The Rhythm Makers, from the Bronx, New York City, were Brought Together in 1968 by Rahiem Leblanc (Formerly of the Sons of Darkness) and Consisted of Leblanc (Vocals / Guitar), Keith ‘sabu’ Crier (Bass / Vocals), Kenny Banks (Drums / Soft Shoe / Vocals) and Herb Lane (Keyboards / Vocals). They were Signed to De-lite’s Subsidiary, Vigor, in 1974 to Complement the Label’s Disco/Funk Roster Headed Up by Kool and the Gang. The Group Sat Perfectly Alongside their Young Contemporaries Crown Heights Affair, the Kay-gees and Made in the USA and Quickly Established their Own Unique Sound under the Guidance of Disco Producer Billy Terrell.
"Coffy" has been one of my favorite movies for a very long time and I would have dreams of owning a copy of the soundtrack, and guess what, dreams DO come true! Although a bit pricey, worth every damn penny! Move over Shaft and Superfly, every track is pure quality jazz, for real, Roy Ayers is a genious. Another good thing is that it's not overplayed like the other two soundtracks mentioned (why is released in Japan and not here?). It's great mood music, especially for playing cards and cocktail parties, everyone loves it (and if they don't, they need to go!). The best tracks I believe are Aragon (as heard in "Jackie Brown"), Coffy is the Color, Coffy Baby and, of course, King George. Please do not look past this treasure!The film that gave Pam Grier her first leading role and vaulted her to queen bee of the blaxploitation movement also inspired a soundtrack that is arguably Roy Ayers's most rewarding work. Grier plays a disgruntled nurse who goes "underground" to exact revenge on the pusher men who put the monkey on her junkie sister's back. Ayers matches her step for gun-totin' step with crisp, percolating drum lines; colorful ripples of electric piano; and his signature, lissome vibe work. Ayers' twin talents--the head-scratching virtuosity of his jazz runs and the ass-shaking grooves of his R&B rhythms--are in full flower on this recording. But Coffy is more than an acid-jazz archetype. The classically inspired solo harpsichord piece and the wack auxiliary percussion freak-out also included here hint at a deeper pool of inspiration that Ayers would rarely return to again.
Poster for Jules and Jim c1967 Directed by Francois Truffaut
Poster for Vysoka Zed’ (The High Wall) c1964 Directed by Karel Kachyna
Stunning posters from the Czechoslovakian designer Zdenek Ziegler.
The traditionally high standard of Czech visual culture is documented by a spectacular selection of 100 posters for national and foreign films created by Czech graphic designers, painters, sculptors, stage designers and film directors, who applied a variety of artistic styles from Art Nouveau on the beginning of the past century to postmodernism and graphic minimalism today.
Posters were selected from the Moravian Gallery in Brno, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, Exlibris Prague and several private collections.
The first film performances in Prague are documented in 1896 - 1898 by imported artistic posters, either French or American, while the first Czech film advertisements were only typographical. Viktor Ponrepo, who opened the first permanent cinema in Prague in 1910, was a pioneer in using large-size pictorial posters, printed in France, on which he promoted his performances by a Czech text (Imprudence de Jacqueline, 1910). The first preserved Czech film poster is The Idyll from Old Prague (1913-18) created by Josef Wenig, a stage designer, and also specialist for the Czech, often sentimental, films. Other Czech artists also working in the film production, as e.g., Max Fric and Ferdinand Fiala, soon joined him. Their style is more modern, but Vaclav Cutta´s posters are the best example of the 1920s advertisement. He was a specialist in foreign film designs full of sensation and thriller scenes (Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse).
Their large size picture affiches were lithographed with minimum text showing dramatic scenery with only the film title.
During the 1930s, there was a short period when film posters were designed by Czech modernists. Among avant-garde artists were Frantisek Zelenka and Antonin Pelc, as well as big Prague advertisement studios such as Rotter, Hofbauer-Pokorny, Heilbrun, Weigelt, Weiss, Vodicka Studios and later on Bruno, Jonas, Burjanek and others.
