Comments (4)

By Larry, November 3, 2010 7:21 am

Curtis Mayfield

Listen/Download – Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up

Greetings all.

Welcome back to the house with sixteen funky corners.

I’m writing this prior to the Election, since the fam and I are heading out for a few days of much needed rest and relaxation.

The crispness of Fall is in the air (along with lots of leaves), so hopefully all of us will be able to get outside, clear our heads and have a good time.

Because this is being written prior to any voting or the results thereof, and since realism does not allow me the luxury of optimism, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that come Wednesday morning, I’m not going to be happy, and a whole new set of challenges will lie ahead for this country, and progressive causes in general.

That said, what better time for a positive message, from the man that I (and I’m sure a lot of other people) consider to be the greatest of the socially conscious soul masters, the mighty Curtis Mayfield.

I’ll go ahead and assume that you all know something about Curtis – and if you don’t, step out into the day and read up on your read ups – via his hits with the Impressions, his stellar solo work or the countless amazing records that he either wrote, arranged, or produced (or all three) for others.

Among his finest ‘message’ songs, is today’s selection ‘Move On Up’ from the brilliant 1971 ‘Curtis’ album.

I’ll let Curtis Mayfield speak for himself, with the added note, that if the lyrics below are not words to live by, I don’t know what else to say.

Move On Up

Hush now child,
and don’t you cry
Your folks might understand you
by and by
Move on up
towards your destination
You may find
from time to time
Complications

Bite your lip
and take a trip
Though there may be
wet road ahead
You cannot slip
Just move on up
and peace you will find
Into the steeple
of beautiful people
Where there’s only one kind

So hush now child
and don’t you cry
Your folks might understand you
by and by
Just move on up
and keep on wishing
Remember your dreams
are your only schemes
So keep on pushing
Take nothing less –
not even second best
And do not obey –
you must have your say
You can past the test

Move on up!

I’ll be back later in the week with my Marvin set from my DC trip back in September, and of course this Friday’s Funky16Corners Radio Show, which is dedicated entirely to the Harthon sound, and the memory of Weldon McDougal III.

See you then.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg

Comments (4)

By Larry, October 21, 2010 9:31 am

Byron Lee

Listen/Download – Byron Lee and the Dragonaires – Who Done It

Greetings all.

The end of a very busy week is here, and so is some music.

I have to start things out with the news that after about three and a half years of posts, my other blog, Iron Leg is going on hiatus.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and an increasingly busy schedule and the resulting lack of free time finally forced my hand.

I say hiatus – as opposed to a complete shutdown – because I’d like to get it going again some time in the future, but right now, for my own sanity, and for the quality of the blogs, I’m going to take a break.

Funky16Corners, and the Funky16Corners Radio Show are in no danger and will continue on as scheduled.

That said, make sure to tune in this Friday at 9PM over at Viva Radio for this weeks show, which features a tribute to the late, great Solomon Burke.

I’d also like to say thanks (again) to Sean Rowley on the BBC for giving Funky16Corners props on his Joy of Music radio show. I’ve added him to the blogroll, so make sure you take a listen.

All of that out of the way, let’s get to today’s selection.

Byron Lee and the Dragonaires have been featured in this space a few times in the past.

Lee was a producer and bandleader who recorded in a wide variety of island styles, releasing a huge stack of LPs. Many (most) of these were fairly middle of the road affairs aimed at folks flying into Jamaica for rum drinks and suntans, but every once in a while, Byron and his band hit the nail right on its soulful head.

One such example is the track I bring you today, ‘Who Done It’.

Does the title sound familiar?

If so, then the song itself will ring and even bigger bell, since although it’s credited to Jackie Mittoo (and the spelling of the title has been altered), this is clearly a cover of Monk Higgins and the Specialties 1966 R&B Top 40 hit ‘Who Dun It’ (originally released on Chicago’s St. Lawrence label).

While Mittoo had already covered the song on the Coxsone label (where the song is credited to Coxsone Dodd) it’s entirely possible that Lee was unaware of the song’s origins.

Jamaican music of the 60s and 70s is filled with adaptations of American R&B, soul and funk, some presented as a straight cover version, others altered ever so slightly and yet others providing little more than what might be considered a sample in today’s more technologically advanced world.

Lee’s version of ‘Who Done It’ strips away the saxophone that leads the original and appears on the Mittoo version, putting a chicken scratch guitar and organ in its place.

I have no idea who’s playing the organ on this one. If any of you know, please drop me a line.

The result is a great bit of soulful, ever so slightly funky reggae.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg

Comments (1)

By Larry, October 14, 2010 1:48 pm

Pete and band, looking el snappy in those blue suits.

Listen/Download – Pete Rodriguez – I Like It Like That

Greetings all.

I have returned.
This week has been a downer, with the passing of Brother Burke, as well as a wide variety of irritants.

The real challenge in life today is to remain positive in the face of a seemingly relentless wave of crap, coming at you either directly or indirectly.

The groovy things is – a ray of sunshine and all – is that once in a great while something manages to tunnel through the shitstorm, steady the ship and deliver a welcome message.

This week that message came in the form of props (for the blog and the radio show) from BBC DJ Sean Rowley and his show the Joy of Music. It’s always a groove when someone steps forward to say that they “get” what’s going on here (as many of you have done in the past, and I say thank you once again). If you get the chance check out Mr. Rowley’s show, either streaming live or via archive. He’s got a very solid musical sensibility (rock, pop and soul).

The tune I bring you today is engineered (and guaranteed) to get you up out of your seat and onto the floor, where you will promptly forget (as I have) whatever it is that is presently afflicting you, bringing elation and opening the gate onto a weekend you can be proud of.

I have gone on record many times about my deep and abiding love for Latin soul, especially funk and boogaloo, and today’s selection is a stellar example of the latter.

The only reason I didn’t bring it to you sooner was the fact that my copy is – how do they say – a little crackly (crackley??) and I needed to apply my limited technical skills to the task of reducing the extraneous noise before I posted it. I cannot say that I was 100% successful, but this record is so powerful, so joyous and so boogaloo-tastic (Boricua-delic???), that I think you will soon forget the Rice Krispie-esque emanations and step to it.

The tune in question is brought to you by Pete Rodriguez, and is entitled ‘I Like It Like That (a Mi Me Gusta Asi)’ and is as solid a slice of Spanish Harlem party starter as has ever been committed to wax.

