{"id":1638,"date":"2011-06-21T12:29:05","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T17:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2012-02-22T13:21:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T18:21:11","slug":"ray-bryant-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=1638","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bryant RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ray Bryant<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Up Above the Rock <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Quizas Quizas Quizas <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Soundray <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Stick With It <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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Greetings all.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope the middle of the week finds you all well.<\/p>\n

As promised, I\u2019m going to take a little time to pay tribute to the soulful genius of one of my favorite pianists, the mighty Ray Bryant.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bryant, who passed on June 2nd was one of the mainstays of soul jazz piano in the 50s, 60s and 70s.<\/p>\n

As has been mentioned in this space several times, I have strong feelings about the term \u2018soul jazz\u2019, in that so little of the music labeled as such really fits the bill in any meaningful way.<\/p>\n

There are veritable mountains of wax with jazzers wading into more popular waters, especially in the 60s, but a jazzbo with a pop cover does not soul jazz make (especially since the style came into being organically).<\/p>\n

The truth is, that where many \u2013 often purely in the interest of keeping their heads above water (and away from a day job) \u2013 jazz musicians took to a more \u201caccessible\u201d style in the 60s, many of them had no real aptitude for it, making for much of the bland and uninspired sounds that so many crate diggers are referring to when they badmouth the style.<\/p>\n

The real heart of the sound \u2013 as is the case in vocal soul music \u2013 can be traced to gospel, wherein jazz and soul intersect on a giant (and wholly imaginary) venn diagram.<\/p>\n

As the 50s became the 60s, many jazz musicians (with a concentration on organists, guitarists and saxophonists) while still stretching out on post-bop and modal jazz, began to experiment with gospel and R&B at the same time that those styles were evolving into what would become soul music.<\/p>\n

By the early 60s, countless organ (and piano, guitar, sax, vibes and all of the possible combinations and permutations possible) combos were coming out of inner city clubs and into recording studios for labels like Prestige, Blue Note, Argo, Riverside and countless smaller independents and compressing the aforementioned mixtures into 45 sized, jukebox friendly slices.<\/p>\n

As the popularity (and sales figures) of straight jazz began to decline, jazz musicians concentrated more on soul and pop jazz, hoping to cross over enough to put a little bread in their pockets. While many of these musicians were merely attempting to cash in, some of them found that they had a natural affinity (whether via age or inclination) for these sounds and found ways to innovate and make them swing.<\/p>\n

One of the finest of these was Mr. Ray Bryant.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bryant came up in Philadelphia (his brother Tommy<\/strong> was a bassist) and played alongside many of the giants of the bebop and hard bop eras.<\/p>\n

He started recording under his own name in the 50s, and even found some pop success with his 1960 hit \u2018Madison Time\u2019.<\/p>\n

The tracks featured today all come from Bryant\u2019s tenure with the Cadet label between 1966 and 1969. He recorded seven albums for Cadet in those years, all a mix of original material, jazz standards and pop and soul cover material. He recorded in small and large group settings, often with the production assistance of none other than Richard Evans.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve included tracks from his two final albums for the label in the 60s (he would return for one more in 1974), \u2018Up Above the Rock\u2019 (1968) and \u2018Sound Ray\u2019 (1969).<\/p>\n

The title track of \u2018Up Above the Rock\u2019 is a shade over three minutes of pure brilliance, with a stunning Grady Tate<\/strong> breakbeat that makes it the most sought after (and expensive<\/em>) of his albums. The mix you\u2019re hearing today is from the album. The 45 mix is a little bit hotter, with the drums and the handclaps higher in the mix (check it out on Youtube<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The group is the trio of Bryant on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tate on drums, augmented by Snookie Young on fluegelhorn and Dobbie Hiques on trumpet. The track sounds light years ahead of its time. No matter how many times I hear it, I expect someone to start rapping as soon as the piano comes in. If you listen to the way Kool G Rap<\/strong> and DJ Polo<\/strong> flipped it (barely) for \u2018On the Run\u2019,<\/a> it\u2019s not too far removed from the original. It\u2019s about as funky as acoustic piano records get, and a great showcase for Bryant\u2019s heavy, straightforward sound. It\u2019s one of those records that I have to listen to multiple times in a sitting.<\/p>\n

The other track from \u2018Up Above the Rock\u2019 is Bryant\u2019s cover of Osvaldo Farres\u2019<\/strong> \u2018Quizas Quizas Quizas\u2019. The recording here is taken from my 45 and while still somewhat funky, has a much looser, more swinging feel to it. It was also sampled (with a little more subtlety) by Queen Latifah<\/strong> on \u2018I Can\u2019t Understand\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n

The two remaining tracks are both from the 1969 \u2018Sound Ray\u2019 album. A trio session, recorded with Jimmy Rowser<\/strong> on bass and Harold White<\/strong> on drums, \u2018Sound Ray\u2019 is another funky session, produced again by Richard Evans. The album sees Bryant stretching out a little more, but still keeping things locked in the groove.<\/p>\n

The title track is a hard charging tour de force (I love the opening duet with the bass and drums) with some wonderful keyboard work by Bryant.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stick With It\u2019 is a much more subdued affair, that sounds like a rebuilt version of Horace Silver\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018Song For My Father\u2019 (which, oddly enough was also covered on the album).<\/p>\n

Ray Bryant would go on to record for Atlantic, Pablo and EmArcy (among many others) through the 70s, 80s and 90s with his last album being a live, solo set recorded at Rutgers University in 2004.<\/p>\n

He was a giant, and will be missed.<\/p>\n

See you on Friday.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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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 recr events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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If you want one of the new Funky16Corners stickers (free, of course) click here for info.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Ray Bryant         Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Up Above the Rock Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Quizas Quizas Quizas Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Soundray   Listen\/Download – Ray Bryant – Stick With It   Greetings all. I hope the middle of the week finds you all well. As promised, I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,11,14,66,19,49,30,69,12,13],"tags":[171,163,166,63,165],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-instrumental","category-jazz","category-jazz-funk","category-lp-tracks","category-original-versions","category-soul","category-soul-jazz","tag-chicago-soul","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul-club","tag-soul-jazz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-qq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1823,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}