James Brown began recording instrumental albums in 1963. At this point,James tended to think very much like jazz and blues musicians when recording. Meaning that he tended to think in terms of sides in the studio rather than the relatively new (at the time) long playing record. On these instrumental albums played both originals or reboots of songs he’d already recorded with vocals. As an instrumental leader,he sometimes played drums. But quite a lot of the time he played organ. And that bought out another important factor to how the man approached his non vocal musical approach as well.
James Brown actually had a recording contract that positioned him as recording his vocal numbers for the King label,and instrumentals for the Smash label. That created some conflict when he released a vocal album Out Of Sight on Smash in 1964-only to have it swiftly withdrawn. That probably had a lot to do with a point that Henrique and I discussed about James competing more with hard bop jazz players such as Jimmy Smith and Brother Jack McDuff as an instrumental organist. Still it was a lot more likely James was playing drums on a 1966 instrumental he did entitled “James Brown House Party”.
Jimmy Nolan’s low chicken scratch guitar defines the groove. The JB horns generally play a bluesy 7 note horn chart-going from major to minor chord on each melodic phrase. Maceo abstracts on this theme as the first instrumental soloist to appear on this song,with his tenor sax. Nolan plays the second solo on this song,which has a more open string approach to his guitar than usual. Towards the end of the song,there’s a trumpet solo that comes in playing a fast theme that follows right along with the bluesy horn charts of the song that themselves serve to fade out the very song they begin.
“James Brown House Party” is another wonderful example of James Brown developing a brand new song from an old one. And it’s interesting on two levels. For one,the song is based on his 1962 song “Mashed Potatoes U.S.A”. For another,the key difference between the original and this instrumental is that latter version is significantly faster. James’s foray’s into uptempo funk in the mid 60’s is showcased here by showcasing how he already had the funky approach from the hard bop/soul jazz players down pat on the original version. Which makes this an important showcase for his musical creativity.
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