Soul — All Formats  

Funky electric groove from Donald Byrd – a post Mizell effort that's still burning in a crisp groove similar to his classic 70s Blue Note work – one that's absolutely dripping with keys! Isaac Hayes produced this one, and also played a lot of those keyboards on the session with Byrd's 125 St Band – grooving on acoustic piano and Rhodes, plus vibes and synth. Ronnie Garnett's bass is tight and funky throughout, with William Duckett on guitar, Albert Crawford, Jr on piano, keys & clavinet, Myra Walker on acoustic piano, and some groovy female chorus vocals that's to Isaac's Hot Buttered Soul Unlimited! Tracks include the great mellow "I Love Your Love", plus "I Feel Like Loving You Today", "Butterfly", "Love Has Come Around", and "I'll Always Love You".

An incredible record that was one of the highest points of Donald Byrd's career! The album's the third one he cut with producer/arranger Larry Mizell – and of all Byrd's work with Mizell, this one's the funkiest, the tightest, the most soulful, and the most perfectly realized vision of the smooth jazz funk sound that the team were aiming at. Every track is a winner – and the album glides along with a slippery sinewy groove, never pausing for a weak moment or a misplaced note, shimmering with pride in its own genius. Byrd's trumpet soars over the top, banking gracefully over waves of funky drums, spacey keyboards, and extremely well-placed vocals – all brought together perfectly by Mizell, with a tightly fused style that few people have ever been able to match in the studio since! Tracks include "Change (Makes You Want To Hustle)", "Dominoes", "Wind Parade", "Places & Spaces", and "Night Whistler".

An essential bit of jazz funk from Donald Byrd and Larry Mizell! The groove's very similar to the classic Places & Spaces, and the record's got loads of cool spacey tracks with hot funky trumpet from Donald, and cool waves of synth and sound from Larry. The title cut's a great groover, and other nice ones include "Think Twice" (sampled by Main Source for "Lookin' At the Front Door"), "I Love The Girl", and "You Are The World". Great great great stuff, and right up there with the albums Places & Spaces and Street Lady!

A vocoder heavy track from Donald Byrd – one that's co-written with Isaac Hayes, and served up with plenty of beats on the bottom! You'll be hard pressed to hear a lot of the sweet trumpet of earlier years, but "Midnight" moves back into the sweeter groove of before – still more soul than jazz, but a great bit of stepping soul overall!

A definite soul based session for Donald Byrd – and that's saying a lot here, because his previous decade's worth of work had all had some sort of R&B focus! The main force behind the set here is Isaac Hayes – who's producing, arranging, and playing most of the keyboards on the album. Oddly, Ike's not singing at all – and vocals are instead handled by Rose Williams, Diane Davis, Pat Lewis, and Myra Walker – plus the Hot Buttered Soul group on backing vocals. Most tunes have such a strong vocal focus that Byrd's horn gets far less solo space than before – but overall, the album's still got a nice mix of funky jazz and modern soul, and grooves a lot better than most other efforts of this nature from the time. Great, long overlooked grooves from Byrd! Titles include "Sexy Dancer", "Midnight", "High Energy", "Star Trippin", "Forbidden Love", and "Everyday".

A post-Blue Note effort, and Donald's changing things up a bit with his 125th Street Orchestra and Uptown Singers – funking along in a way you'd expect from the longwinded title! Byrd loostens up the smoother backgrounds of his recent Larry Mizell helmed work, and in their place are grooves that have more of a heavy slap bass sound, punchier horns and guitars! There are lotes nice moments that are a bit more restrained than the comparably full-on funk approach – and these have a spacey fusiony soul quality that reminds us of similar work that Byrd was doing with The Blackbyrds at the time. One of the best cuts is "Your Life Is My Ecstasy", which has some great bubbling Moog behind it, which creates a sound that you've heard sampled famously by Tribe Called Quest. Other nice ones are "Loving You", which features vocals by Jim Gilstrap, and a remake of Duke Pearson's "Cristo Redentor", a big hit for Don in the 60s, which is redone here in an excellent slow funk mode that feels like Bob James' work on CTI. Others include "Have You Heard The News", "In Love With Love" and "Close Your Eyes And Look Within".

