Jazz
This was the first funk I ever really “got” – I remember first hearing it in a pub on the Mile End End where there was a DJ who span tunes far removed from my usual New Wave and postpunk fare.
Even in the darkest depths of my lifelong jazzophobia I had a soft spot for Carla Bley. I’m not sure why; maybe because a female jazz musician is such a rarity.
Butcher Brown are a self-proclaimed “proud throwback to the progressive jazz-funk bands of the 1970s with a 21st century twist” – a phrase that would once have filled me with horror.
I never heard this when it came out back in 1975 – I was listening to Wish You Were Here until Horses came along – but I’ve heard that drum break sampled dozens of times in hip hop and house tunes since then.
Alarming news – in my old age I may be starting to like jazz. Yes, I’m afraid a lifetime of jazzophobia may be under threat after I heard this dude, Yussef Dayes yesterday. On a sunny day on my car radio, his music blew my mind.
Being somewhat jazz-hesitant, if not an outright jazzophobe, especially when it comes to the F-word – “fusion” – I obviously haven’t heard of Alphonse Mouzon before.
Last night I finally got to see Mary Coughlan live for the first time – something I’ve wanted to do ever since I got a cassette of her debut album Tired & Emotional in 1985.
As a longtime fan of The Dears, I’ve always enjoyed the melancholy music and Bowiesque / Morriseyesque / Albarnesque croon of frontman Murray Lightburn. Even so, this is something I never expected from the creator of apocalyptic albums like Degeneration Street and No Cities Left.
Randy Crawford joined The Crusaders to sing what became their biggest hit, Street Life in 1979. Or, as my old colleague used to call it, Street Light.
Here’s one of those songs I haven’t heard in years (decades?) but it comes right back to me the moment the needle touches the groove. I was never a fan of jazz-funk but you’d have to have a heart of stone, and feet of concrete, not to be moved physically and emotionally by the infectious groove, skittering bassline and blissful vocal of Southern Freeez.