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By Larry, January 2, 2014 1:13 pm

Young-Holt looking badass!

Listen/Download Young-Holt Unlimited – Mystical Man

Greetings all

The end of the week is near, so it is time to remind you to set the dial on your wireless set to bring in the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which airs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you are unable to join me at airtime, you can keep up with the show by subscribing to it as a podcast in iTunes.

How about something mellow to close out the week?

The Young-Holt organization, Unlimited, LTD etc has been featured in this space many times over the years.

Isaac ‘Red’ Holt and Eldee Young, from their days as two thirds of the Ramsey Lewis Trio, on to their string of outstanding soul jazz LPs in the late 60s and early 70s, have long been favorites of mine.

Though they are known to most for their 1969 hit ‘Soulful Strut’ (which, oddly enough they are rumored to have not played on), they laid down a string of great albums and 45s for the Brunswick, Cotillion and Paula labels between 1966 and 1973 (with Holt carrying on as a solo for a while afterward).

The tune I bring you taday hails from their 1973 LP ‘Young-Holt Unlimited Plays Superfly’, and is a testament to the often unsung hero of the group, pianist Ken Chaney.

Chaney, who replaced Hysear Don Walker when the group changed from the Young-Holt Trio to Young-Holt Unlimited was the driving melodic force of the trio, as well as composing some excellent tunes.

Today’s selection is the meditative, soulful ‘Mystical Man’, the final track (and one of only two originals) on the ‘Plays Superfly’ album.

It is a great piece of spiritual, late-night jazz, with some very groovy electric piano, arco and pizzicato bass by Young and some very restrained drumming by Holt.

The album is one of their best, and worth the investment if you can locate a copy.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

  ___________________________________________________________________________________________

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, May 2, 2013 10:40 am

Richie Barrett

Listen/Download Richie Barrett – Some Other Guy

Greetings all

The weekend is once again upon us, and so is the Funky16Corners Radio Show. Coming to you this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio, we bring you the finest in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. If’n you cannot dig at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, or grab yourself an MP3 copy out of the archive here at the blog.

The tune I bring you today is without question one of my all-time favorites, and a 45 that eluded me for quite a while.

This is odd, because Richie Barrett’s ‘Some Other Guy’ is not a crazy expensive disc (between 50 and 100 USD on a good day), but it is in demand, so when copies pop up, the get knocked down rather quickly with a certain amount of competition in the bidding and so forth.

I was lucky enough to get my copy on the cheap side of things, and have probably given it a spin (or a digital play) every day since then.

Thing is, this record is one that loomed large in my musical tutelage for many years, thanks in large part to the fact that ‘Some Other Guy’ became one of the go-to covers for Liverpool bands of certain vintage, that being the heart of the beat era, and naturally, the Beatles.

The song was part of the playlist of the Fabs (it is the song they were playing when they were first filmed playing at the Cavern Club) and it was also recorded by bands like the Big Three, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and a bit later on by ex-Beatle Pete Best.

It was the killer version by the Big Three that caught my ear first and made me want to track down the original.

Richie Barrett is a particularly interesting figure in the history of R&B and soul in that he was not first and foremost a recording artist.

Barrett made his mark as a producer and songwriter for groups like the Chantels, and hadn’t done a ton of recording before he found himself in the studio alongside the mighty Leiber and Stoller in 1962.

The record they made, ‘Some Other Guy’ is a brilliant bit of R&B well on the way to soul, with rumbling bass, electric piano and even a groovy organ solo.

Those widely separated opening notes on the electric piano build a tremendous amount of drama, especially considering what follows.

What ‘Some Other Guy’  also is, is one of the most blatant bits of imitation Ray Charles as has ever been impressed on a lump of vinyl.

‘Some Other Guy’ sounds like Leiber, Stoller and Barrett took a pile of Brother Ray’s late-period Atlantic ish, tossed it into a blender and poured the resulting slop into a microphone.

Not only do you get the rolling electric piano rhythm of ‘What’d I Say’, but Barrett is all but channeling Charles’s voice in every possible way.

It’s positively shocking that they didn’t try to release it under some name like ‘Charles Ray’, or ‘Brother Ray’ or some such tomfoolery.

Of course we are talking about Leiber and Stoller, who managed to kick ass just about every time they entered a studio, so despite any similarities to records living or dead, ‘Some Other Guy’ is epic.

Oddly enough, despite the obvious greatness of this record, L&S didn’t bother to mention it in their autobiography.

Slap this on at your next ripple and potato chip party and watch every last soul tear their way out onto the floor fighting over which part of the rug they get to slice.

