You'll never mistake Al Hirt for Blue Mitchell, but Soul in the Horn is nevertheless a surprisingly genuine and expressive detour into soul-jazz that captures an energy otherwise absent from the trumpeter's ho-hum catalog. The slinky "Harlem Hendoo" is the standout -- sampled by De La Soul for the Buhloone Mindstate cut "Ego Trippin Pt. 2"; it's also the reason why the record is so scarce and commands such high prices among crate diggers. No less soulful is the opening cover of Booker T. & the MG's "Honey Pot" or the bluesy "Sweetlips". It's a shame Hirt never made another record quite like Soul in the Horn -- with the right material and the right intentions, his talent was fierce. "Harlem Hendoo" below.
Fabulous, simply fabulous soul jazz instrumentals, with an equally fantastic line-up of Chess staff musicians. Bassist Richard Evans produced for Marlena Shaw, Ramsey Lewis, Brother Jack Mc Duff, Odell Brown and many other Chess/Cadet artists. From 1966 to 1971 the Soulful Strings made six or seven LPs. The Soulful Strings were in fact the Chess house band; Lennie Druss (flute, woodwinds) Charles Stepney (organ/vibes), Phil Upchurch (guitar), Cleveland Eaton (bass) Bobby Christian/Billy Wooten (vibes).
The centerpiece of the record is the first song--"Burning Spear"-- which is by far Richard Evans best known composition. Since he recorded it with the Soulful Strings it was covered by Jimmy Smith, Joe Pass, S.O.U.L., Salsoul Orchestra, and then again by Evans during the disco era when it was a hit all over again. Opening with the sounds of the kalimba (a frequent ingredient in Evans productions of the era), the tune is soon stated by Lennie Druss’ flute, followed immediately by a pounding drum beat, which never lets up. ‘Burning Spear’ really is a Druss feature (proving once again that aside from Evans himself, Druss really was one of the biggest parts of the sound of the Soulful Strings) and the sections of the song where the vibes are playing in unison with the flute are excellent. The cut also features a great guitar solo by Phil Upchurch.
"I was born one night about twelve o’clock I come into this world playing a gold guitar My papa walkin’ around stickin’ out his chest Hollerin’ “Mama, this boy is gonna be a mess” – “The Story of Bo Diddley,” 1959
I hate to have to post two consecutive "R.I.P." blogs, but when I heard that Bo Diddley passed away at age 79 from heart failure, there was no other choice.
Bo Diddley was a bonafide legend, a titan among mere mortals, a braggart who made Little Richard seem polite, the biggest and baddest of all the original rock & rollers. Nothing about the man was small – not his size, not his music, not his influence, not the myth that he cheerfully, ceaselessly created on song after song, many bearing his name somewhere in the title. Like so much in his music, the tale of his birth that he spun “The Story of Bo Diddley” was tall. Bo never met his father, a minor factual detail that doesn’t really matter when considering the legend of Bo Diddley, the man who was born as Ellas Bates, adopted the surname McDaniel when being raised in Chicago by his mother’s cousin Gussie and eventually became known as the larger than life Bo Diddley, a name he took when he was playing the streets of Chicago with a makeshift band with his right-hand man Jerome Green in tow. With Jerome shaking maracas, Bo created the beat that bore his name, a variation of the rhythm known as Hambone, a shave-and-a-haircut beat that can be traced back to slave plantations and was widely played in vaudeville and minstrel shows during the early part of the 20th Century. How Bo learned the Hambone is as cloudy as the origin of his name, but that murkiness only added to the wallop of music: he seemed to come out of nowhere with his mighty beat, sounding quite unlike his New Orleans peers Fats Domino and Little Richard or his Chess labelmate Chuck Berry.
