never enough rhodes: disco

Showing posts with label disco. Show all posts

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Mongo Santamaria - "A La Carte" (1978)

ANNIVERSARY
A year ago today I started this blog with a rhodes compilation, and it's been a satisfying journey communicating with all of you folks ever since then. I want to thank all of my buddies - you know who you are - for the contributions, support, help and frequent comments that make it all worthwhile; as well as your own fantastic blogs that have allowed me to hear so much great music.

MORE MONGO
Still catching up to the some of the contributions down in the archives here, many of which don't appear elsewhere in blogland. Xerxes donated this great Mongo Santamaria album to the Mongo discography a while back, and I thought I'd bring it up to the top for your weekend dancing pleasure!

Sometimes thought of as a disco album more in the vein of albums like "Sofrito" and "Red Hot", this one's actually quite a smorgasboard of styles and is thus receiving labels here for latin, african, funk-soul, and disco - just check the range in the three previews here. After the funk efforts of "Afro-Indio" pushed him into some musical fusions, Santamaria was clearly in a period of broadening each of his bases here - in fact, a close look at his 70s work shows an almost constant vacillation between commercial latin-fusion and roots styles.

"A La Carte" is produced by Marty Sheller and William Allen, who are mostly responsible for the funk-latin fusions of his albums in this Vaya Records period. The adaptable Sheller started out as Santamaria's trumpet player, but after 1968 switched to arrangements, going on later to work with many other latin greats. Allen joined Mongo as bass player at the end of the 60s, taking on co-arrangement duties a few years before this album. He was also working a lot with Roy Ayers around this time on albums like "A Tear To A Smile" and "Vibrations", often contributing bass and arrangments, and did some great string arrangements on Sylvia Striplin's "Give Me Your Love" a few years after this.

Allen's compositions and arrangements of "Smiling Brown Eyes" and "Hey You Sexy Thing" fit the disco slots here, the latter being the best, replete with some unison vocals from Peggy Harris and Carol Woods and slap bass from Allen himself.

Flautist/arranger/composer Doug Harris contributes three numbers : "It Feels So Good" has a Mizells-meet-Bobbi-Humphrey feel; "Nada Mas" starts out as latin-jazz before the piano leads it back to latin, with Mongo letting loose on the congas; and the closer "Umbayalo" dives back to acoustic Afro-Cuban roots with an added vocal chorus.

William Allen's "Asika" (see preview at the top of the post) is a latin-jazz stormer that feels like some of the 70s New York-based funk-jazz-latin fusions that I particularly like. Arranger Marty Sheller puts together a great vocal version of Marcelino Guerra's Cuban number "Guajiro"; and finally "Bombora" is a cover of a 1970 Celia Cruz song.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this one. Give thanks to Xerxes and don't forget to check out the other Mongo albums.

TRACKLIST

1. 'Smiling Brown Eyes' - 5:08 - (William Allen)
2. 'Asika' - 3:20 - (William Allen)
3. 'Guajiro' - 5:09 - (Marcelino Guerra)
4. 'Hey, You Sexy Thing' - 4:15 - (William Alllen)
5. 'Bomboro' - 3:22 - (Zamora)
6. 'It Feels So Good' - 4:23 - (Doug Harris)
7. 'Teresa' - 2.32 - (Allen, Santamaria)
8. 'Nada Masa' - 4:11 - (Doug Harris)
9. 'Umbalayeo' - 2:34 - (Doug Harris)

MUSICIANS (known)

Percussion - Mongo Santamaria

Smiling Brown Eyes
Vocals - Carol Woods, Peggy Harris
Asika
Keyboards - Bill O'Connell
Guajiro
Trumpet - Mike DiMartino
Piano - Eddie Martinez
Lead Vocals - Héctor Aponte
Chorus Vocals - Papaito (Mario Muñoz Salazar)
Hey, You Sexy Thing
Vocals - Peggy Harris
Bass - William Allen
Bomboro
Lead and chorus Vocals - Héctor Aponte
Chorus Vocals - Papaito
Piano - Eddie Martinez
It Feels So Good
Flute - Doug Harris
Nada Masa
Flute - Doug Harris
Umbalayeo
Vocals - Héctor Aponte, Papaito, Olimpia Alfaro, Wilfredo "Moreno" Tejeda

CREDITS

Vaya Records JMVS-74
Released in 1978

POST CREDITS

Album donated by Xerxes.
Other albums linked in this blog are at I Think I See the Mothership Coming, Hasta Luego Baby!, Blak's Lair, Blaxploitation Jive and Funk My Soul. Please thank them if you click through and download.

DOWNLOADS

WAV - MP3

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Aquarian Dream - "You're a Star / Play It For Me (One More Time)" 12" (1977)

Thought i'd leave the sticker on, though it's better described as 126 bpm

I've got a couple of big posts that are taking too long to prepare, so I thought I'd drop another 12" single on you in the meantime.

We had an extensive look at Norman Connors' jazz life last month with the albums "Dance Of Magic" and Jazz-Nekko's "Live at Nemu Jazz Inn" - the first of those posts has a full Connors discography with blog links.

Today's 12" single features both Norman Connors and Gary Bartz again, but this is a very different record from those other two. The band Aquarian Dream were Connors' pet funky disco project, launched in 1976 with their debut album "Norman Connors presents Aquarian Dream", the same year as Connors hit his commercial peak with his own album "You Are my Starship".

The two tracks on this 12" come from their second album "Fantasy" (1978), though the edits are slightly different from the album versions. The uptempo "You're a Star" has had several lives on the dancefloor, most recently in sped-up, house-ified fashion on Dimitri From Paris' first "Night at the Playboy Mansion" compilation in 2000. Connors himself, and writer Jacques Burvick, also revisited the track on the 1980 "Celestial Sky" album by the Starship Orchestra.

