Funky Synthesizers

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man - Head Hunters (Columbia 1973)


Les McCann - The Harlem Buck Dance Strut - Layers (Rhino 1972)


Yesterday's New Quintet - Sun Goddess - Angles Without Edges (Stones Throw 2001)





I'm not sure where my obsession with keyboards really started. Watching someone play the piano has had an entrancing effect on me for as long as I could remember. Maybe because I have never been able to master the instrument, hell, I've never even reached the novice level. Sure, I know the keys and the theory behind it, but as far as being able to play an actual song, I am hopeless. My hands seem to share the same frame of mind and refuse to move in seperate rhythms of one another; which also has been the downfall of my ficticious percussive career. While at USC, I recorded countless classical solo piano recitals which exposed me to the many possibilities of a musical mind paired with cooperating hands. Watching someone play a 20-minute composition from memory is absolutely mind-boggling to me, not to mention being able to create the harmonious and overlapping layers of sound that come from an echoing grand piano. As I dived further into jazz and funk, I found myself naturally attracted to the funkier keyboads and synthesizers like the Hammond B3, the Fender rhodes, the Hohner clavinet and even David Axelrod's repetitive use of the harpsichord. Today I own a slew of 3 and 4 dollar used records from Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack MacDuff, etc. just because I know that while they are far from the most groundbreaking albums you can find, they feature my favorite instrument and the music is always on point. Today I included three of my favorite funky synthesizer tracks, because on top of having all the attractive qualities of a keyboard, they also are able to create an infinite number of variations and manipulations of sound adding a whole other layer of color the artist is able paint with.

It is impossible to talk about synthesizers within jazz and funk without starting with Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters, the best selling jazz album of all time at one point. By 1973, the 33-year-old Hancock was well revered in the jazz communities after blossoming under the likes of Donald Byrd and Miles Davis and had experience playing everything from avant-garde to modern classical on any instrument controlled by a keyboard. The studied engineer and tech-head was one of the earlier supporters of electronic synthesizers and realized the possibilities within them. Inspired from the funk of Sly Stone and Curtis Mayfield, he left his avant leanings aside and dove right into creating the all mighty groove. It goes without saying that he was abundantly successful and really helped catalyze the burgeoning soul-jazz and jazz-funk movements of the 70s. The track I included, 'Watermelon Man,' was written by Hancock more than 10 years before its inclusion on Head Hunters and appears with a very exotic, almost Brazilian tint to it.

For me, Les McCann is either hit or miss. Albums like Layers and Swiss Movement (recorded with Eddie Harris) are included among my personal all-time favorites, but a very large chunk of his discography to me comes off as straight cheese. I included a track from 'Layers' for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a truely groundbreaking album; not only was it the very first album to be recorded on 32 tracks, but it also features the newly conceived (at the time) ARP synthesizer and was one of the first jazz albums with a heavily electronic concentration. It's astounding to hear the harmonic layers produced by McCann's nearly one-man-show (hence the title), and the range of emotions he evokes throughout it's 45 minute duration. I chose the funkiest track because it fit my motif the best, but the album is as much jazz as funk and is really in my opinion a must have for jazz and funk fans alike.

Albums like 'Layers' and 'Head Hunters' are few and far between, if not completely extinct, but thankfully there are artists like Madlib (which include... well actually, mostly just Madlib) who are able to reach back to create fresh new music. Yesterday's New Quintet features Monk Hughes, Ahmad Miller, Joe McDurfey and Malik Flowers, all of which are seperate mental manifestations of Madlib himself. Angles Without Edges, the first full-length to appear under the YNQ moniker is a seemless blend of 70s era jazz-funk and modern day instrumental hip-hop. And if you ask me, it easily holds up to a lot of the original albums to pioneer jazz-funk the sound. There has yet to be a proper full-length follow-up of original YNQ songs (though another moniker, Sound Directions, is sometimes considered YNQ), but there is also an excellent YNQ homage to Stevie Wonder called 'Stevie,' released in 2004 (also a Monk Hughes & the Outer Realm ode to Weldon Irvine). Thanks to Madlib, wondeful music like this lives on and continues to evolve in a day where popular music has been worn down to redundant templates and shallow cliches (for the most part).