The moment I saw Cal Tjader and Carmen McRae's names on the same album cover, I couldn't hit the Buy Now button fast enough or hard enough. Seriously, I had to buy a new mouse.
Maybe I made up that last part.
But there's no denying the beach-friendly charm of taking the jazz world's most soulful vocalist, McRae, and pairing her with Latin music's least likely star, St. Louis-born Swedish white dude Cal Tjader, and having them put a Caribbean spin on an eclectic mix of favorites.
And I do mean eclectic. McRae and Tjader and his band open with Irving Berlin (the title track), while squeezing in everyone from Stevie Wonder to Duke Ellington to Sonny Henry (via Carlos Santana) in the album's ten-track, 42-minute run-time.
In other words, "Heat Wave," which came out in 1982, was one of those impulse purchases that paid off.
McRae and Tjader reportedly couldn't stand one another and recorded their parts in the same studio but on different days. You'd never know it though from the fun they sound like they're having together on the opening title track.
Critics didn't seem to like the album very much, however. Scott Yanow wrote that "the effort overall is somewhat forgettable and disappointing." Contemporary audiences didn't seem to have much use for "Heat Wave," either. It peaked at 25 on the Billboard Jazz chart, which isn't saying much. It seems to have found more love in recent years, with AllMusic users giving "Heat Wave" a solid four-star average.
Their version of "Do Nothin' Til You Hear From Me" is probably my favorite since Dinah Shore's 1959 recording.
Here's the thing the critics didn't seem to get. Beach music isn't supposed to be challenging or demand to be turned up to 11. Beach music is supposed to provide the breezy accompaniment to soaking up some sun while soaking in some rum or tequila concoction.
TRIVIA TIME: This would be Cal Tjader's final album. He died, just 56 years old, four months after it was completed. On a happier note, young conguero Poncho Sanchez was part of Tjader's band at the time, and he'd soon go on to a stellar solo career. Sanchez's "Afro-Cuban Fantasy" is one of my desert island picks.
"Heat Wave" captures that beach vibe better than almost anything else in my collection. And maybe it does it best on McRae's definitive performance of Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing."
One last thought.
A lifetime ago, it seems, the best music-recommendation algorithm in the world was the one in Apple's iTunes Store. I could go there every day and the algo would have something new for me I would love. Between that and the free Single of the Week, I couldn't get enough iTunes. But that was before the iTunes Store mutated into the Apple Music streaming service, and now they just want me to listen to the same hip-hop and mindless dance stuff that dominates the charts — no matter how many thumbs down I give.
It shouldn't be so hard to find underappreciated gems like "Heat Wave," and once upon a time ago, it wasn't.
"Heat Wave" is available for streaming in a lossless format on Apple Music and in a more bandwidth-friendly compressed format on Spotify.
