Anatomy of THE Groove: “Monster Man” by Jeff Lorber Fusion

Jeff Lorber has remained one of the major jazz/funk keyboard players whose continued through the smooth jazz era by remaining consistently funky. Music will always change. And artists will have to change with it. Lorber has realized that as long as he keeps the rhythms tough and strong,and his solos jazzy and hummable,that the jazz/funk/fusion sound he’s now a veteran of,he can modernize his sound but keep its basic flavors intact. This is something he’s shown with his recent comebacks. On the other hand,his grooves hit a fevered pitch in the early 1980’s.

About 12 years ago when discovering Jeff Lorber’s albums from approximately 1980 to 1986, it came to me how much he was able to do with in the time period when analog based synthesizers were transitioning to digital ones. This also arrived at the same time that the Jeff Lorber Fusion were beginning to focus on heavy rhythm along with improvised instrumental soloing. That played a big part in their final album together for almost 30 years entitled Galaxian. The opening track of this album is one of the best examples of this that I can think of. It was called “Monster Man”.

The thick drums and slap bass start out the song before a fruity voice does a short rap at the beginning-while the bass burbles with an accenting rhythm guitar beneath him. After this,Donnie Gerrard’s vocals come in. And each of his vocals lines is accented by the horn charts from Jerry Hey. This represents the chorus of the song. On the refrains,Lorber’s keyboards lead a group lead the harmony vocals. On the bridge of the song,the drums take on a Brazilian flavor as the slap bass gets a duetting solo from non other than Stanley Clarke himself before the song fades out on the main theme.

‘Monster Man” is indeed a heavy funk monster. The bass leads the way from beginning to end. And the entire song never takes its eyes off the groove. I dare say it is the most thoroughly funky song Jeff Lorber made in the 1980’s. I’m not entirely sure if Stanley Clarke plays all the bass lines here,or is accompanying bassist Danny Wilson (who plays on the rest of the album) on this song. Either way,its still one of those “bass in your face” songs where the funk is very accessible to identify. Since Lorber is celebrating his birthday today,this is just the song I’d personally chose to represent his groove.

 

 

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Razzamatazz” by Patti Austin

Harlem born Patti Austin actually had a couple unique musical careers before her 70’s and 80’s breakthroughs. She was singing at the Apollo by age 4,and had a recording contract with RCA a year later. After her career as a child star,she became a teen queen of the commercial jingles during the mid to late 60’s. During the 70’s she began her career as a backup singer for Franki Valli and The Four Seasons as well as Japanese fusion artist Yutaka’s debut album in 1978. By then,she’d already recorded two solo albums of her own in End Of The Rainbow and Havana Candy.

First time I ever heard of her was through her work with Quincy Jones in the late 70’s and early 8o’s.  Big examples would be songs like “Its The Falling Love” and “Baby,Come To Me” from 1979 and 81-duetting with Michael Jackson and James Ingram respectfully. Austin has a plaintive tone and elastic vocal range. This alternating voice makes her adept in jazz,funk and pop. One of the few versatile singers with a truly distinctive style to her that I know of. One of her shinning moments was on Quincy Jones 1981 album The Dude in 1981,where she sang frequently throughout. The name of the song is “Razzamatazz”.

Greg Phillinganes,Steve Lukather and Herbie Hancock start off the song with some viruosic electric piano/guitar interaction before Jerry Hey’s horn blasts get the song going. The refrain consists of Hancock’s electric piano,Lukather’s rhythm guitar and the drum/Moog bass of Rufus’s John Robinson and David Hawk Wolinski. On the choruses,Phillinganes adds his own melodic synthesizer touch. There are three different bridges here. One showcases the horns and Paulinho Da Costa’s percussion,the other reduces down to Phillinganes synth solo,and another is Lukather soloing over the refrain.

