Alive! - City Life

You know, playing this today reminded me of how hard it was to hear tunes you loved back in the old days. To hear this tune, for instance, I had to go out to hear a DJ play it, or listen to a pirate radio show that might play it. If I knew what it was called, I could go to one of a few specialist record shops who might have it or if I didn’t know the name, I could hum it to them - either way, I’d pay top dollar. It’s so easy now. But not necessarily better.

This is one of those records I would have loved to have had in the old days. I never knew what it was called until I looked it up on the internet and bought a copy a few years back.

It almost goes without saying that I bought this album for Skindo Le Le, a tune (TUNE!) which immediately takes me right back to the jazz rooms of the early eighties. That intro, that build, that climax! It still gives me a visceral response. And, honestly, this is my preferred version over Viva Brasil’s original.

And God, how we loved an alto sax in the 80s.

It was a staple of West Coast and Japanese jazz. Of course, this album, out of the San Francisco Bay area, is thick with it. And scat.

I never realised until today that Alive! were an all-woman group.

The rest of the album’s a bit meh. Very meh, in fact.

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