A body movin’ playlist of new school disco and funk, ethnic funk and soul funk by modern artists, as well as a healthy serving of obscure rarities.
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Youtube Playlist:
Disco & Funk
Soundcloud Playlist:
Category Archives: Funk & Disco
Soundcloud Playlist:
4th Coming
‘Eccentric soul and lost funk recordings from an unlikely crew of Los Angeles musical misfits – one of the finest and deepest examples of Los Angeles soul in the 1970s. At its core, the 4th Coming was a songwriting duo – Porter and Jechonias “Jack” S. Williams – and a rotating cast of musicians – including members of lauded Los Angeles funk ensemble the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band – that Williams assembled at Artist Recording Studio to realize the pair’s ideas. They existed only from the latter half of 1969 until 1974; during that time they issued eight singles as 4th Coming.” -rappcats.com
Sleepy’s Theme
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With powerhouse production trio Organized Noize, Sleepy Brown orchestrated Atlanta’s hallmark sound of the 90s; his slow-cooked southern-fried G-Funk providing hits for TLC, Outkast and Goodie Mob. However, by 1998 his desire was to take centre stage. The dizzying result was Sleepy’s Theme and their wonderful throwback LP, The Vinyl Room. Their vintage, 70s soul-steeped magnum opus was promptly passed on by Jimmy Iovine at Interscope, released only on CD on a limited scale, and mostly slept on. Blending organic instrumentation from one of the tightest, greasiest, yet sophisticated bands in the land, The Vinyl Room presented dreamy melodies, warm synth textures, stately horns and wayward beats. Brown conceived his “garage funk band” as adhering to the sonic touchstones of Blaxploitation and he achieved it. Featuring keyboardist/singer Eddie Stokes, drummer Victor Rico Cortez, guitarist Bill Odum, vocalist Keisha Jackson and the late Pimp C, the sound was always going to be in the pocket. While it eschewed contemporary trends, the underground sound was nevertheless fresh and grounded in the hat-tip spirit of hip-hop. With Sleepy bragging that there were no samples, The Vinyl Room comprised a richly textured, mesmerizing and confident sound where the recurring themes were women, cars and weed. As he explained, “the music of the 70s wasn’t computerized, it was just realness from the heart and that’s what we captured.” Indeed, Brown wasn’t just inspired by bygone funk; he grew-up in it. As a boy, he travelled to gigs with his music playing father and founder of the legendary Brick: Jimmy Brown. The album lopes at a weed-stoned pace, with sweet falsetto leads, spoken word raps and honey-coated female background vocals with just enough superfly sensibility to give you a contact high. The luscious bass grooves, silk-soft cymbal pats, raindrop-drowsy keyboards and country-fried wah-wah guitar licks conjure Bobby Womack in the lab with Marley Marl, Isaac Hayes laced by Dr. Dre or Curtis Mayfield bring introduced to DJ Quik. – Be With Records
Sleepy’s Theme | The Vinyl Room | double LP
Betty Davis
Betty (Mabry) Davis, b1945, is an American funk and soul singer who grew up in North Carolina, spending time on her grandmother’s farm listening to B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, and Elmore James. At age 16 she left Pittsburgh for New York City, enrolling at the Fashion Institute of Technology while living with her aunt. She soaked up the Greenwich Village culture and folk music of the early 1960s. She associated herself with frequenters of the Cellar, a hip uptown club where young and stylish people congregated. It was a multiracial, artsy crowd of models, design students, actors, and singers. At the Cellar she played records and chatted people up. She also worked as a model, appearing in photo spreads in Seventeen, Ebony and Glamour. In her time in New York, she met several musicians including Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone. Her first professional gig was not until she wrote “Uptown (to Harlem)” for the Chambers Brothers. Their 1967 album was a major success, but Betty was focusing on her modelling career. She was successful as a model but felt bored by the work. According to Oliver Wang’s They Say I’m Different liner notes, she said, “I didn’t like modelling because you didn’t need brains to do it. It’s only going to last as long as you look good.” As a model in 1966, Betty first met jazz musician Miles Davis who was 19 years her senior at a concert. Betty began dating Miles in early 1968, and were married in September 1968. In just one year of marriage, she influenced him greatly by introducing him to