The tune was written by Manny Rodriguez and Pete’s trumpeter Tony Pabon and released on the 1967 LP of the same name.

If the tune sounds at all familiar it’s because a 1994 reworking of the song by the Blackout All Stars, which was then used in an ad campaign by Burger King. Sadly, the King and his minions have never produced anything as delicious or caliente as this number.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.

But first….In other interesting, Funky16Corners-related news, don’t forget to tune in to this week’s Funky16Corners Radio Show, Friday night at 9PM at Viva Radio. If you dig what’s happening here, you’ll probably like what it does to your ears.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some proto-powerpop

Comments (7)

By Larry, October 9, 2010 12:49 pm

John…

and Antoine…

Listen/Download – Fats Domino – Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey

Greetings all.

This is a previously unplanned post, but that’s just the way we roll here, since one must allow themselves to be guided by inspirado, or something like that.

This weekend marks what would have been the 70th birthday of John Lennon.

I have gone into my deep and abiding love for the Beatles in this space before (and over at Iron Leg), but something I haven’t discussed is my growing ambivalence about Mr. Lennon.

I would not have discussed it at all were I not spurred on to introspection about this specific subject by various and sundry celebrations of the aforementioned occasion in every conceivable nook and cranny of the media, but especially the postings of my many Facebook friends, many of whom have exceptional taste in music.

The Beatles were the first music that I truly loved and connected with, and for a few years in the time when I was passing from childhood into adolescence they were pretty much all I listened to with any regularity (other than the jazz and classical music that was played by my father).

The walls of my room were plastered with clippings about the Beatles that I had collected from newspapers and magazines, as well as posters and ephemera like the inserts from the ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ album.

This is all said only to indicate that the Beatles – as musicians, cultural avatars and people – and the music they made meant, and mean a great deal to me.

However, over the many, many years (I turned 48 this year) I have read a great deal about them, their impact on the culture and the way they created their records, and my impressions of the four Beatles have evolved considerably for a wide variety of reasons.

Back when I was younger, obsessed with rock’n’roll and with all the signifiers of “authenticity” that go along with it when you’re young and full of a wide variety of things, from beans, to piss and vinegar, and what in retrospect – if you’re being honest – something that is clearly shit, I followed the script that said that McCartney was the sellout, Lennon the rebel, Ringo the good natured post-Fabs hitmaker and Harrison the incorruptible mystic.

This had a lot to do with my brain being young, soft and unable (or unwilling) to process anything more complex than a handful of cliches.

That said, as I aged, and read more, I came to understand that the Beatles were much more complex and human that I was willing to allow them to be when I first fell in love with them and the wondrous sounds that they made.

Unfortunately, this evolution softened my appraisal of McCartney (no mean feat) and poked a number of holes in how I saw Lennon.

I’ll let you read up on your own, but I came to the end of this long reappraisal not liking John Lennon all that much.

What I’ve come to discover over the last few weeks of thought and discussion is that this is ultimately my own problem, and should be rightfully separated from his music.

That and the fact that while he wasn’t a saint, he wasn’t a complete asshole either.

John Lennon was a human being, just like the rest of us.

A prodigiously talented (and flawed) human being, but a human being nonetheless, who was never comfortable with the idolatry of many of his fans, and at the end of the day, he was also a Beatle, and responsible for some of the finest music of the last half of the previous century.

And when I say music, I don’t mean the Beatles recordings exclusively, but also their songs as interpreted by others.

Funky16Corners, while always a kind of free-flowing deal – as far as musical style goes – has always found it’s way back to a focus on funk, soul and jazz, and it was by way of that short list that I’ve paid my own sort of tribute to the Beatles and their music over the last five years.

I did so by compiling six mixes (se below) of funk, soul and jazz Beatles covers (one’s a shorter one, but I like it anyway), all of which I’ve pulled out of the Podcast Archive to repost today.

I’ve also included a cover of ‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey’ that I picked up after all of these mixes were assembled.

The version here is by the mighty Fats Domino. It was recorded in 1970 (I picked it up on an old Warner/Reprise sampler) and John Lennon was reportedly pleased to have one of his songs covered by one of his own idols.

Fats does a very nice version of the song, which is groovy, and brings things full circle since he was the stylistic inspiration for ‘Lady Madonna’.

I hope you dig it, and that – have you not already partaken (partooken???) that you dig into these mixes.

The day when Lennon would have turned 70 (!?!?) is a big deal, and since we only have two Beatles left, it’s worth celebrating.

There’s lots of groovy stuff.

See you later.

Peace

Larry

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Funky16Corners Radio v.28 – Rubber Souled Pt1

Funky16Corners Radio v.28 – Rubber Souled Pt1

Playlist
Billy Preston – Eight Days a Week (Exodus)
Music Company – TheWord (Mirwood)
Bunny Sigler – Yesterday (Parkway)
Stevie Wonder – We Can Work It Out (Tamla)
Vontastics – Day Tripper (St Lawrence)
Chris Clark – Got To Get You Into My Life (Motown)
El Chicano – Eleanor Rigby (Kapp)
Junior Parker – Tomorrow Never Knows (Capitol)
Bill Cosby – Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (WB)
Soulful Strings – Within You Without You (Cadet)
Bud Shank – I Am the Walrus (World Pacific)
Soulful Strings – Hello Goodbye (Cadet)
Soulful Strings – The Inner Light (Cadet)

Listen/ Download 37MB Mixed MP3
Download 37MB Zip File

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Funky16Corners Radio v.29 – Rubber Souled Pt2

Playlist
Ramsey Lewis – Mother Natures Son (Cadet)
Bobby Bryant – Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Pacific Jazz)
Orchestra Harlow – Larry’s Complaint (Me & My Monkey) (Fania)
Ramsey Lewis – Back In the USSR (Cadet)
Chubby Checker – Back In the USSR (Buddah)
Groove Holmes & Ernie Watts – Come Together (Pacific Jazz)
Jazz Crusaders – Golden Slumbers (Chisa)
Gene Ammons – Something (Prestige)
Ike & Tina Turner – Get Back (UA)
Shirley Scott – Get Back (Atlantic)
Mohawks – Let It Be (Supreme)

Listen/ Download 37.5MB Mixed MP3
Download 37.5MB Zip File

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Funky16Corners Radio v.30 – Rubber Souled Pt3

Playlist
Overton Berry Trio – Hey Jude (Jaro)
Freddy McCoy – Hey Jude (Cobblestone)
Jimmy Caravan – Hey Jude (Vault)
Clarence Wheeler & the Enforcers – Hey Jude (Atlantic)
Fabulous Counts – Hey Jude (Cotillion)
Wilson Pickett – Hey Jude (Atlantic)

Listen/ Download 25MB Mixed MP3
Download 25MB Zip File

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Funky16Corners Radio v.54 – Come Together

Funky16Corners Radio v.54 – Come Together

Playlist

Funky16Corners Radio v.74 – Day Tripping

Comments (4)

By Larry, September 6, 2010 10:40 am

Rufus and Chaka Khan.

