Joyce Cooling: While growing up, Cooling was exposed to music in a wide variety of forms and developed tastes that ranged from diverse to eclectic. The New Jersey - New York native inherited a large number of Jazz albums, which served to spur her love of the genre. Meanwhile, the clubs of Manhattan fuelled her passion, since although Cooling was underage, some of the club owners and bartenders allowed her to hang outside, and sometimes even backstage, so she could listen to the shows. In so doing, she heard everyone from Bill Evans and Jim Hall to Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.

After moving to San Francisco, Cooling began dabbling with keyboards and percussion. Although music had long been the most passionate part of her life, a career seemed a remote possibility. However, while visiting a friend on the UC Berkeley campus, Joyce overheard some music from an African drum class "wafting out of an open classroom window". Quite literally mesmerized, she spent an entire hour in the hallway outside the room just listening. Although she never officially enrolled, Cooling returned to and took part in the class for a couple of years playing percussion and drums and learning how the parts fit. Then things suddenly crystallized one afternoon when Joyce was home alone listening to a Wes Montgomery record while doing the dishes.

Photo Credit: Revolving Door Back Insert

Cooling recalls, "It was the Small Group Recordings album and Wes was playing the jazz standard, If You Could See Me Now. Wes played the melody and then went into his solo over the verse. When he got to the bridge of his solo, he played the most beautiful, simple melodic phrase I had ever heard. I was knocked out. Off come the big, yellow, rubber gloves and I picked up my roommate's guitar and learned the lick, and then went on to learn the rest of the solo off of the record. I knew that it was guitar from then on." Self-taught for the most part, Cooling developed a unique finger picking style, this all led to various gigs including straight-ahead sessions with jazz giants such as Getz, Henderson, Airto, and Byrd. Then, in the mid-80s, Joyce met keyboardist Jay Wagner; the two instantly discovered their songwriting compatibility and have been virtually inseparable ever since.

In 1996, South of Market broke the easy and breezy style of the San Francisco based duo. That track and Playing It Cool, the album that spawned the hit, both soared to #1 while Joyce was named the best new Smooth jazz artist for the year. Nevertheless, this belies the fact that Cooling and Wagner had for nearly a decade been known as the one of the most dynamic acts in The City by The Bay and that their official debut predates Playing it Cool by almost another ten full years.

Now if you've listened to our show over the years, you may be aware Joyce Cooling has long been one of our favourites here at The Café, her name being synonymous with smooth jazz royalty, if there is such a thing, in so far as we're concerned. It's therefore with the utmost pleasure that Ms Cooling become the focus for an extended Then & Now feature. We zip back to Cameo, that 1988 debut, for the opening track in the set. In order, the selections are The Way Out, South of Market, Before Dawn, Tamba, Expression, and Revolving Door, a track from each of Joyce's six albums. Then, we do it all over again as we revisit each album for our second set. This time it's Voo Doo Chicken, After Hours, Callie, It's All Because of Loving You, Camelback, and At The Modern - two 6-track sets, twelve selections in all and nearly an hour of virtually uninterrupted music from Joyce Cooling, the epitome of class, style, and talent!!

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