Funky16Corners

Ebony Godfather – Castlin’ / Electric Godfather

By Larry, October 13, 2011 1:28 pm

Joe Thomas ‘The Ebony Godfather’

~~Listen/Download – Ebony Godfather – Castlin’~~

~~Listen/Download – Ebony Godfather -Electric Godfather~~

Greetings all.

The end of the week is finally upon us and I – for one – couldn’t be happier.

Sleep (and vinyl) deprived, I could use a serious rest, yet for some odd reason I soldier on.

That said, I still managed to get this week’s Funky16Corners Radio Show assembled and ready to go, which it will (go, that is) this Friday night at 9PM at Viva Radio. If funk, soul, jazz and/or rare groove are sounds that make your ears happy, make sure to tune in, or if you can’t bet there, you can always fall by the blog on Saturday to pick up the show as an MP3.

The tunes I bring you today are a couple of very tasty bits of funky flute action.

I picked up the ‘Moog Fluting’ album by the Ebony Godfather sight unheard, mainly because its reputation preceded it, having shown up on several ‘finds’ lists over the years as a kind of crate diggers perennial.

It was a cheap score, so I tossed it onto the keeper stack (on account of I dig some jazz flute) and took it home, where I discovered in short order that the Ebony Godfather was in fact none other than Joe Thomas, who had used that title on an album a year or two before this one.

Though he is credited on the back of the record, I have no idea why he would go out of his way to obscure his involvement unless of course it was some sort of Superfly-era rebranding attempt.

Though the title suggests Moog involvement, what’s really going on is that Thomas is working it out on the flute in a pretty standard jazz-funk fashion, with the occasional addition of processing/effects on the instrument, none of which sounds like Moog (to me anyway).

The two tracks I bring you today (‘Castlin’ and ‘Electric Godfather’) are prime slices of early/mid-70s jazz funk, with Thomas’s exciting soloing laid over a tight electric rhythm section and horns.

It’s a little hotter than your average CTI session of the same era, while maintaining some of the same flavor and production values.

Thomas always managed to walk that fine line between jazz and commerce, working R&B inflected soul jazz in the 60s (as a sideman and leader), funkier stuff like these Ebony Godfather sessions, and the smoother disco sounds of his later sessions like ‘Plato’s Retreat’ and his cover of Boz Scaggs’ ‘Lowdown’.

His attachment to the material always seemed much more natural than that of some of his peers attempting to work the same side of the street.

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

Peace

Larry

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.