Listen/Download – Rufus – Once You Get Started

Greetings all.

I hope that those of you in the path of the hurricane survived.

Up here it was a bust, which is a good thing since I didn’t fancy picking the contents of the back porch out of the surrounding trees and the neighbor’s yard.

We just got some heavy rain, a little bit of wind and not much else.

Fortunately, as is often forecast but rarely comes to fruition, the storm pushed the heat wave out of the way and ushered in some nice weather for my birthday.

Things are getting back to (post-summer) normal around here, with school coming back into the picture, and the possibility of some DJ work on the horizon (which is always a groovy thing).

I have recently scored a couple of very nice 45s, so before long I predict you will either be seeing them here on the blog, or hearing them in some bar or other, spun fresh on the decks.

The tune I bring you today is a blast from my past, in that I remember very clearly when this particular song came blaring from the speakers of my AM radio.

The first time I heard Rufus was in 1973, via their first big hit (given to them by no less a light than the mighty Stevie Wonder) ‘Tell Me Something Good’.

I have a clear recollection of seeing Rufus – if memory serves as part of someone’s TV special, maybe Bob Hope?? – performing the song live from Central Park (I think, it’s been 37 years…) and my parents reacting negatively to Chaka Khan’s orgasmic vocalisations in the chorus of the song.

I, of course, thought it was a riot.

Anyway, that song, and today’s selection fall right around the time that the band founded as Ask Rufus, then rechristened Rufus, was morphing into Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.

The Chicago-area band, which got its start with ex-members of the American Breed recorded an unreleased album for Epic with vocalist Paulette McWilliams, before Chaka Khan (aka Yvette Williams) who had sung with a post-Baby Huey version of the Babysitters, joined the group.

‘Once You Get Started’, from the 1974 ‘Rufusized’ LP was a Top 40 hit in the Spring of 1975.

It’s a great example of the kind of jazzy funk that was moving folks on the (just) pre-disco dance floors of the time.

I’d argue that ‘Once You Get Started’ is – like last week’s ‘Machine Gun’ by the Commodores – still firmly in the ‘funk’ camp, despite the presence of disco/fonk signifiers on its fringes. I have no doubt that were this dropped in a disco, during an otherwise disco set, that ‘Once You Get Started’ would pull the folks onto the dance floor, but I think this would have been as true in 1970 as in 1977 (even though it came out in 74/75, are you confused yet??).

I’m not even sure that this is an argument worth having, unless you’re a vinyl-sick record nerd, but since so many of us here (myself especially) fall into that category, we’re gonna have it.

Ultimately it’s probably immaterial, since good music is good music, and ‘Once You Get Started’ is good music.
Chaka would record with the band on and off into the early 80s before going solo and hitting the charts on her own in 1984 with her epic cover of Prince’s ‘I Feel For You’, which featured harmonica by none other than Stevie Wonder!

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a classic instrumental

Comments (8)

By Larry, August 29, 2010 3:22 pm

Ray Barretto

Listen/Download – Ray Barretto – A Deeper Shade of Soul

Greetings all.

I hope everything’s groovy at your specific GPS location, and anywhere else you choose to roam.

Summer is winding down, slowly, and while the weather is still warm (some might say hot) the days of summery freedom are also coming to an end, with the wife and kids headed back to school, and the rhythm of life changing once again.

To present a brief ‘state of the Corners’ address, things are mainly cool hereabouts. The Funky16Corners Radio Show has developed into something more satisfying (at least for me, hopefully for you all too) over the summer, and I’m having a lot of fun doing it.

The DJing opportunities around here have, for a variety of reasons (some that I am not privy to), all but vanished, but I will be heading down to DC again toward the end of September to spin with my man DJ Birdman (more details to follow soon), so hopefully I’ll be able to touch base with some of the Capitol City heads who have always been so cool.

Other than that, things should continue on a steady course, with new mixes (regular old Funky16Corners and Soul Club) coming, as well as a steady stream of funk, soul, jazz and rare groove to soothe your troubled mind (and mine too, if I’m lucky).

The tune I bring you today is something I came to in a roundabout way.

The first time I had any inkling of Ray Barretto’s ‘A Deeper Shade of Soul’ was back in 1989, when I heard it sampled by the Dutch group Urban Dance Squad in their song of the same name. Of course even though I knew it was probably a sample, I had no idea who it was, and pretty much left it at that.

Flash forward a few years and my buddy Haim lends me the CD reissue of  Barretto’s 1968 ‘Acid’ album, and I’m listening to it (wishing I had an OG) and all of a sudden ‘A Deeper Shade of Soul’ comes pouring into my ears and I’m all WTF?!? and the lightbulb goes on over my head, and then (of course) blows up.

Now these many years later, and I’m all hip to Ray Barretto and all of that good mid-to-late 60s Latin soul and funk, and while I had a couple of his 45s and LPs, an OG of ‘Acid’ (possibly THE essential Latin soul LP) had still eluded me.

Well, another one of those Asbury Lanes garage sales rolled around, and it was a particularly rewarding one, and I’ve just about run my way through all my ready cash, and then some dude I’ve never seen before sets up a table full of LPs, and before I know it me and about a half dozen other heads are pulling all kinds of OG Latin LPs out of his crates. As I mentioned, I was just about tapped out, and when I discovered that these LPs (while affordable) were not cheap I had to put back a couple of very nice things, including an OG Lat-Teens LP, but I walked away with a nice, clean copy of ‘Acid’.

While I still dig the Urban Dance Squad tune (it has a kind of stoney groove that I like) there’s just no comparison with Barretto’s original.

