Jazz in the late 70s / early 80s (jazz goes pop, jazz goes disco)

Just picked up this gem for a couple bucks:

http://www.earthwaverecords.com/Pictures/AlbumImg/H/A0072777.jpg

It is very much perfect for this thread and for my ears. Featuring the lovely Jeanie Tracy on vocals. It's probably best know for "You're Gonna Lose Me" but it's nice throughout.

Bobbi Humphrey, especially "Blacks and Blues" ... serious loft shit. I could listen to "Harlem River Drive" for days.

Does anyone here know more about Jamaaladeen Tacuma? By sheer chance I've managed to get gold of two of his early eighties albums, Show Stopper and Renaissance Man, which both offer a great synthesis of electric funk and free-oriented jazz. (Apparently Ornette Coleman, with whom Tacuma played back then, was doing something similar around the time, but I'm not too familiar with him.) His albums are very hard to find though, and I was wondering if any of the others are even worth bothering.

Oh yeah, I finally bough Sunlight because of this thread, and it is indeed a fun record, though not as good as Herbie's full-blown electro stuff from the eighties (especially Perfect Machine, which is near brilliant).

i just picked up Bob James' "12" from 84 because of the song on Cosmo Galactic Prism Mixed By Prins Thomas. the song is killer and there's one more on the album just as good.

i've been meaning to pick up a Jamaaladeen Tacuma album. he does a cover of Creator has a Master Plan that i heard once that's pretty cool

I've heard him do some free-funkish stuff with Calvin Weston, on some James Carter and Derek Bailey records, I think.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre600/e691/e69115te8nn.jpg

???? good?

i grabbed this record by Hummingbird called 'we can't go on meeting like this' for 6 bucks today, its not really 'jazz goes disco' but its definitely got that fusion sound, real interesting

It's okay, especially the first and the last song. It has too many non-vocoder vocals by Herbie though, I wish he'd left his real voice out of it. He can sing perfectly fine, but his voice is really bland. Other than that it's a nice piece of smooth early-eighties dance-pop (no electro or hip-hop influences there yet), quite similar to Quincy Jones's The Dude, which was released around the same time with many of the same musicians (including Herbie). The last song is something different though, it's a seven-minute vocoder ballad sung by Herbie and Patrice Rushen with a Nietzschean theme ("only the strong will survive"), and it ends with a killer piano solo that sounds more like early-seventies than early-eighties Herbie. I'm not sure if it's even a good song, but it's worth a listen.

Still, I think this is the worst eighties Herbie album I've heard (though I haven't even dared to listen to Monster), both Mr. Hands and the three electro albums are much better.

u dig 'feet dont fail me'?

I've only heard one song from it, which sounded great. Should I get the whole album?

havent heard it either, amg hates it, not that this means anything per se

Yeah, AMG definitely can't be trusted on this kinda stuff. Too much of a "serious" jazz head perspective. They pretty much hate all of Freddie Hubbard from this era too and I love that stuff. As for Lite Me Up, ehhh I can't really recommend it as something you need to pick up. It's way cheesy in a way that is hard for me to stomach. And I love much of this stuff, cheese and all. "Gettin' to the Good Part" is the definite highlight. You've probably heard it, so buy it for that if anything. Nothing else on it really does much of anything for me.

copped this off another board:

"Heatwave" featured Cleethorpe's most famous son, keys man Rod Temperton, who wrote some of the big hits on Michael Jackson's better efforts, hence the similar construction of the songs. In fact, there is a mint Temperton Tribute mix here :

http://www.waxdj.com/download.php?band_id=825&song_id=14672&mode=song_hifi

Quincy Jones / Turn The Action On / A&M Records
Heatwave / Boogie Nights / GTO
Heatwave / Put The Word Out / GTO
Brother Johnson / Stomp / A&M Records
Heatwave / Jitterbuggin’ / GTO
Herbie Hancock / The Bomb / CBS
Manhattan Transfer / Spice Of Life / Atlantic Records
Michael Jackson / Off The Wall / Epic
Quincy Jones / Razzamatazz / A&M Records
George Benson / Love X Love / Warner Bros. Records
George Benson / Give Me The Night / Warner Bros. Records
Heatwave / Eyballin’ / GTO
Heatwave / The Groove Line / GTO
James Ingram with Michael McDonalds / Yah Mo B There / Qwest Records
Rufus & Chaka Khan / Masterjam / Ariola
Brother Johnson / Light Up The Night / A&M Records
Patti Austin / Do You Love Me / Qwest Records
Bob Jones / Sign Of The Times /
Quincy Jones / The Dude / A&M Records
Heatwave / Ain’t No Half Steppin’ / GTO
Heatwave / Send Out For Sunshine / GTO
Rufus & Chaka Khan / Live In Me / Ariola
Zhane / Vibe / Motown (samples Love X Love)
Michael McDonald / Sweet Freedom / MCA Records Ltd.
Heatwave / Lettin’ It Loose / Epic
Patti Austin / The Genie / Qwest Records
Michael Jackson / Thriller / Epic
Donna Summer / Love Is In Control / WEA International Inc.
Herbie Hancock / Lite Me Up / CBS
Michael Jackson / Rock With You / Epic
Interview with Rod Temperton / Epic

cldn't see anyone linking to this site so far on this thread, some profitable areas for future study:

http://www.behearer.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

wow. awesome!

looks like 1976 got spammed. weird.

