The songs on this CD are the result of a collaboration between Larry Crawford and myself (Allan Crossley)
I met Larry Crawford when I started teaching band in Summerland in 1980. He’d often drop by the band room at 7:30 A.M., horn in hand, and help out with the jazz band, or meet me on one of my prep periods to sight read Teleman flute duets. His support, advice, and humour were such an encouragement. Fast forward about 20 years; I’d taught jazz, loved it, but had never played more than a smattering. One Sunday morning I got a phone call from Larry. “Allan, we’ve got a gig at the Grist Mill. I’ll pick you up in an hour. We can choose tunes on the way.” I still get embarrassed thinking of how badly I played and how he reminded me to not play all those notes when he was soloing, but I was ‘bit by the bug’ and have been chipping away at my jazz chops ever since. Fast forward again to 2015. I’d been playing solo piano at Zias restaurant in Summerland since retiring and thought it would be fun to put a jazz night together and Shannon agreed that I could try. Stefan and Larry were my obvious choices, but I wanted a vocalist to round things out. Stefan suggested Yanti and we were off, doing Jazz@Zias a number of times over the next two years.
During those nights, I always programmed one or two of Larry’s amazing original tunes, and then during our show in Jan of 2017, it occurred to me that it might be fun to write lyrics for one of them, “Mi Niña Melancholica.” Larry said, “Lots of people have threatened to write lyrics, but no-one ever has.” (May not be an exact quote.) In any event, he gave his blessing and the seven vocal tunes on this album are the first Crawford-Crossley collaborations — and hopefully not the last. And since Larry has literally hundreds of tunes, I could be busy for some time to come.
Read more...