Jazz Funk

[Tenor Freak]

I thought that Calum was rather withering in his criticism that funk was boring. I do enjoy a bit of jazz funk, or funky jazz...

So here are some of my favourite examples. First up is a piece I consider to be a kind of jazz-funk symphony - Herbie gets through a lot of material in a short space of time (for example I would have made more of the throwaway "second movement" of this piece - it runs barely 20 seconds from about 1:32 onwards) and builds up to a fantastic rhythmic onslaught towards the end and the recapitulation of the main theme.

[Tenor Freak]

Next up, another favourite. This is brilliant - and features a wonderful cameo from Blue Mitchell on trumpet. Grant Green is great in many guises but I have an admiration for his late 60s-early 70s soul jazz/funk period which I think is under-appreciated.

[Tenor Freak]

More Herbie, and another personal favourite from the Sunlight LP. The back cover photo is awesome with Mr Hancock surrounded by a veritable menagerie of vintage keys....

Mr Hancock's suit courtesy Tommy Nutter of Savile Row

[Tenor Freak]

Now for some disco

[Tenor Freak]

This - all of it:

[Tenor Freak]

And now, my gateway drug into this music...still a favourite since 1979 when I heard this on the radio as a kid...Wilton Felder's saxophone solo has been a guiding star ever since...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

withering? withering? never!

aamof Grant Green and Baby Face Willette are on my top rated faves ..... just thought Johnny G's voice was a touch mannered really .... but am persuadable that he is very listenable ...

[Ian Thumwood]

At Vienne there is usually a Funk night but the results can be variable and sometimes the music is just too removed from jazz to be of interest. I think it was someone like Bootsy Collins I walked out of as the band were just vamping on one chord and after about thiry minutes of this it was clear that the music wasn't going to get any better. In fact, you find that this is really common with funk and that whilst the groove may be interesting, the fact that the band never varies the harmony become monotonous. I've been similarly bored with Maceo Parker like whilst fred Wesley was hugely entertaining.

Of the more "pop" acts I've seen, two are hugely impressive and both fall under Bruce's thread. Last year I really enjoyed the incarnation of "Earth, wind and fire" which toured and think that they have compiled an impressive bodfy of work. This year, i would have to say that I was even more impressed with Nile Rodgers and Chic - a group that included jazz musicians and illustrates nicely how American pop is many notches above the kind of shit like Elton John, Oasis, U 2 oe Coldplay that gets lauded in this country. In fact, I feel that the level of musicianship with some of these guitar -led bands is probably quite average and not a patch of the level of skill required to execute Rodger's charts. Although I was familiar with Rodger's name beforehand, this year's gig was one of the best I have been to and I have become a bit of a convert.

Strange that there have been no mention of avant-funksters Medeski, Martin and Wood - one of the most exciting bands of the last twenty years and a band that has influenced the likes of Will Bernard who I enjoy too.

Amongst the samples above, I love the Herbie tracks. "Chameleon" has some great music on it but I was a bit disappointed by the Ornette record. I recognise the first tune but can't put a name to it. Sounds like Ornette cut and pasted over a funk groove and not much interaction between the two.

[burning dog]

I think funk needs more of song structure to put it in context, retain interest, hence the easier listenability of a "pop" act like Earth Wind and Fire over a lot of free form funk meanderings. James Brown's band could keep up the intensity of basic ("songless") funk for a bit longer than the pop single but he was an exception, his sidemen like Maceo Parker can't IMO.


Take it to the bridge!
So there IS a "song" in there somewhere

Not a patch on Top of the Pops eh?!

[Russ]

The slightly amazing Tal Wilkenfield:

[Serial_Apologist]

I think funk needs more of song structure to put it in context, retain interest, hence the easier listenability of a "pop" act like Earth Wind and Fire over a lot of free form funk meanderings.

