Category: Jazz funk

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Dorothy Ashby – Afro-Harping (1968)

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Dorothy Ashby – Afro-Harping
 Orig. release 1968 Cadet Records / 2018 Geffen / UMe

Next to Alice Coltrane, Dorothy Ashby is easily the best-known proponent of “jazz harp.”  I mean, it’s not exactly a crowded scene, is it?  This record stimulates all my auralgenous zones, drawing on ‘soul jazz’, pop, Latin, post-bop, R&B and proto-funk.  It may even evoke “exotica”, but only in the best ways: the lead-off track has a theremin in it, FFS.  It’s the kind of thing jazz purists used to overlook or disdain, with many nods to contemporary pop (“The Look of Love” closes the record, and “Theme from Valley of the Dolls” is a pleasant addition).   The musicians are uncredited, but Phil Upchurch has a writing credit and is mentioned as the guitarist on the title track (where he is misidentified as “Paul” Upchurch).  The producer on this was Richard Evans, of Ramsey Lewis and The Soulful Strings fame, but given that Cadet issued it, I can’t help wonder if he drew from the stable of musicians used by Charles Stepney for projects like Rotary Connection.  It’s got a similar baroque-psych/soul-jazz quality to it.   If you like this, you could do worse than to check out her album The Rubáiyát Of Dorothy Ashby for similar good vibes.

The transfer featured here is from the 2018 reissue, and was done before I upgraded my DAW and a few other components, but I haven’t posted anything in a while and this is worth hearing in any format.  I’ve been stupidly busy but it has been a cold winter-y week where I’m at, so it’s a good day to give the blog a little love.  Also, I neglected to post anything here in the entire month of March, so I’m going to try and make up for that in April.

 

Label/Cat#: Geffen Records – B0028591-01, UMe – 677 046-1, Cadet – LPS-809
Country: US, Year: 14 Sep 2018
Genre: Jazz, Funk, Soul
Style: Jazz-Funk. Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Stereo
Tracklist
A1 – Soul Vibrations (03:15)
A2 – Games (03:58)
A3 – Action Line (03:40)
A4 – Lonely Girl (03:12)
A5 – Life Has It’s Trials (04:35)
B1 – Afro-Harping (02:59)
B2 – Little Sunflower (03:45)
B3 – Theme From ‘Valley Of The Dolls’ (03:32)
B4 – Come Live With Me (02:35)
B5 – The Look Of Love (04:05)

Total length: 35:36

More information: https://www.discogs.com/Dorothy-Ashby-Afro-Harping/release/12285734

LINEAGE: 2018 Geffen B0028591-01 / UMe 677 046-1 vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE with Audio Tecnica Signet TK7E cartridge; Speedbox power supply; Creek Audio OBH-15; Audioquest Black Mamba and Pangea Premier interconnect cables; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; clicks and pops removed manually with Adobe Audition 3.0; resampled and dithered using iZotope RX Advanced. Converted to FLAC in either Trader’s Little Helper or dBPoweramp. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

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16-44.1 FLAC

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24/96

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Grant Green – Alive! (1970) Day 10 of FV’s 12 Days of Xmas

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Grant Green – Alive!
2019 Blue Note 80 Series BST-84360 – Original Release 1970

Absolute barn-stormer of classic soul-jazz funk with a lineup that can’t be beat. Idris Muhammad is at his funkiest, but the other show-stealer is Ronnie Foster on the organ. Lean and mean stuff, if you dig this then you need to hear the Live at Club Mozambique from this same era, but which wasn’t issued until the 00’s. I=

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Chester Thompson – Powerhouse (1971) (2021 Black Jazz / RGM)

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Chester Thompson – Powerhouse
2021 Real Gone Music RGM-1202 / Original Release 1971 Black Jazz

This is a short (seriously short, only 27 minutes) but sweet LP from future Tower of Power and Santana organist, Chester Thompson.  Not to be confused with the drummer Chester Thompson, who toured with Genesis in the post-Peter Gabriel years and also played in Santana’s 1980’s lineup at the same time as this Chester, which caused this Chester to start using his middle initial to help people keep them straight.  There is also a song called Mr. T that predates the A-Team by a decade.  Now that we’ve got that out of the way, the music:

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Roland Haynes – 2nd Wave (1975) (2020 Black Jazz / Real Gone Music)

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It’s a total coincidence (or is it?) that my first two posts about the Black Jazz reissues have been by keyboardists, without any brass or reeds in their band. Weird, eh? This record, “2nd Wave” is great stuff by a one-and-done mysterious key tickler, Roland Haynes. There are actually two Fender Rhodes players here, so that should be welcomed by those of you for whom there is Never Enough Rhodes.  Not much is known about Roland Haynes, a situation that is not cleared up by the liner notes by Pat Thomas in the insert.  Continue reading

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival (1972/1996)

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival
Original release 1972 Polydor (Japan)
1996 CD reissue Verve Records 314531641-2

Dipping back into the Roy Ayers Ubiquity catalog, this live performance hails from pretty early in their trajectory, and this version was expanded from the original LP to include 4 extra tracks for what is probably a pretty complete representation of their set.  (more below the break) Continue reading

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Freedom Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz & The Civil Rights Movement 1963-82 (Soul Jazz Records 219)

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Various Artists – Freedom Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz & The Civil Rights Movement 1963-82
2009 Soul Jazz Records

I apologize for my absence during these challenging times of turmoil.  The truth is I am exhausted by everything happening in the world, but not anywhere near as exhausted as my black friends, especially those in the United States.  I feel like those who know me, know where I stand. Continue reading