A post-Blue Note effort, and Donald's changing things up a bit with his 125th Street Orchestra and Uptown Singers – funking along in a way you'd expect from the longwinded title! Byrd loostens up the smoother backgrounds of his recent Larry Mizell helmed work, and in their place are grooves that have more of a heavy slap bass sound, punchier horns and guitars! There are lotes nice moments that are a bit more restrained than the comparably full-on funk approach – and these have a spacey fusiony soul quality that reminds us of similar work that Byrd was doing with The Blackbyrds at the time. One of the best cuts is "Your Life Is My Ecstasy", which has some great bubbling Moog behind it, which creates a sound that you've heard sampled famously by Tribe Called Quest. Other nice ones are "Loving You", which features vocals by Jim Gilstrap, and a remake of Duke Pearson's "Cristo Redentor", a big hit for Don in the 60s, which is redone here in an excellent slow funk mode that feels like Bob James' work on CTI. Others include "Have You Heard The News", "In Love With Love" and "Close Your Eyes And Look Within".

Funky electric groove from Donald Byrd – a post Mizell effort that's still burning in a crisp groove similar to his classic 70s Blue Note work – one that's absolutely dripping with keys! Isaac Hayes produced this one, and also played a lot of those keyboards on the session with Byrd's 125 St Band – grooving on acoustic piano and Rhodes, plus vibes and synth. Ronnie Garnett's bass is tight and funky throughout, with William Duckett on guitar, Albert Crawford, Jr on piano, keys & clavinet, Myra Walker on acoustic piano, and some groovy female chorus vocals that's to Isaac's Hot Buttered Soul Unlimited! Tracks include the great mellow "I Love Your Love", plus "I Feel Like Loving You Today", "Butterfly", "Love Has Come Around", and "I'll Always Love You".

A fantastic bit of jazz funk fusion – and one of the landmark 70s albums produced by Larry Mizell! This is Gary Bartz's second (and most amazing) collaboration with Larry Mizell – a studio genius who could focus on the best talent of a jazz artist, then expand it using additional keyboards, percussion, and often a sweet bank of chorus vocals to give the tracks an extra soulful sound! By the time of this album, Larry had already worked to great fame with Donald Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey, and Johnny Hammond – and the record has him turning his talents towards Gary Bartz to unlock a whole hidden side of soulful expression that would never be matched again! The title cut – "Music Is My Sanctuary" – is a jazz fusion classic in anyone's book, and it features characteristic Mizell keyboards alongside Gary's soulful sax, augmented by a deep vocal chorus that's simply fantastic. Other highlights include "Carnaval De L'Esprit" and "Macaroni" – and the whole album's nice!

A great little sleeper from the Blackbyrds – a record that never gets as much due as their earlier records that have a hard funky feel, but offer instead a tasty batch of smoother jazz funk numbers that show the group still continuing to grow. Donald Byrd's still at the production helm – and the band's got a nice spacey sound that almost reflects directions that other funk groups, like Kool & The Gang, were taking at the time. The best case of this is the massive cut "Mysterious Vibes", a slow jazzy stepper that was sampled to great fame a few years back – but you can also hear it on the cuts "Supernatural Feeling", "Soft & Easy", and "Dreaming About You".

A key bit of jazz funk from trumpeter Tom Browne – still grooving strong here, with a sublime mix of modern soul, funky jazz, and some of the 80s groove touches that showed up on the best GRP titles from the time! The album's got a smooth compressed groove – kind of post-Donald Byrd, with Tom taking solos over the top of most tracks, and occasional vocals , wither from a backing group, or an assortment of different lead singers. Players on the set include Bernard Wright, Dave Grusin, Bobby Broom, and Marcus Miller – and tracks include "I Know", "Midnight Interlude", "Let's Dance", "Night Wind", "Making Plans", "Thighs Hihg", and "Magic".

