Full tracks below:
"Night Train" was first recorded by Detroit's Jimmy Forrest in 1951. Forrest got the writer credit, but the riff was developed in the Ellington band, when Johnny Hodges led the sax section. Notable covers soon followed by Earl Bostic, Philadelphia's Rusty Bryant, New Orleans' Sam Butera and the Louis Prima band, and then by Bill Doggett and James Brown. I worked hard to learn the main parts of this song the first year I started playing the saxophone (1961). This version follows the tracks laid down by King Curtis at Rudy Van Gelder's NJ studio that same year, but Tony and I got to put more cars on our train than Curtis could, now that the time constraints of AM radio are long gone!
"Glad" was composed by Steve Winwood and recorded by Traffic in 1970. I've always wanted to record this tune because I jammed with Stevie when I was a student at the University of Bristol (UK) in 1969-70. He asked me if I knew Roland Kirk, and I said that meeting him at a shopping mall in NJ had inspired me to play two saxes at once. I was surprised to be invited to go on the road with Steve then and there. Instead, I took the road more travelled by. In time I earned a Ph.D., and stayed totally out of Traffic. But, hey Stevie, we cut the basic tracks of your great song in one take! Thanks for more than 50 years of inspiring, soulful music!
"Harlem Nocturne" was trombonist and arranger Earle Hagen's first hit (written in 1939, when he was only 20). But it wasn't Earle's biggest hit. Decades later he wrote (and whistled) the theme for The Andy Griffith Show. "Harlem Nocturne" captures the mood of the film noir era. It was recorded by a host of great sax players, among them Earl Bostic, Illinois Jacquet, Georgie Auld, and the amazing Sam "The Man" Taylor. The pop version I first learned (in the guitar key of Em), was by The Viscounts, my slightly older NJ homeboys. I recall playing a version of this song, with an integrated bar band, when the Newark Riots suddenly shut down the club in July 1967.