Yes, but Miles's "Live-Evil" - phew man!!! That double album was the one that broke me into free jazz, ironically - the concatenation (nice word that) of superimposed elemental complexity on Side 3 just having to break the bonds or have some sort of collective breakdown. So inspired the way Miles coaxes it all back into a groove - and what a groove! This kind of music can be a break out point, as Django Bates has pointed out; I can listen to that double LP any number of times and never tire of it. The problem for me became the overformulation of the music from about '75 onwards, and frankly Disco was pants, that fkcng march-to-my backbeat all you rhythmic slaves. Herbie Hancock later admitted that records like "Thrust" were harmonically limited, as I think would Ian Carr who had written in "Music Outside" (1973) of Nucleus being able to imrovise forever on one chord. If there was ever any excuse for the young Marsalis upstarts slagging off what had come before it was that stuff. Mind, I'm just envious of the Afro hairdos.

[burning dog]

[QUOTE=Serial_Apologist] Yes, but Miles's "Live-Evil" - phew man!!!

Agreed But it took musicians of the calibre and modernity of Miles and HH, to make something of free form funk. Thrust may be harmonically limited (relative to post bop) but in other ways it's sophisticated. The nadir of 70s jazz IMO was older boppers trying to play straight jazz with a electric bass style funk/disco backing and the prog/metal influence on Fusion of the Return to Forever electric sorties and Mahavishnu "heavy" nonsense, all featuring fine musicians but with less satisfying outcomes than the much maligned Disco, which is just what it says on the cover, dance/social music not great art.

Gary Bartz, much underrated, with Dave Holland on electric showing that the move to funk by MD was more organic than you'd guess from the officlal releases at the time where Holland was associated with acoustic bass

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

[QUOTE=burning dog;332232]

Yes, but Miles's "Live-Evil" - phew man!!!

Agreed But it took musicians of the calibre and modernity of Miles and HH, to make something of free form funk. Thrust may be harmonically limited (relative to post bop) but in other ways it's sophisticated. The nadir of 70s jazz IMO was older boppers trying to play straight jazz with a electric bass style funk/disco backing and the prog/metal influence on Fusion of the Return to Forever electric sorties and Mahavishnu "heavy" nonsense, all featuring fine musicians but with less satisfying outcomes than the much maligned Disco, which is just what it says on the cover, dance/social music not great art.

Gary Bartz, much underrated, with Dave Holland on electric showing that the move to funk by MD was more organic than you'd guess from the officlal releases at the time where Holland was associated with acoustic bass

MY man Jackie Mclean's signing to a major, RCA, in 1979 the year of Thatcher, led to him making Monuments, the biggest pile of disco funk Sht in his career. His words. But it sold more than anything he cut and was a more than minor hit.

I am now off to execute a disco drive by in the hood of the Lib Dems while playing the Chris Columbo Quintet on Summertime. 1963 screaming B3. Now that is Fufffffgfuuuunk.

BN.

[burning dog]

[QUOTE=BLUESNIK'S REVOX;332270]

MY man Jackie Mclean's signing to a major, RCA, in 1979 the year of Thatcher, led to him making Monuments, the biggest pile of disco funk Sht in his career. His words. But it sold more than anything he cut and was a more than minor hit.

I am now off to execute a disco drive by in the hood of the Lib Dems while playing the Chris Columbo Quintet on Summertime. 1963 screaming B3. Now that is Fufffffgfuuuunk.

BN.

Monuments is just the kind of thing I was thinking of re. older boppers and disco/funk backing. I'm surprised it pleased either audience or indeed anyone who was in both audiences. There are some reasonable passages when it veers nearer to regular swinging jazz, it's often more proto-smooth jazz than anything.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

[QUOTE=burning dog;332297]

Monuments is just the kind of thing I was thinking of re. older boppers and disco/funk backing. I'm surprised it pleased either audience or indeed anyone who was in both audiences. There are some reasonable passages when it veers nearer to regular swinging jazz, it's often more proto-smooth jazz than anything.

Yes, the single from it, Dr J and Mr Funk (sic), charted and Jackie paid some bills. They wanted him to do a re run and he said Feyk no. He never liked record companies - like working for the Nazis - although Alfred and Steeplechase were OK. Shirley Horn had some real problems with Steeplechase. ...they tried to get money out of her!

BN