Listening to Al Grey play trombone on the late Bobby Hutcherson’s rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” strangely reminds me of the title of Amos Tutuola’s 1954 novel “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.” So many people are gone now…
“I’d played in funk bands, so it wasn’t that I didn’t like funk music. I like funk. But jazz-funk was always kinda funky. There’s a big difference between something like Parliament-Funkadelic and Ramsey Lewis. I was really strong-minded; I’d just come from the South. +
I didn’t know all the politics about the music industry. I just knew that I wanted to play jazz and do something that would make my daddy proud. That was more important to me.” —Wynton Marsalis
First time I heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk was right after he passed. I remember his pianist, Hilton Ruiz, saying that Kirk had had a stroke a few years earlier, and was still able to play w/ tremendous force.
@jalylah Oh really? Why am I not surprised lol. None of the people I talk to even know about him. And actually, I've only heard a few of his recordings that weren't w/ Kirk, but I enjoyed what I heard.
“For this album, bass and co-produce Gene Barge scoured the country for numbers to fit Etta’s unique voice. Among them some never-heard Pearl Woods tunes. The result is funk, pure funk, and you won’t ask what it is once you hear it.”—“Etta James Sings Funk,” back cover copy, 1970
Happy Birthday Cheryl Cooley, of the R&B/Funk group, "Klymaxx" (born on July 27th). She is one of the funkiest female guitarists in the music industry. Cheryl began taming the melodic instrument at eleven-years-creative. While attending Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, CA.
Being much younger than most people who have written about the blues, it was truly an experience watching him play "with his teeth." He was the first guitar player I ever saw who did that.
There was a time when there were real blues clubs, especially in the South. I had the pleasure of observing Walter Washington at Dorothy's Medallion fairly often when he was in his prime. But he wasn't playing rhythm and blues lol.