it is Sample's son Nicklas in the upright bass chair. The impeccably recorded program is drawn from both albums and then some. Beginning with an in-the-pocket read of "Everyday I Have the Blues," and continuing with standards from the jazz, blues, and soul books, the set is well-sequenced and feels very much like a seamless live date. There's an excellent, jazzed-up reading of "Street Life" surprisingly enough, and a shimmering take on Tony Joe White's "Rainy Night in Georgia" (that features Sample quoting from the Crusaders' "Hard Times" in his vamps and fills. There's also moving a version of Clyde Otis' "This Bitter Earth" (first recorded by Dinah Washington in 1960). The tunes that reflect the depth of Crawford's and Sample's musical relationship best, however, are in her "Almaz," and Sample's "One Day I'll Fly Away." On the former, Crawford's vocal is haunting, spare, intimate; it is underscored by Sample's elegant playing with its restrained harmonics and Spanish tinge. The latter tune was more risky. Given that the song was a hit for Crawford and is her best-known tune, the bubbling bassline and lush strings are parts of its signature. Stripping all that back for this piano-trio setting meant letting the tune's simple melody be the sole anchor for its smoldering emotion. Crawford deliberately understates it. Sample responds by filling the spaces with poetic economy and a new version emerges that is every bit as resonant. While Live is a further inscription in the collaborative book authored by Crawford and Sample, it is more, too: a classy, soulful example of inspired musicmaking.
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