A key bit of jazz funk from trumpeter Tom Browne – still grooving strong here, with a sublime mix of modern soul, funky jazz, and some of the 80s groove touches that showed up on the best GRP titles from the time! The album's got a smooth compressed groove – kind of post-Donald Byrd, with Tom taking solos over the top of most tracks, and occasional vocals , wither from a backing group, or an assortment of different lead singers. Players on the set include Bernard Wright, Dave Grusin, Bobby Broom, and Marcus Miller – and tracks include "I Know", "Midnight Interlude", "Let's Dance", "Night Wind", "Making Plans", "Thighs Hihg", and "Magic". CD features nice bonus tracks too – "Magic (12" UK version)", "Thighs High (single version)", and "Let's Dance (single version)".

The first compilation to really do justice to jazz funk legend Eddie Henderson – and a great one, too! Henderson's spacey trumpet style graced some of the best Blue Note and Capitol jazz sides to come out during the 70s – and his open-ended snakey way of playing was very different than many of his 70s contemporaries on the instrument. Plus, Eddie never minded a little bit of smooth production, and was certainly one of the more soulful players of his generation – forging a unique style that was in the same camp as Donald Byrd's sweet fusion work for Blue Note in the mid 70s, but with a spacey style that's really great. Nearly every cut on the CD features production work by Skip Drinkwater – who was to Eddie what Larry Mizell was to Donald Byrd – and most of this work has been long unavailable for years! Titles include "Kudu", "Explodition", "Involuntary Bliss", "Inside You", "Galaxy", "Butterfly", "Say You Will", "Amoroso", "Open Eyes", "Prance On", and "Hopscotch". Excellent work throughout – performed in the company of some of the 70s best funky fusion players!

A whole new level of genius for Herb Alpert – a record that's light years away from his earlier work with the Tijuana Brass, and which has the trumpeter stepping strongly into the world of smooth jazzy fusion! The title track here went platinum the minute it was released – and became an end-of-the 70s instrumental anthem that seemed to drift out of speakers around the country. The rest of the album's pretty great too – built on the modes explored by Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, and other soulful fusion players of the 70s – but cast out with a bit more drama overall. Titles include the seminal jazz dance classic "Rotation" – plus "Rise", "Street Life", "Aranjuez (Mon Amour)", "1980", "Angelina", and "Love Is".

Amazing stuff! Johnny "Hammond" Smith began his career as a simple soul jazz organist – but by the time of this album, he'd teamed up with the mighty Larry Mizell, the genius arranger/producer who'd breathed new life into the careers of Donald Byrd and Bobbi Humphrey. Mizell works with Hammond in the same way he does with other jazz artists – by taking a groove that works best with their solo style, and slowly layering other instrumentation and effects on top of it, so that when the solo kicks in, it's supported on waves and waves of funky sounds and soulful grooves. Mizell and his brother Fonce both play keyboards on the record, and the rest of the group includes monster fusion players like Harvey Mason, Roger Glenn, Hadley Caliman, and Jerry Peters. The real treat is Johnny, though – as his solos are heavenly, the best of his 70s work, stripped mean and lean, laid in at just the right points. Includes the breakbeat classic "Shifting Gears", the house classic "Los Conquistadores Chocolates", and funky numbers "Fantasy" and "Tell Me What To Do".

The second great Donald Byrd soul project of the 70s – a group who hailed from the music department at North Carolina Central College, and who are produced by Donald here with a groove that's similar to his more famous work with The Blackbyrds! Like The Blackbyrds, these guys started as college students with a good sense of jazz – but the overall groove here is more in a soul-based mode, similar to the smoother style that the Blackbyrds used after their first album or two – with almost an equal focus on the vocals and funky instrumentation. There's a nice ensemble feel to the set, and titles include "Super Trick", "Hey Girl", "Bull City Party", "Washing Machine", "You & I", and "Sleepy Time Is Over".

