Creed Taylor

Wave is the album.

Antonio Carlos Jobim, AM, Verve, 1967, and all produced by, uh, Creed Taylor, and, uh, with, uh, the, uh, string and orchestra arrangements by Claus Ogerman.

Canto de Iemanjá.

This is those Afro sambas, the Baden and Vinicius, Baden Powell, Vinicius de Moraes.

And we're going to be together again at the centennial Jobim Festival.

And, uh, he dedicated, uh, Luiz Bonfá, Domingo a Noite.

This featuring, uh, Lalo Schifrin and Oscar Castro-Neves, and Maria Helena Toledo also, on this album, Verve Records, uh, 1962, and was produced by, uh, Creed Taylor.

Um Dia Mais Claro, this is a brand-new release, uh, by, uh, Solly.

Yeah, and so when I do, it's a problem when mixing things to try and keep that dynamic range of the cymbal, because that's the first thing that goes away, you know, and it's tricky, you know, it's a tricky situation.

Yeah, and some of the earlier records that you made that I'm a particular fan of are some of the things you did in the early 70s on CTI records for Creed Taylor.

There's that Jim Hall record.

There's a Hubert Laws record.

I am your host, Josh Linsk.

This show is part of History Podcasts, where you can discover more podcasts at historypodcasts.com. Today we're diving into how the studio became a co-architect of jazz fusion, from electric guitars and synths in the late 60s to the market-making moves of Creed Taylor and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, before we swing back to Benny Goodman's clarinet magic.

Now let's get into the story behind these shifts.

Fusion first burst out of the studio walls in the late 60s, when jazz musicians were starting to experiment with electric guitars, synths, and a heavier groove that made them feel more at home on a rock setup than an acoustic combo.

The myth is that it was simply a new sound.

The reality was a deliberate studio composition strategy that sought to write tracks that could stand alone in the market, while still leaving room for improvisational fire.

That shift turned producers like Creed Taylor into co-architects of the genre, because they had to engineer recordings that balanced the jazz trio's complexity with a radio-friendly hook.

Once those tracks started selling, the myth of fusion being a fleeting experiment turned into a legacy of albums that were read as textbooks for future musicians.

[jazz music]

[jazz music][saxophone music] Saxophonist and Memphis native Hank Crawford made 12 albums for Atlantic through the '60s, and in 1970 he moved to Creed Taylor's Coodu label, a division of the very popular crossover label CTI.

At Coodu, even though Hank wasn't allowed to write his own arrangements for his records, he had quite a few top sellers.

But in 1982, he signed with Milestone Records and was soon recording with sidemen like Jimmy McGriff, Jimmy Ponder, Dr. John, an old friend from way back in Memphis, Calvin Newborn.

Yep.

They're one of the most memorable inner sleeves in music, and they're always beautifully laminated and Creed Taylor style.

They've got this style.

They always have the catalogue number huge in the bottom right-hand corner.

And Grover Washington was a side player on a Hank Crawford album, but Hank Crawford was stuck somewhere because he couldn't get out of the state because of parking fines.

This is true.

But the session, they were waiting for him at the session, and Creed Taylor went up to Grover Washington, who was just there to play the parts, and said, are you ready for it to be your record? And Grover Washington, who'd been playing with Johnny Hammond and in the CTI bands, said, sure, this will be my record.

And so he stepped forward and played all the parts.

There was a record label that came out in the 70s and 80s called CTI.

And a lot of great jazz players that weren't making great numbers in record sales, Creed Taylor would find them and say, well, we're going to put some string sweeteners on this and we're going to do some pop tunes, maybe some Beatles tunes.

And Ron's in there just laying it down on every kind of style that comes by.

Yeah, he was sort of the house bass player for years on that label, besides being on everybody else's records.

The artist is Grover Washington Jr., who sadly passed away at the age of 56 in 1999.

And the reason I've chosen it is because I've been listening to a lot of albums on the CTI label, which is Creed Taylor's label.

Creed Taylor, quite an important producer.

worked on the legendary gets gilberto album and a number of other albums then went on in the 1970s to start his own label some amazing records by joe farrell idris muhammad but i chose this particular one from grover washington jr's golden period on on cti his first hit was a song called mr magic on one of his on his second cti album And what is important is just some of the amazing musicians that were featured on these albums.

Mostly electric guitarist Eric Gale, but then just absolutely phenomenal drummers and arrangers.

And it all seemed to make sense.

And it was such a special moment with some very special people, especially the producers, Creed Taylor, who started the label, and then Bob Thiel, who took it over and became the man at John Coltrane's side when he did some of his most avant-garde, challenging music in the latter part of his career.

And all of these stories just deserve telling and were kind of speaking to me in that way.

So taking that extra information, the overflow from Love Supreme and turning it into its own story, that was the seed of that idea.