In the mid-70s, Rap began by sampling from contemporary jazz, amongst other elements, and the beats came from Blue Note label stalwarts such as Donald Byrd and Lou Donaldson. The new three-CD set compiles 38 choice tracks.
In those halcyon 1970s nights, certain black folks did not feel the NY disco scene was theirs, finding a social alternative in so-called `block parties’ which began to cause a stir in Harlem and the Bronx. At such block parties, DJs like Cool Here and Afrika Bambaataa would use the 'breakdown part’ of recent Blue Note records from the late sixties and early seventies to make a new rhythmic groove. Conversely, Scratching arose from adept use of turntable and stylus on two copies of the same record, the momentum of the needle as it spun backwards creating the new sonic frisson. Of course, it wasn’t just about jazz as discerning disco and funk records also fed into the Block Party repertoires.
Later, the Blue Beat treasure trove was drawn on by the Chemical Brothers and various other acts who sampled from tracks that feature here (which Dean Rudland in his liner note admirably admits might well have been simply coincidence.)
Having begun with Rap, the net spread much wider. Mary J Blige and A Tribe Called Quest sampled Lou Donaldson’s Who’s Making Love. De La Soul sampled Lou Rawls’ You’ve Made Me So Very Happy, Kanye West sampled Donaldson’s take on Ode to Billie Jean.
On CD 1, you get that loping 12-bar blues style of jazz, a kind of staid funk, measured and unshowy enough to suit the frenetic embellishments of future sampling. CD 2 opens up much more, with the stream-lined jazz-funk of Eddie Henderson's The Kumquat Kids - just soak up that luxuriant strut - and Gene Harris's Higga-Boom, snappilly percussive and intent on danceability.
Occasionally things sway back to the more serendipitous kind of jazz that you might find on that other recent Blue Note compilation, Cool Cuts from the Tropics. Take Herbie Hancock's Olilioqui Valley, for instance, which concludes CD 1, a wonderfully sensuous piece, featuring great brush-work from Tony Williams, and brightly forging-ahead flugelhorn from Freddie Hubbard. You kind of wonder how it ended up in the selection in the first place. Some of the soul-inclined material on CD 3 - Donaldson's Ode to Billy Joe, Lou Rawls singing You've Made Me So Very Happy, Nancy Wilson's take Son of a Preacher Man - seems tired and hackneyed - some of us of a certain age are perhaps too dully familiar with these tunes. The first two CDs maybe are the real deal.
Paddy Kehoe
