Last week while hanging out with my dad, the topic turned to jazz after he heard me playing a Donald Byrd album he’d never heard before. After looking through my iTunes and asking where I got it from (TSS obviously) he asked me what else could I get? My answer: “With an album title and artist probably anything.”

So two hours later he’s still racking brain trying to think of obscure jazz records he used to own and still had on vinyl down in the basement. Hearing him talk about scouring through liner notes to find out who the sessions players were and see what albums they had out made me realize why I still enjoy going through them to see what samples were used. We found a great deal of albums and since I know we have some jazz fans amongst the crew I’ve decided to start sharing what I find with you guys.

I’ll start with Lee Oskar’s Before The Rain. Coming from Coppenhagen, Denmark, Oskar is a founding member of the Funk/Jazz group WAR and plays the harmonica. Since I liked The World Is A Ghetto due to hearing it countless times as a kid, I decided to give the album a spin. Released in 1978, Before The Rain is full of smooth sweeping melodies that at times make it easy to forget your listening to a harmonica. It’s perfect to put on while tooling around the crib on a lazy day. Clocking in with only seven songs, it almost makes me wish artists today drop shorter albums more frequently and let filler tracks hit the net and mixtapes instead of bogging down retail releases.

Lee Oskar – Before The Rain

Key Tracks: “Before The Rain,” “San Francisco Bay,” “More Than Words Can Say”