the fashions and the new popular music trends of the era. In his autobiography, Miles credited Betty with helping to plant the seeds of his future musical explorations by introducing the trumpeter to Jimi Hendrix and funk innovator Sly Stone. The Miles Davis album Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968) includes a song named after her and her photo on the front cover. In his autobiography, Miles said Betty was “too young and wild,” and accused her of having an affair with Jimi Hendrix which hastened the end of their marriage. Betty denied the affair stating, “I was so angry with Miles when he wrote that. It was disrespectful to Jimi and to me. Miles and I broke up because of his violent temper.” After accusing her of adultery, he filed for divorce in 1969. Miles said that the divorce was obtained on a “temperament” charge. He added, “I’m just not the kind of cat to be married.” Betty and Miles continued to see each other after their divorce. Hendrix and Miles remained close, planning to record, until Hendrix’s death. The influence of Hendrix and especially Sly Stone on Miles Davis was obvious on the album Bitches Brew (1970), which ushered in the era of jazz fusion. The origin of the album’s title is unknown, but some believe Miles was subtly paying tribute to Betty and her girlfriends. In fact, it is said that he originally wanted to call the album Witches Brew—it was Betty who convinced him to change it. In 2017, a documentary was released entitled Betty: They Say I’m Different. -edited from Wikipedia link
Full Albums
Sons of Slum
Soul funk group Sons Of Slum hailed from Chicago and were formed by founding members Maurice Bell and Daktori while at college in 1962.
Nino Ferrer was born on 15 August 1934 in Genoa, Italy, but lived the first years of his life in New Caledonia (an overseas territory of France in the southwest Pacific Ocean), where his father, an engineer, was working. Jesuit religious schooling, first in Genoa and later in Paris, left him with a lifelong aversion to the Church. In 1963, Nino Ferrer recorded his own first record, the single “Pour oublier qu’on s’est aimé” (“To forget we were in love”). His first solo success came in 1965 with the song “Mirza”. Other hits followed, unintentionally establishing Ferrer as something of a comedic singer. The stereotyping and his eventual success made him feel unable to escape from the constant demands of audiences to hear the hits he himself despised. Always having a depressive side to his personality, he would purposely try to antagonize his audience trying repel them from his concerts for demanding to hear the hits. In Italy, he scored a major hit in 1967 with La pelle nera (the French version is “Je voudrais être un noir” [“I’d like to be a black man”]. This soul song, with its quasi-revolutionary lyrics imploring a series of Ferrer’s black music idols to gift him their black skin for the benefit of music-making, achieved long-lasting iconic status in Italy. In 1975 he started breeding horses in Quercy, France. In 1989, Ferrer obtained French citizenship, which he explained as his “celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution.” A couple of months after his mother died on 13 August 1998, two days before his 64th birthday, Ferrer took his hunting gun and walked to a field of recently cut wheat then laid down near some trees he had painted before on canvas and shot himself in the chest. His wife Kinou, with whom he had two sons, had already alerted the gendarmerie after finding a farewell letter in the house. Next day, there were front-page headlines in most French and Italian newspapers, such as “Adieu Nino!”, “Nino Ferrer Hung Up His Telephone”, “Our Nino Has Left for the South.” They called him the Don Quixote of French show business.- Edited from Wikipedia
Released in 1974 Nino Ferrer’s Nino & Radiah was an album which found the French artist backed by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band. This laid back funk feel was quite a departure from his jazz and campy styles that he was know for. Its in my opinion his best work. Sadly, and much to Ninos dismay, it only sold around 45,000 copies worldwide.
A couple tracks off 1972’s Métronomie
Arp Frique
Image: North Sea Jazz Festival
Jam rock meets latin tinged disco funk with Neils Nieuborg aka Arp Frique, featuring musicians from Surinam and Cape Verde. Hailing from Rotterdam, Nieuborg is a key member of the Dutch live music scene.
‘Nos Magia’ was shortlisted for Track of the Year 2017 at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards
Arp Frique performing live at the Musée de la danse in Rennes, France, during Trans Musicales 2018. Recorded December 8, 2018.
