Top 50 Jazz Albums of 1979

According to the December 22, 1979 edition of Billboard magazine. Chart peaks are from that publication's jazz, pop, and R&B album charts, respectively. If the album was released in a year prior to 1979, that information is noted following the album title.

	Album	Artist	Jazz	Pop	R&B
1	Street Life	The Crusaders	1	18	3
2	Livin' Inside Your Love	George Benson	1	7	4
3	Touchdown ('78)	Bob James	1	37
4	Reed Seed ('78)	Grover Washington, Jr.	1	35	7
5	Pat Metheny Group ('78)	Pat Metheny Group	5	123
6	Carmel	Joe Sample	1	56	25
7	Children of Sanchez ('78)	Chuck Mangione	1	14	37
8	Mr. Gone ('78)	Weather Report	1	52
9	Flame ('78)	Ronnie Laws	1	51	16
10	Morning Dance	Spyro Gyra	2	27	33
11	Angie	Angela Bofill	5	47	20
12	All Fly Home	Al Jarreau	2	78	27
13	Paradise	Grover Washington, Jr.	2	24	15
14	Feets Don't Fail Me Now	Herbie Hancock	2	38	16
15	Heart String	Earl Klugh	2	49	32
16	Feels So Good ('77)	Chuck Mangione	1	2
17	New Chautaqua	Pat Metheny	3	44
18	Cosmic Messenger ('78)	Jean-Luc Ponty	2	36
19	Patrice ('78)	Patrice Rushen	5	98	27
20	Secrets ('78)	Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson	4	61	10
21	Intimate Strangers ('78)	Tom Scott	6	123
22	Fever	Roy Ayers	6	67	25
23	You Send Me ('78)	Roy Ayers	4	48	16
24	Images ('78)	The Crusaders	1	34	18
25	Follow the Rainbow	George Duke	3	56	17

	Album	Artist	Jazz	Pop	R&B
26	Together	McCoy Tyner	5	66
27	In Concert	Milestone Jazzstars	12	122
28	Carnival ('78)	Maynard Ferguson	9	113
29	Brazilia	John Klemmer	5	172
30	We All Have a Star ('78)	Wilton Felder	11	173	33
31	Tiger in the Rain	Michael Franks	6	68
32	Before the Rain ('78)	Lee Oskar	10	86	29
33	Live at the Hollywood Bowl	Chuck Mangione	5	27
34	Manhattan Symphonie ('78)	Dexter Gordon Quartet	11
35	Land of Passion	Hubert Laws	6	93	48
36	Awakening	Narada Michael Walden	9	103	15
37	Magic in Your Eyes ('78)	Earl Klugh	4	139
38	Mingus	Joni Mitchell	3	17
39	Exotic Memories	Lonnie Liston Smith	3	123	50
40	I Wanna Play for You	Stanley Clarke	5	62	36
41	Soft Space	Jeff Lorber Fusion	13
42	Hot Dawg	David Grisman	14
43	Light the Light	Seawind	8	143
44	Live	Jean-Luc Ponty	8	68
45	Legacy ('78)	Ramsey Lewis	10	149
46	Browne Sugar	Tom Browne	6	147	50
47	Secret Agent ('78)	Chick Corea	7
48	Part of You	Eric Gale	11	154
49	The Joy of Flying	Tony Williams	13	113
50	Groovin' You	Harvey Mason	11	149	48

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Speaking of jazz albums from 1979, why don't you give Dr. Smooth's flashback a listen:

Tom Scott feat. Richard Page - Sure Enough (1982)

Sure Enough
Tom Scott feat. Richard Page

Written by: Richard Page, Steve George, John Lang & Tom Scott Produced by: Jeffrey Weber Album: Desire (Elektra/Musician, 1982)

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Not sure if this qualifies as a "deep album cut" as it was apparently released as a single, but I can't find that it charted anywhere.

Tom Scott is a prolific jazz fusion recording artist, TV show theme composer (Starsky and Hutch, Family Ties) and was a first call session musician for pop musicians back when pop songs had saxophone solos (that's him on McCartney's "Listen to What the Man Said" for example).  I started enjoying his work with his 1981 live album Apple Juice and bought the Desire album when it was released in 1982.  As if he didn't have enough to do, I think Scott was the opening act/backing band for Olivia Newton-John while also in the Blues Brothers band at the time.

While most of Scott's music is instrumental, track two of Desire, "Sure Enough," includes vocals from Richard Page of the band Pages. In fact, it's written by three members of Pages (plus Scott) and Steve George sings backup. Let's just admit it: this is essentially a lost Pages track and as such, it's smooth AOR/West Coast goodness with an average verse but a chorus that's catchy as all get-out.

The track gets more impressive when you consider it was recorded in one take: no overdubs, no editing between takes, etc.:

Would this have been better with some Jay Graydon prodcution? Sure, but then Graydon would have fought Scott over who got the solo. This is just fine the way it is and Scott scorches his solo, so I won't pick at nits here.

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Tom Scott - Come Back To Me (1983)

Come Back To Me
Tom Scott

Written by: Tom Scott, Kenny James & Michael Wilk Produced by: Tom Scott Album: Target (Atlantic, 1983)

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Tom Scott is a prolific jazz fusion recording artist, TV show theme composer (Starsky and Hutch, Family Ties) and was a first call session musician for pop musicians back when pop songs had saxophone solos (that's him on McCartney's "Listen to What the Man Said"). I started enjoying his work with his 1981 live album Apple Juice and bought this Target album when it was released in 1983. As if he didn't have enough to do, I think Scott was also in the Blues Brothers band at the time.

While most of Scott's music is instrumental, track two of Target, "Come Back to Me," includes vocals from Kenny James (you can be forgiven for initially thinking it's James Ingram - I made the same mistake). As you can probably guess from the song title, this song isn't breaking any new ground lyrically, but the music is an overlooked West Coast/AOR gem. Formulaic, sure, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

This pop ballad wouldn't be out of place on The Dude by Quincy Jones - slow, sparse start that builds, female background vocals, upward modulation for the last chorus, and of course, a sax solo. This song might not even qualify as a deep album cut because 7" and 12" singles were released by Atlantic. However, I can't find anything that would indicate a chart appearance (please correct me if I'm mistaken about that). Timing may have been issue - this thing sounds straight out of 1979 or 1980. No matter, add this one to your AOR shuffle and it will fit in nicely.

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