Funky16Corners

Johnny Pate – Shaft In Africa (Addis)

By Larry, August 14, 2012 2:09 pm

Johnny Pate

Richard Roundtree and his big stick…

~~Listen/Download Johnny Pate – Shaft In Africa (Addis)~~

Greetings all

The middle of the week is upon us, and I have something funky for your ears.

About a year ago, I embarked on one of my rare daylight digging excursions, with one of the little Corners in tow.

Now, these trips are a delicate matter, in that time must be used judiciously, with full attention paid to the fact that the child accompanying me has no interest whatsoever in Daddy’s vinyl obsession and as a result has little tolerance for what sane people often refer to as “standing around waiting”.

Fortunately for all parties, the stock in this particular digging spot was recently replenished, packed with goodness and as a result I was able to gather my rosebuds in short order, hand over my dough and exit the establishment before my son’s patience reached its expiration date.

That said, I exited the store with an armload of groovy soul jazz and one soundtrack in particular that I had been after for quite a while (which coincidentally, you see before you today), that being Johnny Pate’s music for the film ‘Shaft In Africa’.

Johnny Pate is one of those guys that had at least three or four careers while other folks were just getting off the starting line.

He got his start as a jazz bassist in Chicago in the 40s, and had a hit with the Johnny Pate Quintet with a version of the oft-recorded ‘Swinging Shepherd Blues’ in 1958.

By the early 60s he had gone to work for Chicago soul labels like Okeh and ABC/Paramount as an arranger and A&R man (working with groups like the Marvelows and the Impressions), eventually moving on to Curtom Records by the end of the decade.

Pate wrote and arranged the soundtrack for ‘Shaft In Africa’ in 1973.

Though there are many cool tracks on the album (including the vocal theme by the Four Tops) , the standout is the track you see before you today, ‘Shaft In Africa (Addis)’.

Opening with a very tasty drum and percussion break, the tune opens up into a horn-led groover. There’s some great electric piano soloing through the song, as well as the (excellently heavy) drums returning to the fore a number of times.

Oddly, my copy of the album cuts out for a short time in one of the channels at the very beginning (I have no idea why), but it is a minor inconvenience.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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