On Funk and Soul

Would you believe I had the pleasure of working on the same show with "The Divine One",?and dance to the pulsating rhythmn of The Count Basie Orchestra, featuring "the funky Whte Boy, Butch Miles, on drum..That's why My dancing partners and I used to joke* about feeling guilty, when it was time to get paid.



....*Er..well..half joking, anyway. :wink:

Oh yeah!.....One of the funkiest Jazz pianist ever. I remember on a hot summer day in St.Louis, there some kind of big toodo, in our city park. There were all kinds of treats and surprises there. I came upon a clearing where there was a big crowd gathered I didn't know if was a fight accident, or what anyway I got closer, and there in sunken structure, and in a corner was a man in a loose fitting white shirt playing an upright beat up piano. If it wasn't for the horn rimmed glasses, I woud have thought it was just some guy off the street. who had happened on a piano and started playing. There was no one else but "Him." And Ramsey jammed for the next half hour or so, keeping the crowd entralled, whiled it seemed the keys were going to jump off the piano....Pure dee..no..Pyo dee FUNK!

Jazz & Hip Hop
KK, one more

Have you heard Guru's Jazzmatazz? An experimental fusion of hip-hop, and jazz. Featuring: Carleen Anderson, Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd, N'dea Davenport, Ronny Jordan, Courtney Pine, Lonnie Liston Smith, and MC Solaar.

It has:

Introduction
Loungin
When You're Near
Transit Ride
No Time To Play
Down The Backstreets

Respectful Dedications
Take A Look (At Yourself)
Trust Me
Slicker Than Most
Le Bien, Le Mal (does not have the translation, but I think it means, the good, the bad)
Sights In The City

If you heard it, what do you think of it?

Angelique - Stangely enough that's in our collection but I've never listened to it. I'm inspired to give it a listen now.

Booman - I was just trying to get started off with a rather obvious example. I agree with whoever said it's in the syncopation. I also believe you can detect a real difference in how it makes you feel.

For me, a smooth, mellow voice like Anita Baker's puts me in one mood, while a raucous jam by George and the boys puts me in another. Soul makes me want to slow down and mellow out, and funk makes me want to get wild, and maybe even a little naughty. It's like the music is telling you - anything goes.

Aidan,
.....I can't help but concur.

Diane Reeves-soulful
Diane Shure- a tad funkie

and then you can always move beyond funky to freaky...

Aidan, will you please let me know what you think of it after you hear it. I enjoyed it. I don't know much about the mechanics of music only what I like or don't like. I pretty much love all forms of music, and from all over the world too. The only one I don't like is heavy metal. Too violent, and erratic for me (its just loud stomping noise to me).

I agree with you too.

Angel,
....you pullling allnighter too?,or did you catch a few ZZ's?

Well, my boyfriend is going away for ten days, and I can't sleep thinking about it. Being on the comp. and doing some work has helped a bit. Plus, it's the weekend, so, I can afford to stay up a little.

booman, unlike some of you, i'm too old to pulll an all-nighter, but loved the Ramsey Lewis story. the funkiest pianist i saw in person was Horace Silver. it was at a benefit concert i wrote about on another thread, but he played Filthy McNasty and everyone was ROCKING. if you didn't nod, tap a foot, or something, you weren't alive.

A good mix of funky and soulful - the Love Jones soundtrack. Anybody ever hear it? I don't even remember the movie - though I vaguely remember liking it - but I love this soundtrack. It has:
1. Hopeless -Dionne Ferris
2. The Sweetest Thing - Refugee Camp Allstars featuring Lauryn Hill
3. I got a love jones for you - Refugee Camp Allstrars w/ Melky and Day
4. Sumthin' Sumthin' - Maxwell
5. Never Enough - Groove Theory
6. Inside my love - Trina Broussard
7. In the rain - Xscape
8. You move me - Cassandra Wilson
9. Rush Over - Marcus Miller and Me'shell Ndegeocello
10 I like it - Brand New Heavies
11 Girl - Cassie
12 Can't get enough - Kenny Lattimore
13 Jelly Jelly - Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
14 In a senitmental mood - Duke Ellington/John Coltrane

And it just happens to be the most romantic soundtrack I've ever heard. But it has something for everybody - my kids have heard me play it so much - even they love it.

Hey, Boo. Remember this?


(vanilla ice, earthquake)

Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy

I'm back and I'm ringin' the bell
A rockin' on the mike while the fly girls yell
In ecstasy in the back of me
Well that's my dj deshay cuttin' all them z's
Hittin' hard and the girlies goin' crazy
Vanilla's on the mike, man I'm not lazy.

I'm lettin' my drug kick in
It controls my mouth and I begin
To just let it flow, let my concepts go
My posse's to the side yellin', go vanilla go!

Smooth 'cause that's the way I will be
And if you don't give a damn, then
Why you starin' at me
So get off 'cause I control the stage
There's no dissin' allowed
I'm in my own phase
The girlies sa y they love me and that is ok
And I can dance better than any kid n' play

Play that funky music come on come on
Play that funky music, white boy I can't hear you, say it,
Play that funky music say it, say it, say
Play that funky music, white boy it, come on
Yea, a little bit louder
Now come on, come on

Stage 2 -- yea the one ya' wanna listen to
It's off my head so let the beat play through
So I can funk it up and make it sound good
1-2-3 yo -- knock on some wood
For good luck, I like my rhymes atrocious
Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious
I'm an effect and that you can bet
I can take a fly girl and make her wet.

I'm like samson -- samson to delilah
There's no denyin', you can try to hang
But you'll keep tryin' to get my style
Over and over, practice makes perfect
But not if you're a loafer.

You'll get nowhere, no place, no time, no girls
Soon -- oh my god, homebody, you probably eat
Spaghetti with a spoon! come on and say it!

Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music come on come on
Play that funky music white boy let's do it

Vip. vanilla ice yep, yep, I'm comin' hard like a rhino
Intoxicating so you stagger like a wino
So punks stop trying and girl stop cryin'
Vanilla ice is sellin' and you people are buyin'
'cause why the freaks are jockin' like crazy glue
Movin' and groovin' trying to sing along
All through the ghetto groovin' this here song
Now you're amazed by the vip posse.

Steppin' so hard like a german nazi
Startled by the bases hittin' ground
There's no trippin' on mine, I'm just gettin' down
Sparkamatic, I'm hangin' tight like a fanatic
You trapped me once and I thought that
You might have it
So step down and lend me your ear
'89 in my time! you, '90 is my year.

Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music come on, come on, i
Play that funky music white boy can't hear you

You're weakenin' fast, yo! and I can tell it
Your body's gettin' hot, so, so I can smell it
So don't be mad and don't be sad
'cause the lyrics belong to ice, you can call me dad
You're pitchin' a fit, so step back and endure
Let the witch doctor, ice, do the dance to cure
So come up close and don't be square
You wanna battle me -- anytime, anywhere

You thought that I was weak, boy, you're dead wrong
So come on, everybody and sing this song

Say -- play that funky music say, go white boy, go white boy go
Play that funky music go white boy, go white boy, go
Lay down and boogie and play that funky music till you die.

Play that funky music come on, come on, let me hear
Play that funky music white boy you say it, say it
Play that funky music a little louder now
Play that funky music, white boy come on, come on, come on
Play that funky music

Produced by vanilla ice
Published by ice baby music/qpm music (bmi)

and I always thought funky meant tacky on purpose.

"...nothing but the soul..." Art Blakey.

Post script:

I'll bet not one person here knows Sister Rosetta Thorpe. My sister told me that her sister was Sarah Vaughan.




Trouble in mind, I'm blue
But I won't be blue always,
'Cause that sun is gonna shine in my back door someday.

Now all you men's the same
But now I'm old enough to change my name.
Lord, that sun's goanna shine in my back door someday.

I'm gonna lay my head
On that lonesome railroad line
And let the 2:19 ease my troubled mind.

Trouble in mind, I'm blue,
But I won't be blue always.
Child, that wind's gonna come and blow my blues away!

Also the Sister did a song that went something like this:

When people go from church to church,
You know that their religion don't amount to much,
And that's all.