The song itself actually fades out on its second refrain. Patti Austin really gives her all on this song. This Rod Temperton composition is a very busy number,with a thick sophistifunk groove encompassing a number of powerful musical ideas. Especially its brittle,boogie funk juxtaposition of live horn arrangements,percussion and synth bass. On the second chorus,there’s an entire symphony of multi tracked Patti Austin’s singing the line “make it better with a little bit of razzamatazz”. Its a very melodic jazz/funk/post disco number whose energy level truly lives up to the exciting sound of its title.

 

 

 

 

 

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Tonight We Love” by Rufus

Rufus are extremely important to how funk music has translated into more recent years. As Questlove pointed out so well in his book  Mo Meta Blues while breaking down the 1977 album Ask Rufus, the bands fairly stripped down rhythm section based sound was a stylistic precursor to the neo soul sound of the early/late aughts. When guitarist Tony Maiden joined Rufus in 1974,he came a key focus of the band-often duetting with his voice and guitar with the bands iconic lead vocalist Chaka Khan. When Chaka left the band in the late 70’s to pursue a solo career,Rufus started recording albums without her.

The second of these post-Chaka Khan Rufus albums was 1981’s Party ‘Til You’re Broke. On this album the main instrumental,songwriting and vocal focuses shifted directly to Tony and the bands late 70’s keyboardist David “Hawk” Wolinksi. It was yet another album that music literature of my adolescence instructed readers to avoid. Ended up finding a vinyl copy at a small record shop in NYC while visiting my aunt. More recently I picked up a Japanese import CD of it. Still it really stopped me in my tracks to throw this vinyl on my aunt’s old turntable and be blown away RIGHT away with “Tonight We Love”.

John Robinson kicks right on the snare heavy funk drums. Hawk accents every other beat with his deep descending Moog bass. That synth bass worms it’s way trombone style into the main song. This consists of that squiggling synth bass accompanied by a higher pitched synth melody,Tony Maiden’s brittle drum-like chicken scratch guitar and the thick slap bass of Louis Johnson. Johnson’s bass and Tony’s rock guitar throw down hold down the refrains-while an easy going rhythm guitar holds down the fort along with more synth accents from Hawk and Jerry Hey’s horn arrangements.

On the choruses of the song,the main melodic statement turns to beginning theme of the song afer the main synth bass/drum intro-with Hey’s horn charts playing direct call and response to the vocal hook. There’s a second refrain after the second play of the chorus-this one in a more major key and featuring Hey’s woodwinds for the melodic statement. After a huge horn fanfare and drum roll,the song strips down to the drums again with Louis Johnson throwing down an ultra funky slap bass solo. After this-the song essentially reboots itself for another round of refrains/choruses before the groove fades out.

“Tonight We Love” is simply an amazing song. I’d personally put it up there as the finest funk Rufus made after Chaka Khan went solo. The late Louis Johnson almost acts as an official member of Rufus hear-his slap bass as much the star of the show as Tony’s many different guitar licks and Hawk’s many keyboard parts. This is a very Westlake studio oriented boogie/post disco type production-very well played on and produced. All the same,the funk kicks extremely hard in that classic “rufusized” sort of way. With the driving synths,guitar,drums and bass this is some serious early 80’s hard funk.

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Say You Do” by Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson is turning 50 today. It’s amazing to think her music career is 34 years old now. She was groomed by her family to be an actress-doing Mae West impressions on the Jackson 5’s Las Vegas shows in the mid 70’s and staring on Norman Lear’s Good Times as Penny,an abused child adopted the Evans’ next door neighbor Willona Woods on the show. Just before Mothers Day this year,Janet announced she was 2 weeks pregnant with her first child by her husband of five years Wissam Al Mana. Would like to wish these expectant parents all the happiness in the world for this happy event.

Growing up Janet was actually interested in becoming a horse racing jockey or an entertainment lawyer- supporting herself through acting. By her early teens,she’d become committed to being an entertainer. With the help of her father Joe,she got a contract with A&M Records in 1982. The album had an incredible array of session musicians,songwriters and producers working with an appropriate sound for Janet’s still developing vocals. The album itself did chart in the R&B Top 10. But somehow never produced any hit singles. One big potential one was the opener “Say You Do”.

