NEWS:DEFUNKT BAND CIRCA MID 80'S FEATURING JOE BOWIE,JOHN MULKERIN,RONNY DRAYTON, BILL BICKFORD , KENNY MARTIN AND KIM CLARKE WILL PERFORM @ THE IMATRA JAZZ FESTIVAL IN FINLAND JULY 07..FOR BOOKING INFORMATION:DIRK FEYS @ TSAHARA PRODUCTIONS +32 2 513 7599 dirk@tsahara.com
Joe Bowie's Defunkt has had a number of stellar musicians over the years. Among these are: his brothers, famed trumpeter Lester Bowie and arranger, tenor saxophonist Byron Bowie, guitarists Kelvyn Bell, the late Richard Martin, Martin Aubert aka Ayodele Maakheru,
Ronnie Drayton, Bill Bickford, Marvin Horne, Tomas Donker,Gary Poulson, Vernon Reid, Richard Lampese, Jean-Paul Bourelly, bassists Melvin Gibbs, Russell Blake, Li'Nard, Kim Clarke, Ronnie Mac Jenkins, Booker King, Reggie Washington, Rael Wesley Grant, trumpeter John Mulkerin, baritone sax specialist Alex Harding, drummers Ronnie Burrage, J.T. Lewis, Richie Harrison, Jeremy Gaddy, Kenny Martin, Fred Alias, Skoota Warner,Tobias Ralph, Keyboardists: Martin Fischer, Kevin Bents, Jimmy Yaeger, Bahnamous Bowie, Marcus Persiani,Adam Klipple,vocalists:Jessica Cleave, Nona Hendrxy and
Kelli Sae
There were also a couple of incarnations of the Defunkt Big Band which featured: Howard Johnson, Craig Harris, John Stubblefield, Oliver Lake, Jack Jeffers, Marty Erlich, Gene Lake, Clifford Adams, Chulo Gatewood, Ray Anderson, and James Carter.
Influences
Lester Bowie, Byron Bowie, Oliver Lake, Hammiet Bluiet, David Hines, Black Artists Group of St. Louis, The AACM (Chicago), Frank Lowe, Leroy Jenkins, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong James Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire, Sly Stone, Muddy Waters,Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Bar-Kays, Jimi Hendrix, Slide Hampton, J.J. Johnson, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Buddy Miles, Stanley Clarke, Mahavishnu Orchestra, George Clinton (Funkadelic), Jack DeJohnette, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Beethoven, the Ojays, Stevie Wonder, Areatha Franklin, Supremes, Everybody in Bebop, Motown, Stax young and old.
Sounds Like
An infusion of various styles which became the hallmark of current bands to follow:ie Fishbone and Red Hot CHilli Peppers
Defunkt preceeded the careers of Boy George and Sade with whom they shared bills and opened for a heretofore all male PRINCE aggregation.
For a video of the earliest days of Defunkt click hereMake Them Dance featuring: Joe Bowie ,Byron Bowie,Kelvyn Bell, Melvin Gibbs, Ronnie Burrage and Ayodele Maakheru
Rickey Vincent: On Defunkt
* DEFUNKT is most definitely an EXPERIENCE!
Do NOT sleep on these mugs, especially if you're a musician.
(this is long, just a warning to those who ain't into this)
* The shit they did in 1980-83, ripping apart jazz and funk boundaries was a TOTAL transformation toward what REAL JAZZ could have been in the 80's, in my strung out opinion.
I REALLY thought Defunkt WAS the next stage in street-smart jazz from the 70's to the 80's: a rugged, ragged, musically intense, energetic, propulsive and ferociously funky set...
A big band horn section, ripping electric guitar, driving, high speed drums & rhythm guitars, and sly and slick blues drenched vocals...yum yum
If you listen to that early 80's Miles Davis, where he tries to get into some spastic funk/jazz with a nasty edge, and basically leaves you unsatisfied...DEFUNKT gets you all the way there...
