Not me. I never heard of ’em... even though they put out funky dance records during my peak radio-listening years (1977-1980).
The Players Association released five LPs, but landed only one single on the R&B charts: “The Get-Down Mellow Sound.” (Never heard of it.)
Come to find out, this studio band pulled in some top- of-the-line jazz blowers. Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, Jon Faddis, Joe Farrell, to name several.On the 1979 single “Turn the Music Up!,” you get a hot trumpet solo from Tom Harrell, who has travelled the world with the likes of Woody Herman, Horace Silver and Phil Woods.
You also get tenor man Bob Berg, whose jazz credentials included work with Jack McDuff and Cedar Walton. (Berg would later join Miles Davis’s band.)
And this is a disco record! Not a bad one, either.
Cheers to Mark, a British vinyl collector (known as fastflyer2007 on YouTube). You turned me on to something here, mate.
I've seen Tom Harrell many times, including with Phil Woods. I suppose you know he's a schizophrenic. It's very odd watching him play live. While the rest of the band plays, he stands rigidly on stage with his eyes cast down...almost like he's catatonic...then right on cue, he raises his horn and starts playing. He repeats this for the entire concert. The first time I saw him I didn't know about his illness and thought he was drugged or something. But his playing gave no indication of it.
ReplyDelete^ Thanks for that, Doug. Fascinating. I would love to see this guy play.
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