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Baker's Dozen

Top Brass: Theon Cross' Baker's Dozen
Stewart Smith , October 4th, 2023 08:19

Ahead of a special performance at Kings Place’s Luminate festival later this month, London jazz outlier Theon Cross takes Stewart Smith through his 13 favourite records, from Stevie Wonder to Kano via Miles Davis and Lauryn Hill

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Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus

I think it could be any Bob Marley album, to be honest. It's just that’s the album that's just got all the tunes that I love: ‘So Much Things To Say’, ‘Exodus’, ‘Waiting In Vain’. I think this is the album that took him over the edge commercially, I can see why. And he's saying a lot as well. It’s like, it’s the album where he's saying a lot of things politically, as he always does. But he's also able to write songs that resonate with the human spirit: ‘Three Little Birds’, ‘One Love’. These are the tunes that bring people together. So, I feel it's a good balance of political talk, talking to power the way he sees it, but also music that is about unity.

My dad used to play a lot of reggae in the house, a lot of Bob Marley and this is just one of those albums that was there. And I listened to it. It was a direct influence. Even in my show, sometimes I'll drop like a bassline from ‘Exodus’ or quote ‘One Love’.