Doug Carn Infant Eyes

My absolute favorite Black Jazz album was Infant Eyes, by pianist Doug Carn and his wife, Jean Carn. The record had a sensual, powerful feel. What made the album a hit were the soulful lyrics the Carns crafted for jazz standards such as Bobby Hutcherson's Little B's Poem, Wayne Shorter's Infant Eyes, John Coltrane's Acknowledgment from A Love Supreme, and Horace Silver's Peace. Doug's arrangements and Jean's searing, passionate vocals gave the album a distinctly 1970s African-American feel.

Doug's newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his 70s classics. There's no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's past work but which could only have been made right now. One can detect nods to musical motifs by Carn's jazz peers that have served as frequent sample fodder, but his compositional and improvisational integrity remain indisputable throughout.

Released in 2018 by journalist David Nathan's Soul Music label, Don't Let It Go to Your Head is easily the most thoughtful and generous Jean Carn compilation. Most of the selections are drawn from Carn's time with Philadelphia International and its subsidiary TSOP, when she was in the top class of vocalists specializing in elegant soul that did not pander to the mainstream. Included are all the essentials off these four 1976-1981 albums – "Time Waits for No One," "Don't Let It Go to Your Head," the superior 12" inch version of "Was That All It Was," and "Bet Your Lucky Star" among them. A raft of duets and featured appearances on releases headlined by Norman Connors, Dexter Wansel, Al Johnson, Roy Ayers, and Grover Washington, Jr. – altogether a distillation of the Expansion label's Collaborations anthology – enhance the two-disc set. Listeners with more adventurous taste should also seek Carn's earlier work on progressive jazz sessions led by the likes of Connors, Doug Carn, Azar Lawrence, and Jamtume