🎷 AotW: Kudu Hank Crawford: We Got a Good Thing Going (Kudu Records KU-08)

Hank Crawford: We Got a Good Thing Going

Kudu Records KU-08
Released 1972

• A1: We Got A Good Thing Going /6:00
• A2: Imagination /3:15
• A3: Down To Earth /3:25
• A4: The Christmas Song /3:38
• A5: Alone Again (Naturally) /3:30
• B1: I Don't Know /4:20
• B2: I'm Just A Lucky So And So /6:55
• B3: Winter Wonderland /3:35
• B4: A Little Tear /3:33

Alto Saxophone – Hank Crawford
Arranged By – Bob James, Don Sebesky
Bass – Gordon Edwards (tracks: A1, B1), Ron Carter
Cello – Charles McCracken, George Ricci
Congas, Tambourine – Art Jenkins*
Design [Album] – Bob Ciano
Drums – Bernard Purdie
Electric Piano – Bob James (tracks: A4, A5, B3)
Electric Piano, Organ – Richard Tee
Engineer [Mastering] – Rudy Van Gelder
Guitar – Cornell Dupree (tracks: A4, A5, B3), George Benson
Harp – Margaret Ross
Photography By [Album] – Mort Mace
Vibraphone, Bells – Phil Kraus
Viola – Harold Coletta, Theodore Israel

Recorded At – Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey



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Hank Crawford - We Got A Good Thing Going

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[Rudy]

Hank does have a good thing going here. No big stretch into the jazz world on this record (solos are short, really no different from most soul/pop songs of the day), but his tone and phrasing are spot-on, and there are plenty of familiar melodies here and the supporting cast is "on it," as they say. Enjoyable! And as a bonus, two holiday tracks, which will make their way into one of my holiday playlists.

 

[JOv2]

...and the inclusion of The Christmas Song suggests there was a yuletide tie in. From what I'm learning from Rudy, this release is consistent with the overall Kudu sound. Makes me think of what you might hear in the background in one of them there hip / "urban" restaurants back in the '90s. Definitely smooooth (Purdie is understated). I find myself awaiting Benson to come in and up the jazz ante a bit. Hank is, of course, a fine player -- just too R&B for me here. The more I listen the more I keep thinking back to John Hammond's Breakout -- where both he and Grover gave us more challenging solos. (...And on that note, I'm gonna pull out Breakout and give it a spin -- probably the 11th time I've played since picking it up 3 weeks ago.)

 

[Rudy]

Many of the upcoming Kudu releases are more based in soul than jazz, although occasionally there's an album that sounds as though it could have fit on CTI instead. (Including one of my favorites--Power of Soul by Idris Muhammad. I've played the album a few dozen times since I discovered it early this year. His releases after this one were more Kudu-like.)

In my teenage years, I was listening to the local r&b/funk/soul radio, along with a jazz radio station that played mostly current jazz at the time (current mid 70s to mid 80s releases) mixed in with a few older tracks from Miles, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, etc. So the Kudu records, even if there are some I don't like as much, are along the same lines.