Beside these, designers from the previous decade like Fiala, Fric, Ottmar and Wenig were still active. The poetism of Frantisek Zelenka was an original achievement, while the use of black and white photographs collage in functionalist posters did not last long, because it did not survive the competition with other painted colorful affiches. In the center of the composition, heads of film stars dominated, complemented with areas of clear flat colors. The film director´s name appeared on the poster together with the names of film stars as a new item. It is evident that posters were painted according to the film photographs, often drawn with hyper-realistic effort, which is most obvious in mainly the posters for foreign films, inspired by American style. Such posters can be called proto pop-art (King Kong, 1933, USA), Tajemstvi vynalezce (The Inventor´s Secret, 1936, UK), San Francisco (1937, USA). Czech world famous film production of director Gustav Machaty is presented by poster Extase (1932), with a stylization of Heda Lamarr´s erotic face profile.
The Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 suppressed Czech film production. National films were overrun by foreign, mainly German films, the posters size reduced, titles had to be first in German language and only then in Czech, colors were dark and the general artistic impression poor.
Film industry was among the first enterprises to be nationalized soon after the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945. The newly established Czechoslovak State Film opened its Central Film Distribution Office (UPF – Ustredni pujcovna filmu) at Narodni Street in Prague and produced until 1990 film posters for all national and foreign films in the Czechoslovak state distribution. After the transition period 1945 - 1947, marked by last echoes of Modernism in the posters of Josef Burjanek and Albert Jonas, the following decade of socialist realism affected all fields of visual culture; its Stalinist style examples are preserved mainly in the film posters for schematic Czech and Soviet films, such as Daleko od Moskvy (Far From Moscow).
Czech visual culture of the sixties reached the top of its artistic expression in works created by free-lance painters, graphic artists, sculptors, architects and stage designers who were invited at the beginning of the sixties by UPF editors to increase the Czech film poster artistic level. Under the centralized state film industry, film poster production lost its commercial role and became an important means of cultural education. A new spirit was awakened also by the creativity and artistic quality of the 1960s film. With the liberal atmosphere of political thaw, the highlights of world cinematography were finally shown with several years´ delay in Czechoslovak cinemas (films by Visconti, Pasolini, Fellini, Bergman, Wajda, etc.) and Czech artists were inspired by the individualist spirit of these artistic movies.
The first internationally recognized Czech graphic designers were Karel Teissig (for the French film Stockbrokers, 1961) and Jiri Balcar (Moby Dick, 1962) award winners in the film poster competition for the Toulouse-Lautrec Prize in Paris.
The birth of the Czech creative film poster phenomenon in the early sixties can be credited to Karel Vaca, Karel Teissig, Richard Fremund, Vladimir Tesar, Jiri Balcar, Jaroslav Fiser, Zdenek Ziegler, Milan Grygar, Bedrich Dlouhy, Zdenek Palcr and others. In the late sixties and during the seventies they were joined by Josef Vyletal, Olga Polackova-Vyletalova, Jiri Rathousky, Alexej Jaros, Karel Machalek, Petr Pos, Jiri Salamoun, Vratislav Hlavaty, Zdenek Vlach and Antonin Sladek. In the streets, but soon also at film festival exhibitions, in art galleries and cinema premises, Czech film poster rapidly won the favor of the public for its creative imagination, poetic and lyrical atmosphere. It was characteristic by the use of collage, rollage, photomontage, retouching, striking graphic designs, wity typographic visual puns and surrealist dreamy interpretation. Mass reproductions of works of art flooded the billboards in towns and cities and changed them into sidewalk open air galleries. In the course of the 1960s, Czech film poster designers found inspiration in the informal style, applying its forms of structural abstraction and lettrism, later on in pop-art and op-art, using the then popular psychedelic forms and colors. Artists frequently employed styles inspired by the film forms, such as enlarged close-up, merging of symbolic and metaphoric visual levels and repeated details.