‘A Deeper Shade of Soul’ is an absolutely perfect slice of soulful boogaloo, with prominent piano, percussion (natch…) and a horn chart that digs into ‘Knock On Wood’ for inspiration. The arrangements were handled by none other than Harvey Averne, so you know it’s good.

‘Acid’ was Barretto’s first LP for Fania, following his earlier chart success (on labels like Tico and UA) with tunes like 1963’s ‘El Watusi’.

If you haven’t heard ‘Acid’ (which also includes ‘Soul Drummers’, ‘Mercy Mercy Baby’, and ‘Teacher of Love’ among others) you should grab yourself a reissue (or an OG if you can find it) since it’s a great album from start to finish.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back in the middle of the week.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a cool Nilsson cover.

Comments (1)

By Larry, August 24, 2010 5:28 pm

Howard Roberts

Jackie Cain and Roy Kral

Listen/Download – Howard Roberts – Crystal Illusions

Listen/Download – Jackie & Roy – Crystal Illusions

Greetings all.

When I left you on Monday, I promised that I would return with something mellow.

Back in the day, when I was falling in love with the sounds of Tropicalia, I happened upon a reissue CD of an album by a singer who’s name was familiar, but who’s music I’d never actually heard.
That man was Edu Lobo, and the album was ‘Sergio Mendes Presents Edu Lobo’.

This is not to say that Lobo was part of the Tropicalia movement, but rather that I was seeking out any and all Brazilian music from the late 60s and early 70s in the hopes that I would discover sounds of a similarly progressive bent that mixed Brazilian music with contemporary pop from other points of the musical landscape.

It was this search that led to to Edu Lobo, and folks like Dom Salvador and Tamba 4.

‘Sergio Mendes Presents Edu Lobo’ was recorded in the United States (in 1970) with a number of Brazilian musicians (including several members of Brasil 66), and includes rerecorded versions of a number of songs that had appeared (generally sung in Portuguese) on Lobo’s ‘Cantiga de Longe’ LP (which has also been reissued).

Lobo’s sound at the time was an updated take on MPB, which was already a mixture of traditional Brazilian music and other Western pop and rock styles. Lobo also whipped jazz into the mix, though you kind of get into a chicken/egg situation when it comes to jazz and Brazilian music at the time in that it’s not always clear whether what your hearing is the influence of Brazil on jazz or vice versa.

I was completely captivated by the ‘Sergio Mendes Presents…’ album, and it quickly became a favorite. Among the many great songs on that album (which I’ve never been able to score an original copy of) is the sublime ‘Crystal Illusions’.

I haven’t been able to nail down when ‘Crystal Illusions’ was first recorded, but there are a number of versions from 1969 and 1970, including those by Brasil 66 (who’s singer Lani Hall is credited with co-writing the song) and jazz saxophonist Paul Desmond, who’s ‘From the Hot Afternoon’ album is composed entirely of covers of songs by Lobo and Milton Nascimento.

That said, the tune was clearly getting around.

The first of the two versions of ‘Crystal Illusions’ I bring you today is from guitarist Howard Roberts’ 1970 album ‘Spinning Wheel’. I grabbed this record following the diggers credo of ‘never pass up a version of either ‘Spinning Wheel’ or ‘Get Out Of My Life Woman’ because of the possibility of drums’, and was pleasantly surprised when I found the version of today’s selection.

Featuring a young band that included Dave Grusin on keys, John Guerin on drums (nice drums on this one) and Tom Scott on sax, Roberts’ version of the song applies some sharper edges than the song is usually played with. It is unlike anything else on the album and is a real gem.

The second take on the song is from a 1980 album by hip singers Jackie Cain and Roy Kral.

Though Jackie and Roy go back to the big band era (where they recorded as part of Charlie Ventura’s band) through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s they perfected a light, swinging style touching on wide ranging sounds like Bob Dorough, Mark Murphy and Lambert Hendricks and Ross, that while something of an acquired taste (there‘s a supper club/cabaret feel to some of their work), I happen to dig a lot.

Their take on ‘Crystal Illusions’ comes from their ‘Star Sounds’ album, which was devoted largely to the sounds of Brazil. You get a little more of a feel for Lobo’s delicately crafted melody in the Jackie and Roy version. The arrangement may be a little ‘light’ for some of you, but it’s all about the song.

Both ‘Sergio Mendes Presents Edu Lobo’ and ‘Cantiga de Longe’ can be obtained via iTunes. If you want either of the versions presented here today (in solid, vinyl form), you’re going to have to start digging, since I don’t think either one has been reissued.

I hope you like the tunes, and I’ll be back on Friday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a Lennon/McCartney tune.

Comments (3)

By Larry, August 15, 2010 1:58 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.87 – Wind of Change

Playlist

You can check out this mix in the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast Archive

