10 posts tagged “funk”
Face the Music
2002 BPM
I always have a lot of mixed perceptions about George Duke. His technical prowess and inherent lyricism musically is clear (he could hold those claims just for his stint with Zappa if he wanted to), and when he wants to make some stunning recordings -weather they be fusion, funk or soulful pop- he certainly can step up. It is tough not to love Brazilian Love Affair, or his live output with Billy Cobham.
But he also has made a rash of half-cocked smooth jazz and pop-bop excursions that become as faceless as mid-range Jeff Lorber (and Lorber is pretty boring most of the time) or watered down fusion as some of his later collaborations with Stanley Clarke bore out. His balladry is often flat out dull.
Face the Music has a little of all of that. When it works, it works pretty well, as it does with opener The Black Messiah Part II, Another Way to Look At It, Let's Roll and the dirty throwback Ten Mile Jog (which makes the three word mantra actually work as a function of its sonority and not due to its total stupidity as a theme at face value), which is over 10 minutes long. It also functions as a great showcase for some over the top playing by his rhythm section of John Roberts (doing his best Dennis Chambers) and the always-extraordinary Christian McBride (doing his best Christian McBride).
In the weaker tracks you have Chillin', which sounds like an incomplete Quincy Jones circa 1989 bed-track. It could have been good, but its only noticeable feature is a few of Dukes piano runs. And while the instrumentals are a better bet overall, the vocal cuts don't do squat.Guess You Are Not the One is one of those horribly dull ballads. Guess its not the song I want to hear George. Close to You is not far behind in terms of snoozy boringness. Creepin' , with its processed vocals and cartoonish vibe, is just a theme song for an after-school Halloween special on TV.
He is still one of the meanest clavinet players, ever. I just felt that needed to be stated, irrespective of anything else.
Sapphire
2006 Cash Money
I really wanted to like this. Really, yo. But like its predecessor La Dona, it just lacks something that makes the whole thing fall short. To her credit, Teena Marie still has an impeccable voice and has lost none of the sass that characterized her early heyday as a protege of Rick James.
Or maybe it is my affection for the quirks of that period that make hearing her in this "updated" (read: largely faceless currently en-vogue gangsta R&B set of backdrops) scenario that I just can't dig. It is also a little too reliant on half-worked mid-tempo and slow-jams, and I am admittedly a fan of up-tempo TM.
That is not to say the album is bad. It is probably at least a notch or two above a lot of what is on radio these days, but it is several notches below what I would expect from the woman who gave us Square Biz, Lovergirl, and almost the entire Irons in the Fire album.
Live at Montreux 2004
I would never have called myself a big fan of disco, but I do love funk and R&B, and the more I listened to Chic, the more I found just as much funk as disco. The core of Chic is based on tight grooves. And while Chic is obviously one of the pioneers of what became disco, they seem to have eclipsed the baggage of that period and made a more substantive contribution to popular music.
This is all Nile Rodgers' baby now, since Tony Thompson and Bernard Edwards have passed away. But this is not played as a "cashing in" and if anything stays true to the Chic style of dense layered parts and good party music. There are some great players on stage, most notably drummer Omar Hakim (Miles Davis, Weather Report, Sting), but the vocal front line of Sylvia Logan Sharp and Jessica Wagner serve the material well.
Most of the material stands up very well under this expanded lineup. Mixed in with the requisite Chic hits are other Rodgers (and often Edwards) productions that were quite popular, including a Diana Ross and Sister Sledge medley pair. One can see how it all probably helped inspie bands like Incognito and Groove Collective's early output. And Nile is still one of the most underrated rhythm guitarists out there.
For other places to notice where Nile, Bernard and Tony have left their mark, look to albums by Madonna, the Power Station, Rod Stewart, Duran Duran, Nona Hendryx, Ian Hunter, ABC, David Bowie and Material.
I have not really spoken as to my feelings on the passing of James Brown last Christmas, but I think now I should, after reading this article on what other artists (including Vernon Reid, Aretha Franklin and the RZA) had to say of his impact.
I knew who he was at a young age, but it was in my mid to late teens that I worked in a furniture store and on the showfloor was an expensive showpiece; a true 45 RPM vinyl single playing jukebox. I cannot recall any of the singles on it save one, I Feel Good by James. That song, while probably his most well known, was not the one that stuck in my head. It was the flipside, Cold Sweat. A bold, charged slice of funky power; it is still one of my favorite Brown jams.
