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‘Put it in the pocket’
Freddie Hubbard
From Liquid Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNWqyaLlolg
Compilations are anathema to most serious jazz fans or at best a guilty pleasure. But despite this there’s always a function in a compilation even if it’s a throwaway item and maybe a single track, if you’re lucky, just cries out to be heard such as this Freddie Hubbard gem linked to above.
Compilations are ideal though for dipping your toes in the waters of a style you don’t know or catching up on a movement that’s passed you by. But sometimes the sheer brutal force of a style lumped together can also show that despite artists’ best intentions to be individual their sound is more generic than they might well think, or listeners even realise catching their output in isolation.
The Demon music group’s Harmless Records for a decade has been putting out compilations in quantity covering, soul, and funk and next month Backbeats: In The Pocket – 70s Jazz Funk is coming, released on 13 May.
In the wake of whosampled.com all the detective work involved in sourcing these tiny slabs of dancefloor pleasure is easier. But there’s still an art in making a compilation even when the process is democratised: you can’t vote for knowledge, more’s the pity. Compilers Dean Rudland and Ralph Tee are some of the best in the business and Backbeats features music compiled from Columbia, Arista, Epic, RCA and CTI releases in a decade where this style of jazz gave way to disco.
Tracks here are Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘Africano’ from That’s the Way of the World; Herbie Hancock’s ‘Just Around The Corner’ from Manchild; Webster Lewis’ ‘Barbara Ann’ from Touch My Love; Ramsey Lewis’ ‘Brazilica’ from Salongo; Lonnie Liston Smith’s ‘In the Park’ from Love is the Answer; Harvey Mason’s ‘Hop Scotch’ from Marching in the Streets; Eddie Russ’ ‘Zauis’ from See the Light Monument; Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Put it in the Pocket’ from Liquid Love; Charles Earland’s ‘Coming to You Live’ from Coming to You Live; Weldon Irvine’s ‘Sinbad’ from RCA album Sinbad; Willie Bobo’s ‘Palos’ from Bobo; and Hubert Laws’ ‘Chicago Theme (Love Loop)’ from The Chicago Theme.