That oversized, swaggering beat quickly became widely imitated, with Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and Ronnie Hawkins’ version of “Who Do You Love” being the first inkling of the tidal wave of Diddley-inspired rocking to follow. As the ’60s rolled on, band after band rode Bo’s train: the Rolling Stones’ recorded “Mona” and gave Muddy Waters’ “I Just Want To Make Love To You” a Bo Beat, the Pretty Things took their name from one of his singles, the Who’s “Magic Bus” was fueled by Diddley, the Yardbirds covered Bo’s “Here ‘Tis” and “I’m A Man” picking up on the wild modernity of his recordings, while Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band tapped into his flat-out weirdness in their cover of “Diddy Wah Diddy.” This was hardly the end of Bo’s influence, either, as the New York Dolls’ sped through “Pills” on their debut, Dr. Feelgood found the core of their gritty, nasty rock & roll via “I Can Tell,” the Clash had Bo open for them on an American tour, while two Georges – Michael and Thorogood – brought the Bo Diddley beat into ’80s with their hits “Faith” and “Bad to the Bone,” while the man himself was part of a Nike ad campaign in the early ’90s, around the time Paul McCartney revived “Crackin’ Up” for his Russian-only oldies album.
This laundry list of covers, influence and achievements suggest that Bo tore up the charts in the ’50s and ’60s, which isn’t really the case: he had hits but unlike Fats, Little Richard, Chuck Berry or Ray Charles, he didn’t quite cross over to the pop mainstream. During the ’50s, he often topped the Black Singles Billboard chart, but never racked up pop hits like his peers. Why didn’t Bo have more pop hits? Maybe because he had a gritty blues backbone to his music, but Bo was no bluesman, at least according to the conventional definition of the word. Even with “I’m a Man” and “Before You Accuse Me” to his credit, Bo wasn’t backwoods, he was a creature of the city, jive talking and hustling, cranking up his amps until they burst, wrapping his thick guitar in waves of tremolo, singing about cops and robbers and roadrunners, threatening to go kick the ass of Kruschev. Compared to the frenetic teenage rhythms of Little Richard or the school day poetry of Chuck Berry, this was adult music, filled with rude humor and good-natured menace, hinting at relations and situations far beyond the average rock & roll song of the ’50s.
If he didn’t consciously mythologize America the way that Chuck did, he nevertheless captured how America felt in the ’50s and ’60s. Appropriate for a guitarist best known for a rhythm, Bo blurred barriers everywhere: he had female guitarists (Lady Bo and The Duchess) in his band when rock & roll truly was a man’s game, he captured the rhythm of streets slang, he had an understanding that records were different than live performance, how groove and feel could trump songs on a 45. Sonically, his singles pushed barriers, filled with fuzz tones and elastic guitars, galloping pianos, sawing violins and call-and-response vocals with Jerome. Listen to a collection of his Chess/Checker singles – the best currently being Universal UK’s 2006 set The Story of Bo Diddley – and the depth and range is astonishing, proving that there was far, far more to Bo than his patented beat and walloping gut-bucket blues. That variety kept him going through the ’60s even when he fell off the charts and it also meant that he could ease into dirty psychedelic funk-rock in the ’70s (chronicled on Raven’s 2004 set Tales from the Funk Dimension). Similarly, Bo’s humor – which, like his music, was multi-dimensional, ranging from one-liners and dirty jokes to bizarre absurdities – could overshadow what a great songwriter he was. That above list of covers illustrates that he has plenty of rock & roll standards to his credit (and to that list Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love is Strange,” which he penned but did not release; it surfaced this past year on Hip-O Select’s tremendous I’m a Man: The Chess Masters, 1955-1958) but his catalog is filled with lesser-known gems, sides like the strange funk of “Craw-Dad” and the cool strut of “Walkin’ and Talkin’” or the furious “You All Green.”
Bo also cut some fine straight-up LPs, like "Bo Diddley is a Gun Slinger" or the live "Bo Diddley’s Beach Party," which is as raw and exciting as any live early rock & roll record can be. It, sadly, has never hit CD, nor has a lot of other Bo Diddley’s Chess/Checker sides. The lack of reissues only proves that all these years later, it’s hard to push Bo Diddley into any particular box. He’s harder to categorize and package than any other early rock & roller, but the key to his greatness is that he was too big to easily wear any one label. And that’s the reason why Bo Diddley kept writing songs about himself: He was too big to be contained in one or two three-minute songs. Thankfully, Bo left behind a whole mess of them behind in a legacy that has few peers. (Courtesy of allmusic.com)
Below, the track "Black Soul" from Bo's 1970 LP, "Black Gladiator." Rest in peace, Bo!
