Grateful Dead

Herbie Hancock is about the only one of the artists on your list that I have already, Oro. I have Maiden Voyage, Empyrean Isles, Head Hunters, Sextant, Thrust, and Man Child. I find all to be enjoyable.

1973-1974 Jerry and Merle is a sweet spot, lots of soul and jazz influences showing up in their stuff from that time, those Keystone Encores box set shows in particular are phenomenal. And an absolute highlight of the Merle and Jerry Collaborations would be Merle Saunders and Friends CD Fire Up +, that disc is on fire from start to finish, incorporating tunes that are straight soul like Lonely Avenue and Expressway to Your Heart, other stuff that is more jazzy like Save Mother Earth and Man Child, and some funky stuff like My Problems Got Problems and the phenomenal Welcome to the Basement. Merle Saunders, Jerry Garcia, Tom Fogerty, John Kahn and Bill Vitt tear it up. An album well worth tracking down if you don't have it already, just peak Jerry and Merle. CD was Released in 1992 and is includes most of the songs from the 1970s albums Fire Up and Heavy Turbulence, I think.

Another gem is Hooteroll?, a jazz fusion masterpiece from Jerry Garcia and Howard Wales. That is a great album, great to listen to from start to finish, cohesive and gorgeous music.

I think it was something in the air, 'cause there were just a lot of musical styles and genres being mixed together or teased apart into something new during that period from the late '60s to the mid-'70s. Funk flowing out of soul, jazz fusion explorations by a bunch of artists, the emergence of electronica with stuff like I Feel Love, lots of cool stuff all happening in a relatively short fertile time. Musical forms are constantly shifting, blending, and distilling new stuff through time, but that late '60s to mid '70s period seems like a particularly fertile time, especially for the mixing of jazz, soul, funk, blues, and rock and roll into new forms combining elements of each and taking them in new directions.

Still going with Boston Garden '91.

VGUY, that should be awesome. I read about it in Bass Player magazine. Interviews with both Les Claypool and Geddy Lee. They asked Geddy what he thought of Les trying to do this and Geddy teasingly said he was nuts!
Hopefully they’ll be a big brown beaver sighting?

CHARLIE: interesting how you heard of SJ. Even more so how many of us come to certain music, fascinating really.
I heard if it after reading an article by Michael Chabon in Rolling Stone about his at the time new book Telegraph Ave (which I liked), but in this article he gets into this Soul Jazz that I’d never heard of, and I’ve been into lots of Jazz fir quite some time. It’s hard to pinpoint and like many styles or genres it casts a wide range: from syrupy string laden Mizel brothers productions all the way to more standard Jazz played by more recognizable names. The sweet spot to me is very much like what Merl and Jerry do on say 9/1/74, or the recent GarciaLive Vol 18, or on Fire Up and Heavy Turbulence etc. I like the oft used description of “Jazz with a backbeat”.
I have maybe 2-3 dozen albums but would say these are good ones to start with:
Donald Byrd: Black Bird
Charles Earland: Black Talk and Leaving this Planet with Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson
Idris Muhammad: Power of Soul (title track is awesome Hendrix cover), and a (2 for 1) of Black Rhythm Revolution, and Peace & Rhythm.
Deodato: Prelude
Grover Washington Jr.: I like Inner City Blues and Mister Magic the best. Earth Tones off Magic is nice groovy mellow almost new age like? One of my favorites of his. I think Magic is a good first choice. Soul Box is pretty good too. I’d say ya might not like all the tracks on all the albums depending how your pleasure tends, but if you made an 80 minute best of from the three you’d have a super cd. If that helps? But I’d advise anyone interested to check out stuff online first.
There’s a good series of compilations out called the Legends of Acid Jazz that has some good treatments of many of the main cats, like genre guitar go to’ Melvin Sparks, and Leon Spencer, George Benson dabbles around the Soul Jazz edges. Jimmy Smith Back at the Chicken Shack is old school, and Dr Lonnie Smith is another of many keyboard/organists. One of the cool things is how like jazz, so many of the main dudes play on each other’s albums.
Many more but those are good starts.
The cool thing is it’s easy to Segway into things like MMW: End of the World Party and Uninvisble, and even on to the Beastie Boys, yes those Beasties Boys: The In Sound From Way Out and The Mix Up. I think of Curtis/Superfly as another cousin to all this. Herbie Hancock Head Hunters fits too.
To me SJ is like another kind of jazz fusion. Not the scorching Miles or Return To Forever etc, which is more rock like to my ears, but like a funky soul stew of jazz, soul and rock. Perhaps like some Motown cats played jazz?
As I say, sometimes hard to pin point, and certainly not for everyone, but to me it’s like the Garcia/licorice story.
Not everyone will like it, but those who do will love it!

....yea. Primus will be playing it. Contemplating taking some fungus along 🤔.

My exposure to soul jazz or acid jazz is limited and mainly consists of listening to Fusion FM hosted by Roy Ayers in Grand Theft Auto IV in Liberty City, not sure if that's exactly on point. Nice stuff, a mellow, jazzy, psychedelic vibe to some of it as I recall. Mister Magic by Grover Washington Jr is on my list of future acquisitions, maybe some Roy Ayers as well, who knows once I get started in that direction, just haven't picked it up yet. Hopefully Mister Magic is before the transition to Kenny G. that you describe, Oro. Grand Theft Auto in its various iterations actually turned me on to a bunch of great stuff on the various radio stations. Cool to just drive around listening to the radio, sparking the occasional police chase or just looking for hidden stuff. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. Not a bad option as far as an option for a time vacuum. You know you're hitting the GTA a little hard when you start to notice all the unique stunt jumps when you're driving around in the real world. (GTA fiends may get it, the rest of you will just have to play the game excessively, then take a drive in the real world.)