In fact, I suggest that you go get lubricated, pop this one on at high volume and tear up the joint yourself, as best you can.

It is – after all – almost the weekend.

Capisce??

Groovy.

See you cats on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!

The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.

They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).

Click here to go to the ordering page.
Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (5)

By Larry, June 20, 2010 4:21 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.86 – Elektrik

Playlist

I hope the new week finds you well.
I was just sitting here in the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center, when I realized that in all the new equipment/live mix/pledge drive hysteria, it had been something like three months since the last ‘regular’ Funky16Corners Radio mix, i.e. one with the drops and the accompanying zip file and the whole – as they used to say in the olden days – ‘shooting match’, and as a result, I felt that I should get my – as they still say today – shit together, dip into the digimatized stock and get something going.
So, I did.
Things being what they are, that being busy, both with the real world moves and the blog stuff, the old Funky16Corners mix schedule (as it was) has been stretched out somewhat. This has not however resulted in a lack of content, in fact the net result has been more music, with the Soul Club mixes (expect more of those from myself and guest selectors in the coming months) and the recent addition of archived/MP3 versions of the show I do weekly for Viva internet radio. As a result there’s probably more to listen to here than any sane person could digest, so dig in, slap some of the good stuff on your portable MP3 delivery device and stuff it in your ears (as time allows).
That said, I have whipped up a new mix, and I think you’ll dig it.
Funky16Corners Radio v.86 – Elektrik is both jazzy and funky, with lots of the good stuff you’ve come to expect as part of the Funky16Corners Radio experience, with a perfect vibe for a warm summer night.
Things get started with something that surprised even me, that being Stan Kenton’s funky, fusion-y take on Deodato’s reworking of Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’, cleverly titled ‘2002 Zarathustrevisited’ (Oh, Stan….), wherein the often overwrought master of heavily brassed West Coastery lets his sideburns grow in and hands the baton over to the younger cats in the band. Unlike similar sounds emitting from the Woody Herman organization, I have little faith that the man with his name on the bandstand had much to do with this one, and as a result, it is very groovy indeed.
Frank Wess works a very cool, vaguely trippy (heavily echoed) and somewhat funky sound with ‘Wessward Ho’. Alongside his most excellent flute work, there’s plenty of vibes, wah wah guitar and clavinet to being up the soulful quotient. If you can get your hands on a copy of the 1970 ‘Wess to Memphis’ album, do so, because unlike so many of his hard bop contemporaries, Wess was able to work very well in a more modern bag.
I’ve featured tracks by pianist Larry Willis in a couple of previous mixes, and for good reason too, since he was a master of a certain extra-hot, era-specific, electric piano sound. The tune ‘Out On the Coast’ take the soul jazz vibe and funks it up without drifting into the land of fusion. It’s serious enough to be jazz, but with enough get down in it to work as funk.
If you’re familiar with some of the more ethereal work of vibist Gary Burton you may find ‘Vibrafinger’ to be a somewhat jarring experience. Here, instead of the soothing chimes of the vibraphone, Burton offers up a heavily treated, electrified and distorted sound, accompanied by some heavy guitar and drums.
‘On This Site Shall Be Erected’ is an edited (by me) version of the first track on Gary McFarland’s concept album ‘America the Beautiful’. Thanks no doubt to the fact that he was co-owner of the label, his work for Skye Records is at times very far out, ranging from his soft and mellow vocalizing alongside his vibes, to heavier orchestral work, which, like this track, sometimes got funky. With guitar by Eric Gale and drums by Bernard Purdie, ‘On This Site Shall Be Erected’ moves from a brief avant garde section, directly into a few short minutes of big band funk.
Though you’re probably familiar with the Booker T and the MGs version of the movie theme ‘Hang’Em High’ (a Top 10 hit in 1968), you’ll probably dig Jimmy Smith’s long-form take on the tune from the ‘Black Smith’ album. You get to hear Jimmy work the Hammond alongside a piano (almost the whole time) and he does a predictably great job.
Next up is something a little spacey from the king of Chicago studio axemen, Mr. Phil Upchurch. ‘Elektrik Head’ from his 1969 LP ‘The Way I Feel’ sees Upchurch getting all up inside the echoplex, managing to be jazzy, soulful and passably psychedelic all at the same time.
Things mellow out a little bit – yet remain funky – with ‘Prairie Road’ by pianist Pete Jolly. A track from the largely improvised and wholly excellent ‘Seasons’ album, it features Jolly on the electric piano, and none other than Paul Humphrey on the drums. If you can score this on vinyl, good for you (it took me a while). If you can’t, grab it in reissue because it really has to be heard in its entirely. GREAT record.
Hampton Hawes was featured in the electric piano mix earlier this year. ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ is another fantastic cut from his 1972 ‘Universe’ album.
Neal Creque is another great, underrated musician and composer who is better known for his work as a sideman (with Mongo Santamaria among others) than for his solo work (probably because there’s not a lot of it…). ‘Jasmine’ is from his 1972 ‘Contrast’ album, and features some West Indian flavor mixed in with the funky jazz, sounding like a younger, hipper cousin to Sonny Rollins’ ‘St Thomas’.
Roy Meriwether recorded a fair amount of major label jazz sides, but it’s his private press stuff that is sweated the hardest by the collectors and beat diggers. His version of Eddie Harris’s ‘Mean Greens’ appeared on his Capitol LP ‘Soul Knight’. He takes the tune at a faster, more aggressive pace than Harris did on his OG.
This edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thang closes out with a very groovy track by the father of vocalese, Mr. Eddie Jefferson. I wish I could say I had a copy of the rare 45 of Jefferson’s version of Horace Silver’s ‘Psychedelic Sally’, but I’ll settle for the LP. Not very psychedelic, but quite funky, this sees Jefferson in a very modern bag.
I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, March 28, 2010 4:12 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.84 – Moving Between Dimensions

