Vibraphonist Gary McFarland was one of the most fascinating and freshest arranger-composers of the 1960s. Between 1961 and 1971, he recorded more than 30 albums, ranging from Anita O'Day's All the Sad Young Men and The Gary McFarland Orchestra: Special Guest Soloist—Bill Evans to Soft Samba, The October Suite, with Steve Kuhn, and America the Beautiful, his masterpiece. He also arranged for Gerry Mulligan's Concert Band. And then he died tragically in November 1971.
In 2006, producer-director Kristian St. Clair released his knockout documentary This Is Gary McFarland. Then in 2014, he issued a CD of McFarland's music plus a DVD of the documentary, but it soon went out of print. Kristian and I stayed in touch over the years, and I often wondered what happened to the documentary. I also said that if he ever wanted to make the film available via streaming at JazzWax, I would be overjoyed as would readers worldwide.
So imagine my excitement when Kristian wrote me last week with two pieces of great news. First, he was willing to let JazzWax readers view the documentary for free until year's end. And second, his new LP, Soft Samba Live!, recorded at Seattle's Penthouse club in 1965, is now available on his Light in the Attic label.
Because his label's warehouse is now in the process of moving, the LP won't be at Amazon until early next year, but you can find it now at Dusty Groove here. Here's Pecos Pete from Gary McFarland's Soft Samba Live!, featuring Sadao Watanabe on tenor saxophone and flute, Gabor Szabo on guitar, Eddie Gomez on bass and Joe Cocuzzo on drums...
As for This Is Gary McFarland, one of the great jazz documentaries of all time, here's Kristian's and my holiday gift to JazzWax readers everywhere: Go here and use the password GaryMac. A big thank you to Kristian St. Clair. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
JazzWax note: You'll find my earlier posts on Gary McFarland here and here.
