So, what is it with Jazz flute? You either love it, hate it, or don't realize that it is even a thing. Those who didn't know about it were awakened when Will Ferrell's great Ron Burgundy character revealed that he played Jazz flute. On the bad side, you have soft jazz flutists spraying out horrible pabulum that would have me throwing shoes at the speakers—beware of this music.

There is a long history of jazz flute music, starting in the twenties and growing with the evolution of Jazz music. By 1956, Down Beat magazine established the best flutist award, and at that time, the two hot players were a young Herbie Mann and Sam Best. The blind Jazz artist and prodigy Rhasaan Roland Kirk, known best for playing three saxophones at once, also focused on Jazz flute for a time, experimenting with alternative blowing techniques and singing through the flute, which was later popularized by Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. Even the great saxophonist John Coltrane got into the flute on his last album Expressions in 1967.

Some of my favorite jazz flute tunes come from Chick Corea's early Return to Forever albums--Return to Forever has incredible flute tunes like the title track and Sometime Ago. The subsequent release, Light as a Feather continues the flute brilliance on 500 Miles High, Spain, and Light as a Feather All of this great flute work is done by Joe Farrell, who also contributes to Corea's Friends album. Unfortunately, those early RTF albums are on ECM records, which still is not on Spotify; you can hear these on Apple Music.

I have put together a Jazz flute playlist for you, best listened to on a crisp fall night before the fire with Wasmund's Single Malt Rye in your glass. You can listen to it here, I threw in a few rock tunes too: https://tinyurl.com/y98h2l2k and don't forget to follow me on Spotify.

Steve Chase lives in Unison and tries not to play the music too loud.