VARIOUS ARTISTS - FUSION WITH ATTITUDE
In the early 70’s Jazz musicians started fusing jazz with funk and other music forms and made a style of music termed ‘Fusion’. The movement was led by Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Grover Washington, Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Lonnie Liston Smith etc and sold millions.A whole movement built up and in this compilation many of the best tracks of the genre are featured, many appearing on CD for the first time. This compilation features tracks by lesser known but real jazz musicians playing outstanding fusion with an edge, funky fusion with attitude !!. All these tracks were recorded for independent labels, and are still owned independently now 30 years after release. You can imagine my surprise that we had to deal with Sonny Lester, Charles Tolliver and producer Nils Winther along with some of the artists themselves to license this material. Many of the tracks have become jazz club classics and have been exposed by DJ’s like Giles Peterson, Kevin Beadle, Russ Dewsbury, Patrick Forge, Eddie Pillar etc. Some of the tracks were popular when they came out and were played by Robbie Vincent in  the ‘70’s, others are more obscure only coming to light in the last 10-15 years, but all are in demand and of the highest quality.

Walter Bishop Jr  grew up in Harlem and was teenage friends with Sonny Rollins, and Art Taylor. He played in bands led by Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and others from the late’40’s onwards. He led his own bands from the early 60’s and recorded two good albums for the Black Jazz label in the early 70’s. After a spell  teaching in Los Angeles, he returned to New York and signed with Muse records and recorded the ‘Soul Village’ album in 1977 from where ‘Soul Turnaround’ is taken. He had previously recorded the track for Black Jazz and Freddie Hubbard had covered it on Atlantic, but this is the definitive version featuring Randy Brecker, Steve Khan and other notable fusion musicians and ‘Bish’ on Fender Rhodes. Walter died in 1998 aged 70, performing until the end, I was privileged to be among the faithful few who witnessed him at London’s Bass Clef a few years before he died.Nat Adderley spent a significant part of his career in the shadow of his more famous brother Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley, but came more in the spotlight after his brother’s death in 1975. Nat is probably best known for his compositions ‘Work Song’ and ‘Jive Samba’, although the albums he recorded on Capitol with his brother most notably ‘Soul Zodiac’ and ‘Soul Of The Bible’ have attained a ‘cult’ status in recent years. Nat originally played trumpet, but switched to Cornet in 1950 and after a spell in the army joined his brother in the Cannonball Adderley Quintet which stayed together from 1957 until 1975, one of the longest running post war jazz bands. During this time Nat also recorded under his own name and recorded albums for Riverside, Atlantic and A&M.
 ‘K High’ comes from his 1976 album ‘Don’t Look Back’ recorded for the Danish label Steeplechase, although it was also released on Inner City in USA. This album was the first with a new band that included John Stubblefield on sax’s, Ira Buddy Williams on Drums and Onaje Allan Gumbs on keyboards and Clavinet. The track itself is an outstanding ‘fusion’ groover that builds throughout its nine and half minutes with some great solos. Ramon Morris recorded his only album ‘Sweet Sister Funk’ album for Groove Merchant in 1973. The whole album is one of the best fusion albums of its time, but ‘First Come First Serve’ is the outstanding cut, one of the heaviest , funkiest tracks of the genre – fusion with ATTITUDE !!!.. Little is known about tenor player Ramon , but on the evidence of this cut, he deserved great exposure.Larry Willis started playing free jazz in the 60’s and played piano in Lee Morgan’s and Jackie McLean’s bands, and names Herbie Hancock as one of his main influences. His first solo album ‘New Kind of Soul’ in 1970 featured mainly covers including the jazz dancer ‘Consola Coa’ and James Brown’s ‘Lickin’ Stick’. In 1973 he joined Groove Merchant and made an album of self penned fusion ‘Inner Crisis’, which is regarded as one of the finest examples of electric jazz funk . ‘Out On The Coast’ is the outstanding track from that session, a deep groove from Al Foster on drums and some great playing from Larry and Harold Vick on Sax. Larry has played with two of the other artists on this album , Joe Henderson and Nat Adderley and from 1988-2001 made a further 13 albums mainly in the hard bop style.Mike Longo is another keyboard player who recorded for Sonny Lester’s Groove Merchant label. He had the opportunity to play with Cannonball Adderley when he was only 15 and still at high school, and he became Dizzy Gillespie’s pianist from 1966-73.