How are the closing days of summer treating you?
I know we’ve got lots of good weather ahead, but it’s only a few weeks until the mass exodus of the tourists, when I will once again be able roam free amidst traffic that is just ‘bad’, not mind-bogglingly so.
The mix I bring you today is a continuation of a minor series of sorts, in which the Funky16Corners Radio thingy takes time out to focus on a specific instrument. We’ve already surveyed the vibes and the electric piano, and I’m sure that there are a few more such collections huddling in the crates awaiting release.
This time out we take a look (listen) to the much maligned, but very groovy sounds of the (mostly) jazz flute.
As I said when I wrote about the vibes, there are those among us for whom the sound of the flute is too ‘cool’, which naturally is why I dig it so much.
I love the sound of the flute in the hands of a great musician, and what you’re getting in this mix is 15 examples of that very thing.
Of course, not every single cut contains a virtuoso performance, on account of that would be boring and a few steps away from the prog sound of my teenage years that I have come to despise.
The vast majority of the players here (although one of them is anonymous) are at least tangentially connected to the world of jazz, with a few having crossed over into pop and rock and one (yes, you know the one…the one who’s name sent a shiver up your spine when you saw it, unfairly I might add) solidly camped out in rock and roll.
This one took a while to assemble, if only because a few of the artists in question have appeared in this space frequently (Koffman, Steig, Wess, Mann), their dulcet tones gracing other Funky16Corners Radio playlists.
Things get off to a serious start with Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s epic reading of Bill Withers’ ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’. Kirk, a master on many wind instruments – often simultaneously – had a pronounced influence on two of the other players in this mix, namely Jeremy Steig and Ian Anderson (more on him later). His frequent use of ‘overblowing’, and vocalizing through the flute make him one of the most dynamic stylists the instrument has ever produced.
Paul Horn is best known for his pioneering new age recordings like ‘Inside’, but in the early to mid-60s he was still working a straight ahead jazz style. The Eastern-influenced ‘Paramahansa’ (which he re-recorded years later) appeared on his 1967 ‘Monday Monday’ LP, alongside a number of contemporary pop and rock covers. The tune sees Horn playing over a big band producing something that sounds like it’s from the soundtrack to a spy thriller.
Moe Koffman, who has been featured here a number of time is one of those cats that started out as a pretty ‘straight’ jazz player and as the 60s progressed he got further out. In addition to the flute Koffman was a proponent of the electrified saxophone (like Eddie Harris and Sonny Stitt) and he made some very cool, au go go flavored stuff during the era. His take on Bob Dorough and Ben Tucker’s “Coming Home Baby’ has a relaxed swing to it, sounding once again like something lifted from era-specific TV or movie soundtrack.
Bobbi Humphrey’s ‘Sad Bag’ has a mournful sound, with some very nice, reverbed flute.
David ‘Fathead’ Newman is better known for his sax playing, especially in his association with the mighty Ray Charles. I first heard ‘The 13th Floor’ on an early-90s comp called ‘Heavy Flute’, shortly after which I grabbed myself a copy of the 45. The tune originally appeared on Newman’s 1968 ‘Bigger and Better’ LP and is a great illustration of that fact that he certainly knew his way around the flute.
‘Teenage Chase’ is a Keith Mansfield penned cut from the KPM sound library album ‘Beat Incidental’. Like many of the cuts it was intended to be used as a ‘theme’, and so it is relatively short. I have no idea who the flute player us, but it sure as hell sounds like the same cat blowing on the Hawkshaw/Parker tune ‘Hot Pants’ (also a KPM selection).
Hubert Laws went on to great success with radio friendly R&B in the 70s with the CTI label, but in the mid-60s he was recording powerful soul jazz sessions for Atlantic. ‘Bloodshot’ is the opening track from his 1966 ‘Flute By Laws’ LP, and is driven by Laws’ flute, powerful brass and spot on Latin percussion.
Jerome Richardson is best known as a prolific studio musician, but he spent decades playing bop and soul jazz. His take on Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ is from his 1968 ‘Groove Merchant’ album, which features Richardson on a variety of wind instruments, including a few different kinds of flute (more than one on this track!). Aside from an odd, intermittent chime, this version of ‘Ode…’ is pretty cool, including some well placed harpsichord.
Like many of the players here, Joe Thomas doubled (tripled) on a variety of wind instruments. ‘Big Heart, Giant Soul’ from his 1970 Cobblestone album ‘Comin’ Home’ is indicative of the high quality of that funky soul jazz session. You get to hear Thomas (who also played in Rhoda Scott’s trio) vocalizing on what sounds like a Varitone (maybe attached to the flute), and then playing it straight. Thomas went on to record funkier stuff (even disco) in the 70s.
Ernie Fields’ ‘Watch Your Step’ is one of my favorite 45s, period. I’ve never been able to find out much about Fields, but ‘Watch Your Step’ is so high-concept, so soulful yet psychedelic and well-arranged, that you can only hope that he did more stuff like this.
If you were to put together a list of cats with serious jazz chops who spent most of their career trying to reach a mass audience (and sometimes succeeding) Herbie Mann would have to be at the top of the list. Mann started out working in a Latin bag, but went on to record a serious grip of soul jazz and even pop through the 60s and 70s. The title track of his 1971 ‘Push Push’ album shows that Mann was very comfortable in a funky bag (where he spent most of the early 70s), eventually having his biggest hit with 1975’s ‘Hijack’.
Jeremy Steig is beloved by crate diggers/beat heads for his track ‘Howling for Judy’ which was the main sample behind the Beastie Boys’ ‘Sure Shot’. Steig’s late 60s/early 70s stuff for Solid State and Blue Note is generally pretty far out, and skipping right along the border between funky and ‘out’. ‘Alias (ALi’as)’ (named for drummer Don Alias) features a wild performance by Steig over bass, drums and percussion., is from the same 1969 LP (‘Legwork’) as ‘Howling…’.
I’ve featured a number of very cool tunes from Frank Wess’s 1970 ‘Wess to Memphis’ LP on the Stax subsidiary Enterprise. Once again I must recommend this album highly, since it’s one of those great sessions where a jazz cat (Wess was well known as a tenor player as well as his work on the flute) really got into a more popular vibe with excellent results. The album, which includes a number of covers is well played and produced, and one I go back to frequently. He wails on his version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed Sealed and Delivered’.
I can’t remember where I first heard of Tim Weisberg’s ‘Streak-Out’, but I know I was surprised because it was the very same Weisberg who had a mid-70s chart hit alongside Dan Fogelberg! ‘Streak-Out’ from 1974 (which he apparently performed on the ‘Midnight Special’, so it must have been a minor hit) is a nice bit of funky rock, with a little bit of a break at the beginning.
This edition of Funky16Corners Radio closes out with what no doubt seems like the oddest of artists, Jethro Tull. All 1970s prog/hobbit-isms aside, when Tull got started in the late 60s they were a jazz inflected heavy blues band, not unlike Cream. The song presented here is, to bring things full circle, a Rahsaan Roland Kirk tune called ‘Serenade to a Cuckoo’. It was reportedly the first song Ian Anderson learned on the flute (Kirk being by far his strongest influence), and he and the band acquit themselves nicely.
I hope you dig this little survey, and I’ll be back later in the week.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, August 12, 2010 11:28 am

Woody Herman

Eumir Deodato

Listen/Download – Woody Herman and the Herd – Fanfare for the Common Man

Listen/Download – Deodato – Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)