Starting out with a hard hitting 5 beat pattern on the snare drum,a thunder like sound allows a thumping bass line and a cosmic space funk synthesizer to ascend in sound and pitch into the refrain. After this,a liquid rhythm guitar protects the groove with several accenting keyboard patterns. One is a horn type Clavinet accent,the other is an orchestral Fender Rhodes-themselves accompanied by aggressive Chic-like bursts of disco era strings along with Jerry Hey’s horn arrangements. These work tightly in concert with those Chic style strings arranged by Benjamin Wright.

After several choruses and refrains of Janet’s vocals-featuring the singer accompanying herself with several layers of lead and back-round choruses,there’s a thick and funky drum/Clavinet/synth bass funky bridge before a symphonic chorus of Janet’s vocals comes in. Janet’s voice is elaborately echoed in a rather psychedelic manner-again accompanying herself with her lower and higher range over the 5 beat drumming.After this, that drum breaks off into the thunder sound that started the song concluding it-with the synthesizer that fades up into the intro fading out in the exact opposite manner.

When I first heard this album 20 years ago,it came as a total surprise that so much elaborate musicality would go into an unproven teenager singer-even if she did carry the famous Jackson name. For awhile now,almost no thought goes into the majority of teen singer/boy band/girl group style musical productions. With the entire focus being on the singer’s vocal persona and the songs hook. This Rene & Angela composition that starts out Janet’s debut album takes a totally different approach-much like an early 80’s update of the sound Norman Whitfield got for The Temptation on songs like “Masterpiece”.

The incredible instrumentalists on this song might have a lot to do with this sound. Rufus’s rhythm section Bobby Watson,Tony Maiden,John Robinson AND Andre Fischer are all over this groove. Not to mention James Jamerson Jr. coming in on bass too along jazz oriented keyboardists/synthesizer players  Jeff Lorber and Frank Zappa’s Ian Underwood. Janet’s teenage voice is very impressive on this song. Her maturing vocals not only scale from a low tenor to her high mezzo soprano by turns-along with the multi tracked and echo-plexed symphony of her voice added to the mix too.

Of course there’s also the influence of her brother Michael here too. Michael Jackson was one of the biggest personalities in the music world in 1982,and only about to get bigger on that level. Janet does her own versions of his vocal hiccups and range on this song for sure. But the idea of combining a tight rhythm section of strong session instrumentalists with the horn arrangements of Jerry Hey,also working with Quincy Jones and MJ at the time,showcased her influence from her brother was as much musical as it was from the performance standpoint of her presentation.

Musically this song also bridges two generations of funk as well. It has the elaborate arrangements of the cinematic soul sound of Isaac Hayes and Barry White that inaugurated the disco era. But the clipped,stripped down presentation of the rhythm section and spare bursts of strings and horns also fall in line with the new wave influenced Minneapolis sound of Prince. Which was one Janet would embrace more fully in the next several years. This sort of instrumental thoughtfulness and funkiness stands for me as a superb model for teen singers. And stands as a highly unsung debut song from Miss Janet!

 

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Shake It Off” by Narada Michael Walden

Narada Michael Walden,who got his current first name from guru Sri Chimnoy in the early 70s,was probably one of the busiest musician/producers of the 1980’s. The Kalamzoo,Michegan born drummer/vocalist started out as the successor to Billy Cobham in the Mahavishnu Orchestra-working with Cobham later on his solo dates as well as playing with the late guitar hero Tommy Bolin. In the mid 70’s he began making solo records. While his 1976 debut Garden Of Love Light followed in the jazz-rock fusion mode he’d been in,his solo works veered towards funky soul by the late 70’s. These albums had a big Quincy Jones type arrangement style,often with a pronounced rock edge.

