cbianchi

Interesting stuff, Rabshakeh. Did you look at the weekly charts to inform these observations, or was there an end-of-year wrapup that listed the top albums of the year? In the old days (the 1970s) they used to do year-end charts for pretty much everything imaginable---all genres, publishers, labels, etc., etc.

The first resource that comes up on that Google site is quite an amazing resource if it fits your timeframe. (Sounds like it doesn't.) For instance, he has a PDF file documenting the Billboard chart history of (apparently) every jazz album that appeared on Billboard's jazz charts between 1975 and 1986. If that timeframe isn't of interest, you may need to do the legwork yourself. You can find a very complete archive of Billboard at https://worldradiohistory.com. I would start with the very last issue of the year you are interested in. Billboard did (and maybe still does) a year-end wrapup that included the year's best performers by genre. In the years I mostly research (1970s and 1980s), I recall Billboard actually included year-end charts, but I think they later did away with that in favor of a prose write-up. Still, the write-up will tell you what the number one album of the year was. For instance, I randomly picked 1996. The last issue of the year tells me that the soundtrack to Leaving Las Vegas was the number one jazz album of the year, followed by Tony Bennett's "Here's to the Ladies." Kenny G had the number one contemporary jazz album of the year.

When this question first came up, I had looked for this review when I visited the local university library a few days later, but didn't find it. I thought maybe I missed it, but sounds like I didn't. That said, I did want to mention a useful resource if you're looking for Down Beat articles between July 1967 and July 1973: http://www.crj-online.org/v4/CRJ-DownBeatMorgenstern.php

Well, what was new in 1977 was Heavy Weather. I don't know that any tune from that album fits your description, but maybe try "The Juggler."

Hi Gheorghe, not much to go on there, but I'm going to take a wild guess (or two): Lookup "Will" and "Adios." Are you saying the tune was used as a theme song for the radio program, or that you just heard it on the radio?