Prestige's last great thrash

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It was 1972. Bob Weinstock had sold Prestige to Fantasy. Bob Porter, who had been producing great Soul Jazz albums up to October 1971, had left the company, for what reason I don't know. Fantasy turned to Ozzie Cadena to continue what Bob had left (but also allowed Charles Earland to produce his own albums). And, een though Ozzie was using musicians who had been introduced at Prestige under Bob Porter, there was a difference.

One interesting thing about these albums is that comparatively few were reissued on CD in the US by Fantasy; though most of the others were issued on CD in Britain by Ace.

These are the albums Ozzie produced between February 1972 and July 1973. (Ozzie produced other albums for Prestige, but I'm only talking about the Soul Jazz albums he made.)

10039 Mel Sparks - Akilah (Feb 1973)

This has Leon Spencer and Idris Muhammad with Buddy Caldwell as the rhythm section, with a horn section including Virgil Jones, Frank Wess, Ernie Royal, George Coleman, Dave Hubbard, Hubert Laws and Sonny Fortune, who's the main horn soloist. Arrangements are by Billy ver Planck and much better than the ones he did for later albums. Standout cut is Kool & the Gang's "Love the life you live". Only CD issue is in Britain.

10042 Leon Spencer - Bad walkin' woman (Feb 1972 & Mar/Apr 1972)

Some of this sounds was done the day after the "Akilah" session, with Dave Hubbard as the main horn man on "Hip Shaker" and the title track. "Down on Dowling street", a great groove is just by the Mod Squad - Spencer, Sparks & Idris - about the only recording they made as a trio, I think. String sections are added to the other tracks and they sound OK. These are much more relaxed numbers anyway. No CD issue that I know of.

10043 Funk Inc - Chicken lickin' (Mar 1972)

Funk Inc's second LP and, in my view, better than their first. Very, very sharp arrangements. And a wonderful Steve Weakley solo on "They trying to get me". Only on CD in Britain.

10044 Houston Person - Broken windows, empty hallways (May 1972)

This one is kinda duff. Too much Billy ver Planck in my view. They should have stuck to Horace Ott. This has been reissued in US on the CD of the same name.

10048 Sonny Stitt - Goin' down slow (Feb 1972)

Well, I really like this one. Thad Jones did the strings and horns arrangement for the 14 minute lead track, which I find a very interesting thing to listen to. Picking Billy Butler for this date is an inspired choice; he's not really the right guitarist for Sonny (he's a bit of a drag on "Soul electricity) but here he's got exactly the right sound. This has been reissued in US on the CD of the same name.

10053 Rusty Bryant - Friday night funk for Saturday night brothers (Jul 1972)

The first one (I think) to come out with Fantasy's new energy crisis thin pressings. Every track on this is a gem. And, though it doesn't say so anywhere, this must have been Rusty's regular band. (Kenneth Moss also recorded on Groove Holmes' "Dancing in the sun" on Versatile.)

10054 Maynard Parker - Midnight rider (Nov 1972 & Feb 1973)

Parker was Charles Earland's guitarist, featured on "Black drops", "Livin' black", "Soul story", "Intensity", "Charles III" and "Lighthouse". I would have liked fewer, longer tracks; the longest is 6:05. In particular, his extraordinary themeless version of "Freedom jazz dance" is only 2:50. But this is a quibble. There's real stuff on this LP, which has never been out on CD.

10055 Houston Person - Sweet buns & barbecue (Sep & Nov 1972)

This is a LOT better than "Broken windows". Ver Planck only arranged three tracks and they're all good - Jr Walker's "Groove thang" sounds great. But the best cuts are the ones with a small group - Tee, Joe Beck, McCracken, Ron Carter, & Grady Tate. Carter holds down the title track amazingly well. This has been released on CD in the US on the "Broken windows" CD.

10056 Boogaloo Joe Jones - Snake rhythm rock (Nov 1972)

Another cast iron classic! Rusty Bryant (as, ts), Butch Cornell (org), Jimmy Lewis (b), Grady Tate (d). And each track is a brilliant example of what it is. Two very tight funk numbers lead off - "Hoochie coo chickie" and the title cut - and are follwed by a very quiet and emotional version of "First time ever I saw your face". Side 2 has a revival of the Chiffons' "He's so fine" - who remembers that? but it SWINGS here, most mightily. Then there's a nine minute blues, "Big bad midnight roller". Phew. This was issued on a twofer CD in GB by Ace.