His theatrical style of melodic funk transitioned from the disco era to the electro/boogie one with ease as his solo career continued into the 1980’s.  During that time,he began a career as a producer of largely female talent in a similar vein to Luther Vandross. This went from working with Sister Sledge in 1981 to his stellar work introducing Whitney Houston to the world in the mid/late 80’s. His work with Stacy Lattisaw and Johnny Gill got him hooked up with Aretha Franklin for her big comeback. In 1983 he recorded his third solo album of the decade called Looking At You,Looking At Me. One song it really achieves full funkiness in “Shake It Off”.

Walden and Sheila E open up the brittle, polyrhythmic drums/percussion of this song on the intro. Walden asks a musician named RJ to “play it right” before a thick slap bass line comes churning in scaling down and around the melodic chord changes. “RJ” turns out to be bassist,arranger and more recently American Idol talent scout Randy “The King” Jackson. This combination of drums,percussion and phat slap bass holds in the funk heavy by the time two densely arranged horn charts  from Jerry Hey come in. That along with glossy synthesizer washes of Frank Martin and some churning chicken scratch guitar of Carrado Rustci. There’s also a vocal bridge where Walden provides a full jazz scat.

The adenoidal talk singing approach of Walden plays call and response with the rhythm for most of the song. On the chorus and it’s refrains,he’s in direct contact on that same level with the darting horns. On the bridge,the horns subside for Jackson to thump out his thick slap bass solo over the rhythm before the choruses re-emerges to close things out. All of these qualities make this song perhaps one of the most unsung examples of how the boogie funk era blended together both the live band flavors of the 70’s with newer synthesized/electronic touches. The instrumentation is brittle while still keeping deep in the Afro-Latin rhythmic clave. For me,it’s one of  Walden’s finest funk numbers ever!

Anatomy Of The Groove: “Off Broadway” by George Benson (1980)-Instrumental

George Benson is one of my favorite overall musicians. Both my friend Henrique and I both agree on this. For the last couple of years,one major topic between us is how much of a virtuoso player Benson is. Over years of playing and singing,the man developed a technique of scatting over his guitar playing that became part of his signature sound. When thinking about paying tribute to this man’s rich and full musical legacy,it seemed right to showcase his talents on two levels: as a singer and as an instrumentalist. And considering Benson’s vast body of recorded music,that is no easy task. There was one song that bounced right into my head however.

Growing up,I always spoke of Benson’s hit “Give Me The Night” and Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” in the same sentence. It wasn’t for years that I learned that both were in fact recorded with the same group of musicians. And both were produced by Quincy Jones. Give Me The Night is also Benson’s album from 1980. And a huge commercial success too on the strength of the title song and “Love X Love”. Taken as a whole it was a wonderful and diverse album. And there is one song on it that really catches my ear on a strictly musical level. It’s title is something an extension off another of Benson’s big hits from four years earlier and is called “Off Broadway”.

Rufus’s John Robinson’s drum kick gets the song rolling with Jerry Hey’s melodic horns, the late Louis Johnson’s bass thump and a duet between Benson’s bluesy guitar horn with Lee Ritenour’s more ticklish accessory line . Greg Phillinganes adds in blipping,chiming synthesizers along with a bass one. This goes into before Paulinho da Costa’s high every percussion comes in for the Brazilian style chorus where Benson plays the melodic solo. Hey’s horns and strings scale out of this-on two occasions within the song. The final refrains find Benson taking one of his chordally thick solos-vocalizing with it in his classic style on the final bars of the song.

Composed by Rod Temperton,one of my favorite jazzy funk/dance songwriters. The musicianship on this song is pretty close to amazing. Everyone involved is at their melodic and rhythmic best on this song. Although these are most of LA’s finest and most prolific session musicians of the day,Benson sounds as if he’s playing with a self contained jazz/funk band who’ve been playing for years like The Crusaders. Benson plays both a very basic melodic line on this song-one that’s very open and vocal in tone. That virtuoso style of soloing really lets go on those final refrains. And this song therefore gives you a groove that jams along by virtue of two different approaches of George Benson’s boss  of a guitar.

