WORLDWIDE FM

Worldwide FM hosts and family celebrate the legendary American jazz pianist Cedar Walton‘s birthday with beautiful words and his music for the next two hours.

Tune in to hear selections by Paul Bradshaw, Tina Edwards, Elliot Galvin, Toshio Matsuura, Rebecca Vasmant and Gilles Peterson.

“Happy birthday Cedar Walton… One of my absolute favourites who appears on so many classic Blue Notes from Freddie Hubbard to Joe Henderson —— he also wrote some classics like Bolivia and Mosaic ——- and his career was constant either as leader or accompanist that passed through a brilliant disco fusion phase that included his Mobius albums… I can never get enough of ‘the girl with discotheque eyes’ from his album…” – Gilles Peterson

“I first got onto Cedar Walton via his 1986 recording with Jack DeJohnette and Roy Carter, which is a great release. However, I’d pick Mode For Joe – it’s one of his compositions which became a standard, and is a good example of Walton enabling space in the track by not always being at the forefront; his main focus is on creating colour and texture, rather than soloing intensely. It’s a wicked track. I look forward to hearing it on Worldwide!” – Tina Edwards

“When I think about Cedar Walton I think about blues and feel. As well as being an amazing composer/arranger/band leader I think he really changed the game for me in the way he comps. He always made every band he played with feel great, a master acompaniest, a skill which sometimes gets overlooked for flashy soloist playing, but to make a band really groove is a rare skill. This album was the first time I heard him, I used to go to this old record fare behind a church in Greenwich when I was a teenager and this guy there took me under his wing recommending things for me to listen to, I told him I wanted to be a jazz pianist and he gave me this Blue Mitchell album amongst a couple of others to check out. The band is Horace Silver’s of the time with Cedar instead of Horace Silver and the fact that Cedar walton can easily hold his own amongst these guys is testament to how great he was. Having said all that about accompanying he does a burning solo on this blues at the end!” – Elliot Galvin

“Cedar Walton is one of my all time favourite musicians, the amount of amazing records he made is insane, and when I first got into listening through the stuff he made, it felt like each record I discovered kind of taught me something new about my taste in jazz, and I learned something from them which I’m super grateful for. Before, I wouldn’t have seeked out records from certain time periods, usually my favourite time for jazz is late 60s to mid 70s, but lots of his more modern records, even up to the latest record I listened to his from around 2010, were as amazing to listen to as his records from my favourite time further back. So much I could say, but yeah what a hero!” – Rebecca Vasmant

“To tell truth I’m not massively familiar with Cedar Walton’s discography. I was hip to his playing on Donald Byrd’s ‘Slow Drag’ – a tune Gilles and myself included on the Japanese Blue Note comp ‘Make It Deep N Phunky’ – and ‘Blackjack’. There were other cuts like ‘Ugetsu’ which he wrote and played alongside Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter in Art Blakey’s Messengers. In the 90’s Cedar played with young players like Terrence Blanchard , Joshua Redman, Vincent Herring as well as Rahsaan Roland Kirk sideman/trombonist Steve Turre but overall I’d have to be a bit predictable and go to his Eastern Rebellion (No. 1) LP and ‘Naima’ where he shares the honours with George Coleman, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins. ‘Bolivia’ is pretty cool as well…” – Paul Bradshaw

“Cedar Walton is piano artisan since he was member of Jazz Messengers early 60s. His piano sound is always his sound play soft and slow, fast. Recorded live with Sam Jones(Bas) & Billy Higgins(Drums) December 23, 1974 at “Pit Inn”, Tokyo. Enjoy!” – Toshio Matsuura