Mary says the tech team is looking in to why you can’t post.

Thanks Mary!

Saw Sugar Pie DeSanto and Etta James both play at the S.F. Blues Festival, also saw Etta James play with the Dead in 1982. Next box is gonna be something from 90,91, 92, possibly Winterland March 1977. I hope its something from 1969/1970 with acoustic material included.

To quote the great Chris Berman!
What a game! Now that was sports worth watching.
The outcome does not surprise me. The Bolts are like a bad case of the clap that just won’t go away, and I mean that as a complement!

AJS: well said as usual. I agree. Pretty much sums it all up.
MIKE: LOL. and yeah, Kadri’s “enthusiasm” can sometimes be a little nerve racking.
PF: love the cup jokes etc, and the energizer bunny, hell last night I felt like I was doing speed!
Dark-Star: good to see ya xxoo. Sounds like your the drunk yelling from the arm chair. I’m just showing solidarity for my fellow Americans, and VGUY, STOLZTY, PANCHO, PT BARNUM etc.
VGUY/PRIMUS: will they be doing Farewell to Kings? Either way should be cool! Have Fun!

CHARLIE: cool stuff, thanks for the good read! Brought up so many awesome aural memories. You guys ever check out Soul or Acid Jazz (prefer Soul as Acid is not really appropriate). Charles Earland, Donald Byrd, Idris Muhammad, Melvin Sparks, Deodato, Jimmy Smith, Dr Lonnie Smith, Grover Washington Jr. (before he went all Kenny G) and so many more. Fits right next to Curtis the Superfly Pusherman etc, GOOD SHEET MON!
Lots of crossover between Soul, Motown Jazz etc. I always felt much of what Merl and Jerry were up to fit in this category. And Disco is perhaps cousins to all this? I like to make my own sorta best of CDs, and I made a killer 2 disc version for a friends young daughter who loved disco. But we like it too, it can be fun stuff, hell folks used to dis The Bee Gees but if you really check out their music it’s pretty solid (and those boys burned like chimneys. My cousin worked on their studio and said no burned like the BeeGees) and I Feel Love, that was my opening track! And what a great stoner song. Put that on a big stereo set up with good stereo imaging, get prepped ; ) , and sit in the sweet spot and check it out. It sounds amazing and that cool auto pan stuff is right outta Healy and Mickeys bag of tricks.

Ah yes, Music, sweet, sweet music, the antidote to what ails ya and the ills of the world.
As Mr Ones would say, Music is the best! Crazy how much great music there is…

CONEKID: almost forgot ya. I can understand your ongoing feud. Took us awhile to get over the Wings lol.
And as a life long Buffalo fan for good or for Ill, it’s still hard to like the Dolphins (sorry vguy) Dallas, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to root for the Patsies, even without Brady and Gronk!
I’m just curious, is because of the overall war that was that great rivalry or perhaps just the Lemieux issues?
I’m trying to remember, I’ll have to look for that show you mentioned.

Hahaha. See what I did there. 🤭

You are correct, DaveRock, Donna Summer's I Feel Love is great, if I'm in the mood for some Donna it's either that track or Love to Love You Baby more often than not.

Sugar Pie DeSanto is awesome, one of my favorites. Soulful Dress is a great tune and she has a lot more just as good, or in a couple cases even better. I picked up a couple of CD's by her and Go Go Power, the complete Chess Singles is a smoker from start to finish, the better of the two that I picked up. Soulful Dress, Do I Make Myself Clear, In The Basement (with Etta James) and Mama Didn't Raise No Fools stand out in my memory at the moment as highlights of that collection. Do I Make Myself Clear is absolutely on fire.

And, yeah, the Stax boxes, the first three were an early acquisition for me in my soul collection, but there is also a fourth Stax Box - Rarities and the Best of the Rest - that covers some soul rarities, some gospel, and some of the other stuff released on Stax and related labels that ranges outside the soul category. That fourth one is not quite as consistently good as the first three, but it does have a few things that got in my head and my completist nature left me no choice but to pick it up.

For something from this century that sounds like it could have been released in the 1970's, check out Charles Bradley, particularly the track Ain't It a Sin. If you can watch him do Ain't It a Sin online on the you post it video site and not want to pick up some of his stuff I would be surprised. Started checking Charles out when I saw an article about his soulful cover of Black Sabbath's Changes, good stuff, cool version of the song.

And Curtis Mayfield, started checking him out when a friend suggested the Superfly soundtrack, and all it took was the song Pusherman to get me seeking out more Curtis, not to mention my dawning realization that the HBO show the Wire had a bunch of Curtis playing at various points and I dug it. Give Pusherman a listen and see if you can sit still. There's a good box set - Curtis, Keep On Keeping On, Curtis Mayfield Studio Albums 1970-974, a good way to get all his albums at once for a great price. The HBO show the Sopranos also had a bunch of soul tunes scattered throughout, I'm still looking to track down a copy of the song Sally Go 'Round the Roses by the Jaynettes. Or rather, I just picked up a copy this morning, further support for the hypothesis that I have an online shopping problem and a near pathological need to expand my CD collection.

I'll try and shut up now, but once I start down the soul rabbit-hole I can't stop.