What Miles was trying to do, Defunkt was doing...What Kelvynator was trying to do, Defunkt had it down...I have an Ornette Coleman album from around 1980, with a stanky electric bass guitarist underneath Ornette's horn...seriously trippy funk...for my money, even Ornette was working toward what Defunkt had mastered...
* Anyone bug on James Blood Ulmer's hysterical early 80's speed-metal-jazz-funk tracks? Well, Defunkt does that, and it actually sounds good! Featuring Vernon Reid on their second lp "Thermonuclear Sweat", they had an edge no one was in their league with, IMO
I remember about this time Weather Report came out with this album around 1983 called "Domino Theory" with a *singer* laying out a song called "Can it Be Done?" That was actually a cool song, but it kind of reflected the demise of so much of the creative jazz-fusion era...
* the lyrics went something like this:
Can it be done
Is there one, melody
that's never been played
How does it sound, can it be found
that new song
That's never been in the air...
* This also came out around the time Prince was getting heat for his line on "Lady Cab Driver" where he says "It's Time for jazz to die..."
* And young hip hoppers by 1985 were dropping science that hip hop has more relevance to the street than jazz...
* To me Defunkt WAS that missing music, that living jazz, that street smart sheet that took skiiiilzz to play and cooked...
* So even though they were unknown, unnoticed and morphed into a hollow shell of their original selves, I was a true and TOTAL Defunkt fan...all by myself out here in Cali, it seemed.
* The Defunkt that totally took me over was their first lp, self-titled "DEFUNKT", on Hannibal, and available on CD from amazon.com last I checked. This has the original version of "Strangling Me With Your Love" and their twisted version of Chic's "In the Good Times" and some way out other shit, like the song "Defunkt" with these lyrics:
I want to scream, but I gotta keep quiet
to get close enough to tell you that
the way you look at me
is what's keeping me silent
I live for you, but you wan't me to drop dead...
* The anthology also cooks, because it just takes from the first 2 lp's, adds some live cuts, and a very ill 12" single they did.
* But if you can get your hands on their first 2 albums, "Defunkt" and/or "Thermonuclear Sweat" then you're in for the real deal.
* Any FUNK musician who's moved past the 'greatest hits' of funk stage needs to sniff these cats....
Dont trip off of their shit after 1988...they just flipped their lineup like the cast of New York Undercover and went under...
* Word is their live act gets BUSY, and you should't miss what the founder (Joe Bowie I think) has reinvented the band into ... if I was in NY I'd be at their shows and telling you how they sounded... ***************************
NEW VIDEOS DEFUNKT HIT ME /REFUSE TO LOVE
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LEILA ADU has been described as 'A Nina Simone for the Noughties', and her two acclaimed albums infuse a broadly 'art-rock' approach with elements of torch song, speakeasy blues, avant garde jazz, gamelan, post-rock textures, and a David Lynch style dreamlike b-movie melodrama. As her website has it, exploring the "dissonant edges of familiar forms", but with that kind of 'dissonance' that they once accused Thelonious Monk or Debussy of, the kind that soon betrays it's own compelling melodic and harmonic logic to the attentive listener...
'Dark Joan', Leila's third album as a solo artist, was recorded in Chicago with the legendary Steve Albini (PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsome, Nirvana, Pixies), and Albini's genius has been to strip her sound back to it's essence, and hold it's most distinctive qualities up to the light. It doesn't hurt that this is by far Leila's most powerful set of songs to date, and if anything we are lead even deeper into her world by the pictures painted with just piano (or in some cases harpsichord or a grime-encrusted electric piano) and that voice...
Capable of anything from delicate heartbreaking purity to a fearsome dramatic power, her powers are seemingly limitless, yet unlike most other singers of her calibre, never does she resort to melodrama or show-boating, or any kind of pastiche, instead she employs her resources fully in the expression of her distinctive musical vision and the deep well-spring of her imagination. Nothing ever sounds as though it could have not been sung...
WHO DOESNT DANCE IT HOLDS THE CHILD
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