No matter how out there each instrumentalist ventures, every feature spot contains references to the track’s pop-song foundation. Guest vocalist Fontella Bass-the wife of Art Ensemble trumpeter Lester Bowie-contributes soulful phrasings that sound downright commercial until you focus on the absurdist lyrics (“Your fanny’s like two sperm whales floating down the Seine”). When the group’s notoriously wild horn players enter, they begin by playing things pretty straight-only reaching for avant-garde theatrics in brief pauses of the swinging, mod theme. On “Théme de Yoyo,” the opening song on a soundtrack to a now-forgotten film, the Art Ensemble’s rhythm section offers up a funk groove. Over the course of a dozen-plus records cut in the 1970s, the band’s sound made good on the malleability suggested by this varied public image, as they created delicate improvisations and noise blowouts alike. The band’s exuberant stage show reinforced its members’ organizing slogan-“Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future”-with bassist Malachi Favors often dressed like an Egyptian shaman and saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell donning the garb of a contemporary urbanite. –Brad NelsonĪ healthy portion of Chicago’s musical avant-garde decamped for France in 1969, but the group that made the biggest splash in Paris was the Art Ensemble of Chicago. This kind of intimacy, personified by the whispery translucence of Rushen’s voice, is just as easily exported to the dance floor. “It only says ‘I’m looking for the perfect guy,’” Rushen sings, searching for connection not through direct communication but with ambient speech. It manages this even as the lyric itself is private-the literal text of a classified ad. “Haven’t You Heard” enhances time until it feels like the glitter of a cityscape unfurling through a cab window. The best disco songs imply infinity in both their length and groove, and always feel as if they’re attached to a black hole. “Haven’t You Heard” is a formally perfect expression of disco. This can make it feel like an early skeleton of house music, which is appropriate-it was a touchstone of Larry Levan’s sets at the Paradise Garage, and was eventually reborn as gospel house in Kirk Franklin’s 2005 single “Looking for You.” On “Haven’t You Heard,” the piano is an anchor for the song. Gina X Performance "No G.D.M.Even as her sensibilities shifted from jazz to fusion to R&B and disco, Patrice Rushen focused on her keyboards while everything else swirled around them.Marlene Dietrich "Ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin".Orbital "Belfast - ANNA Ambient Remix" ].Nation of Language "Deliver Me From Wondering Why".Durand Jones & The Indications "Witchoo".L'Impératrice "Peur des filles - Montmartre Remix".Jazmine Sullivan "Pick Up Your Feelings".Masters At Work "To Be In Love - MAW '99 Mix".Whitney Houston "Love Will Save the Day".Martin Denny "Lotus Land - Digitally Remastered 96".A Tribe Called Quest "Vibes and Stuff".Sasha Berliner "A Heroine's Manifesto".Satoshi Ashikawa "Still Park - Ensemble".Fela Kuti "Africa Center of the World".Hunters & Collectors "Talking To A Stranger".Toto Coelo "I Eat Cannibals (Rerecorded)".The Specials "Ghost Town - 2015 Remaster".Jean-Jacques Perrey "The Mexican Cactus".Dean Elliott And His Big Band "Lonesome Road - Remastered".Esquivel! "The Breeze and I - Remastered".Oscar Jerome "No Need - Extended Mix".
Walt Disco "Hey Boy (You're One of Us)".Gary Clail On-U Sound System "Human Nature".Quadrophonia "The Wave Of The Future".C & C Music Factory "Here We Go, Let's Rock & Roll (feat.Dawn "A Watcher's Point Of View (Don't Cha Think)" Crystal Waters "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) (La Da Dee La Da Da) - Radio Edit".Beverley Knight "Flavour Of The Old School".Old skool, new skool and somewhere in-between skool. She will bring you sounds and stories from elsewhere from her home planet and beyond! Tales of danger and peril! Creatures from the unknown!Ĭlimb aboard the spaceship and travel through genres. Attention Earth people! Join intrepid traveler Duchess on a wondrous journey through genres and time.