Arp Frique’s live performance at Dekmantel Connects.
https://youtu.be/f0bdLdTJdKI
BRIAN BENNETT was born in London in 1940 and by the late 1950s was one of the most sought-after percussionists around. As well as his solo work and collaborations he was a member of the Shadows, joining in 1961. He has been one of the top drummers in rock & roll for two generations, as well as a top arranger and an award-winning film and television composer. His multi-tiered career, which includes running his own record label, has made Bennett one of the most successful musicians of his generation, well into the 21st century. (extracted from All Music & Drummer world)
The 12 tracks I have selected in the playlist below cover mostly the space funk/abstract soul side of his repertoire.
Born in Scotland in 1951 Jesse Rae is an unashamed champion of Scottish culture and independence. In the 1970s Rae moved to the USA securing work in the New York stock exchange to fund his stay. Through work in Cleveland and Los Angeles studios, he became acquainted with several leading soul and funk artists, including Roger Troutman, Bernie Worrell and Nairobi Sailcat from the Parliament/Funkadelic tribe. In 1981 he worked with Worrell as part of the eccentric P-Funk offshoot Space Cadets. Rae has since become a respected director, partially through the need for video and audio tapes to support his live appearances. In 1996, he became the first musician to release an entire album over the Internet. As well as vocals, he also plays the bass and keyboards.
Bit of a weird glitch at the beginning but I haven’t been able to locate a better version.
12” single release from 1984. Awesome P Funk vibe, with a crazy change up. Wait for it!
Inside Out is a great example of his often campy pop funk brand of music. Kind of cheesy, but I think its at least partially intentional. The highlight of this track for me is definitely that funky slap bass.
The Lass That Made The Bed Tae Me- Jesse Rae & The Robinson Brothers adaptation of the Robert Burns poem to funk.
This was his only hit, and a minor one at that, reaching number 65 in the UK Singles Chart in 1985. Its not normally the kind of music I would listen to, but you have to take in the whole package of the Claymore caricature to really appreciate Jesse Rae.
A live clip of Over the Sea. 2011 so he would be 60 years old in this. Pretty good energy!
He also featured on vocals on 70’s Cleveland psych rock band Granicus.
Le Serveur are from Nancy, France. These are a few of their more funky tracks that Ive been grooving on.
CASBAH 73– An acid jazz resurgence is hardly an anticipated revival movement. But as ‘80s nostalgia fades, and the ‘90s becomes the next subject of cultural fascination, anything is possible. And while Casbah 73-the solo effort of musician Oliver Stewart-hints at the rare grooves ‘n‘ Rhodes-saturated sound, he thankfully steers clear of Jamiroquai territory. Stewart wields electric bass, guitar, and keyboards fluidly, adding spoken word snippets, crowd noise, and percussion samples to tracks that range from mirror-ball jazz (“Still Going On”) to shuffling, housey workouts (“Think It Over”). This is the sound of Malaga sunshine with nods to the e-z lounge vibes of artists like Nicola Conte and Nuspirit Helsiniki. It‘s not acid jazz, but Casbah 73 is a funky hybrid of the electronic and the organic for a trippy new generation. – XLR8 Magazine
Doug Hream
San Francisco funk outsider Doug Hream Blunt has been championed by the likes of Ariel Pink and former Hype Williams member Dean Blunt, who took his name. David Byrne’s Luaka Bop imprint makes the once obscure Blunt readily accessible with the ‘My Name Is’ compilation. – Pitchfork Records
Detroit house don Omar-S‘s FXHE Records is reissuing an ultra-rare 1978 disco album, AJL Band’s Take Me Dancing. AJL Band is a little-known name that apparently emerged from Singapore’s late ’60s and ’70s music scene. Initially issued both on band leader Jay Shotam’s label Baal and Warner Bros. Records, Take Me Dancing features original tunes like “Classical Salsa,” as well as covers of The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” and Steve Miller Band’s “Swingtown.” – RA News
London based Swedish producer, song writer and DJ @blende returns to Eskimo Recordings with ‘Back To Summertime’, an outrageously funky slice of disco house featuring the stunning vocals of former The Rapture vocalist @mattiesafer.
Funkadelic are amazing to me in the way the combine unbelievably technical ability while upholding the carefree freakshowmanship of the funk genre. Don’t look at us, were just frigging geniuses.