10058 Gene Ammons - Got my own (Oct & Nov 1972)

Oh well, there are some mistakes on this. In particular, selecting Neil Diamond's "Play me" and Michael Jackson's "Ben" for an album intended to cash in on the Billie Holiday biopic and putting them on the same vinyl as "Strange fruit", "Fine & Mellow" and "God bless the child". The rest is better than OK though. And "Tin shack out back" is a very fine cut featuring Sonny Phillips on organ, while "Strange fruit", accompanied only by Hank Jones and Ron Carter, is wonderful. It's reissued on "Fine & Mellow" in the US.

10059 Funk Inc - Hangin' out (Dec 1972)

Probably Funk Inc's best album. Lead cut is a ripoff of Jack McDuff's "Snap back Jack" (or another McDuff tune from "Do it now", I always forget) but burns so much more than Jack's. "Give me your love" has another incredible solo from Steve Weakley and I wonder what happened to HIM? This has only been issued on CD on a twofer in GB by Ace (coupled with the not so good "Superfunk").

10063 Leon Spencer - Where I'm comin' from (Feb 1972 & Jan 1973)

Another KILLER! Title track is from the "Bad walkin' woman" session. Most of the rest features a similar horn section to "Akilah" with arrangements by Ed Bogas (conducted by Frank Wess!). Every track leaps and burns! Never on CD.

10070 Gene Ammons - Big bad Jug (Oct & Nov 1972)

Done at the same sessions as "Got my own", this is much better. No strings. No crummy tunes. Some fantastic grooving, particularly on the title track and "Papa was a rollin' stone". And I LURVE Jug's version of Harold Vick's "Lucille". This is also on "Fine & mellow". The tracks are arranged back into session order, which in this case, I like a lot. The three with strings are up first, so you can just start the CD at track 4

10072 Boogaloo Joe Jones - Black whip (Jul 1973)

This is only slightly inferior to "Snake rhythm rock", largely because of the inclusion of a calypso version of Elton John's "Daniel" and McCartney's "My love". They're OK, but but don't grab like the cuts on the previous LP. "Crank me up" and Freak off" and "Black whip" are total burners, though, with Dave Hubbard wailin'! On the same UK twofer as "Snake rhythm rock".

10073 Rusty Bryant - For the good times (Mar 1973)

Hm, not so good, but there are a few moments - a slow grind version of "Night in Tunisia" is very effective.

In addition, Ozzie collaborated with Ray Shanklin on

10040 Gene Ammons - Free again (Mar 1972)

I think what happened here is that Jug and the rhythm section cut stuff in Van Gelder's and then big band arrangements by Bobby Bryant were added on the west coast. The arrangements are too brittle. But the album includes one of Jug's most incredible solos ever on the title cut. I would LOVE to hear this without the overdubs.

Dinner time. Discussion can follow.

MG

[Hot Ptah]

Thanks so much, MG! I have several of these on my "to get" list after reading your descriptions.

[Soul Stream]

Included in that list are some of my favorite recordings of all time. Thanks Ozzie!

[ejp626]

So you think in about 15 years, we can have an 8-CD set from Lonehill called the Cadena Collection?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The most striking thing about the sixteen LPs I listed above is that only six of them were ever issued in the US on CD by Fantasy. And four of those, with the exception of "Big bad Jug" and "Sweet buns", were the least of the bunch. Not that they were bad, but there were unsatisfactory aspects to them. The others must have had sales potential, because Ace issued six of the ones Fantasy didn't bother with in Britain; in Britain only - these weren't joint efforts with Bernard Mikulski or ZYX with the aim of covering Europe, they were expected to make money on the basis of British sales alone. I think Fantasy dropped a commercial brick on these. And the result, which I hadn't realised before, is that probably few Americans are aware of these albums.

And it's too late now.

Oh well, to that. Ozzie brought in some new ideas - Billy ver Planck; strings and horns - which Bob Porter wouldn't have done. He also introduced some different types of material. Leon Russell, Neil Diamond, Randy Newman, Kris Kristofferson, Elton John, Greg Allman, Paul McCartney, Dory Previn, Jerry Jeff Walker and so on all get their names in the composer credits. This was a far cry from the pretty well exclusive diet of popular black music that had been utilised under Porter. And of course, some black pop music did continue to get into the albums; Johnny Nash, Curtis Mayfield, Whitfield/Strong, Smokey Robinson, Barbara Acklin, War, Gaye, Wonder, Sly, Kool and Holland-Dozier-Holland all get tunes in there.

He also must have had a chat with Rudy Van Gelder, because many of these albums sound a little bit different from earlier Prestige recordings in this vein. They sound slightly cleaner and crisper to me.

