Music Spectrum

Oh, there’s dust in the air and a glow from the old console turntable as you hear the clicks a new 45 drops down the spindle. The needle sets down, and J.D. McDonald coaxes out the Motown vision of the elusive “Boogaloo Santa Claus.” Suddenly before your very ears, you can see it: Santa boogieing and jiving and doing the popcorn.

That’s just one of the Christmas expanding visions waiting for you on the archive collection of tunes on Strut Records’ In the Christmas Groove. Leave it to the soul-funk label to mine the B-sides of the 60’s and 70’s to find these obscure holiday gems. Sure, tracks like “Black Christmas by Harlem Children’s Chorus which bring you right out of a suburban dream, but sometimes our image of Christmas needs expanding.

Let Funk Machine rock your world on “Soul Santa (Part 1).” Bluesman Jimmy Reed shuffles “Christmas Present Blues.” There’s visions of Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy in the clouds watching down on Christmas in Wild Honey’s “Angels Christmas.” Perhaps a bit better focused are the hallelujahs of “Christmas Morning” by Zebra, although even here the emphasis seems to be on mistletoe and gingerbread. The collection doesn’t really ever find Gospel-influenced tracks that might put the light on Christ. Still, it’ll change up your normal Christmas playlist, and when you need something beyond Holiday Inn and Bing Crosby, here’s another direction to check out.

In The Christmas Groove
Strut Records

A recent warm spell in October in the Upper Midwest finds me recalling summer’s sounds. Of course, it also coincides with attempting to catch up on the music that’s been stacking up in the Music Spectrum office.

The 2011 summer may be drawing to a close despite this last gasp warmth, but one disc has certainly made an impression on me that will keep the heat turned up into the winter months. The New Mastersounds’ Breaks from the Border made summer drives jam with funk, blues, and soul. Mile markers flashed on past like swaggering, shimmying dancers. Even now as I type this in a coffee shop on vacation in Winona, Minnesota—what a pleasant, Mississippi River town—I can’t keep my legs from bouncing under the table as if my legs could actually tap out the guitar, Hammond, and bass solos, or match the funk trap set.

The New Mastersounds formed in the late 1990’s in Leeds, UK, out of the ashes of the original Mastersounds led by Eddie Roberts (guitar/vocals) and Simon Allen (drums/vocals). Adding Pete Shand on bass guitar/vocals, while eventually bringing on Joe Tatton on keys, the New Mastersounds could be straight from Motown. In fact, I thought being “New” meant a revisit of something from the 70’s as if the Mastersounds were a long lost funk/soul group that had reformed in 2011 to relive glory days and write new music.

Instead, these lads from Leeds are the original. And these ain’t no fakers. This stuff cooks. Shand’s bass wows and warbles and sends off the train on the opener “Take What You Need.” Tatton’s organ drenches the tight guitar riffs of “Ride the Gauntlet.” Smooth guitar akin to “Superstition” from Roberts reins in the funk of “Freckles.” There’s a way in which “Passport” throws on funk on top of what could be a Monkees song.

Like a calling card, “Can You Get It?” finds the band on gang vocals shouting out: “Can you get it,/This is British soul?/Can you get it,/This is rock ‘n’ roll?” We needed Tower of Power and others to bring soul/funk to where it is, but side-by-side this summer with Tower of Power’s 40th anniversary live disc, the New Mastersounds come out on top as they propel this stuff forward.

The New Mastersounds

There’s a hidden gem of a beach on Lake Michigan near the Illinois/Wisconsin border that I have known about for years. Now that we live nearby, I take my boys there to run in the sand, throw rocks, and splash in the cold water while I listen to the Chicago Cubs on the radio.

It takes about 20 minutes or so to get to the beach which means we need driving music, music of summer and sun, music to get you ready for enjoying the beach. Among the others I’ll probably chose for our 2011 beach excursions, we grooved to the Detroit rock/funk/soul of Dennis Coffey’s Dennis Coffey. A veteran Motown guitar player, Coffey lays out blistering soul rock that makes you want to roll down the windows as you drive, crank out the jams, and groove along your way to the beach.

The self-titled album starts off with my boys’ favorite, “7th Galaxy,” an instrumental of soul/funk rock proportions. Elsewhere, Coffey and guests (Kings Go Forth, the Dirtbombs’ Mick Collins, the Detroit Cobras’ Rachel Nagy, and more) conjure up Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke, and more of the Motown sound, such as the smooth “All Your Goodies Are Gone” (featuring Mayer Hawthorne) and the 70’s hip-shaking soul “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” (featuring Lisa Kekaula of the Bellrays).

So that get us to the beach. Now if the Cubs aren’t on the radio, what would I choose for our musical companion while we’re throwing rocks into the water? Probably the soulful sensations of Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi’s Rome. Alternating between stretched out 70’s cinematic gloss and sweet soul resonating with R&B balladry, Rome is made for sitting back, sipping in the sunshine, humming along, and letting the day slip away.

Rome stars Norah Jones and Jack White in a tribute to Italian film, especially Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks. That’s what can carry you away as you listen in front of whatever landscape you chose—a lakefront, a cityfront, a backyard, a jazz club.

So let that soul drench you with Italian roast—a hybrid of relaxing in the sun and drinking in the aural caffeine that may spark more energy from you than you first thought. Let that soul drench you as you find your hidden gem of a beach in your life’s landscape.

But then in true rock ‘n’ roll fashion, if you’re like me, you’ll get kicked off that little beach because it’s private property. (More than 15 years of going there, and I never realized it). You’ll get kicked off the beach, jump back in your car, and crank up the bass-led funk of Dennis Coffey’s “Knockabout.” As you go home, you realize you’ve had a very good day.

Dennis Coffey
Strut Records
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi
Danger Mouse
Daniele Luppi
Capitol Records

This review should’ve appeared back in August, in part to coincide with the release date and in part due to the fact that the funk-jazz-soul sound works well for summer nights. The Budos Band’s III has a sound that revolves around a jazz club funkified and fortified by soul. The tracks walk on creeped out organ, bounce along on Fishbone horns, and are held together by tight percussion. Instrumentals all, the album also features some dark bass sounds, contributing to its humid, after midnight vibe, although who’s to say it couldn’t also work as a bass-rich autumnal resonance. Plus, the tripped out play of “Reppirt Yad,” a cover of the Beatles’ “Day Tripper,” is excellent.

The Budos Band
Daptone Records

Now that summer 2008 is here, it’s time to go back and talk about a perfect summer companion released in 2007. Marc Broussard’s S.O.S.: Save Our Soul has this tremendously fresh nostalgic blend of Motown and blues, custom-made for sunny picnics, beach blanket bingo, drives through the country, and backyard barbeques. As the songs bounce along on horns, piano, soul guitar, Broussard’s smooth-smoky vocals, and beehive-hair voiced backup girls, it’s no wonder that Hollywood goes back to 60’s Motown as the soundtrack for hopeful, romantic, upbeat scenes. That classic soul/R&B sound punches negativity with a blow so loving that you forget that these are fighting words. It’s a sound that rises up on a rogue wave that—instead of dragging a tired swimmer into an undertow—floats you peacefully in the moonlight. Broussard doesn’t just mimic this sound; he exudes this sound.

Marc Broussard
Atlantic Records