Thundercat was never going to exist in the background for long. His father drummed for both The Temptations and Diana Ross, and when Stephen Bruner started on his own path as a session bass player in LA he was hard to ignore, wearing a helmet and colourful shoulder pads to perform with the likes of Suicidal Tendencies and Erykah Badu. His vibrant wardrobe, dark humour and love of obscure South Korean movies attracted Flying Lotus, who signed him six years ago. Soon everyone from Dr Dre to Odd Future was a convert. But his really big break came as the creative architect behind 2015’s ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’, Kendrick Lamar’s ambitious, jazzy second album. Which means he has a lot of famous fans, a number of whom return some favours on this, his fourth album: Kendrick, who pops up on the shuffling ‘Walk On By’; Pharrell, who lends a spacey vocal to ‘The Turn Down’; and Wiz Khalifa, who raps about the dark side of excess on ‘Drink Dat’. Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus are also there. So too is Thundercat’s long-time hero Kenny ‘The Soundtrack King’ Loggins (of ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Footloose’ fame) cropping up on ‘Show You The Way’, a Kenny-G- meets-Prince smoochy slow jam. ‘Drunk’ is jazz, but not the La La Land type. It’s a futuristic brand that’d be as at home at Coachella as at Ronnie Scott’s. Funk, soul, pop, electronica and hip-hop orbit around each other. When they cluster and fuse, the results are cosmic (‘Bus In These Streets’ and ‘Them Changes’). It’s funny, too, in an odd, silly, cartoonish way. ‘Drunk’ ponders some serious issues – the death of a close musician friend, police brutality and Thundercat’s own demons – but that’s contrasted with fart sound effects, snoring and meowing cat noises. Sure, there’s some annoying wiggy tangents (‘Uh Uh’ and ‘Blackkk’) and occasionally it feels longer than its 43-minute lifespan. But those things are forgiveable, because ‘Drunk’, as out-there as it can be, is an album totally high on its own unique ideas.- NME Magazine
Vulfpeck is an American funk group founded in 2011. The band aims for a sound that is minimal, raw, and approaches that of a live performance. The band has released four EPs, two albums, and a silent album on Spotify titled Sleepify – royalties from which funded the band’s admission-free tour in 2014. The band’s latest album, The Beautiful Game, was released in October 2016.- Wikipedia. Here is a 16 song youtube playlist I put together.
To see the whole playlist click top left corner
A lazy beat filled mix of disco funk by Gerd Janson, who runs the German label Running Back together with Thorsten Scheu (aka Glance). As many kids who have grown up in the early 90s in the South West of Germany, Gerd Janson was a regular guest at Mannheim’s legendary Milk Club. Although this venue was most popular for putting jungle on the map in Germany, Gerd always used to wait eagerly for the early morning hours when the pace slowed down and US styled house was the ruling sound. In the following years, his deep love for house and disco music was fed in Frankfurt’s Wild Pitch Club by Heiko MSO and Ata. -Resident Advisor
After the successful release of “Turtle Knight”, Hot Diamond Aces return with another fantastic 4 track EP, where the funk and afrobeat reign throughout. Combining infectious rhythms with a raw brass sound, Hot Diamond Aces’ live performances are backed up with energetic dance routines delivered by Angelina Abel, dancer/choreographer from Mulembas d’Africa. -Soundcloud
This is pretty mind boggling. 102 full length mixes from DJ Jones MC Doul, containing thousands of songs dedicated to the 2 founders and godfathers of Cosmic Music, DJ Daniele Baldelli & Claudio Tosi Brandi (BD & TBC). They started up the whole “Cosmic-Thing” in the “Cosmic Disco” back in the late 70’s. Without them this style of mixing probably wouldn’t have grown like it is today. Thanks for existing!!!!!!! This playlist contains the first mixes that made Cosmic Music popular in Italy. A real Diamond for cosmic lovers:) Have fun!!!!
