I just can't believe our good fortune. I am blessed to have an unprecedented opportunity to interview a very special guest in our Redding studio. 32 year old Sarah McKenzie is a tremendously talented jazz singer, jazz pianist, music composer and music arranger that has a great future. She will be with us to discuss the release of her new album Secrets Of My Heart, to give us the story behind her remarkable career, and to give us inside information about some of the songs from her now five albums. She is already famous in her homeland of Australia and in Europe where she now resides. She has worked with Michael Buble and with Chris Botti. Many feel that very soon she is poised to join the rarefied air occupied by superstars Diana Krall and Nora Jones.
I will devote an entire special edition show to this interview and her music. I hope to broadcast this on Saturday April 20th and Wednesday April 24th. Please continue to tune in for more information about this unprecedented event. You will not want to miss this show. To give you an early taste, I plan to start this week opening our programs second hour with selections from Sarah McKenzie’s previous four albums. In addition starting next week on March 30th, I will also open our first hour by playing selections from her brand new album, to be released March 29th, Secrets Of My Heart.
In the first hour this week, I have new releases from The Rippingtons, Julian Vaughn, Keiko Matsui, Norman Brown, Quincy Jones, Michael Buble, Jazz Funk Soul, Nelson Rangell, and Roman Street.
In the middle of the first hour, I will play Billboard's top three songs in smooth jazz for this week.
Our second hour is devoted to the classics in smooth jazz. This will; include a song from pianist Don Shirley. During the 1960s, he went on a number of concert tours, some in Southern states, believing that he could change some minds with his performances about the way African American folks were treated. He hired New York nightclub bouncer Tony "Lip" Vallelonga as his driver and bodyguard. Their story is dramatized in the 2018 film Green Book, the name of a travel guide for black motorists in the segregated Southern states. This film won the Oscar for best picture.
For our close to this show, I have another classic among classics. Let’s go back 30 years to 1989. One of the greats, pianist, keyboardist, and composer Joe Sample passed away in 2014. He was a founding member of the Jazz Crusaders, later just known as the Crusaders. Over the years he performed a tremendous amount of great music both solo and with a variety of artists. Perhaps his best album was Spellbound, an album which included performances from Al Jarreau, Michael Franks, Nathan East, Take 6, and others. It is said parts of this album came to Sample while standing on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Our selection that I will play is Somehow Our Love Survives with Al Jarreau from Joe Sample’s classic 1989 album Spellbound.
Please return next week for the very latest and classic old in smooth jazz and more music from our soon to be special in studio guest Sarah McKenzie. Thanks for listening.
