Jazz On A Summer's Day (right) was a wonderful film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, where old hands like Satchmo and Buck Clayton rubbed shoulders with the "modernists" Thelonious Monk and Eric Dolphy. In this summer's heat, though, you might want to give Melodious Thunk (as his wife called him) a miss - Dr Jazz recommends nothing too strenuous while the mercury is high. This is the weather for lighter, easy-going music.
Start the day off with the delicate, meandering vocals of Blossom Dearie. Play Put on a Happy Face from 1964's May I Come in while the coffee's brewing, and follow with Dexter Gordon's almost supine tenor sax on Guess I'll Hang my Tears out to Dry (from Go, 1962). Butter a croissant to Pat Metheny's James (Offramp, 1981) and get ready to go out to Spyro Gyra's Morning Dance (from the eponymous 1979 album).
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After all that exertion, lie down and relax to the title track of Everybody Loves the Sunshine by Roy Ayers (1976) and Michael Franks's super-soft vocals on Sanpaku (Tiger in the Rain, 1978). Pep up late morning with the greasy, urban, funk beats of Jeff "Tain" Watts's Side B from 2002's Bar Talk.
Fill the afternoon with some of the many Brazilian-tinged albums Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto made together, and as the early-evening cocktails begin to take effect move on to Tania Maria's infectious Come With Me (same album title, 1982). If you're ready to move, It's All Right Now by the late tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris is the groove track par excellence. It's worth buying the 1976 album just for its title: That is Why You're Overweight. 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 10, 2006
 Jazz on a summer's day
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