Jazz funk – Flabbergasted Vibes

Johnny Hammond – Gears (1975) (Jazz Dispensary / Craft Recordings 2022)

By Dr. Vibes January 28, 2024 January 28, 2024 Jazz, Jazz funk

Johnny Hammond – Gears
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | Art scans | Jazz-funk
2022 Craft Recordings “Jazz Dispensary” Ltd Ed. of 2000 copies || Orig.rel. 1975 Milestone

Like its predecessor Gambler’s Life, this Mizell Brothers production stands out from Hammond’s catalog for being very different from the soul-jazz / blues organ tradition that Hammond usually worked in. The Mizells wrote all but one of the compositions here, and its definitely of a piece with the other (heavy-handed?) production work of the Mizells on contemporaneous efforts by Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Bobbi Humphrey and others. Continue reading

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Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes – Cosmic Funk (1974) (2022 RGM)

By Dr. Vibes June 17, 2023 June 17, 2023 Jazz, Jazz funk, Spiritual jazz

Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes – Cosmic Funk
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | FLAC | 300 dpi scans | Jazz, Spiritual jazz
2022 Real Gone Music || 1974 Orig. Flying Dutchman

So I actually crafted a new, short write-up of this record without remembering that I posted about it once before, 13 years ago, because of course I did. You can read that screed here, if you like. I will probably blog about this album a third time, when I get around to transferring an original Flying Dutchmen pressing I have. I think this recent reissue holds up quite well against it, sonically speaking, so here we go….

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Flabbergasted Freeform Vol. 20

By Dr. Vibes January 22, 2023 January 25, 2023 Funk, Jazz, Jazz funk, Soul

FLABBERGASTED FREEFORM is back… sort of

I actually made this mix for a dear friend over a year ago. I kind of gave up on posting public mixes as I feel outdone by both AI and the many human DJs with better skillz than me, but what the hell, why not. Continue reading

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Dorothy Ashby – Afro-Harping (1968)

By Dr. Vibes April 2, 2022 April 2, 2022 Jazz, Jazz funk, Soul jazz

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.

16-44.1 FLAC

24/96

192

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

By Dr. Vibes January 4, 2022 January 4, 2022 Jazz, Jazz funk, Soul jazz

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)

By Dr. Vibes June 11, 2021 June 11, 2021 Jazz, Jazz funk, Soul jazz

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: