Jazz
Soul-Jazz
2 LPs on 1 CD:
* AFRO-DISIAC (1970)
* WA-TU-WA-ZUI (1971)
AFRO-DESIAC
Recorded: April 6, 1970, Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Charles Kynard (organ); Houston Person (tenor saxophone); Grant Green (guitar); Jimmy Lewis (electric bass); Bernard "Pretty" Purdie (drums)
WA-TU-WA-ZUI (Beautiful People)
Recorded: December 14, 1970, Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Charles Kynard (electric piano, organ); Rusty Bryant (tenor saxophone); Virgil Jones (trumpet); Melvin Sparks (guitar); Idris Muhammad, Bernard Purdie (drums)
Released in 1999 for Fantasy's popular Legends of Acid Jazz series, this reissue unites two of Charles Kynard's LPs of 1970, Afro-Disiac and Wa-Tu-Wa-Zui, on a single 76-minute CD. Both albums had been out of print for a long time, and copies of the organist's Prestige recordings had grown increasingly hard to find over the years. While the trumpet-less Afro-Disiac unites Kynard with tenor saxman Houston Person, guitarist Grant Green, electric bassist Jimmy Lewis and drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Wa-Tu-Wa-Zui employs Lewis, trumpeter Virgil Jones, guitarist Melvin Sparks and drummer Idris Muhammad. The albums are quite similar, though, and the emphasis is on accessible, groove-oriented soul-jazz, funk-jazz and boogaloos. Infectious numbers like "Bella Donna," "Trippin" and "Zebra Walk" won't appeal to jazz purists, but if you like your jazz drenched in R&B and funk, this CD is consistently enjoyable. Kynard, like Charles Earland and other B-3 kings of that era, made jazz that was relevant to R&B fans--if you were a Baby Boomer who was digging James Brown, Marvin Gaye and the Temptations but hadn't yet developed a taste for the hardcore jazz of Phil Woods or Charles Mingus, Kynard was the type of artist who could be your introduction to improvisatory music. "Improvisation" is a key word here--while a lot of the quiet storm, crossover and NAC music that came out in the 1980s and 1990s avoided improvisation, stretching and blowing is the rule on this CD. In a nutshell, this is commercial jazz with a brain as well as a backbeat.
---Alex Henderson, allmusic |