Many Czech poster artists were awarded prizes at poster exhibitions,held at international film festivals in Cannes, Chicago and Hollywood (Olga Polackova-Vyletalova, Karel Vaca, Zdenek Ziegler and Vratislav Hlavaty) and their works appeared in prestigious foreign journals, such as Graphis, Idea and Novum Gebrauchsgraphik.
The most striking images are: Nezna (The Gentle One) by Olga Polackova-Vyletalova, Psycho by Zdenek Ziegler and The Birds by Josef Vyletal, who used a collage of the surrealist painting Attirement of the Bride by Max Ernst to express a mysterious scenery for Alfred Hitchcock´s horror movie. The success of the Czech New Wave was accompanied by striking film poster images: Valery and Her Week of Wonders, or the Oscar awarded Czech films Shop on the Main Street and Closely Watched Trains.
In the late 1970s and in the 1980s, the Czech film poster was strongly affected by the "normalization" atmosphere, characterized by the return of censorship and self-censorship. Many poster artists emigrated, and two very talented personalities, Richard Fremund and Jiri Balcar, died in tragical car accidents. Posters became more metaphorical in their spirit as shown in surrealist posters by Josef Vyletal and Zdenek Vlach, while many other artists used grotesque drawing (Jiri Salamoun, Petr Pos, Vratislav Hlavaty).
In the early 1990s, the decline of mass film poster production started with the demise of the Central Film Distribution Center, when free market opened again and mainly American film distributors established their branches in the Czech Republic. Together with their films, they have brought also original American poster designs. There was only limited space left for Czech designers.
Nowadays, they only can promote Czech films, and even there the Hollywood style with manipulated photographs affected Czech designs as well. In terms of creative personalities, present-day Czech film poster is predominantly associated with the names of Ales Najbrt and his graphic design studio (Cosy Dens), Eva Svankmajerova´s surrealist style still fascinates viewers in the posters for Jan Svankmajer animated movies and Slovak film director Juraj Jakubisko, who settled his office in Prague, continues in designing posters not only for his own movies, but for instance for Kytice (Wild Flowers).
If you prefer your funk on the more jazzy tip, as opposed to a more "rock" or "pop" style, then this may be your new favorite compilation. "Blue Funk" is all about swirling b3 organ, greasy, TIGHT horn lines, shifting rhythmic funk patterns, flying bongos, tight, tight, TIGHT rhythm guitar, and the ALL-MIGHTY drum & bass GROOVE. Tightness really is key here, as it's the tightness that keeps things fresh and prevents the whole excursion from being weighed down by repetition and sloppiness, which is the downfall of some funk music. The funky format here also prevents too much decadent, ponderous soloing (while there is a place for such exploration, this is not it). The music on "Blue Funk" is about the beat, the forward-motion of the rhythm, and the sustained buoyancy of the groove. The groove here, by the way, achieves the enormous feat of being heavy and deep, as well as clean and crisp...simultaniously.
One of Japan’s most accomplished young jazz groups, Sleep Walker will perform a live set that’s sure to be one of the highlights of Okino’s upcoming Tokyo Crossover Jazz Festival. Singers Clara Hill, Diviniti and Navasha Daya are all slated to make appearances, along with fellow overseas club jazz luminaries such as German DJ Rainer Truby. From the lively domestic scene, keyboard phenom Jazztronik, jazz combo Quasimode, and heavyweight DJ Raphael Sebbag of club jazz DJ unit United Future Organization are also on the bill.
Offering a distinct alternative to Japan’s mainstream jazz festivals, TCJF shows that the young and trendy audience for club jazz may be as broad as the older, established audience for jazz itself. The event now attracts several thousand hipsters to Ageha, as well as sponsors like carmaker Nissan. But the restless Okino’s great dream is to do an outdoor fest a la Fuji Rock or Nagisa. “I’m still researching it,” he says. “The problem is deciding on the right location. Fuji Rock and Metamorphose are in the mountains, while Nagisa is held downtown. I’m wondering which is better. I don’t know if my audience is willing to travel, so I’m not sure yet.”