By the time I really noticed him he was well past his prime, but even cuts like Living in America had swagger. That still did not stop me from borrowing the box set Star Time and dubbing all four cd's onto TDK cassettes and then immediately trying to absorb some of that Mojo through my ear canals. It was an intersting exploration of what led to what I was already getting heavy into and would later become enemored with: Parliament-Funkadelic, Acid Jazz, Soul, and Hip-Hop.
Unlike todays singing/dancing entertainers (read: Britney Spears and the like) James was actually musically visionary and as a performer was unflappable. he did not need extravagant sets and could go from zero to thermonuclear with just flash of a breakbeat and enough open floor to do the splits and lean his mic. His presence in his peak was magnetic.
Rest in Peace James.
Afro Strut
2006
I started noticing Joseph "Amp" Fiddler after his name and keyboard saavy kept popping up on records I liked; Graffitti Bridge by Prince, Brother Sister by the Brand New Heavies, Sentimental Hygiene from the late Warren Zevon, and the debuts of Seal, Davina, Maxwell, the Seedy Arkestra, and the Detroit Experiment collective effort. I think by the time I heard he was part of the touring band for Me'shell Ndegeocello, I was wondering who the hell this guy was and why didn't he have a project of his own?
I didn't even know he could sing.
He can, and when his debut, Waltz of a Ghetto Fly was released, I was a little let down. It was good, even great in a few spots, but something was missing. The arrangements seemed too contrived in spots, and lyrically a little too blinged out. This follow up fixes that. It is not a soul opus, but it is better than almost anything on urban radio today, and it gets better with more ear time. Many of the grooves are deceptively skeletal, and they give space for Fiddler to provide a soft bounce with synth bass, and his airy but warm vocals. He isn't a belter, but part Charlie Wilson, part Sly Stone ghetto griot.
As one would imagine from all this, this has a heavy retro vibe, but it isn't neo soul per se, as much as a pithy marriage of 70s atmosphere with very modern production and style that is tailored for puffy couches and late night chilling (listen to Empower or Find My Way) or some kind of mutant Gap Band meets minimalist house ride (something evident on the cut Seven Mile). Funky Monday has some P-Funk overtones and a bluesy approach not too far from David Ryan Harris' solo debut. This is an album ripe for remixes to, particularly of the soulful house or broken beat variety.
This is worth strutting over. Actually listen to some of this alone in the house and don't be surprised if you back doesn't straighten and you stride begin to glide.
Sing (If You Want It)
2006 Ether/Blunt
I have had this for a few months, as I picked it up at Rasputin's when I was still taking Arabic classes at UC Berkeley and would do a weekly walkabout to the jazz and soul aisles. It was an import, but it's Omar, so that is ok.
And indeed, it is ok. It is even better than ok.
Omar has a weird vocal delivery; somewhat aggressive and staccato like Teddy Pendergrass, but musically leaning in a retro space that borrows heavily from Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield, and openly indebted to all those things that have made rare groove/acid-jazz far more listenable than any of the wannabe R&B triviality prevalent now.
Like all of his releases, he ranges a bit in terms of what he throws into the pot; 70s soul (don't call it neo), 80s R&B synth bass, hip-hop of the jazzy variety, bits of electronica, samba, reggae and soca and whatever else he feels like at the moment. As with his last album, Best By Far, he has quite a few duets. In this outing its JC Bentley, Stevie Wonder, Estelle, and Angie Stone appears on two cuts.
There are also some good players onboard, most notably Max Beesley, whose own Painful Truths cut with Omar on vocals a decade ago was one of the best of the prominent Acid Jazz years. Later he became famous for being the love interest of Scary Spice, which I would consider a big downgrade in status, so its good that hes returned to music. Also of note is superstar bassist Pino Palladino (The Who, John Mayer, D'Angelo) as a co-writer and performer on the tastefully subdued Get It Together (which also sports sme nice flourishes by broken beat maestro IG Culture). The use of real strings and brass along with his generally electro-organic sound soup works incredibly well. And while he has never produced a work on a scale of an Innervisions, he has been resilient in being able to make a consistently solid body of work spanning well over a decade at this point.
This will be very complimentary to people who like Maxwell, John Legend, D'Angelo as well as Stevie and Al Green.