Could swear we talked about those Herbie albums and Temperton in (an)other thread(s).

The Temperton mix looks real solid but it's missing some personal faves: Patti Austin's "Love Me to Death," MJ's "Baby Be Mine," Heatwave's "Too Hot to Handle." Avoiding the Carpenters was pretty wise -- those songs should've gone to someone like Anita Baker. (There's an '80s Carpenters album assisted by a crop of Quincy Jones session/late CTI people, like Bob James, Louis Johnson, Airto, Ralph MacDonald, Siedah Garrett, one of the Breckers, Greg Phillinganes, etc. It is not all that hot.)

Yeah, AMG definitely can't be trusted on this kinda stuff. Too much of a "serious" jazz head perspective. They pretty much hate all of Freddie Hubbard from this era too and I love that stuff.

If you read some of the reviews of relatively, uh, straighter jazz, you'll know which names to trust on the later albums. If certain people use specific words or phrases ("commercial," "simple," "dated," "blatant," "flagrant," "not creative," "not really jazz," "can be skipped by serious jazz fans"), to describe a '70s/early '80s album, you'll know it was actually made just for you. (Like I said, it is slowly being rectified. Many of those reviews were written 12+ years ago, when covering as much ground as possible was a higher priority than being fair.)

That Temperton mix is sweet -- thanks for putting up the link. Have never really heard those late 70s/early 80s Quincy Jones records. Something to look for the next time I'm crate-digging ...

Could swear we talked about those Herbie albums and Temperton in (an)other thread(s).

Here, I think:

Herbie Hancock

I think most of AMG's Herbie reviews are fine, it's not like they diss him for abandoning "real" jazz, most of his good fusion albums still get good reviews. For example, I think they gave Mr. Hands and Perfect Machine four stars and Lite Me Up two, which sounds about right.

And here:

Quincy Jones - Search & Destroy

I happened to find Lite Me Up and The Dude almost the same time from the used records bin, so it was fun to notice the connections.

yeah but they don't really tell you much about those albums from a fusion/disco/dance standpoint. i'd rather have the folks who review, i dunno, the bumblebee unlimited album* or something review disco herbie.

*have not actually checked amg review of this to verify this is what i actually want

Expansions - Lonnie Liston Smith

cant believe i didnt hear this til now ... incredible

another good find ... Norman Connors' "Captain Connors" off This Is Your Life A+

I just picked up the album after "Expansions" called "Reflections of a Golden Dream." I'd recommend it nearly as highly as "Expansions." My two-year-old calls it "butterfwy song" because of the cover

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41C4848ZD4L._SS500_.jpg

but that's probably a fairly accurate description (in a good way).

you should hear the Willie Bobo-goes-disco album Hell of an Act To Follow

-- Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Tuesday, July 12, 2005 6:04 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^this

guys, maynard ferguson's "primal scream" album from 1976 is DOPE. check this track:

'pagliacci'

nice!

i love that track.

as much as i think edits are kinda retarded (especially when they're just working w/an already dancey disco track), i've been wanting to make some tracks (this one would be a good canidate) into edits.

Candido's 'Dancing and Prancin' is an excellent mini- LP that works really well within the jazz-disco realm. Is the "Thousand Finger Man" track that's on this LP from 1979 the same as the earlier one he released in 69 ? I wouldn't think so. I have been searching out tracks like these after purchasing Johnny Hammond's Gears. 'Los Conquistadores Chocolates' man what a great tune!

Candido's 'Dancing and Prancin': bought this in ny 2 weeks ago.

"as much as i think edits are kinda retarded (especially when they're just working w/an already dancey disco track), i've been wanting to make some tracks (this one would be a good canidate) into edits.

-- jaxon"

pagliacci has already been edited by mike clark, if you can find the wax it is worth purchasing:

http://www.discogs.com/release/322857

i recently got "the fly" on 12" by maynard furgueson, it is the bomb funnky disco jazz jam.

Another stone Lonnie Liston Smith classic: "Space Princess" (from Exotic Mysteries). Further out on the disco tip than "Expansions", and as great as the title implies.

On one of those Best of Soul Train shows a couple of weeks ago, the serious dancers were throwing down to Ramsey Lewis' "What's the Name of This Funk(Spiderman)" like it was a known club hit. That's a squiggly mother, too.

Link to Space Princess audio via Aol Video but no vid ? Who cares, this shit is banging. Apparently a Mancuso classic.

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/lonnie-liston-smith-space-princess-1978/1724716287

Damn that break in the middle is dope. I'll be on the hunt for this one now. thanks briania :)

Yeah, it's a seven-minute groove that just isn't long enough.

i have the 12" if you have something nice to trade, it's not one of my LLS jams.

Are you some kinda vinyl god? Are you the aforementioned Jaxon?

Records like that -- I scoop 'em up when I find 'em, but to actually start COLLECTING them would be such a leap down the rabbit hole... Intriguing to know that a 12" exists, though.

am i a vinyl god? hah