Playlist

Listen/Download 123MB/256KB Mixed MP3

Listen/Download 90MB Zip File

The new week is here, and as previously planned, I’m posting this new edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thang from the road, since the fam and I are on vacation.
I figured I could do a couple of regular-sized posts from wherever we are, but it occurred to me that since I had a few mixes worth of tracks stockpiled for just such an occasion, that I ought to put a mix together for the week and be done with it.
That said, Funky16Corners Radio v.84 – Moving Between Dimensions is another one of those funky, jazzy things that I like to assemble every once in a while, on account of that’s how I roll. Things are generally upbeat, but there are a couple of detours into the spiritual realm, ever so slightly far out but still melodic and groovy.
Things get up to speed quickly with a track by the mighty Blackbyrds. The ‘Blackbyrds Theme’ is one of the funkier tracks from their 1974 ‘Flying Start’ LP. Dig that tasty break.
Roy Meriwether made an appearance in this space not too long ago. He was one of the preeminent (if not the best known) soul jazz pianists of the 60s and 70s, recording first for major labels and then waxing a couple of private press dates (including the ultra-rare ‘Nubian Lady’). ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ is from his ‘Jesus Christ Superstar Goes Jazz’ LP and starts out mellow, eventually picking up a nice funky pace.
Vibist Mike Mainieri got his start playing fairly straight-ahead jazz (he even played with Paul Whiteman?!?) but by the late 60s was getting further out, working an early fusion vibe. His 1968 session ‘Journey Through an Electric Tube’ (no doubt a reference to the vibes themselves) features mellow grooves (like ‘The Bush’) and sidemen like Jeremy Steig and Chuck Rainey.
I’m a huge fan of jazz flute (as you’ll see in an upcoming mix) and Frank Wess was one of the greats. Alongside players like Sam Most, Buddy Collette and the mighty Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Wess (who like those instrumentalists played a number of wind instruments) started out playing modern jazz, ending up signed to the Stax subsidiary Enterprise where he recorded 1970’s ‘Wess To Memphis’. An excellent, forward thinking session, ‘Wess to Memphis’ has plenty of soulful moments while managing to maintain a jazz edge. ‘Underhog’ features some very nice, echoey flute work.
Eddie Jefferson was one of the early masters of vocalese, laying down vocals over some of the most famous jazz melodies of the day. His reworking of Miles Davis’s ‘So What’, from his 1969 Prestige session ‘Body and Soul’ may not be terribly funky (like a few of the album’s other cuts) but it is one of his finest performances.
Pianist Gene Harris is best known for his decade (plus) long work with the Three Sounds. ‘Feeling Me Feeling You’ is from his 1974 solo album ‘Astral Signals’.
Another recent Funky16Corners post featured the great Hammond player Dr Lonnie Smith. ‘Hola Muneca’ is another track from the 1971 ‘Mama Wailer’ album, which featured a who’s who of the CTI/Kudu stable, including Grover Washington Jr., Airto, Billy Cobham and Ron Carter.
Bobby Hutcherson is one of the great vibraphonists to record for the Blue Note label in the 60s and 70s. In addition to several amazing sessions as a leader, Hutcherson was also a very busy sideman on many of the label’s sessions. ‘Print Tie’ is a track from his 1970 ‘San Franscisco’ LP, which he recorded with sax legend Harold Land.
I mentioned both flute jazz in general, and Jeremy Steig specifically, above. Steig – famous among the crate diggers of the world for ‘Howling For Judy’ (sampled by the Beastie Boys) – recorded a number of albums for Blue Note and Solid State in the late 60s and early 70s, all along the same lines, i.e. vaguely funky, infused with far out hippiosity and tip-toeing just along the edge of “out”. ‘Rational Nonsense’ was on the 1969 LP ‘This is Jeremy Steig’.
Pianist Larry Willis appeared on Funky16Corners Radio v.81 with ‘153rd St Theme’. The funky – yet mellow – electric piano feature ‘Journey’s End’ is from the same album.
Eddie Harris made some of the finest soul jazz of the 60s and 70s during his tenure at Atlantic Records. Both alone, and with Les McCann he went a long way to defining the sound, and with his electrified saxophone, paving the way for the onrush of fusion. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the ‘Silver Cycles’ album, do so with haste, since it includes ‘Smoke Signals’. Funky, spacey and soulful, it’s a landmark recording.
It is with a tip of the hat to the jazzy rock cats, that I bring you Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll with ‘Road to Cairo’. Though they have often been placed amongst the UK freak set, Auger, with his jazz organ chops, and Driscoll, the soulful diva in a caftan made some amazing music in the late 60s, from pure soul jazz, to funky soul to borderline psychedelia.
This edition of the Funky16Corners Radio podcast closes out with a very cool cover, saxophonist Lou Donaldson (backed by no less than Charles Earland on the Hammond, Idris Muhammad on the skins and Melvin Sparks on the guitar) doing his thing with Lee Dorsey’s ‘Everything I Do (Gohn Be Funky From Now On).
I hope you dig the mix, and I’ll be back next week with some more of the good stuff.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

