Alot of the stuff that was being put out by CTI records in the 70's was
also super-funky.
-Freddie Hubbard- Straight Life
-Joe Farrell- Canned Funk (an absolute monster of a record!!)
-Stanley Turrentine- Salt Song
-Milt Jackson- Sunflower
-George Benson- Beyond the Blue Horizon
-Idris Muhammad- Havana Candy
Blue Note also put out tons of great stuff during the 70's, which
directly influenced alot of the new cats playing acid-jazz.
-Donald Byrd- everything
-Jimmy McGriff- Electric Funk (AWESOME!!)
-Grant Green- Green is Beautiful (my favorite)
-Ivan "Boogaloo" Jones- I don't have any of his albums, but all of the stuff
that I have on various compilations is top-notch.
Of course, Blue Note's best came from Miles and Herbie Hancock in the
70's, so their influence can certainly be heard in today's acid-jazz. I'm
pretty sure that that James Taylor was brought up on a steady diet of Herbie
Hancock, Jimmy Smith, and Jimmy McGriff.
Verve also had tons of great jazz-funk artists whose sounds are being
emulated by today's artists. Any acid-jazz vibe player will probably openly
acknowledge a huge influence by Roy Ayers, the funkiest vibe player alive.
The soundtrack to "Coffy" is a real killer, if u can find it. "Mystic
Voyage" also turns it out.
-Gotta mention James Brown and anything by the J.B's as being
groundbreaking.
-Roland Kirk's 70's stuff was also pretty groovy, even though he was sick as
a dog during that whole decade. Not too many sax players were as soulful
and versatile with their instrument as he was.
-Legendary funky bass begins and ends with William "Bootsy" Collins and
Larry Graham, so I'd certainly place these two as my unanimous picks for
this category
-Percussion-based acid-jazz owes a debt of gratitude to cats like Coke
Escovedo and Fela Anikulapo Kuti
-I don't think that you can say "Groovy Jazz" without mentioning the
grooviest cat of them all, Charles Mingus. EVERYTHING he put out in the
70's swung hard. His grooviest, of course, was "Mingus Ah Um". No
acid-jazz, jazz, or funk fan should be without this one; it still blows my
mind everytime I put it on.
-The spacey sound in jazz was probably perfected by Sun-Ra, but while I
consider his output to be legendary in the sense of that Far-Out sound, it's
not really the easiest stuff to digest for those who aren't familiar with
his work. There are those who swear by everything that Sun-Ra did
(including his musicians; they worshipped him like a God), but the best
place to start for an acid-jazz fan would be "Space is The Place", which was
recently reissued by Impulse Records. Don't say I didn't warn you, though.
Anyway, those are a few of the artists that I'd consider to be influential
in today's acid-jazz movement. I think I need a nap now.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ross C. d'Avignon <Ross.dAvignon@mail.cc.trincoll.edu>
To: acid-jazz@ucsd.edu <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, April 17, 1998 4:57 PM
Subject: Legendary Grooves
>
>Hey, everybody...
>
>What are your votes for the all-time, old school, greatest grooves? In my
>book, there's no denying Donald Byrd's "Places and Spaces" album on Blue
Note.
>Ferociously fonky material with a splattering of sound layers in the
>standard Mizell Bros. sound... Let's hear some other suggestions!
>
>Dig it,
>
> "Change / Makes You Want to Hustle..."
>
>