{"id":60,"date":"2010-01-24T02:19:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T02:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=60"},"modified":"2010-01-25T10:51:10","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T15:51:10","slug":"remembering-freddie-mccoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=60","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Freddie McCoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 1\/7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The Great Freddie McCoy<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Listen\/Download -Freddie McCoy – Funk Drops <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download -Freddie McCoy – My Babe<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download -Freddie McCoy – Pet Sounds<\/span> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

I come to you today with a couple of tunes, posted in the memory of one of the great soul jazz vibists, Mr. Freddie McCoy<\/strong>. This post was originally planned for Wednesday, but I had to stop and take a minute to remember the great Willie Mitchell<\/strong>, so here we are today.
\nThey also come to you courtesy of one of the stranger stories to find me since the inception of this blog.
\nBack in October of 2006 I posted one of my the most hypnotic numbers in McCoy\u2019s catalog, the title track from his 1969 LP \u2018Gimme Some\u2019. Over the course of the next few years, the post drew some interesting comments, the most interesting being one from McCoy himself (then living in Morocco under the name Dit Ahmed Sofi<\/strong>) in May of this year.
\nLater that year he contacted me offline, telling me that he had some new music recorded (on guitar, no less) and asking of I knew someone who might be interested in putting it out.
\nAbout a month after that, someone posting with McCoy\u2019s WordPress log-in left a message that he had passed away on September 27th.
\nNaturally, this alarmed the family members (his children, nieces and nephews) and ex-band member Chuck Purro<\/strong>, who had posted in, and were following the thread.
\nVery soon after the posting of the death notice, I received an e-mail (from McCoy\u2019s account) informing me that he had in fact passed on and that I would receive further information as soon as possible.
\nIt wasn\u2019t until just before Christmas that his children posted a message on the blog that they had gotten in touch with his family in Morocco, and had confirmed his passing.
\nThis is sad news, but especially so when you consider that McCoy was \u2013 at least in my opinion \u2013 the finest, purely \u201csoul jazz\u201d vibraphonist I’ve ever heard.
\nThere were of course many vibists that traveled through the soul jazz genre, including masters like Cal Tjader, Bobby Hutcherson, Gary McFarland, Gary Burton, Johnny Lytle<\/strong> and past masters like Milt Jackson<\/strong> and Lionel Hampton<\/strong>, but none of them – despite many brilliant recordings – really found their home in that particular sound.
\nFreddie McCoy did.<\/strong>
\nStarting out as a sideman with Johnny Hammond Smith<\/strong>, Freddie McCoy recorded his first date as a leader n 1963, and his last in 1971 (almost all for Prestige*).
\nWorking with a supporting cast that included Joanne Brackeen<\/strong> and Bernard Purdie<\/strong>, McCoy, like almost every jazzer not working exclusively on the \u201cout\u201d side, spent much of the 60s mixing his own original compositions with covers of contemporary pop and soul material. A survey of his albums (all out of print and some harder to find than others) reveals that while the results were occasionally pedestrian, they were also at times positively transcendant<\/em>.
\nThe (very) few details I have picked up about his post-recording years, suggest he spent some time living a quasi-hippy lifestyle in Hawaii (with some members of his band), spent time on an ashram in India, living his last days in North Africa.
\n1960s soul jazz was by and large the province of organists (a major focus here at the \u2018Corners) and guitarists, with vibraphonists often working on the periphery as supporting players. Freddie McCoy took a skill rooted in hard bop, mixed it with rhythm and blues, soul, funk and even psychedelia and produced a truly unique sound that to this day has yet to receive its due.
\nOddly enough, after first hearing that Freddie might have passed away, I started working on a mix (which will drop here in a week or two) of soul jazz vibes, that was to include a couple of prime tracks by him. It still will, but confirmation of his death made be dip back into the crates to record a few more cuts to post by themselves, and to pull one more \u2013 which had appeared here as part of a previous mix, and is a particular<\/em> fave \u2013 out of the archives.
\nThe three tracks I bring you today by no means represent all facets of McCoy\u2019s sound, but they should give you the impetus to go out and dig for more, and maybe (just maybe) some enterprising soul at a record company might be inspired to put together a comp of his finest work so that a new generation can groove to his sounds.
\nThe first two tracks come from his 1966 \u2018Funk Drops\u2019 session for Prestige. The title cut features a repeating baritone sax figure (by Laurdine Patrick<\/strong>) against Joanne Brackeen\u2019s organ and McCoy\u2019s vibes. While not out and out funk, the sound here is well on its way in that direction, and is the kind of hard hitting stuff that Mods and their ilk have been sliding across dance floors to for decades.
\nThe second track from that album is a reworking of Willie Dixon\u2019s<\/strong> blues\/r&b standard \u2018My Babe\u2019 which produces an even harder, even Modder<\/em> dancers groove, with aggressive, choppy guitar by Napolean Allen<\/strong> kicking up the tempo.
\nThe third and final track is something I included in Funky16Corners Radio v.32, Freddie McCoys sublime and absolutely brilliant cover of the Beach Boys\u2019<\/strong> \u2018Pet Sounds\u2019, recorded for his 1968 LP \u2018Soul Yogi\u2019. He takes the original, bumps up the tempo a few notches and really moves with Brian Wilson\u2019s<\/strong> wonderful melody. The section of the recording towards the middle, where he starts to swing the tempo is a few, magical seconds of musical perfection that I absolutely live for. I always find myself giving this one repeat spins, and I think you will too.
\nThat all said, take a moment to soak up the great music that Freddie McCoy gave us before he slipped the surly bonds of earth.
\nI hope you dig these sounds,and I\u2019ll see you all on Friday.<\/p>\n

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

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

*His last LP \u2018Gimme Some\u2019 was released on the Buddah subsidiary Cobblestone, but in his first reply to my original post he stated that he never actually recorded for that label. Whether or not those sessions were done for Prestige and then farmed out to the other label, I can\u2019t say for sure. If anyone knows please drop me a line.<\/p>\n

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

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

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PS Head over to Iron Leg for some Washington, DC garage punk.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/strong>PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 1\/7\/10 The Great Freddie McCoy Listen\/Download -Freddie McCoy – Funk Drops Listen\/Download -Freddie McCoy – My Babe Listen\/Download -Freddie McCoy – Pet Sounds Greetings all. I come to you today with a couple of tunes, posted in the memory of one of the great soul jazz vibists, Mr. Freddie McCoy. This post was […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","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=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}