Don't know the rest of it!

Good Morning Letty,
.....Don't mind me, I'm trying to clear my head. My Nite Owl posse (Setanta,McTag,Angel, Boo) pulled an all nighter.
.....Lessee here..I heard "Play that Music Whiteboy" by somebody else, in the 70's..I have never heard anything by V.I....As a rule true Funkster rarely rerefer to themselves as funky....Wasn'Sister Rosetta Thorpe, a gospel singer? I've never heard about her being Sassy's sister.
.....My favorite version of TIM, was Nina Simones. i'll tell you a story about Sarah in a minute.

Angel doesn't surprise me, Boo. Setanta and Mctag? That must have been something. Anyway, my sister usually has total recall on stuff so I'll have to check it out with her later. In the interim:






Encyclopedia: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Updated 118 days 11 hours 6 minutes ago.

Other descriptions of Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 - October 9, 1973) was a gospel artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of Holiness vocals and jazzy guitar accompaniment. Willing to cross the line between sacred and secular music by singing in nightclubs and with big bands behind her, her witty, idiosyncratic style also left a lasting mark on more conventional gospel artists, such as Ira Tucker, Sr. of the Dixie Hummingbirds. While she offended conservative churchgoers with her forays into the world of pop music, she never left gospel music.

Born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she began performing at age four, billed as "Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar playing miracle", accompanying her mother, evangelist Katie Bell Nubin, who played mandolin and preached at tent revivals throughout the South. Exposed to both blues and jazz both in the South and after her family moved to Chicago in the late 1920s, she played blues and jazz in private, while performing gospel music in public settings. Her unique style reflected those secular influences: she bent notes the way that jazz artists did and picked guitar like Memphis Minnie.

Rosetta also crossed over to secular music in other ways. After marrying Wilbur Thorpe--who later changed their name to Tharpe--in 1934 and moving to New York City, she recorded four sides with Decca Records backed by "Lucky" Millinder's jazz orchestra. Her records caused an immediate furor: many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of sacred and secular music, but secular audiences loved them. Appearances in John Hammond's extravaganza "From Spirituals To Swing", at Caf頓ociety and with Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman made her even more popular. Songs like "This Train" and "Rock Me", which combined gospel themes with bouncy up-tempo arrangements, became smash hits among audiences with little previous exposure to gospel music.

Tharpe continued recording during World War II, one of only two gospel groups able to record V-discs for troops overseas. Her song "Strange Things Happening Every Day", recorded in 1944 with Sammy Price, Decca's house boogie woogie pianist, showcased her virtuosity as a guitarist and her witty lyrics and delivery. It was also the first gospel song to make Billboard's "race records" Top Ten--something that Sister Rosetta Tharpe accomlished several more times in her career.

After the war Decca paired her with Marie Knight, a Sanctified shouter with a strong contralto and a more subdued style than Tharpe. Their hit "Up Above My Head" showed both of them to great advantage: Knight provided the response to Tharpe in traditional call and response format, then took the role that would have been assigned to a bass in a male quartet after Tharpe's solo. They toured the gospel circuit for a number of years, during which Tharpe was so popular that she attracted 25,000 paying customers to her wedding, followed by a vocal performance, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. in 1951.

Their popularity took a sudden downturn, however, when they recorded several blues songs in the early 1950s. Knight attempted afterwards to cross over to popular music, while Tharpe remained in the church, but rebuffed by many of her former fans. Retreating to Europe, Tharpe gradually returned to the gospel circuit, although at nowhere near her former celebrity. Her performances were curtailed even further by a stroke in 1970. She died in 1973 after another stroke, on the eve of a scheduled recording session.

Yeah!..Now I remember. I saw her on a taped TV show last year. Plus I've heard her through the years on gospel programs, but didn't know she played guitar, until last year.

Is this the one written by Minnie Riperton-Leon Ware?

The Gap Band --- funky
Morris Day --- funky
Taj Mahal --- funky in his own unique way

This thread remided me about Ann Sexton.

He music bridged r&b, soul and funk.

"You're Losing Me," I think, is one song that exemplifies this contention.