Sam “Lightnin'” Hopkins, as always, did it in just one take – with the money upfront.

No serious conversation about old school funk-jazz can leave out this gem. “Always There” is a essentially a two chord vamp, but damn, it’s a two-chord vamp that hits squarely in the center of funk’s sweet spot. The song’s co-creator Ronnie Laws spent the first half the seventies lending hisRead More

Before they were the Crusaders, they were the Jazz Crusaders. And before they were the Jazz Crusaders, keyboardist Joe Sample, trombonist Wayne Henderson, tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer Nesbert “Stix” Hooper were kids growing up together in post-war Houston, Texas. By the late fifties, these burgeoning talents formed aRead More

by Pico This selection goes back a ways with me; I’ve saved only a handful of vinyls from my once somewhat-vast collection and this vintage ABC-Blue Thumb double LP was spared from that dreaded garage sale. It’s also one of the few expensive import CD’s I was begrudgingly willing toRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Soul-jazz was never a major genre, even in its seventies heyday, but the boys from Houston who called themselves The Crusaders were doing it better than just about anyone else then…and now. You May Also Like: Groove Legacy – Groove Legacy (2016) Joe Sample + NDRRead More

This time we look at albums with grooves in the pocket even if they weren’t much in the press: 1) Herbie Hancock, Mr. Hands (1980)The seventies began very creatively for HH, first with the space funk Mwandishi albums followed by the better-known Head Hunters period that firmly eastablished Herbie’s pre-eminanceRead More