In 1972 he recorded two albums for Mainstream and following those up with two for Grove merchant. ‘Like A Thief In The Night’, is taken from probably his best album ‘900 Shares of the Blues’ recorded in 1974, featuring a great line up , and is one of the most instant tracks of its genre, with Ron Carter’s bass propelling the groove and some fine drumming from Mickey Roker (as on the Ramon Morris track). Drummer and Keyboard player Larry Bright made a couple of albums, most notably ‘Solar Visions’ in 1978 for the Crosswind label. The album is another classic underground fusion album and features ‘Tommorow’s End’ a hard hitting dancer.
He went on to record another album ‘New Dimensions’ in 1987and now coaches drummers and plays as a session musician in the Washington D.C. area.Shamek Farrah recorded two albums for the influential Strata East collective label.
‘First Impressions’, the title track from the first in 1974 is an awe inspiring piece of spiritual jazz meets heavy fusion. Milton Sugg’s propulsive bass drives this track and the use of descending chords gives it a darker edge, and the heavy groove never lets up giving Shamek the platform to blow his alto sax over the top of and Sonelius Smith adds some nice keyboard touches giving it an eastern feel. The track was sampled by Tribe Called Qwest in the 90’s.Azar Lawrence recorded three fusion albums for Prestige in the mid 70’s, whilst he was the sax player in McCoy Tyner’s Quartet. ‘Forces Of Nature’ is taken from the best of these ‘Bridge Into A New Land’ from 1974, which again features an all star line up.
 The track is a delightful driving instrumental with each of the main players taking a solo.Joe Henderson is a jazz legend, the hard blowing tenor sax player recorded many great albums, always with an edge and always surrounded by great players. His distinctive raw tone, phasing and improvisations were always a delight. After being championed by Kenny Dorham, Joe signed with Blue Note in 1963 and recorded five great albums, most notably ‘Inner Urge’ before completing a ten year, sixteen album stint with Milestone.
‘Gazelle’ is taken from his 1970 album ‘In Pursuit of Blackness’, although it was actually left over from his Live At The Lighthouse session ‘If You’re Not part of The Solution.’. The track is recognised as a classic and the stellar line up with Woody Shaw on trumpet and George Cables on keyboards and a very young Lenny White on drums really kick. He rerecorded the track on a later Milestone album ‘Black Miracle , but this is the version. Also check Joe Chambers ‘The Almoravid’ on our ‘African Spirits’ compilation, which bares more than a passing resemblance to it. Ironically Joe went on to achieve commercial success and acclaim for his less ambitious covers albums in the 90’s on Verve. He died of a heart attack in 2001.  Chuck Flores is a west coast drummer who has worked with Woody Herman, Art Pepper and Carmen McRae. He recorded two albums in the 70’s the best of which the 1976 ‘Flores Azules’ a good mixture of jazz, fusion and bossa nova includes this cut ‘Padali’. The track is named after Chuck’s Wife Pa(t), and daughters Da(wn) and Li(z).
It is a great fusion track and a dancefloor filler.Carter Jefferson spent most of his career as a sideman, best known for his work with Woody Shaw during the late 70’s. Carter started his career on clarinet but changed to alto and then tenor sax. He toured with The Temptations and Supremes and then spent two years with Mongo Santamaria, then Art Blakey before joining Woody Shaw, who produced his only album ‘Rise Of Atlantis’ for the Dutch label Timeless in 1978.
The title track is featured here and it is a fitting way to complete this compilation of fusion with an edge fusion with attitude !.Laurence Prangell
February 2006.

Track list (click to hear tracks - one minute clips)