30 Day Song Challenge: Day 2 – A Song That Always Makes Me Smile

Day 2 – A Song That Always Makes Me Smile – “Spanish Rice” – Clark Terry and Chico O’Farrill It was a close contest between this and another Clark Terry tune, “Mumbles” but the fact that I am addicted to 60’s soul jazz and Latin-soul jazz, won the day for this classic. It’s the title […]

Day 2 – A Song That Always Makes Me Smile – “Spanish Rice” – Clark Terry and Chico O’Farrill

It was a close contest between this and another Clark Terry tune, “Mumbles” but the fact that I am addicted to 60’s soul jazz and Latin-soul jazz, won the day for this classic. It’s the title track to the album that these two legends made in 1966 for Impulse Records. The album itself is good (not great) overall, but this tune’s groove is near-perfection, and the humorous bilingual patter between the two leaders is priceless. Terry gives us, what turned out to be, his wife’s recipe for the dish and then talks O’Farrill into a cab up to Harlem, to sample some, at “Fat Mama’s Soul Food”. Pure boogaloo fun and even a belch (gross!) from C.T., near the end. I’ve hear it a million times and it still never fails to make me smile!

Tomorrow: Day 3 – A song that makes me cry