Greetings all.
I hope week is coming to a satisfying close for you all.
My wife has to head out for a few days, and the spuds and myself are bumming, but since we plan to wreck the joint while she’s away, there is a (very) minor silver lining.
We’ll just see if three people can survive on corn chips, frankfurters and slurpees for five days.
If you haven’t already pulled down the ones and zeros for this weeks Funky16Corners Soul Club mix by my man Vincent the Soul Chef, do so now, on account of it’s full of the funk, and will – as the kids say – rock your world.
Also, don’t forget to tune in Friday night at 9PM for this week’s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show over at Viva internet radio. If you are not already hip/hep, you can click on the Radio Show link in the header and check out the fifteen (!?!) weekly shows that have already been mixed down and archived as MP3s for your listening pleasure.
Today’s post is one of those things that kind of fell together organically over the course of a few months, wherein I was holding something in storage, and then something else climbed over the transom and into the to-be-blogged folder that, how do they say, augmented the existing track in the stylistic and theoretical (figurative/symbolic) sense, and so they came together like beer and stout in a black and tan, blended ever so carefully so that once they pass over the lobes and into the brain the desired effect is one of jazzy, funky wonderfulness (and naturally, as is the style here at Funky16Corners, a tremendous run-on sentence).
Not too long ago one of my Friendface pals posted a video of the mighty Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd working it out on Aaron Copland’s 1942 masterpiece of 20th century classical music ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’. I dug the arrangement a LOT, so I went in search of the vinyl equivalent and found another live recording of a slightly later (I think) version of the Herd laying down the same arrangement at Montreaux.
Back in the olden days, when I was a long-haired, drum mangling stoner type, I had a copy of a certain Emerson, Lake and Palmer album that contained their version of the same piece of music. Having been brought up in a house full of classical music, but then stuffing my head with as much contemporary rock as possible, as well as being your standard teenaged rube, I thought that the ELP ‘Fanfare’ was of a deepness theretofore unheard, and blasted it at high volume many, many times until a seriously untrustworthy fellow bandmember (who, if memory serves was also a  pathological liar of singular talent) stole what was then a fairly expensive record (of course everything is expensive when you have no money).
In reflection, especially after hearing Woody Herman lay it down, the ELP version sounds like a meth-infused synthesizer orchestra trapped in an electrified mudslide. The Copland piece is both sublime and inspirational, and to hear it mangled so seems now to be something approaching a high crime.
Interestingly enough, Herman and his band were playing their Gary Anderson arrangement (recorded in 1974) of ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ a few years before ELP got their hands on it, and as you might have already assumed, the touch is considerably lighter, using funky subtlety to finesse the brassy strains of Copland’s piece where ELP drove through it with a steamroller.
In addition to a hot band – Herman, a master of the original big band era made some serious moves in the fusion era, still with a big band – you get to hear the master working it out on the soprano sax.
If you get your hands on a copy of the ‘Herd at Montreux’ album, you also get to hear them play the Richard Evans arrangement of ‘I Can’t Get Next To You’ and a very tasty version of Billy Cobham’s ‘Crosswind’ that I’ll feature here in the future.
The second track featured today is something I’m sure a lot of you will be familiar with since it was a substantial hit in 1972. That tune is Eumir Deodato’s epic arrangement of Richard Strauss’s 1896 ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’. Better known to one and all as the ‘2001’ music, Deodato’s take on the tune is in addition to being probably the biggest hit CTI ever had, a masterpiece of funky jazz.
Featuring Deodato on electric piano, Airto and Ray Barretto on percussion, Billy Cobham on drums, Stanley Clarke on bass and Jay Berliner on guitar, ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ goes on for nine minutes, and I’m here to tell you (though you should be able to hear it yourselves) that it never lags, never slips into fusion-y masturbation, never loses it’s kick.
The piece builds gradually, with a kind of amorphous tune-up, until the drums kick in at around 48 seconds, then the bass, guitar and of course Deodato’s electric piano (the heart and soul of the tune), followed by what has to be about the best known classical horn line in history, following the structure of the original until it settles down into a funky jam at around the two and a half minute mark. You know I love me some Fender Rhodes, and Deodato goes to town here. The coolest thing of all – and I hope you’ll agree – is that for what is basically a nine minute long jazz fusion interpretation of a piece of classical music (shades of Spinal Tap in Jazz Fantasy), ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ never gets cheesy or heavy handed, which is especially notable in an era when cheesy and heavy handed were the coin of the realm.
I hope you dig both of these cuts, and use them to get down with what the hipsters used to call ‘long hair’ music.
I’ll see you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

PS Make sure to hit up the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio Friday night at 9PM. Your ears will thank you.

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By Larry, July 25, 2010 1:57 pm

Donnie Burks

Listen/Download – Donnie Burks – The Gopher

Listen/Download – Donnie Burks – Funky Funky Woman

Greetings all.
I come to you, secure in the refrigerated Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcast Nerve Center, where I’m currently hiding from the near 100 degree weather outside.
I’ve spent the afternoon, digimatizing vinyl, ripping old CDs onto the new iPod and trying to refile records.
I was going to write about something else today, but I decided to do a little more research on that particular selection, so today’s numbers moved to the front of the line.
I found this record last Record Store Day in Asbury Park, and despite the fact that the artist was unknown to me, I grabbed it as it was both cheap, and intriguing.
I’d never heard of Donnie Burks before, but he looked vaguely familiar, and the record appeared to be American soul recorded (or at least released) in Europe, so I slapped a couple of semolians on the barrelhead and took the record home.
As soon as I set to Googling, I discovered a couple of very interesting things.
Donnie Burks, though fairly obscure as a singer, had a multi-layered career in his lifetime, starting out as a college basketball star, and moving on to appear in movies and on the Broadway stage.
When he passed away in 2008 at the age of 66, his glory days were long behind him.
It turns out that the reason he was familiar to me was that he had appeared as the grapes in a famous string of Fruit of the Loom underwear commercials (in which a group of dudes in fruit costumes touted the brand as a facsimile of the cornucopia in its logo).
Burks first came to prominence playing basketball for St John’s University in the late 50s and early 60s. He went on to appear in movies (The Pawnbroker, Shaft, Without a Trace*) and TV, as well as in a number of Broadway musicals (Hair, the Tap Dance Kid).
I have no idea how he came to record the album that gives us today’s track, but I have seen listings that suggest that he recorded at least two other 45s  for the Decca and Metromedia labels.
The tunes I bring you today, ‘The Gopher’ and ‘Funky Funky Woman’ come from the ‘Swingin’ Sounds of Soul’ LP. ‘The Gopher’ a cool, uptempo soul dancer. The production isn’t the best, but Burkes was a more than able singer and I’d be interested to hear his other 45s.
‘Funky Funky Woman’ carries the DNA of ‘Funky Broadway’, but it sounds as if it were strained through ‘Boogaloo Down Broadway’ first. Not terribly funky, but if I had a nickel for every record I’ve seen with ‘funky’ in the title, that isn’t (funky, that is), I’d have a huge, shiny pile of nickels.
I’d also love to know how Burks ended up recording (or at least releasing) an album in Germany. He was in the original Broadway cast of ‘Hair’ and the likely vintage of these recordings makes me wonder if he didn’t record it while overseas with a touring cast of the show. If anyone knows, please drop me a line.
I hope you dig the tunes, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.

