Singleversity #54

Audiversity’s weekly column on music we stumble across during our sonic adventures. No random numbers, just straight audio goodness.

MA:



If you are curious at all to find some reasonably priced insights into Detroit’s great deep jazz label Tribe Records, look no further than Soul Jazz’s sister-label Universal Sound. Along with an anthology of the Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison-helmed independent label highlighting some of the most intriguing jazzy space-funk cuts from the socio-political and aesthetic collective in the mid-70s, they also reissued Marcus Belgrave’s tasty Gemini II record from 1974. The ambidextrous trumpeter, mentored by Clifford Brown, honed his chops with the Ray Charles touring band in the 1950s before providing his exuberant touch over the last 40 years to everyone from Motown to Mingus, Max Roach to Sun Ra, and Was (Not Was) to Carl Craig. "Glue Fingers (Part II)" finds the Belgrave-led Detroit collective on a textural groove of progressive jazz that swings as much as it struts. By the mid-70s, a lot of the similar-minded cats had succumbed to the fusion overlord, but the true jazz-funk hybrid was being pumped out by Belgrave and company deep in the Motor City underground.

PM:



There's been a lot of poetic waxing over Africa's rapid and unwieldy musical modernization in the 70s. With disco and funk becoming more and more influential as the decade wore on, Nigeria's capital Lagos acted as one of the entry points and guiding lights for Western pop. Brighton-based Soundway has been collecting the popular sounds of Nigeria's discothèques and their latest installment is Nigeria Disco Funk Special: The Sound of the Underground Lagos Dancefloor 1974-79. Culled from this album is what's featured here, Voices of Darkness performing their funky freshness for "Moto Ginya." Though information is scarce (and the booklet's biographical depth is limited), we know that the group were expatriates from Cameroon's Ewondo before they hit it big nationally with "Moto Ginya." It was back into obscurity after that, where they remained until now.