Now the question is, were these Ozzie's ideas or was he under instructions from Fantasy to include all this popular white material? I suspect that might have been the case; Fantasy was now big in the white pop music market with Creedence. Maybe they hoped that inclusion of familiar pop tunes would help these artists cross over. If so, it didn't work - not even slightly. The only Prestige album that got onto the pop LP chart after Earland's "Livin' black" was Patrice Rushen's "Shout it out" in 1977. Even worse, from a commercial point of view, the two Ozzie-produced LPs by Funk Inc were the only ones Funk Inc made that didn't get into the R&B LP charts; as soon as David Axelrod took them on, they were back in the R&B charts. And none of Ozzie's other Soul Jazz LPs made the R&B LP charts either.

This was a big change from the Bob Porter days. The firm must have seemed a good commercial thing to Fantasy (as well, of course, as having that fantastic catalogue): Prestige had three R&B chart entries in 1970 (plus one on the pop chart - "The boss is back"); four in 1971; and three in 1972 (all Bob Porter jobs). This was pretty well half of all the hit albums Prestige ever had, before or after. Thinking about this now, it occurs to me to wonder if Ozzie's lack of commercial success isn't the reason these albums were neglected for CD issue by Fantasy - after all, it was a company with a long memory.

And yet... most of this stuff is fantastic. Incredible grooves. Real playing. Great feeling in the music. And the Acid Jazz crowd in Britain (rightly) lapped it up in the eighties and nineties. Prices of this stuff on vinyl got rather high.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

So you think in about 15 years, we can have an 8-CD set from Lonehill called the Cadena Collection?

Yay!

MG

[Jazzjet]

Thanks MG for this knowledgeable outline. I love this kind of music, much of which has been looked down on by critics and others for too long.

Broadening it out a bit, what would you say are the top 5 ( or 10 ) Prestige soul jazz albums? ( I guess Rusty Bryant has to be in there somewhere ).

[kh1958]

I only have Melvin Sparks Akilah and Houston Person Broken Windows on LP. All the rest are unfamiliar.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks MG for this knowledgeable outline. I love this kind of music, much of which has been looked down on by critics and others for too long.

Broadening it out a bit, what would you say are the top 5 ( or 10 ) Prestige soul jazz albums? ( I guess Rusty Bryant has to be in there somewhere ).

Try this list.

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=42970

Funny, "Friday night funk" isn't in there. Can't get everything in every time. But there are 17 other Prestige albums.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've had a few thoughts about why none of these Ozzie albums were successful in the R&B arena. I thought it had something to do with track placement. Someone - and I must assume that it was Ozzie - was putting the wrong stuff at track 1 side 1. So, if you were a radio DJ on a black AM station in 1972/73, what hits you first when you audition an album, is

10039 Mel Sparks - Akilah (Feb 1973) "Love the life you live" (great start)

10042 Leon Spencer - Bad walkin' woman (Feb 1972 & Mar/Apr 1972) "Hip shaker" (great start)

10043 Funk Inc - Chicken lickin' (Mar 1972) "Chicken lickin'" (great start)

10044 Houston Person - Broken windows, empty hallways (May 1972) "I think it's going to rain today" (slow start)

10048 Sonny Stitt - Goin' down slow (Feb 1972) "Miss Ann, Lisa, Sue & Sadie" (14 minute cut? get off!)

10053 Rusty Bryant - Friday night funk for Saturday night brothers (Jul 1972) "Friday night funk" (great start)

10054 Maynard Parker - Midnight rider (Nov 1972 & Feb 1973) "The world is a ghetto" (slow start)

10055 Houston Person - Sweet buns & barbecue (Sep & Nov 1972) "A song for you" (slow start)

10056 Boogaloo Joe Jones - Snake rhythm rock (Nov 1972) "Hoochie coo chickie" (great start)

10058 Gene Ammons - Got my own (Oct & Nov 1972) "Lady sings the blues" (poor start)

10059 Funk Inc - Hangin' out (Dec 1972) "Smokin' at Tiffany's" (great start)

10063 Leon Spencer - Where I'm comin' from (Feb 1972 & Jan 1973) "Superstition" (great start)

10070 Gene Ammons - Big bad Jug (Oct & Nov 1972) "Lady mama" (not killer track)

10072 Boogaloo Joe Jones - Black whip (Jul 1973) "Black whip" (great start)

10073 Rusty Bryant - For the good times (Mar 1973) "For the good times" (slow start)

So that doesn't look right. Most of the stuff that you'd expect to have most commercial potential DOES lead off with a great cut. Am I taking too simplistic a view of this?

MG

[captainwrong]

Y'know, I have Bad Walkin' Woman. Found the cover years before I finally found a record to put in it. And I still haven't listened to it. Maybe I should.

[danasgoodstuff]

Thanks indeed for the intelligentl blow-by-blow of material that usually just gets blanket dismissal (jazz critics) or unthinking adoration (Dusty Groove)...