Back in the ’60s, there wasn’t as big a divide between jazz and R&B as there is today. Sure, currently there is that soft netherworld of quiet storm, a place where smooth jazz and slick R&B intertwine, but back then jazzmen could make people dance, cutting hot singles that rocked the jukebox and climbed the charts, usually Billboard’s R&B-dominated “Black Singles” chart, but often crossing over too. Of these musicians, few were as successful as organist Jimmy McGriff, who died May 24, 2008 at the age of 72. McGriff played to a larger audience because he was all about rhythm and soul, churning out thick, funky, infectious grooves on his Hammond.
This facility with the groove led McGriff to label himself as a bluesman, and there was a fair amount of truth to that. He was rooted in the blues, and compared to such contemporaries as Jimmy Smith – never mind Larry Young, who was in a different sphere entirely – he never quite delved into long, liquid solos, nor did he have consciously-crafted pop crossovers like Peter & The Wolf, either. McGriff, like his peer Richard “Groove” Holmes was all about feel, a feel that was tangible in the earthy, funky grooves that dominated his playing, a feel that was palpable even when he did a session devoted to Count Basie’s swing.
He retained that funky feel even when his records reflected the styles of the time, as they did in the ’70s when "Electric Funk", "Groove Grease" and "Soul Sugar" had fuzz guitars and deep funky grooves that later were mined for samples (they also were graced by some seriously sexy album covers). Such an emphasis on samples is accurate, as McGriff was always about rhythm, but usually McGriff’s music was old-fashioned funk, more about the gritty groove instead of James Brown vamps. This is best heard on those 45s that climbed the charts and earned heavy rotation on ’60s jukeboxes, ranging from 1962’s “I’ve Got a Woman” to 1969’s “The Worm,” sides that defined the sound of soul-jazz in the ’60s and beyond.
Of course, Jimmy McGriff went far beyond the ’60s, or those turn of the ’70s cult classics. He continued to play and record well into the new millennium, putting out LPs on Groove Merchant in the ’70s, CDs on Milestone and Telarc in the ’80s and ’90s. He wound up with a lot of records, most of them easy to enjoy, as almost all of them wound up being true to that blues-saturated soulful sound he created in the ’60s. It’s a sound that still feels soulful and right, whether it’s on the original records or samples or in the legions of younger musicians following McGriff’s footprints.
Below, his famous, oft-sampled track "Blue Juice", which has been sampled by Black Sheep ("Pass the 40") and King T ("Time to Get Out"), to name a few. RIP Jimmy!
Normally I only post soul/funk/jazz stuff on here, but this is just too funny not to share. Bare with me.
You see, dear readers, back in the late twentieth century we had things called "land lines," which referred to your home telephone line. When we moved into the Haynes Street house in 2003, we were assigned a "home telephone number," which, in the age of cellphones, was rarely used. We mostly just kept it going for emergencies and for the internet/DSL line.
We noticed quickly after we moved in that the phone would ring fairly often--random calls from people asking for the "99 Cent Store." We'd all look at each other confused, but after another good 20-30 phone calls, we realized that a 99 Cent Store had either a) once had our same number, or b) the phone company had the wrong number listed for the 99 Cent store. Either way, neither Mac nor I felt like doing anything about it. Let THEM fix it.
Needless to say, these calls were a source of endless entertainment. Sometimes we'd pick up the phone (as a fictional 99 cent store employee) and have conversations with them; sometimes we'd ignore the calls. Sometimes they'd call at night, some on lazy Sunday afternoons, and, others at 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes, when people asked for the address of the store, we'd tell them that we were located on the corner of Riverside and Sepulveda (an intersection that doesn't exist here in LA, but ALMOST does. LA people will know what I mean.) Anyway, mostly we'd just laugh. It was all harmless fun. The months (and years) rolled on, and it just became a staple of life at Haynes Street.
Knowing all this: I am sharing with you the two very best voicemails people left (for the 99 Cent Store) from our house. At one time, we had about a collection of about 10-12 phone calls; unfortunately, these were the only two that survived.
Message #1: An infuriated woman calls complaining about the store's seemingly misprinted (or misread) "9 days a week" policy. (Right in the middle of her rant, the machine cuts her off. My favorite part.)
