Old School Cool is an occasional feature that, for those of a certain age, retraces the journeys of a musical lifetime in a way that keeps the memories flooding back. This time around it’s the Tony Toni Tone hit ‘Anniversary’ from their 1993 ‘Sons of Soul’ project. Formed in 1987, Tony Toni Tone enjoyed a number of chart hits and good album sales for a considerable part of the nineties. The line up was a family affair with brothers Dwayne and Raphael Wiggins teaming up with cousin Timothy Christian. ‘Anniversary’ was written by Raphael Wiggins together with keyboard player Carl Wheeler and when they originally laid down the track they looked around for a sax soloist and found none other than Gerald Albright. The end product was a sensation and gave Tony Toni Tone one of their very biggest career hits.
It was only a year later that Albright went into the Aire studios in Los Angeles to record his solo CD ‘Smooth’ for Atlantic. A phenomenal album, not least for the fact that it included Albright’s own version of ‘Anniversary’, it was packed with a succession of great cuts and featured guest performances from Will Downing, Vesta Williams and Lalah Hathaway. Lee Ritenour, Stanley Clarke and Paul Jackson Jr. were among the supporting musicians and a further interesting feature, at least for students of liner notes, was that the comments on ‘Smooth’ were added by NBA superstar Magic Johnson.
Albright’s ‘Anniversary’ can also be found on the highly acclaimed 1994 compilation ‘Jazz Fusions One’.
It’s worth noting that although the Albright version is a mere four minutes thirty three seconds long the Tony Toni Tone original weighs in at a massive nine minutes and twenty four seconds. Shades of Isaac Hayes and no mistake! Although truncated forms abound this original length version can also be found on the 2000 compilation ‘Heart of Soul.
I am indebted to Ian Phillips for coming up with the concept for this feature on ‘Anniversary’. Ian writes some great music related Twitter posts and is well worth a follow.