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By Larry, February 14, 2010 3:55 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.81 – The Piano Electrified

Playlist

To hear this mix, head over to the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast Archive

I hope reentry into the seven day cycle finds you all well.
I have just about recovered from all the snow-related exertion, and if we get another storm anytime soon I’m going to hunt down Mother Nature and kick her in the ass.
It is in the spirit of relaxation (though not too relaxed) that I bring you another in the recently mounted series of instrumental focus mixes, this time out a very tasty hour-long (plus) excursion into the world of the electric piano.
The electric piano – specifically the Fender Rhodes, though there are a couple of different brands/models represented here – is, like the vibes in F16Rv.79, one of my all time favorite sounds. Say what you want about the structure/genre of any kind of music, but when you boil it down, there’s something about the way a specific instrument sounds, whether it’s the vibes, electric piano, string bass, oud, flute, what have you, that gets deep inside my head and drills down into my pleasure centers on a primal, vibrational level, to the point where an immersive exercise like the one you see before you is the only prescription.
This has a lot to do with growing up around the piano. My Pop plays, and it was his second job for all of my childhood. If my love of music has a specific source, it’s because I grew up with a pianist/singer in the house. Whether it was on the out of tune upright at my Grandma’s house, the baby grand he entertained on at my wedding, or the electric keyboard he has now, my Dad has always instilled the value of a good (great) song in all of his children (which is why most of them play instruments).
I’ve been wanting to get down to working on this particular mix for a long time, but it was only in the last couple of weeks that I set foot in the record room – which is starting to outgrow its current location – and set to digging out the prime electric piano specimens in my crates.
While there is a funky edge to the majority of the selections herein, there are a couple of mellower things where you really get to hear the dreamy, chiming side of the instrument.
Things get underway with a song that is both a certifiable soul jazz standard, but also an oddity of sorts. Eddie Harris, who appears twice in this mix, but just once on the piano, is best known as a sax man, primarily as the number one proponent of another favorite sound of mine, that being the Varitone electric saxophone. The 1966 album ‘Mean Greens’, from which ‘Listen Here’ originates, is unusual because it includes an entire side on which Harris puts down the sax and works it out on electric piano and organ. Though Harris wasn’t giving any of the past masters of the keyboard anything to worry about, he acquits himself nicely on ‘Listen Here’, building a nice groove against a percussion base.
Herbie Hancock lays down a serious groove on the title track from 1969’s ‘Fat Albert Rotunda’. Featuring Hancock and a band of serious jazz heads (like Joe Henderson and Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath) ‘Fat Albert Rotunda’ (the song and the album) is a landmark of sorts, with the pianist settling into the funk for the first time.
Art Jerry Miller is one of those cats where I wish I could get more than a few, tantalizing clues about his story. He was Memphis-based, wrote for an played with Willie Mitchell, and recorded one very groovy album for the Stax subsidiary Enterprise Records in 1969. ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ is a classic of the three o’clock in the morning mood, and sounds like a distant cousin of King Curtis’ ‘Soul Serenade’.
Pete Jolly was a serious West Coast jazz pianist and studio musician who recorded steadily from the 50s to the 90s. ‘Prairie Road’ is a cut from his 1970 album ‘Seasons’, which was improvised and recorded in a single four-hour session. The album is sought out for the sample on ‘Plummer Park’, but I’m here to tell you that in addition to ‘Prairie Road’ – which is included here – you really need to get your hands on the entire album (in OG or reissue) because it is one sweet listen.