Message #2: The cashier didn't give him his change. Simple. (Hello? Hello Hello? Damn, she gave me everything but my mothafuuuucking moneeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy)
These get funnier and funnier the more you think about them and hear them, and I just hope they make you all laugh as much as they did us. They couldn't have been written any better. Big ups to Mac and Nate for saving these before they were lost.
The volume's a tad low, so make sure you can hear 'em proper. Enjoy. They start about :07 in.
I know I don't usually post straight-up hip-hop tracks much, but hearing M.E.D.'s "Break It Down" earlier this week reminded me how much I enjoyed Peanut Butter Wolf and Stones Throw's "2K8: B-Ball Zombie War" (the soundtrack to the hugely successful NBA 2K video game series.) It was released late in 2007.
Needless to say, they certainly didn't seem to have any trouble finding exceptional material to include. Featureing tracks by J-Dilla, four Madlib productions & one from Just Blaze, with guest appearances by Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, Guilty Simpson, Oh No, Percee P, & more, it's a great record with wildly inventive styles, proving that there are some resonant and worthwhile voices in contemporary hip-hop.
M.E.D.'s "Break It Down" is fast, furious, and damn funky. Enjoy.
Cookin On 3 Burners are Jake Mason, Ivan Khatchoyan and Lance Ferguson, a three piece powerhouse from Down Under (Australia) who serve up the rawest in deep funk, jazz, boogaloo and soul. Led by a wailing Hammond Organ, they are distinctly different to many other funk acts, yet you’ll be no stranger to the grooves and pounding drums.
After a number of Melbourne residencies and a self released 7”, the group came to local prominence with the ‘Cressy St Breakdown’ 12” released on Knowfoowl thru USA’s Groove Distribution. This was followed by the re-release of ‘Gravel Rash’ through UK’s Freestyle label and then a follow up 7” ‘Keb’s Bucket’ (an ode to the Scottish DJ’s legendary pee bucket he needs when he plays for many hours). The group have continued to play across Sydney and Melbourne over the last 12 months, with highlight gigs including the support for Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings 06 Sydney show, support for Breakestra’s Music Man Miles DJ show in Melbourne and a mammoth 3 gigs in under 24 hours over the 07 ANZAC day holiday in Sydney.
Their debut LP "Baked Broiled and Fried" can be found online (google it, order it, and thank me later). The record is a great home brew of soulful Hammond with down home flavor fresh sounds, greasy backbeats, and nuanced, disciplined playing all around. The track "Redback" is below.
In the early ’70s, Indianapolis-based vibraphonist Billy Wooten was playing in a band called the Wooden Glass. Wooten had been kicking around for years as a hard-working musician, playing in several different bands, touring, and even doing some sessions with famed guitarist Grant Green. Wooten's band--the Wooden Glass--had a regular gig at a club called the Nineteenth Whole and it was in that club that Wooden Glass recorded its seminal live album, Wooden Glass — Recorded Live featuring Billy Wooten. One of the prominent tracks on the LP is “In the Rain,” a funk-jazz instrumental that highlights Wooten’s unique vibraphone style.
“You had a period of rebirth, reminiscent of old Harlem. For those that came into the barrio, they would share in that happy feeling with the musicians,” Wooten recalls. “There was a camaraderie between the people and the musicians. Now we have another rebirth coming. To me, personally, it was an honor and a privilege to be part of those events.”
“The music doesn’t really belong to us, it belongs to whoever hears it, interprets it and rearranges it,” Wooten says, whose music has been extensively sampled by DJs like Madlib and DJ Shadow. Stones Throw also included this cut on their must-have "Funky 16 Corners" anthology. Original copies of this LP will run you anywhere from $800 to $1500 for a mint condition.
"Fallin’ Off the Reel Vol. 2" follows the success of Truth and Soul’s first edition of the compilation, released in the fall of 2006. The second-edition Truth & Soul compilation boasts a varied roster of current-day and older funk and soul artists, including Timothy McNealy, El Michels Affair, Bronx River Parkway, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Tyrone Ashley’s Funk Music Machine, Black Velvet, Quincy Bright and The Fabulous Three. The compilation comprises a wide selection of contemporary music that has descended from the rhythm and blues, soul, and funk music traditions. "Fallin’ Off The Reel Vol. 2" has every Truth & Soul 45 single presented in chronological order from 2006 until now, including one previously unreleased bonus track. The Gatefold Double-LP includes selected tracks from both volumes of the Fallin’ Off the Reel series, plus rare tracks. It's an amazingly well put-together package, and it's well worth the investment of $20 or so.