Anatomy of THE Groove: “The Dude” by Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones has been on my mind a lot lately when thinking about music. Last week in fact,my friend Henrique pointed out something he read on the back of a vinyl album about how important Quincy was to the jazz world in general. And this was at the height of his career no less. From being mentored by Clark Terry in the 1940’s up to helping shape up and coming hip-hoppers 60 years later,the evolutionary nature of Quincy’s career had me wondering how to present his music here today. The question was would it be good to express that musical arc by overviewing several songs from several decades,or focus on one song that might tell it’s own kind of story about Quincy Jones.

Last year at this time,I posted up an older review I had done for the 1981 Quincy Jones release of The Dude. Albums released under his own name always had a specific flavor to them. For example,his early albums showcased him largely as an instrumental band leader. His releases since the 70’s have generally been showcases not only for his evolving production approach,but also with the different musicians and vocalists he was involved with or mentoring at the given time. In the case of this early 80’s album,the spotlight was on James Ingram and Patti Austin. And the title track of the album said so much about where the classic Quincy Jones sound was going to be at that time.

A pulsing,nasal synthesizer starts off the song before the drums and horns kick in. This is accompanied by opening backup that includes Syreeta Wright and Michael Jackson among a massive chorus. The horns lead into a stripped down percussion break  that’s accented by a slow crawling drum beat-over which a bluesy Fender Rhodes plays the lead keyboard line accented by Louis Johnson’s slap bass lines. The refrains start off with Austin and Ingram trading off vocals along. with Michael Boddicker’s Vocoder. Quincy himself provides a rap as the title character on several choruses after which the horns the male backup singers provide an accompanying chorus.

On the third of these choruses, the backup chorus led along by Austin sings a swinging variation of the chorus. Steve Luckather comes in to play a wah wah pedal heavy guitar line that mimics the low volume,bluesy solo on the Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer that comes out of Stevie Wonder on the bridge,which basically repeats the melodic theme of the refrain. After this the fanfarring horns that generally introduce Quincy raps instead segues into Austin’s swinging vocal choruses. There’s a repeat of the refrain after this. And the song fades out on a repeat of the chorus. Only on this one,Ingram accentuates the lyrics vocally before the song comes to an end.

Getting back to Quincy’s varied musical career,there are many qualities in this song that sum up everything he had done in his then nearly four decades of creative activity. The classic Westlake studio crew including drummer John Robinson,percussionist Paulinho Da Costa,trumpeter/arranger Jerry Hey and of course Louis Johnson play on this number. On the surface,this song written with Patti Austin and Rod Temperton has that sleek west coast production matched with the deep funk groove Quincy had been perfecting over much of the 1970’s. On that level,it’s alternately stripped down and boisterous depending on the mood the song is trying to project at a given time.

On the broader level,this song totally epitomizes the musical evolution of Quincy thus far. The accessory vocal harmonies on the chorus reflect the big band swing era as do the horns. And Stevie Wonder’s synth solo additionally brings the flavor of the blusiness that came from jazz to rock ‘n roll and onto funk and soul as well. The character of “The Dude”,represented as a stone sculpture on the cover and later to become Quincy’d mascot for his media production company,is basically an elder statesmen whose philosophy could be summed up by him stating “don’t put your moth around a check that your body can’t cash”. In this instance for me,this is Quincy’s most defining song overall up to this point.

 

 

Anatomy Of THE Groove For The Brothers And Sisters Who Aren’t Here: “Buttercup” by Carl Anderson

Carl Anderson came from the world of Broadway into the soul/funk scene,in a manner similar to Stephanie Mills. The key difference is the level of success. The only reason I even knew about Anderson’s music was through a YouTube search. In the mid 70’s,the Jackson 5 had done some recording of songs composed by Stevie Wonder. The one song from these sessions that have publicly surfaced was the song “Buttercup”. Turns out Carl Anderson had done a version in the mid 80’s as well. Never heard of the man before. But was very impressed with what I heard. Turns out this was not the first time that Anderson had recorded this song.

