Amongst all the incredible soul-jazz-funk US musicians of the 1970s Roy Ayers was a one-of-a-kind legend, producing some of the most perfect, wouldn't-change-a-note music the world has ever seen. I think what I love about his attitude to music is that despite being a jazzman who can solo and play as complex as the next cat he chose to go down the path of making effortless grooves, choosing minimalist perfection over overly busy workouts. I think this is much harder to do than many people realise... Some jazz heads at the time were upset by this turn...they were of course wrong...the most profound truths have a simplicity to them and his music at its best rings with truth.
Roy was originally from California and even though he was based in New York in the 70s I think it makes sense to think of his music next to that of fellow Californian's George Clinton and Sly Stone, who all in their unique ways share that LSD-enlightened kicked-back sunshine conscious grooving mentality. I love this state of mind and the music that captures it....I've done tributes to both George and Sly on the blog (click on names to go to those). What a time.
On to the mix: kicking things off with my own exclusive edit which brings together two early Roy Ayers classics, Life Is A Moment and We Live In Brooklyn Baby. I think the messages of both these tunes fit together neatly. If you like this one I'm offering this as a free download: click here to grab it.
Next the Ubiquity classic Searching, the first RA tune I fell in love with, sentiment and music coming together in perfect sweet-melancholy harmony, followed by two back to back tunes from the seminal RAMP (Roy Ayers Music Project), Come Into Knowledge…so gentle and sublime this one, slays me, psychedelic spiritual soul at its best followed by the incredible and somehow only recently released Paint Me Any Color - colours! colours! colours! haha yes!! I wish there was more acid-soul out there...we need reminders how beautiful reality is despite all the horrors.
From there slipping into the first synth groover of the mix, Roy's restrained use of synths was one of his trademarks...It's Your Love is a Roy Ayers production fronted by vocalist Ethel Beatty... chord progression on this one is nailed on, love the slightly tense mood. Sticking with the tense-love theme for a minute, One Sweet Love is some great off-beat funk, brilliant drums on this and love the vocal attitude.
Next smoothing things out with the instrumental Lifeline, showing off some of Roy's beautiful vibraphone playing skills, then on to a possible contender for my all time RA favourite, Together, a p-funk groover in a 6/8 time signature (count 6 not 4), and the killer lyrics have that unity message which will never get old. Sticking with straight grooving dancefloor boogie for the next few, the pure sunshine and togetherness of Everybody followed by the groundbreaking proto-house genius of Chicago - look for the full length mix on the UK-only Silver Vibrations LP for this one, the versions elsewhere are a shortened edit...though I also had to fade a little early for the mix...could listen to that groove all day.
Sticking on the dancefloor with Happy Music, another RA production/arrangement, deceptively innocent and simple but you cant change a thing about it, which came out on Roy's Uno Melodic label where a lot of his classic productions can be found, including planet-conquering tunes like Eighties Ladies' Turned On To You and Sylvia Striplin's You Can't Turn Me Away. There's a good comp called The Best of Uno Melodic that came out in 2018 worth checking. Last in this section the blistering jazz-funk dancefloor bomb Time Is Coming - possibly the most rip-roaring Roy Ayers tune of all time.
As the 70s turned into the early 80s Roy recorded and toured with Fela Kuti which inspired some classic afro-centric black-consciousness tunes, a couple of which here - first up the clearly Fela-inspired Black Family - serious - credit to Roy Ayers for taking on the pidgin-English style of Fela and making it work so powerfully - followed by the much earlier record 2000 Black, a tune reworked with Roy Ayers by 4Hero in 2001 and which gave its name to their broken beat label 2000 Black. Got to shout Marc Mac and Dego here, in the days before the internet it was Marc Mac who first introduced me to some deeper Roy Ayers tunes like Love From The Sun from playing them on the radio. Really wanted to include that in the mix but ran out of space and I've played that on the blog before on a previous Spring Sun Soul mix here. There's an amazing Dee Dee Bridgewater version of Love From The Sun thats well worth seeking out too.
Finishing with what seemed a fitting message Thank You Thank You for the music Roy and for making life much better! An antidote to the insanity of the world.
As spring is here I'm including this mix as part of the annual Sun Spring Soul series - beautiful soul-inspired music that suits the season - check out all the previous editions of that here.