Peace

Larry

*He’s a little hard to nail down via IMDB since he appears to be listed under a few different spellings of his name.

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By Larry, July 18, 2010 2:03 pm

The painting of Gene from the cover of ‘Organ Out Loud’ by Jack Lonshein

Gene Ludwig at the organ (Circa 1965)

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig -Sticks and Stones

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – The Vamp

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – Blues For Mr Fink

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – House of the Rising Sun

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – Comin’ Home Baby

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – Moanin’

Greetings all.
As I mentioned in Friday’s post, I got the very sad news last week that Hammond master Gene Ludwig had passed away at the age of 72.
If you’re one of the rare few that’s been on the Funky16Corners tip since the web zine days, you know I ride for the Hammond organ in a big way, from the greasiest R&B, to pure soul, soul jazz and funk, I have never been able to get enough of the Hammond sound.
Gene Ludwig was one of the last of what I would call the accepted past masters of the jazz organ. He was a contemporary of Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Dr Lonnie Smith, Seleno Clarke and pretty much everyone else that was part of the jazz organ explosion of the 50s and 60s.
What Gene was also a part of was the great – mostly unexplored – Pennsylvania organ tradition. One of the really interesting things I picked up out of years of collecting and researching Hammond records was how many great players hailed from the Keystone State (and not just Philly). The man that launched a thousand organ combos, the mighty Jimmy Smith as well as Jimmy McGriff, Charles Earland, Richie Varola, Greg Hatza, Papa John and Joey DeFrancesco, Shirley Scott and of course Gene Ludwig all got their start in the bars and nightclubs of Pennsylvania, in both the big cities and out in the hinterlands. Was it something in the water? An abundance of organs (or bars/lounges with organs in them)?
In his obit Gene was quoted as saying that he turned on to R&B (and organ players) by listening to Pittsburgh radio legend Porky Chedwick. Pittsburgh has a long history as a kind of isolated Shangri La for R&B and soul fans where any number of brilliant but obscure records are worshipped by the locals because they were circulated on the radio and at dances.
Whether this had anything to do with spawning organists, as opposed to just fans of the sound, I have no idea, but it is intriguing.
Gene Ludwig – a native of the wester PA town of Twin Rocks started out as a pianist, and had his ‘road to Damascus’ moment when he saw Jimmy Smith perform at a Pittsburgh club called the Hurricane in 1957.
Ludwig went on to have a 50 year career as one of the great proponents of the Hammond, recording locally as well as on national labels like Mainstream and Atlantic.
He was really what I would consider (at least for my taste) the consummate organist in that he approached the instrument from a jazz perspective (with serious chops to match) yet was not afraid to cut loose and burn on the keyboard, expanding into the realms of R&B and soul.
I’ve consumed a lot of virtual ink rambling on about this or that ultra-raw organ 45, but the best Hammond players, no matter how soulful or funky all came to the instrument from the jazz roots.
Gene Ludwig was old enough to hear the early rumblings of the Hammond sound from the jazz/jump/R&B nexus of cats like Wild Bill Davis, Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner, and mastered the instrument in the wake of the mid-50s scene when Jimmy Smith rewrote the book on jazz organ.
The ensuing expansion of the electronic organ, as both a performance platform and recorded instrument was wide ranging on both established jazz labels like Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside and Atlantic, but as my crates will attest, on countless tiny local labels eager for a piece of the action. It’s not at all hard to imagine walking into a bar in 1965, strolling up to the jukebox and seeing the organ stylings of a regional favorite among records from out of town.
Gene Ludwig was both a regional player (probably half of his discography is rooted locally) and an internationally known master of his instrument who headlined and worked as a sideman (replacing Don Patterson in Sony Stitt’s late 60s band).
Gene remained devoted to the Hammond, and a glimpse at his web site will reveal that he was playing, recording and above all staying relevant right up until his unexpected and tragic passing.
He was a musician of great taste with an ear for that perfect soul jazz vibe, yet was also conversant in standards (which any organist working the clubs in the 60s would have had to have been) and was by all accounts an unfailingly generous soul when it came to mentoring younger players.
Though I never got to meet Gene or his wife Pattye in person, I was lucky enough to correspond with them over the years (Gene had no bigger booster than Pattye), including an interview I did with the master back in 2005.

The Gene Ludwig Trio in the 1960s (above) and reunited in 2004 (below)