In the lead-up to this year’s Tokyo Crossover Jazz Festival, Okino also has a remix album coming out based on last year’s solo debut. For “United Legends” Replayed by Sleep Walker, he turned the traditional remix album on its head. Okino took the original tracks, on which he worked with an international cast of electronica producers and vocalists, and put them in the hands of Japanese acoustic jazz combo Sleep Walker.
Capture the city's music - and the people who make it - in its past, present and future forms.There will be scenes which have built museums to our music... ■DUGOUT Club Oto Shinjuku http://blog.livedoor.jp/dugout1/
When Brownswood’s head honcho, Gilles Peterson loaded ‘Jazzy Joint’ with vocals by José James on his myspace site, the buzz surrounding this this track alone got everyone on the message boards in a spin. James’ interpretation ranges from proper jazz vocals, rap to a full scat and pianist Josei’s composition is as much indebted to Jay Dee (a la Robert Glasper) as any jazz legend. Hang on a minute. So you need this track but but is this just a one track album? Not likely, this is fast and sweaty jazz of the kind of Shiftless Shuffle session; phew!
Just in case you’ve not landed on Planet Pimp (also an essential purchase), the connection with A Night of Death Jazz gig at the Roundhouse is that J.A.M are all members of Soil & “PIMP” Sessions’ being Josei (paino), Akita (bass) and Midoin (drums); can you spot why they are called J.A.M?
So like a jazz version on of the London Bus, you wait for one monsterous jazz trio to turn up and then three arrive all at the same time. Granted Twelves Trio are more modaly jazz than the Neil Colwey Trio or J.A.M, but what a wealth of talent they all are.
The thing with J.A.M. is that they cram in such variety into the 13 tracks. One minute they’re in the Pure Fire heritage of the opener, ‘Age Of No Quality’ and follow that with a break neck speed version of George Cables’ ‘Quiet Fire’. Hard to believe that Shiftless Shuffle could go all Northern Soul and have a ‘Modern’ room with all these brilliant new releases (I feel a mixtape coming on).
The rest of the album is mostly written by Josei except for ‘Roy’s Scat’ that was on the classic MAW Nuyorican Soul album that was on Peterson’s previous label Talkin’ Loud. The other Latin inspired tracks are ‘New Things’ with some heavy hand high speed piano for the jazz dancers and ‘道 (Michi)’ with a ‘Berimbeu’ break.
Haven’t heard much of DJ Mitsu The Beats of late but he turns up scratchin’ on the laid back downtempo keyboard tune ‘In The Sea’. But the pace isn’t slow for long as ‘Crecendo’ is back on the piano speed peaks and even the longest track,’Master Of The World’ is fairly pacey and shows the old jazz boys how to do a track where each member of a trio gets to show off without getting into the predictable jazz solo merry-go-round.
This new approach is no doubt why J.A.M have evolved from short mid-Soil & “PIMP” Sessions set to playing live performances in their own right; apparently they got a gig at last years’ Fuji Rock Festival when another band dropped out (Hey! the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra were at the same festival which reminda me, Peterson said this week that he’ll be at the Christmas Shifltess Shuffle again this year with ‘Jazz Room’ legend Paul Murphy).
When you get Just A Maestro, you can have your J.A.M today and have J.A.M tomorrow, the day after and the day after that (and repeat). This stunning debut album ends on a high with the last four tracks and I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Quiet Passion’ (that is anything but quiet) makes an appearance at Shifltess Shuffle soon; all shout tune!!!!!
No. BWOOD CD032 Release date: September 2008 Tracklisting: 1 Age Of No Quality (1:48) 2 Quiet Fire (4:27) 3 New Things (4:33) 4 In The Sea feat. Scratches by DJ Mitsu The Beats (2:03) 5 Crescendo (3:51) 6 Master Of The World (6:37) 7 Jazzy Joint feat. Jose James (4:10) 8 道 (Michi) (5:07) 9 Roy’s Scat (4:35) 10 Identity Breaker (2:35) 11 Quiet Blue (2:32) 12 Quiet Passion (5:44) 13 Sign (1:42)