An excellent promo sampler of tracks released on Elektra/ASylum from 1978 with 10 tracks: Donald Byrd "Thank You For Funking Up My Life" and "Have You Heard The News", Aquarian Dream "Play It For Me (One More Time)" and 'You're A Star", Lenny White "Time" and "Lady Madonna", Joe Cocker "Fun Time", Lee Oskar "Haunted House" and Patrice Rushen "Hang It Up" and "Music Of The Earth"

There's nothing unfinished about this business – as The Blackbyrds are at the top of their game here – working in a sweet blend of jazz, funk, and soul – all produced to perfection by their mentor Donald Byrd! The groove is quite similar to some of Byrd's best from the time – a bit fuller than the first few records by The Blackbyrds, thanks to the addition of larger horns – and put together in ways that really has them soaring towards the skies on waves or righteous soul! There's vocals on most tracks, but they really take equal place next to the group's wonderful instrumentation – especially the heady keyboards of the mighty Kevin Toney, still a key member of the combo at this point. Titles include "Party Land", "In Life", "Time Is Movin", "Lady", and "You've Got That Something".

Two funk blacksploitation soundtracks, back to back on one CD! Cornbread, Earl, & Me wasn't exactly a Superfly-type film, but the Blackbyrds do a nice job of playing Donald Byrd's score of funky instrumentals and sweeter jazz themes, written to fit the "coming of age" story of the film. The big sample cuts on here are the short cuts "Wilford's Gone" and "Soulful Source" – but there's a lot of other nice mellower numbers, like "Cornbread", "Riot", "One-Eye Two Step", and "The Gym Fight". Charles Earland did the funky score for Dynamite Brothers – an obscure Kung Fu movie, that was his one entry into the blacksploitation genre of the 70s. The lineup includes a lot of the great players that were helping him on his mid-70's stuff – Eddie Henderson, Dave Hubbard, Patrick Gleeson – and the groove is deeper and funkier than most of his other mid-70s Prestige albums. The album's got a very nice batch of material that really stands on its own away from the movie, with some very funky grooves that stand as some of the best shorter funk tracks cut by Earland from the time. Tracks include "Snake", "Razor J.", "Kunfusion", and "Weedhopper".

A great little album of jazz funk – and the only record we've ever seen by this group! The 3 Pieces may not have lasted long in the record business, but this rare album from 1975 has made them legends on the rare groove scene for years. The record was cut during the height of the jazz funk years at Fantasy Records – and it features Donald Byrd handling the production chores, in a similar manner to the style that he used with the more famous Blackbyrds, who were also recording for Fantasy the time. The record features loads of electric piano and ARP, plus some tight and smooth guitar, and a nice rolling groove that is very catchy. A number of tracks have vocals – in kind of a subdued soul mode – and tracks include the groove classics "Backed Up Against The Wall", "Shortnin Bread", "Concrete Jungle", and "Vibes Of Truth". And believe it or not, there aren't any vibes on the album!

A funky explosion of dancefloor grooves – key 70s club cuts from Capitol, Blue Note, and TK Records – all packaged together in a massively upbeat set! Most tracks here move at a pretty quick clip – and represent the funkier side of the 70s disco scene – cuts that draw more from tight instrumental jamming than from smoother tricks in the studio! Almost all numbers have some sort of lyrics, but they usually take second stage to the rhythms – and a fair bit of the numbers are long, with timings that move well past the five minute mark. Titles include "Changin" by Brass Construction, "Do What You Wanna Do" by T-Connection, "Is It In" by Jimmy Bo Horne, "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" by KC & The Sunshine Band, "Freak In Freak Out" by Timmy Thomas, "Singing Hallelujah" by Queen Samantha, "Caricatures" by Donald Byrd, "Pack It Up" by Gonzalez, "Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me" by Peter Brown, and "Time Is On My Side" by Maze.

Smooth funky jazz from Tom Browne – caught here during his best early years! The record's his second best next to Love Approach, but it's got almost the same sort of feel, with tight late 70s studio jazz jamming – and a buttery smooth sound from Browne's post-Donald Byrd trumpet licks. Includes the great break cut "I Never Was A Cowboy", plus "Herbal Scent", "Throw Down", "What's Going On", and "Promises For Spring".