In 1982 Anderson signed up with Epic Records. There he recorded his debut album entitled Absence Without Love. The title song of this album was a strong boogie funk number featuring a vocal duet with Teena Marie,who like Anderson has since passed away. Richard Rudolph,having produced Lady T a couple of years earlier,was also behind the recording console for Carl Anderson’s debut. He was now singing in an environment with session aces such as Smokey Robinson’s keyboardist Sonny Burke,Nathan East,Omar Hakim,Jerry Hey and Lee Ritenour backing him up. It was here that Anderson first introduced his version of the previously unreleased Stevie Wonder song “Buttercup”.

The drum starts out playing a sauntering Caribbean rhythm with a round,electrified bump on each accent. The main bass line accompanies this-scaling up and down right up with the groove. Suddenly the main melody comes in. This features fan faring horn charts,a high pitched rhythm guitar and an equally higher toned electric piano playing around the chords. On the refrains,the horns take a back seat to Anderson’s vocals. On the choruses,the horns and vocals take on a totally harmonious role. This happens on a bridge where Anderson is doing some percussive scat singing before going onto his vocalizing of the refrain. This pattern repeats a few times before the song fades out.

This song,especially in it’s original 1982 version is one of the finest example of an unheard Steve Wonder composition being done in a way that’s special and distinctive. On both the vocal and instrumental level,this song has so many elements of the popular Afrocentric musical spectrum within it. It has the Caribbean style rhythm and horns,the slowness of tempo and slap bass lines of hard funk along with the harmonic and vocal qualities of jazz. The deep,gospel drenched pipes of Carl Anderson expresses a fullness of range and dramatic presentation that adds even more musical excitement. As far as I’m concerned,this is one of the finest musical moments for Carl Anderson.

Anatomy of THE Groove: “One More Rhythm” by James Ingram

James Ingram is an artist whose contributions to the disco/post disco era musical continuum are ones that I’d totally neglected. Conversations with Henrique revealed the man to have started out as a guitar and keyboard player on the Dolemite movies. That while being a member of the band Revelation Funk as well. And that  Motown  funk band Switch’s Philip Ingram was in fact James’ younger brother. All I’d previously known about the man was as a man who’d duetted with Patti Austin and Linda Ronstadt. As well as his early 80’s songs such as “Just Once” and “One Hundred Ways”. The revelation of Ingram having a history with strong uptempo funk/soul was a very happy one for me.

Following session word for Leon Haywood and The Stylistics in the late 70’s and early 80’s,Ingram signed with Quincy Jones’ Qwest as a solo act. His debut set was called It’s Your Night. It featured many of the famous Westlake Studio session crew such as Jerry Hey,Paulinho Da Costa,Nathan East,Larry Carlton and David Foster. It had a big hit with the Westcoast inflected uptempo groove of “Ya Mo Be There” with Michael McDonald. Upon hearing the generally ballad themed album in it’s entirety,it was another uptempo song that actually caught my attention very heavily. It was written by Heatwave’s Rod Temperton and was called “One More Rhythm”.

A swinging cymbal heavy drum roll starts the groove off. Suddenly the equally swinging horn charts dramatically roll right in as the rest of the song sets off. The refrain of the song features a stride style honky tonk piano solo from Ingram-along with a brittle synth bass line. This is set up with a steady post disco rhythm accented with a clapping on each beat. On the choruses the horns start up again before the theme that starts out the song chimes back into another refrain. The bridge of the song the song finds Ingram vocally scaling upward towards an organ solo from the late,great Jimmy Smith. The chorus returns for the songs fade out in a slightly higher key.

In many ways this song presents itself musically as an early/mid 80’s variant of what Stevie Wonder did eight years earlier with “Sir Duke”. It comes out of the harmonic flavors and arranging style of big band swing and Kansas City jazz. Than it adds to that contemporary instrumental and production touches. In this case a synth bass line mainly. Ingram’s soulful wail of a voice,Jimmy Smith’s solo and Temperton’s good understanding of jazz styled melodies makes this an interesting retro futurist big band pop/jazz/funk number in it’s time. And both compositionally and rhythmically,it’s a song that might be difficult to get out of one’s brain and booty.