Dave Ball was one of the least starry rock stars I ever met. It’s probably why we became mates.

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Tom Misch’s jazzy house update on Roberta Flack’s 50-year-old chart topper Feel Like Makin’ Love is the kind of thing you might hear at a beach bar in Ibiza. 

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Still digging into early-Seventies soul, I have to admit I’d never heard of Brick and consequently I’d never heard of their disco and jazz hybrid that they called “dazz.”

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In 1977 I was listening to a solid diet of one-chord wonders, varied only with a weekly dose of Top of the Pops to find out what the rest of the country was listening to while I pogoed.

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Everybody knows Aretha Franklin. Few apart from hardcore soul fans remember the Queen of Soul’s big sister Erma. (more…)

Ace Frehley, aka Space Ace, aka The Spaceman, was the creator of countless heavy rock riffs – and solos – in his role as lead guitarist of Kiss.

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This nine-minute extravaganza is essentially an extended guitar solo, much like Funkadelic’s extraordinary Maggot Brain. And just as good.

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Jazz-funk was never my thing, conjuring nightmarish visions of George Benson and Level 42, but it did provide a moment of Pleasure in 1979.

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This is one big funk party from the moment Tom Browne blows his trumpet, voices start to chatter and Marcus Miller’s thunderous bass begins to rumble.

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I have to confess I never really paid much attention to the rise of D’Angelo, wrongly filing him away as a smooth R&B crooner of bedroom ballads.

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