{"id":1689,"date":"2011-07-21T07:58:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T12:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=1689"},"modified":"2012-02-22T13:02:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T18:02:27","slug":"idris-muhammad-express-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=1689","title":{"rendered":"Idris Muhammad – Express Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Idris lays into the traps…<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – Idris Muhammad – Express Yourself <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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

I hope all is well on your end of the interwebs.<\/p>\n

This being a truncated week \u2013 having allowed for a little marination with the Jerry Ragovoy<\/strong> tribute \u2013 I figured I\u2019d close out the week with something funky.<\/p>\n

First, it behooves me to step to the side and remind you all that Friday night at 9PM is Funky16Corners Radio Show<\/strong> time on Viva Radio<\/strong><\/a>, wherein I fall by with my big box of records and some words and fill the airwaves with soulful goodness. All of the shows are then MP3-ified and posted in the F16C Radio Show<\/strong> archive at the blog (here, in fact) where you can pull down the ones and zeros at your leisure.<\/p>\n

I should also mention that this past Monday’s festivities at Botanica,<\/strong> wherein yours truly, joined by M-Fasis<\/strong> and DJ Hambone<\/strong> laid down several hours of tasty funk and soul to a very groovy crowd. Hopefully I can get some of the recorded sets posted in the next few weeks.\u00a0 Thanks also to Dan behind the bar for the ginger beer.<\/p>\n

That said, I came upon today\u2019s selection fairly recently.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll go ahead and assume that most of you have at least a passing acquaintance with the name Idris Muhammad.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I\u2019ll also say is, that I don\u2019t think many folks know that Mr. Muhammad was born with the much less exotic name of Leo Morris,<\/strong> and was a New Orleans homeboy of folks like the mighty Neville Brothers.<\/strong> Morris\/Muhammad came from a family of drummers, and as a teenager played alongside Art Neville\u2019s Hawketts<\/strong>, Joe Jones<\/strong> and Fats Domino<\/strong> among others.<\/p>\n

He relocated to New York in the early 60s and established himself as a jazz drummer, joining the band of Lou Donaldson<\/strong>, and spending the second half of the 60s and the early 70s recording soul jazz behind leaders like Donaldson, Grant Green, Leon Spencer<\/strong> and Lonnie Smith<\/strong>. Like guitarist Melvin Sparks<\/strong> (who plays on today\u2019s selection) Muhammad seemed to specialize in backing organ sessions.<\/p>\n

Now, when I got this 45, I blanked on the fact that the flip side was a cover of James Brown\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018Super Bad\u2019, which was a very nice surprise indeed and it kicks, and I\u2019ll make sure to whip it on you sometime soon.<\/p>\n

That said, the tune I\u2019m posting today is Muhammad\u2019s cover of Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St Rhythm Band\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018Express Yourself\u2019.<\/p>\n

After I digimatize this particular 45 and transferred the files to the old iPod, I gave both sides repeated listens, focusing (natch<\/em>) on Muhammad\u2019s drums, which snap like a mofo, but what really grabbed me, and it ought to grab you too, is the fact that his playing on \u2018Express Yourself\u2019 positively screeeeeaaammmms<\/em> NEW ORLEANS!<\/p>\n

Yesiree Bob, unfold your ears and take a listen to the drums breakdown around the one minute and thirty nine second mark and the funk gets all loose and second line-y<\/em>. Get your head inside of those drums and tell me if you don\u2019t hear a little bit of James Black<\/strong>, an almost exact contemporary of Muhammad\u2019s who also came up out of New Orleans to make his mark as a jazz drummer (but is best known for the funk).<\/p>\n

Muhammad lays down about 20 seconds of absolute magic, dancing back and forth between his kick drum and his snare in a laid back tidal wave of syncopation that is utterly mind blowing.<\/em><\/p>\n

While I was writing this I just keep running the marker back and playing the breakdown in a loop and it just got deeper every time.<\/p>\n

I should also note that the band is very groovy, with some nice electric piano action from Harold Mabern.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a tasty number indeed, and ought to hold you fine people over the weekend until I return on Monday.<\/p>\n

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

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

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idris lays into the traps…   Listen\/Download – Idris Muhammad – Express Yourself   Greetings all. I hope all is well on your end of the interwebs. This being a truncated week \u2013 having allowed for a little marination with the Jerry Ragovoy tribute \u2013 I figured I\u2019d close out the week with something funky. […]<\/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":[58,11,17,14,55,66,49,40,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-funk","category-funk-45","category-funky16corners","category-funky16cornersviva-internet-radio","category-instrumental","category-jazz-funk","category-new-orleans-funk","category-soul","category-soul-jazz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-rf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689","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=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1842,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions\/1842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}