Black Jazz Records #3 - DOUG CARN 'Infant Eyes'

After recording a rather straight Hammond B-3 organ trio LP for Savoy Records in the mid-1960s, Doug Carn's music became informed with his new-found Muslim spiritual beliefs on 'Infant Eyes', his 1971 LP and first of four released on Black Jazz Records. Joined by wife Jean Carn on operatic space-soul vocals, this is music infused with call-to-prayer incantations that soars freely and echoes within its own still spaces. Amid stately Fender Rhodes washes and sustained B-3 minor chords, complex harmonic snake-charming from flute, tenor sax, trombone and trumpet underpin Jean's righteous jazz vocals which are indebted to June Tyson's tough grit and welded to a sweet-singing Dinah Washington-like sense of phrase. Inventive, sensitive re-imaginings of John Coltrane's 'Welcome', 'Acknowledgement' and 'Peace' make plain the lineage of this music back to classic modern jazz but with a new fresh take via early 1970s revolutionary culture. A fantastic, quietly funky listening experience.

KENNY BARRON - 'Peruvian Blue'

Another of my recent Los Angeles digs, this is a surprisingly hard-to-find LP from pianist/ composer Kenny Barron who's released a boatload of superb hard-bop flavored albums throughout his long career. Barron's virtuosic Fender Rhodes and Clavinet work -- instruments he usually rarely played -- is mysterious, intensely spiritual and deeply funky on the 10-minute modal-monster title track. Another nearly 10-minute opus, "Two Areas", deftly mixes warm electric piano and Albert Heath's downtempo samba-tinged drumming into an undulating, subdued dance of shifting counterpoint and snaky Latin rhythm. Guitarist Ted Dunbar -- a co-conspirator with Barron on several LPs and a severely under-heralded jazz guitar genius-- also consistently shines here and adds spacious chordal textures and tangy solos everywhere he appears. On "Blue Monk", Barron even manages to re-vitalize the classic Thelonious Monk standard without having to deconstruct the tune, revealing a breathtaking technique and a lyrical understanding of Monk's seemingly angular style. Exhilarating, spiritual electric jazz.

EDDIE HARRIS - 'Is It In'

One the funkiest, most freakily tripped-out, and (of course!) highly collectable LPs of tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris' many, many records, Is It In released in early 1974 remains a funk-synth groove-jazz landmark. Eddie's edgy electric sax is processed through Moog pitch-tracking effects designed especially for him on this album allowing his horn to sound like a treated Clavinet piano or Fender Rhodes keyboards or an eerie mournful lute -- often all at once. Rufus Reid and William James provide slinky electro-rhythms underneath on bass, drums and electric bongos while Ronald Muldrow's intensely processed 'GuitarOrgan' alternates between vocoder and chicken-scratch funk sounds. It's amazing how perfectly modern many of these warm analog tracks still sound when dropped in any dance club today. The heavily sampled opener 'Funkaroma' is pure hard-groove, robotic synth-ghetto get-down and 'It's War' with its long hypnotic funky vamp are both standout tracks. Harris put out so many records during this mid-1970s era that some were bound to be duds or come off like indiscriminate jokey gags. But Is It In is a cohesive, sinewy, and deeply forward-thinking work -- a minor masterpiece really-- and a killer soundtrack for rockin' Saturday night downtempo electro-funk jams with the ladies. Highly recommended.

HAL GALPER - 'The Guerrilla Band'

I've been on a non-stop '70s Fender Rhodes electric piano LP collecting frenzy so this was definitely a lovely dig during a recent trip to California. One of the defining Rhodes jazz-funk records of the era, keyboardist Hal Galper's debut as a leader can be a tricky Mainstream Records title to track down, especially in minty shape like this WLP [White Label Promotional] copy. Galper's aggressively driving approach here has a powerful, swirling quality that's complex, modal and quite adventurously funky at times. The Guerilla Band is a searching and furious Fender Rhodes keyboard workout akin to the work of The Awakening's Ken Chaney on Black Jazz Records, another master of the instrument, or perhaps a slightly more fast-paced Eddie Russ approach. "Figure Eight" sounds exactly like its title, full of crisscrossing angular swoops of Bob Mann's searing electric guitar and Galper's fuzzy keyboard lines swimming amidst electric bassist Victor Gaskin and drummer Charles Alias's space-funk bottom. Slickster L.A. studio stalwarts the Brecker brothers make early recording appearances here and actually sound nicely textural and 'in the pocket' with little overblown schmaltz compared to their blaring later efforts. Mysterious, mesmerizing music and superior to Galper's other (but still very highly desirable) LPs on the Mainstream label.

Photo ~ SUN RA 1966 'Heliocentric Worlds II' LP on New York's E.S.P Records