The tunes I bring you today represent a cross-section of the sound of Gene Ludwig through the 1960s. As far as I can tell all of these cuts feature his classic 60s-era trio which featured Randy Gelispie (or Gillespie, I’ve seen it spelled both ways) on drums and Jerry Byrd on guitar.
A few of these cuts have been featured here in the past, but they deserve to be heard again.
The first track is the Ludwig’s trio’s smoking version of the Henry Glover/Titus Turner classic ‘Sticks and Stones’, which appeared as a two-part 45 in 1963 (I’ve spliced the two parts together). The trio’s playing is spot on, relaxed yet generating a considerable amount of heat, and Gene is in rare form. I’ve heard there’s at least one other unissued side from that date, a version of ‘High Heel Sneakers’.
Next up is a track discussed here in the past, the brilliant ‘The Vamp’, which appeared as a 45 and on the LP ‘The Educated Sound of Gene Ludwig’ in 1965. If you haven’t heard ‘The Vamp’ strap yourself in because it’s a killer. Improvised in the studio by the trio, it featured Gene on the organ, Byrd on guitar and Gelispie on tambourine only. It has the feeling of an after-hours session gone wild, and is probably my favorite moment in Gene’s discography.
‘Blues For Mr. Fink’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ are both culled from an oddball 1960s compilation called ‘The Keyboards’ on the Time label, which features Gene Ludwig, and five other players performing in a wide variety of disparate styles. None of the album’s 20 tracks are attributed to anyone specific, but I knew of the Ludwig tracks from other sources (which is why I picked it up).
My suspicion has always been that all of the Gene Ludwig material on that record came from his time with the Mainstream label, since Bob Shad is credited with A&R on the jacket, and a few of the tracks also appear on the 1964 Mainstream LP ‘Organ Out Loud’.
The last two tracks appeared on what I would consider to be one of the great soul jazz organ sessions of the classic era, the aforementioned ‘Organ Out Loud’. Here Gene and the trio work it out on two classics of the genre (the LP also included wonderful versions of Cannonball Adderley’s ‘Sermonette’ and Horace Silver’s ‘The Preacher’), Bob Dorough and Ben Tucker’s ‘Comin’ Home Baby’ and Bobby Timmons’ ‘Moanin’.
‘Comin’ Home Baby’ is taken at a touch more relaxed pace than you usually hear, but the group keeps it moving and grooving, and Gene takes a wild solo.
‘Moanin’ on the other hand takes off like a rocket and never slows down. It’s the kind of performance that makes me want to step into the WABAC machine and hear the group in some smoky lounge. Gene’s fingers fly over the keys while the rhythm section provides a rock solid bottom.
If you ever get a chance to get your hands on any of his 60s albums or 45s (and there’s still a couple of things I have yet to track down) do yourself a favor and do it.
You still have the chance to hear his more recent recordings, which are uniformly excellent.
That all said, it’s so sad to have to talk about this great music in light of Gene’s passing.
He was a great musician, and by all accounts as solid a human being as has passed this way.
He will be missed.
My sincere condolences go out to his wife Pattye.
See you later in the week.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, July 13, 2010 4:18 pm

The Mighty Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley

Greetings all.
I hope that the middle of the week finds you all in a soul jazz kind of mood.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the course of the life of this blog discussing, compiling, exploring and above all digging soul jazz.
One of the elements of that discussion (though if I’m doing all the talking is it really a discussion?) is the issue of pure soul jazz, that being music that meets the definition of soul(ful) jazz, blending R&B, soul and or funk with a post-hard-bop base in a manner that creates something new that displays, yet transcends the listed ingredients.
There are a number of artists for whom soul jazz was a specialty, and of those, a few who created enduring ‘standards’ of the genre like Bobby Timmons, Freddie McCoy, Eddie Harris and the man who composed the tune I bring you (served four different ways) today, the mighty Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley.
Adderley composed and first recorded the tune ‘Sack O’Woe’ in 1960. Of the countless soul jazz songs that I have collected over the years, ‘Sack O’ Woe’ is probably my favorite. It is propulsive enough to be danceable (Adderley was great at stuff like that) , soulful, spare but not too spare, and a great launching point for soloists.
It’s one of those songs that when I find a new version I try to add it to my stack because in hands of almost any competent musician it releases something special, and every once in a while I like to post multiple versions of a great song so you can get a feeling for the breadth of sounds that covers of a classic can yield.
The four versions of the song I bring you today date from the 60s, 70s and 90s (?!?)

The Omega Men

Listen/Download – The Omega Men – Sack O’Woe (Live 1997)

My all-time favorite version is by a band of fairly modern vintage called the Omega Men. Featuring a number of veterans of the Pennsylvania end of the garage/mod revival (from the Cellar Dwellars and Stump Wizards) , the Omega Men, featuring the organ work of the sole non-male member of the band Susan Mackey, really set fire to Adderly’s classic. You can catch it on iTunes as part of a comp called ‘Rock Don’t Run Vol 3’, or you can track down their 1997 CD ‘The Spy Fi Sound of the Omega Men’. The version included here has been digimatized from a video of the band performing live in 1997. The fidelity is pretty good and the playing is first-rate. It isn’t much of a stretch to imagine the sound of the Omega Men as a close approximation of what you might have heard on-stage in the UK circa 1965, where the organ combos of masters like Georgie Fame, Brian Auger and Graham Bond were re-imagining the US soul jazz and R&B that gave them inspiration.

The Mar-Keys horn section (Packy Axton, right)

Listen/Download – The Mar-Keys – Sack O’Woe (1961)

As I said before, Adderley’s original dated from 1960. The Mar-Key’s smoking Memphis version is from a year later. It has that solid Stax sound and I really dig the organ solo. If my chronology is correct this also features a pre-MGs Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn on guitar and bass, as well as Packy Axton, later of the many mysterious incarnations of the Packers on sax. Note the horn intro that approximates the band’s only hit, ‘Last Night’.

The legendary Les McCann

Listen/Download – Les McCann – Sack O’Woe (1963)

The version by the equally mighty Les McCann is from 1963, and features McCann on piano and a fantastic guitar solo by Joe Pass. It’s by far the jazziest version of the tune here. Les McCann is a true giant of the soul jazz genre, having had bona fide hits (like ‘Compared to What’ with Eddie Harris) and can be counted on to give this classic a righteous reading.

Julian Tharpe

Listen/Download – Julian Tharpe – Sack O’Woe (197?)

The fourth and last version of ‘Sack O’ Woe’ is (as far as I can tell) and early-to-mid 70s recording by a Nashville cat named Julian Tharpe.
Tharpe was a Music City sessioner and touring player who often worked with guitar legend Jimmy Bryant and was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2008. His LP ‘Jet Age’ featured Tharpe playing a variety of styles, covering pop, rock, country and the soul jazz of ‘Sack O’ Woe’. I picked up this album specifically for the version of today’s selection, and it proved to be an interesting one.
I always dig hearing pedal steel guitar used outside of a strictly country context, especially on soul records like Peggy Scott and Jo Jo Benson’s ‘Soulshake’, which featured another Nashville steel legend, Pete Drake.
Tharpe’s version of ‘Sack O’Woe’ is very cool, and it’s worth it if only to hear the Adderley classic interpreted on such an unusual instrument.
I hope you dig all four versions, and if you’re not familiar with Cannonball Adderley’s work, start looking because he laid down decades of fantastic music in straight jazz and funky sessions.
See you on Friday.

Peace

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg for a remembrance of the late Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs and some Canadian sunshine pop