These days I'm more likely to spin the funkier "Play It For Me One More Time", which has a great strong vocal from Gloria Jones and Sylvia Striplin. Fantastic lineup on both of these tracks, check below.

Neither of the first two Aquarian Dream albums were great commercial successes at the time, though their reputation has grown since. They broke their ties with Norman Connors and recorded a third album, "Chance to Dance" (1979) with producer Jeff Lane, best known for his work with B.T. Express and Brass Construction. After the commercial failure of that album they broke up.

Hope you enjoy this one!

** Also, continuing the new explosion of jazz blogs, check out Cheeba's new THE SHAD SHACK - a Mainstream Records Fan Site, for all sorts of funky goodness.

TRACKLIST

1. "You're a Star" (5:30)
2. "Play It For me one More Time" (4:28)

Both tracks written by Aquarian Dream / Jacques Burvick

MUSICIANS

Vocals - Gloria Jones , Marcella Allen , Patricia Shannon , Sylvia Striplin
Backing Vocals - Julia Tillman Waters , Luther Waters , Maxine Willard Waters , Oren Waters
Bass - Eddie Watkins , Ernie Adams
Drums - James Gadson , James Morrison
Fender Rhodes, Micro Moog, Poly Moog, Vocals, Piano - Jacques Burvick
Guitar - Wah Wah Watson , Ray Parker Jr.
Guitar, Vocals, Percussion - Claude Bartee III
Horns - Garnet Brown & The L.A. Horns
Keyboards - Winston Daley
Soprano Saxophone - Gary Bartz
Soprano & Tenor Saxophone, Vocals - Claude Bartee Jr.
Strings - Bill Henderson
Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Vocals - Albert Jones

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Elektra, WEA Records Ltd.
Catalog#: LV 7, LV 7
Executive Producer - Don Mizell
Producer - Norman Connors
Arranged By - Aquarian Dream, McKinley Jackson
Co-producer (1) - Jacques Burvick
Remix Assistant (1) - Bob Bullock , Jimmy Simpson
Assistant To The Producer - Aki Aleong
Mastered By - John Golden
Mixed By - Barney Perkins
Recorded and mixed at ABC Dunhill Studios
Horns and strings recorded at Burbank Studios
Mixed at Burbank Studios
Mastered and remixed at Kendun Studios

POST CREDITS

Vinyl rip by Simon 666.
Album links in this post go to : Baby Grandpa, Blak's Lair, My Jazz World, Black to Blog.
Please thank and support these bloggers if you click through and download ...

DOWNLOAD WAV - MP3

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Norman Whitfield (1940-2008) - 48 albums

R.I.P. NORMAN WHITFIELD
1940-2008

Genuinely really sad to hear about this. I'd been re-listening to a lot of his work in preparation for the recent blog posts for the Temptations and Rose Royce.

Whitfield was a giant of music, a revolutionary in terms of production, arrangement and content. His politicised and orchestrated psychedelic productions for the Temptations and others at Motown, in combination with lyricist Barrett Strong, changed the way people saw the possibilities of the role music could play in the changing world, and strongly influenced the way everyone else at Motown and elsewhere worked afterwards.

His later work with the Undisputed Truth, Rose Royce, Stargard and others kept the funk alive within the emerging styles of disco, while at the same time pushing the line in terms of instrumentation, arrangement and production.

Here are three tracks that meant something to me, followed by a production discography at the end of the post with 48 album links :

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PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE - The Temptations (1972)

Twelve minutes of melancholy, soul, social politics, alternating sparseness and density, propelled by an insistent wah-wah guitar, haunting trumpet and building string orchestra. By 1972, others had picked up and run with Whitfield and Strong's psychedelic political soul from the late 60s, but here the masters show it's really done, lifting the bar another notch. A masterpiece.

CD rip

WAV - MP3

big file, it's a 12 min track

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KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON - Rose Royce (1976)

While his former charges the Temptations were recording "Wings Of Love", Whitfield gathered Rose Royce together and wrote, arranged and produced the entire soundtrack of "Car Wash", even before the film was made. The tracks were played back on set to inspire the cast. While we're all probably immune now to the charms of the title hit, due to overexposure at countless weddings, 21st birthday parties and office christmas parties, I want to point to the final track on the album.

"Keep On Keeping On" recalls his large-scale Temptations productions. Gwen Dickey sings a melancholy plea for optimism over a building orchestral sound, comprised of pounding acoustic piano, string orchestra, and possibly the best ever performance by Melvin "Wah Wah" Ragin on guitar, as he battles against the orchestral peak with staccato, offbeat wah-screeches. A great piece.

CD rip

WAV - MP3

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HIGH ON THE BOOGIE - Stargard (1981)

The lesser-known third track in a Stargard trilogy that begins with "Which Way is Up" and "What You Waiting For"; "High on the Boogie" is the one that nails the "funky disco" formula for the dancefloor. This track is a secret DJ weapon - just when you think it's hit the rhythmic funk peak, it lifts up yet another level. People have always asked what this is when I've played it out.

With "High on the Boogie", Whitfield incorporates disco without losing sight of the funk. He introduces drum machines, but keeps a human feel with live congas. He includes a growling synth bass that has learnt its lessons from Bernie Worrall, yet he still retains the funk slap of an electric bass guitar to complete the rhythm. There's early rap in this one, there's even a Beatle-esque telephone voice at some stage. See also the Rose Royce 12" from the other day, which comes from the same year, but "High on the Boogie" is the one that best represents this period for me.

my vinyl rip

WAV - MP3

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