Here’s That Rainy Day

Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), George Benson (guitar) and Ron Carter (bass). From the album Straight Life (1971).

Just as funk became disco music, jazz-funk merged into the soft fusion sound of the crossover that dominated the more accessible side of jazz during the 1980s and 1990s. Due to its focus on danceable and funky rhythms, jazz-funk became very popular in the British underground music scene when it was rediscovered in the mid to late 1980s; an upgraded version mixed with funk and hip-hop was known as acid jazz. For the same reasons, jazz-funk was also the style used by many American hip-hop artists when they were looking for ways to fuse jazz and rap. In addition, musicians such as Medeski, Martin & Wood contributed to the revival of the classic jazz-funk sound and take it to broader audiences in the 1990s.

This is a popular song written by Jimmy Van Heusen for the musical Carnival in Flanders, funded by Bing Crosby in 1953. The musical was a failure, but the singer Dolores Gray interpreted this song, with which she won a Tony Award. Then it was forgotten until it was recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1959 and became a standard. First it went into the bossa nova. However, Stan Getz, who was in the midst of his Brazilian fever, recorded it at a slow swinging pace. Bill Evans later played it as a dramatic ballad, Richard “Groove” Holmes turned it into a medium tempo funk tune, Dick Hyman transformed it into a stride piano piece and the Philly Joe Jones’ version was crazy.

This time, Hubbard is accompanied only by Benson and Carter. It’s very strange to see in jazz a trumpet, a guitar and a double bass playing together. First Hubbard makes a long introduction with Benson and then Carter joins in to expose the ballad. Then Hubbard makes a delicate and reflexive solo introducing some short intricate phrases and ends up playing several sentences himself, with Benson and Carter accompanying him at the very end.