Kenny Barron
Peruvian Blue
1974 Muse (Reissued 1998 on 32Jazz)
Kenny Barron is one of those names you here often enough to wonder about, but probably rarely actually dig into. After all, he isn't a Gillespie, Morgan, Lateef, (Roy) Haynes or (Ron) Carter...yet he's been a sideman for all of them. Even I pretty much ignored him until I heard his duet album with Regina Carter, Freefall; just listen to their take on Squatty Roo and it all makes sense.
As with many of my personal discoveries, this one came in the cut out jazz bin at a record shop ($4.95), and even then I still slept on this until a recent decision to play it while dinner preparations were underway. Needless to say, I feel bad for having ignored him this long. He is not a Monk, Tyner or Moran, but he is a really earthy, understated player with great post-bop sensibility and craft. This album has him working out not just on piano but clavinet and the fender Rhodes (which as I often state, can never sound bad).
This date is marked by a lot of interplay with guitarist Ted Dunbar, who I thought was completely unfamiliar with prior to this album, until I figured out he also played on Tony Williams's Ego release, which I dig. He has a little grit in his tone, and opts for picked notes in a way that reminds me of Grant Green, but a little more rhythm & blues. Their interplay is broad,as an almost low-light Bill Evans approach is taken on The Procession, but the take on Blue Monk is often playful, punctuated by bluesy turns and swings.
Given that this is also 1974, there is some experiementing with a kind of soul-jazz, funk and open jam aesthetic that fits with the time; fans of the Carlos Santana mid-seventies period will find things to enjoy in the title cut, and those who dug the Headhunters take note of In the Meantime. For some reason it makes me think of Karl Malden in the Streets of San Francisco if he were capable of having a relaxed moment and smiling for once. And I should not that throughout all of this his core backline in bassist David Williams and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath1. lay solid support throughout.
1. No relation to that annoying character on The Facts of Life.
Christian Scott
Rewind That
2006 Concord Jazz
So in this inaugural posting, I figured starting with a debut release would be appropo. I had been hearing rumblings about Christian Scott for a few months, but had been reticent, as these days it appears anyone who is not playing bonehead fluff like Kenny G and can ape a few bop licks like Wynton Marsalis gets given the hot new thing treatment.
But when a promo copy of Rewind This showed up in the bargain bin of one of my regular music excavation sites, I snagged it with the thought that a $2.95 risk was worth it.
Frankly, it's worth a lot more. It follows into the same sphere that Russell Gunn had with his early krunk-jazz releases (although he has improved over successive releases) and Roy Hargrove has with his RH Factor project, but it is a more coherent and well-produced album than any of the efforts by either of those folks so far. It falls closer to Me'shell Ndegeocello's Spirit Music Jamia or the more laid back side of the recent Christian McBride Band. I attribute this to a couple of reasons; a general vibe that patterns itself atmospherically on early 70s jazz fusion experiments by Miles, Herbie and Bartz/NTU instead of simply tacking on rock and funk elements to jazz licks, and to a quality of rhythmic alchemy very much tied to really impressive bass and drum combos.
Ndegeocello has herself with Chris Dave or Gene Lake, McBride himself and Terreon "Tank" Gully. Scott has Luques Curtis and Thomas Pridgen. They , along with Luques's sibling Zaccai on Fender Rhodes, provide the bed of abstract beat construction or loping grooves that give ample space for Scott and the other soloists to play in. Whether spartan bursts of Miles-like phrasing, or more rooted digressions, the playing by everyone is exemplary. Guitarist Matt Stevens has a cutting sound that thankfully skips xeroxing Wes Montgomery, and acts more like a hip-hop influenced Grant Green acolyte. While Scott's playing hints often of Miles stylistically, his tone and approach also recall Phareez Whitted and Eddie Henderson and tangentially wanders near some of the territory that Erik Truffaz has been mining successfully for some time, most notabe on the title track and on Lay in Vein. he is developed enough to not have to rely on his formidible chops to get him by, and seems quite self-assured to instead focus on mood, getting a generally warm and graceful tone.
Sometimes the playing gets a little too predictable and this is compunded by a very slick production in some spots, as it does about halfway into Kiel, but it is still played with such mastery that you can forgive such things on a debut where so much else shows some striking potentia. That same said production does not always hinder, and actually works to great leverage on Scotts rendition of the classic So What, which also sports some tasteful alto sax from his uncle, Donald Harrison. The two play together on a couple of cuts, but that one has the most grit, which seems tied to their hometown of New Orleans; its the spirit of that tradition of interplay coming into view.
As a major label debut this puts Scott on the map and I would definitely put him up as one to watch in the future.
