A lesson in cognitive dissonance and prejudice:
"Jazz funk" has always been a bit of a punchline in my house, going back to being a kid, and my mom's best friend's husband being snickered at for his fandom (and prog rock, too). And, to borrow a term from another culture, it has such poncy connotations. It stinks of pipe smoke and open shirts down to the belly button and fart-smelling virtuosity and gatekeeping and every 70s excess, not to mention white dudes co-opting Black and Latin culture. It was damned near the worst, personified (rightly or wrongly) by Ron Burgundy playing jazz flute in "Anchorman". Just fucking obnoxious.
And yet! I got a promo of this, the final volume in a long running series of Polygram/EMI deep catalog comps, when it came out in '97. I held onto it because I knew Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders from their shared association with the Master himself. I'm glad I did, because every track here is a full-blown banger. Drawing from the likes of the Impulse!, Blue Note, A&M, CTI, and Columbia catalogs, there's a wealth of great tracks from great artists, a veritable crate digger's delight of cuts. It's the first chance to hear "Nautilus" outside of a sample, the first time I'd ever experienced Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd, This one is sneaky good if you can get past your own hang-ups.
Click here to download.
2 comments:
" It stinks of pipe smoke and open shirts down to the belly button and fart-smelling virtuosity and gatekeeping and every 70s excess, not to mention white dudes co-opting Black and Latin culture. It was damned near the worst, personified (rightly or wrongly) by Ron Burgundy playing jazz flute in "Anchorman". Just fucking obnoxious."
Now that's personal: you really know how to hurt a guy, don't you?
....and yet, the music itself is (as you point out) great.
Thanks for this nice collection.
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