jazz artists who didn’t do funky records n the 70s
davesrecords
1,802 Posts
excuse me if this topic has been discussed before...I was trying to think of big jazz artists who lived through the 60s and 70s who didn't do any funky records. I'm sure there are tons but the biggest i could come up with werearchie shepp (? I think he did something funky but I couldn't remember)gerry mulligandave brubeckhank mobley (I think he might have died in the 60s though)big john patton (same)ella fitzgeraldbilly taylorI know there are some big ones but I couldn't think of them.I was also thinking about it if Charlie Parker and Coltrane lived in the 70s would they have done funky records ? I'm thinking no, but you never know.dave
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your right, i just thought of that one right after i posted.
i've never heard it though so that's probably why i didn't remember it.
dave
I was gonna say Lee Morgan, but I think he too died in the 60's.
hmmmmm...
Lee Morgan had funky moments in the 60s AND 70s.
s/t 2Lp on Blue Note w/Bobbie Humphrey and Billy Harper
2 LP live from the Lighthouse w/Bennie Maupin
The Sidewinder and the Rumproller are both archetypal 60s funky soul jazz.
Lee Morgan got the funk.
All these dude's did funky records, Big John Patton's entire catalog is funky. Hank Mobley did some funky soul jazz like the Flip and Reach Out! LPs on Blue Note.
Dave Brubeck did a 70s LP with his sons that is pretty sweet Rhodes funky fusion. Live at Montreux I do believe.
It sounds like your def of FUNK is pretty limited. Horace Silver was playing funky shit in the late 50s!
Dexter Gordon?
Sonny Rollins?
Jackie McLean?
Sonny had Neucleus and Jackie McLean had several LPs he did on Inner City with his son Rene in his group that had some funk, as well as a late 70s 'fusion' R&B LP called Monuments.
Dexter Gordon is a good example, how about Kenny Drew and Johnny Griffin?
Buck Hill also stayed pretty traditionally grounded.
Herbie Hancock? Oh....wait.
blaxploitation.com review
Again, I would argue that his work has been funky from the late 50s on, but also did some electric piano driven stuff in the early 70s on Prestige and was famously sampled by Tribe Called Quest.
Guess I have that same limited belief, I reckon. Calling some jazz record from 1959 funky is like calling Louis Jordan a rap act - just 'cause it forecasted funk (rap) doesn't mean it is. You burn Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder" on a mix CD next to the Meters, Funkadelic, Cymande, the Ohio Players, and Mandrill, it wouldn't blend in at all, IMO. (But Grant Green's "Final Comedown" from '71 probably would.)
I can't speak for Davesrecords, but my def of funk as we now know it[/b] starts in '67 with James Brown and Dyke & the Blazers - that's not a concept I throw around loosely. Again, just opinion-atin'.
The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (Fantasy, 1971) has some funk on it.
"Didjeridoo"
Don't forget Shepp & the family of percussion - "here comes the family". Unless that's disqualified because it's 1980s.
Tyner did some Rhodes, didn't he? Anyone remember? I swear I thought Focal Point was an electric piano record.
neccesary listening
I guess in the end it's all semantics, terms get appropriated and ultimately defined through all sorts of circumstance. I agree, if James Brown-circa-1969thru1975 is the bellweather for 'funk-as-we-know-it'(which is a fair assessment), then yes, Horace Silver or Lee Morgan's early 60s output is of little interest.
BUT...since this is a discussion specifically regarding which Jazz artists dabbled in the funk in the 60s and 70s, I just can't see leaving 'the Sidewinder' or 'Filthy McNasty' out of the discussion. It has relevance based on who is the primary subject of discussion. I could be wrong, but the first popular usage of the word 'funk' in print was probably about certain strains of jazz.
And honestly, Cymande and the Meters don't blend much better with each other, than they would with 60s Lee Morgan, IMO.
Count Basie did an album on Happy Tiger called Basie Does the Beatles or something like that. LP is from either '69 or 70 and some of them covers got some funk to them
"O brother where are you?" on MPS...funky, along the same lines of Gene Ammons "Jug Eyes"
Kenny Drew is on Dizzy Gillespie's The source, ca. 1970, pounding the keys
Johnny Griffin was the head behind Kenny Clarke/Francis Bolland Bigband ?
Then he did some kind of funky stuff!
Your question was very good Dave !!!!
I can appreciate the "funkiness" of early-mid 60's jazz, but I agree that this thread is more along the lines of jazz guys who "went funk" in the late 60's-70's, and it amazes me that we are having trouble coming up with any that stayed straight bop/swing/etc...it just shows how strong funk was at the time.
he did some nice bossa/latin but i didn't think he went 'funk'.
The sleaziest version of Come Together I ever heard
The beauty of that post is that it could be the absolute truth, or complete and utter bullshit - yet, it's still hilarious either way!
Sounds truthful !
What about Ben Webster ???