Patrice Rushen is not only an outstanding singer/songwriter, she also did all of the arranging and production work on this 1982 masterpiece. Alors on dit Madame Patrice. (yeah, it sounds kinda funny in French)
Of course most people under 30 likely know this tune only from the Will Smith samples, which is fine I guess — except the original has a way better bass line
Since I’m in Switzerland, here’s a taste of what was going down in Montreux 10 years ago. Hopefully I’ll get to check it out this year.
Tower of Power is an appropriate name — they still got all their groove left in them after all those years.
While I was searching for this video I stumbled upon this guy. Not only is he pretty damn good, I love how the vid truly makes those bass lines stand out.
Great job, whoever you are.
Funk meets Disco meets Old School Dance meets big red codpiece.
Now we know where Chromeo are coming from.
Not much time to post these days, but I’ll still honour the Friday tradition.
I really wanted to post something by Roy Ayers this week. He has so much amazing material; it’s really hard to pick just one. I’ve always had a sweet spot for ‘car chase’ sort of themes (a la Son of Shaft, Hot Wheels, etc.), so I went with Evolution. Plus it ends with a mind-blowing vibraphone stunt, and I’ll go ahead and share my strongly held belief that the vibraphone is the most awesome instrument ever created. Which makes Roy the most awesome musician ever.
I wanted to have something in relation to Germany, but I already posted the great Taste the Music a few weeks ago — with amazing foresight, as I had no idea I’d be going there at the time.
So instead I’ll focus on the NYC part of the last two weeks, with a slight digression into Old School territory — as close a cousin to funk as it gets IMO.
Oh how I wish I’d known the NYC and Seattle of the ’70s.
Embedding’s been disabled on this one, so you’ll have to trust me and summon the energy to click on the link. Yes, I know how much it costs you, I browse ‘em interwebs too. But you won’t regret it.
What are you still doing here? It’s Chaka time.