With all of the Zen Desk's recent posts here about death and grief and time permanence (whatever that is), we here at the DOTM Desk decided it was time to post some of the most uplifting and life-affirming music we could possibly imagine, so naturally we turned to Blue Note Records and naturally we found ourselves listening to Herbie Hancock. We said before that we were going to start posting more Herbie, and it's hard not to - the man is sort of the Zelig of jazz: during most of the essential and transformative recordings in jazz history since at least the 1960s, Herbie was somehow usually in the room and usually on piano.
Here's Cantaloupe Island featuring the late, great Freddie Hubbard on trumpet (the Zen Desk is chiming in that since we can still enjoy Freddie, and some of us can still now discover him for the first time, it somehow makes a point they were trying to explain earlier this week). Cantaloupe Island was composed by Herbie and first recorded for his 1964 album Empyrean Isles while he was a member of Miles Davis Quintet. This 1985 video features the musicians from the original recording, including Hancock, Hubbard, living legend Ron Carter on bass, and the American treasure Tony Williams on drums, with the addition of the professorial Joe Henderson on tenor sax.
By the way, if the music sounds familiar to you, congratulations, you're familiar with jazz, or else, and this isn't meant pejoratively, you remember US3's 1993 album, Hand On The Torch, and its lead single, Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia).
By the way, if the music sounds familiar to you, congratulations, you're familiar with jazz, or else, and this isn't meant pejoratively, you remember US3's 1993 album, Hand On The Torch, and its lead single, Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia).
By the way, the voice at the beginning of the song is that of Jimmy Scott, who we saw perform at Variety Playhouse in 2003.
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