Mose Allison has long been a favorite of mine, but it wasn’t until last summer, when I was down in DC digging, that DJ Birdman hepped me to the album ‘Western Man’, the only one on which the mighty Mose ever played the electric piano. I finally found myself a copy last month, and it’s both amazing, and a little bit sad that Allison didn’t spend more time working in a similar groove. The mellow tune ‘Meadows’ is included here.
I remember a time when I didn’t know that Lonnie Smith (the Hammond cat) and Lonnie Liston Smith were two different people. It wasn’t until I picked up a couple of his early 70s Flying Dutchman albums that I got hip. Lonnie Liston Smith was a busy sideman (with Miles Davis among others) who broke off in the early 70s to make his own brand of spiritual fusion. ‘Voodoo Woman’ is from his 1974 ‘Expansion’ album, and while it gets off to a funky start, it quickly settles into a late night, quiet storm groove.
Hampton Hawes first made his mark as a hard bop pianist in 1950s Los Angeles. By the early 70s he had moved on to electric piano, and a funkier sound. ‘J.B.’s Mind’ is from his 1972 album ‘Universe’, and manages to whip a little bit of funk into the mix, alongside some serious jazz sounds from Oscar Brashear and Harold Land.
Bob James is known to most people as the man behind the theme to ‘Taxi’, but ask any crate digger, and they’ll let you in on the breakbeats that make his early 70s albums on CTI/Tappan Zee favorites. The most prominent of these comes toward the end of the tune included in this mix, ‘Nautilus’ from 1974’s ‘One’ album (break courtesy of Idris Muhammad).
Larry Willis is a journeyman jazz keyboardist who has played in a wide variety of settings since the 60s (including an early 70s stint in Blood Sweat and Tears!). ‘153rd St Theme’ is a cut from his 1973 Groove Merchant album ‘Inner Crisis’.
Neal Creque has appeared in this space before, in his capacity as sideman for both Grant Green (he wrote Green’s epic ‘Cease the Bombing’) and Mongo Santamaria. He was a versatile keyboardist, working on both piano and organ. His 1972 ‘Contrast’ LP for Cobblestone is a lost classic, with funk, jazz and just a touch of his roots in the Virgin Islands. ‘D Train’ is one of the funkier numbers on the album.
Eumir Deodato, one of Brazil’s most successful musical exports is responsible for the biggest hit CTI records ever had, his reworking of ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ aka ‘2001’ which was a Top 10 hit around the world in 1973. The heavily sampled ‘September 13’ is another cut from the ‘Prelude’ album.
Les McCann and Eddie Harris were both jazz veterans when they hit the charts with their live, 1969 recording of Gene McDaniel’s ‘Compared To What’ which appeared on the ‘Swiss Movement’ LP. They reunited in 1971 for the album ‘Second Movement’, which featured the tune included in this mix, the funky, oft sampled ‘Shorty Rides Again’.
No mix focusing on the electric piano would be complete without a contribution from the mighty Ramsey Lewis. Lewis verily wrote the book on soul jazz piano in the 60s, and carrid on making huge contributions to jazz funk in the 70s. His 1974 ‘Sun Goddess’ album was one of his biggest hits, and in addition to his regular trio members (including Cadet house drummer Morris Jennings), the album also featured contributions from several members of Earth Wind and Fire. We close out this edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thang with his extremely cool cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Living For the City’.
I hope you dig the mix, and I’ll be back later in the week.
Also, if you’re in or around NYC this Wednesday, I’ll be back spinning with DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis at Master Groove @ Forbidden City, Ave A between 13th and 14th Sts. If I can get my shit (and records) together it’ll be an all Northern Soul set, so fall by if you’re in the area (things get underway at 10PM).

Peace

Larry

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