“ Why I have to play two hours of only funky or only disco? I like to play every kind of music together, and that’s what I like to say is my cosmic style.” – Daniele Baldelli. Inspired by his time at the Volcano Extravaganza festival on the Sicilian Island of Stromboli, Daniele Baldelli has created three new cosmic tracks. Including an epic remix of 1970’s electro-rock band, Ashra. A founding father of the Cosmic Disco sound, Italian DJ Daniele Baldelli rose to prominence with his mixture of European electronica, synth pop (often played at slower speeds), equalizer effects, and ethnic folk music. Baldelli’s use of African and Brazilian material helps distinguish his style from Italo disco, which permeated the clubs of Northern Italy during the 1970s. – Soundcloud
Daniele Baldelli makes music that incorporates long synth funk jams and cosmic disco. In music, the term cosmic disco, and combinations thereof (cosmic Afro, Afro-Funky) are used somewhat interchangeably to describe various forms of synthesizer-heavy and/or African-influenced dance music and methods of DJing that were originally developed and promoted by a small number of DJs in certain clubs in Northern Italy from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. The terms slow-motion disco and Elettronica Meccanica are also associated with the genre. Italian DJs Beppe Loda and Daniele Baldelli both independently claim to have invented the genre and mixing style – extracted from Wiki
Soultourist member and co-founder of Phantom Island, Foster, steps in with a 3-track EP which will impress the sophisticated disco crowd with awe. “Tease The Cat” is a neat lurker with outlandish Arabian innuendos woven into heartwarming synth melodies but dominated by a heavy pulsating bass line. If this causes the same effect on listeners as catmint does on felines still has to be tested. You also have to take a shot at “A.E.I.O.U.” to reveal its grandeur. A track paying evident tribute to Tony Espositos 80’s productions, but using modern day arrangement techniques not a lot of producers are capable of pulling out of their hats. Foster’s mastery is displayed further on the title track of the EP and the most dancefloor orientated track of the threesome, “Neon Life”. Here we encounter a murky Japanesque melody which builds up and up driven by an insane drum programming, that makes you wanna take off your clothes and dance in neon-lit rainfall all night long. – Bandcamp
Fabrizio Martina, the man behind Jolly Mare, is a champion turntablist, with a master degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Vibration Dynamics under his belt. Nicknamed ‘the new face of Italian disco’, he’s currently a full time producer and DJ, taking part in festivals across Europe from Sonar to Harvey’s Discotheque Stage at Bestival. A graduate of Red Bull Music Academy in New York, he has opened acts from Masters at Work to Roy Ayers,worked with the likes of Soul Clap and Thundercat, and has already been featured in the likes of Pitchfork, Mixmag and Okayplayer with his dream-like brand of electro- funk, disco and house. – Bastardjazz Recordings
This edit of Yves Simon ‘Au Pays Des Merveilles De Juliet’ first appeared as a free download for a super limited time via the Psychemagik soundcloud page.
Now, after a long wait and many licensing delays the edit sees an official release on limited edition vinyl (500) via Leng Records. Played by many over the last year the edit takes all the elements of Yves Simon’s original, stretching it out from two minutes to over seven making it an instant classic. Cool vid to go with it.
The Heard is a funk machine venerated for its deep pocket, authentic grooves, and reverence for legendary funk.In The Heard’s hometown of Chicago, the group cut its teeth delivering hard hitting performances at some of the city’s top venues – the beloved aliveOne, Metro Chicago, Lincoln Hall, Concord Music Hall, and Congress Theater. The band has backed hip hop artist Lyrics Born, former Galactic vocalist Theryl “Houseman” DeClouet, and has shared stages across the U.S. with The New Mastersounds, Lettuce, The Nth Power, Dumpstaphunk, Orgone, The Motet, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Slightly Stoopid, The Funky Meters, and George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. The Heard’s music features powerful horn melodies delivered with precision and swagger by Parris Fleming (trumpet), Bryant Smith (trombone) and Lucas Ellman (saxophone), the driving rhythm guitar playing of Taras Horalewskyj, tasteful keyboard work and soulful vocals by Cole DeGenova, and a slamming foundation provided by drummer PJ Howard and bassist Mike Starr.
A little funky jazzy playlist im working on.. just a few tracks so far.
Mr Confuse is producer/dj from Hanover Germany. His music is a blend of 70s soul, beats and high octane future funk….
the Pimps excel by mashing up ‘70s funk tones with modern dance beats, mixed with original samples creating their mosaic sound. For listeners weary of today’s DJ culture but eager to dance with abandon, the Pimps of Joytime are the antidote-Soundcloud