1977 · Album
Live at the Bijou
Recorded May 1977, Bijou Cafe, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (live) · Kudu Records · Produced by Creed Taylor
Two nights at the Bijou, live and breathing
Recorded live in Philadelphia in May 1977, spread across two LPs, this became Grover's biggest commercial moment.
In May 1977, Grover Washington Jr. set up at the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia and played two nights in front of a live audience. The room was intimate, the kind of place where you can hear the air move between the notes. What came out of those sessions became a double album that climbed to number one on the Jazz charts and number four on the Soul charts—his commercial peak, and it came late enough in his Kudu Records run that it would be his last album with producer Creed Taylor. That matters because by 1977, Washington had already established himself as the guy who could make the saxophone sound approachable without making it sound small. This live recording captures him doing exactly that, with plenty of room to move and stretch across two long records.
The single "Summer Song" / "Juffure" pulled from the sessions reached number 57 on the R&B charts in early 1978, proof that the album connected with listeners beyond the jazz audience. Looking back from decades later, reviewers realized how solid those early Kudu sessions actually were—this one included. It's a genuinely strong record, the kind that rewards repeated listening because Washington refuses to settle into predictability even when he's playing material that could easily become comfortable.
If you're coming to Washington's work for the first time, start with something like Winelight (1980) to hear him at his most polished. But if you already know those records and want to hear him in a live setting where the stakes feel higher and the playing looser, Live at the Bijou (1977) is the place to go. It's where his commercial success and his restless musicianship aligned.
Who's playing
Tyrone Brownbass
Richard Steackerguitar
Grover Washington, Jr.soprano saxophone
Leslie Burrsflute
Millard Vinsondrums
Leonard Gibbspercussion
John Blakeelectric violin
James Simmonskeyboard