It was hard to pick only one track to share with all you Nuggeteers out there, but alas...It's a beautifully sparse, genre-blurring instrumental version of Wu Tang's "C.R.E.A.M.", performed by Brooklyn's El Michels Affair, and, man...it's cream-of-the-crop. (Forgive the pun.)
The Vibrettes' "Humpty Dump" is a funk 45 classic--a girl group with a wicked New Orleans sound, a massive, chunky breakbeat, heavy bass, and a sound that was often imitated, but rarely so effective.
This track was featured in DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist's "Brainfreeze" sets, and has been sampled by acts like Digital Underground ("Humpty Dance", natch)and Q-Tip ("Let's Ride.")
Take an inspired producer at the peak of his powers, a great team of session players, and an uncommonly subtle and graceful R&B singer, and what do you have? Top-tier Memphis soul.
The feminine counterpart to Al Green on producer Willie Mitchell's Hi label, Ann Peebles had a strong run through the '70s during which she put out a string of R&B hits, many of which have since been revived by famed fans of the singer and the Memphis style. "I Can't Stand the Rain," released in 1974, was Ann Peebles' finest album for Hi Records, and it should have been a massive success. Instead, while it's celebrated in Europe and now considered an anthem, it floundered and barely scraped the pop charts, although the single was her biggest R&B hit. In an interview, John Lennon once called it "the greatest record ever," which, hyperbole aside, shows the impact the song had on attentive ears.
This track comes courtesy of Henryk Debich's 1975 LP "String Beat." It was released on the Muza label out of Poland. Debich made some great Polish funk records in his time, and this track is no exception.
Ophir "Kutiman" Kutiel is a 25-year-old multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer based in Tel Aviv. When a friend introduced him to the sounds of 1960s funk and Afro-beat, he was immediately entranced, and this album was the eventual result. It shows clearly that he's been listening hard to the records of his heroes -- Fela Kuti, James Brown, Sly Stone -- and that he's learned a lot from them. It also shows his impressive instrumental chops.
Kutiman's record was released on February 12, 2008 on Germany's Melting Pot label. It is a solid debut, and highly recommended. "Music is Ruling My World" boasts a wicked JB-influenced groove and some nice vocals, courtesy of Karolina.
Art Farmer (1928-1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette.
He joined Lionel Hampton's orchestra around 1953, (fellow trumpeters Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones were also with Hampton at the time), and having relocated to New York, later worked with Gigi Gryce, Horace Silver and Gerry Mulligan among others. In the early 1960s Farmer established a trio with guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Steve Swallow. He then moved to Europe, ultimately based in Vienna, where he performed with The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band. Farmer also recorded extensively as a leader throughout his later career.
"Soul Sides" comes from his 1972 album "Gentle Eyes"--a slow, laconic number that crystallizes Farmer's big band arrangement (for 15 string and 5 horn players) and some wonderfully funky solos. The track was later sampled by Kool G Rap for on "For Da Brothaz."
Conrad O. Johnson, bandleader of the Kashmere High School Stage Band from 1968-1978 and owner of Kram Records, the label that issued the Band’s legendary eight albums and three 7” singles of Texas jazz, funk and soul music, died in Houston on February 3 at 92 years of age...
...Johnson, known by those close to him simply as “Prof” took the reins of the Band in the late 1960s and worked with his charges to perfect the idiom that they understood most: funk. Heavy funk at that. By the time that the band recorded their third album, “Thunder Soul,” they were funking like a mini-JBs. And, by the time they won “Best Stage Band In The Nation” in 1972, they were funking as hard as the JBs themselves. Yet the Band was relegated to the annals of funk lore, largely due to the fact that the records they released were so rare and, when a collector did get his hands on an original copy, he usually wanted to keep that power for his own ears..."
DJ Shadow famously sampled the Kashmere Stage Band for the track "Holy Calamity" on the first Handsome Boy Modeling School LP.
What else can be said? Rest in peace, Conrad. Thanks for the music. "Rhapsody in Blue" below.
