Release Date: 25 February 2022
Label: MPS
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 4029759149453
Description
Reissue of George Duke's classic 1975 jazz-funk-fusion album 'I Love The Blues', featuring Flora Purim, Lee Ritenour, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Leon "Ndugu" Chancler and includes the easy going soul-funker "Someday".
On the fourth album of his fusion cycle, George Duke substantially expanded the number of his colleagues. As before, drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler beats as the heart of the rhythm section, and the Brazilian couple, Airto and Flora are again on board. The ten tracks perform a stylistic balancing act. The jittery funk of "Chariot" and the smooth ballad "Someday" show off Duke's soulful vocal flair. Flora Purim crowns the complex "Look Into Her Eyes" with her spheric sound as she and guitarist George Johnson take care of business on this stratospheric piece with its bluesy electric shuffle.
With two high-voltage guitarists (Daryl Stuermer and Byron Miller), "That's What She Said" points to the tie between rock and funk. The most eye-opening outing occurs with star guitarist Lee Ritenour stomping on "Rokkinrowl, I Don't Know", and its Hendrix parody. "Sister Sirene" shows that, naturally, the typical dreamy Duke instrumentals are not left off the album. An almost animistic soundscape is woven into the fabric of "Mashavu", and "Giant Child Within Us - Ego" is a small fusion suite encompassing the spectrum from the classical to the Zappaesque finale.
The title piece is indeed a blues, dished out pure and simple - a far cry from the sounds of the preceding piece with its mountains of synthesizers. Rather, the sultry delta heat, the acoustic simplicity and raw truth of the song prevail - the blues.
Description
With its intensive quartet, this 1975 recording again mirrors how far Duke, by his own admission, had moved away from the smug and overly serious jazz musician and towards a master of fusion, eager to experiment and add a note of humor to the music. With Santana drummer Leon Ndugu Chancler, bassist Alphonso Slim Johnson, and the Brazilian percussion magician Airto Moriera, Duke designed stunning scenarios in sound which once more reveals him to be one of the synthesizer pioneers. On Dawn he paints a fanciful daybreak atmosphere on the keyboards. On Floop De Loop he releases funky rushing rivulets from the keyboards. Whereas on the smooth rock piece For Love and soft ballad Fools , he appears on the scene as a soulful singer. There's something slightly naughty coursing through the bluesy, laid-back funk miniature, Foosh . Duke's former collaboration with the Mothers of Invention colored his versions of Zappa's Echidna's Arf and Uncle Remus . There's a samba touch in the relaxed tropical magic of Malibu , and the outro The Aura also swings to a Latin feel.
Tracklisting
Tracklisting
Oscar Peterson
Monty Alexander
Various Artists
John Taylor Trio
Volker Kriegel
Jean-Luc Ponty
Alphonse Mouzon
The Rolf Kuhn Group
George Duke
George Duke
George Duke
George Duke
George Duke
George Duke
George Duke
George Duke
