Soul Power: "Lost" '74 Concert Film with James Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners Screens at the IFC Center on Aug. 2nd

This footage sat in the vaults for over thirty years due to legal disputes and was assembled as a labor of love by When We Were Kings editor Jeffrey Levy-Hinte. The film Soul Power chronicles the Zaire '74 concert with James Brown, Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, and others that took place alongside the Ali / Foreman fight documented in When We Were Kings.

Zaire ‘74 was the brainchild of South African musician Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine, a three-day music festival that took place in Kinshasa in 1974. The event assembled America’s biggest rhythm and blues talents – including James Brown and the Mighty JBs, Bill Withers, B.B. King, and the Spinners – along with top African acts such as Miriam Makeba and Afrisa. The festival was held in conjunction with the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.” The promoters hired a team of esteemed documentary cameramen to film everything, including street life in Kinshasa and behind-the-scenes footage of the show being assembled. And then the footage sat unedited for over thirty years.

The festival and film were financed by a Liberian investment group that became mired in legal disputes. Eventually, the rights were settled to facilitate the completion of the 1996 film When We Were Kings, which focused on the Ali-Foreman fight, and it won an Academy Award®. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte was an editor on that project, and recognized that another film about the twelve-hour concert was waiting to be made. With Soul Power, he finally brings this work to fruition. None of the footage has ever been seen, including new sections with Ali. The film plays like a time capsule, with no contemporary interviews to interrupt its cinéma-verité sensibility.



This one-time showing on August 2nd features a Q&A with director Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte. Tickets are $16 and the show starts at 8PM. The IFC Center is located at 323 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10014

Links:
Soul Power

Hollis Brown - "When The Weather's Warm" CD EP Review // Release Show at Brooklyn Bowl on Feb. 26th

DOWNLOAD: Hollis Brown - "Doghouse Blues"

NYC quartet Hollis Brown has been playing around town for the last three-four years but I've never had an opportunity to hear what they sound like prior to receiving a copy of the band's forthcoming EP "When The Weather's Warm". A number of reviews that I've read over the last few years have compared Hollis Brown to The Black Crowes (which I don't hear at all) but I would suggest a better comparison is the bastard child of John Fogerty and the MC5 (if you can image such a combination) with a little bit of Del Shannon thrown in on the side.

"When The Weather's Warm" is a gritty, blues-drenched slab of old-school rock that doesn't require visual props like bell-bottoms and feathered boas to prove its authenticity. Hollis Brown embraces a variety of styles and tempos across this 16-minute/five tracks EP, all the while staying true to its blues-rock core. The disc's lead-off track "Doghouse Days" comes on like early MC5, back in the day when they were playing James Brown medleys. Both "Miracle" and "Down On Your Luck" sounds like tracks that easily could have been part of John Fogerty playbook. Continuing to mix things up though, "Hey Baby, Shake Mama" sounds like the sort of thing Led Zeppelin was playing on their first post-Yardbirds tour but with a more relaxed vibe.



Hollis Brown are playing a CD Release Show at Brooklyn Bowl on Feb. 26th. Tickets are $5 and there will be a special guest appearance from DMC (of Run DMC) who recently finished a new single ("The Fly") with Hollis Brown that will be released as a limited edition 7" in the Spring.

Links:
Hollis Brown

Abraham Inc. Combine Klezmer with Funk // Debut CD "Tweet Tweet" Released Earlier This Year

STREAM: Abraham Inc - NPR's "All Things Considered"

01 Tweet-Tweet by Abraham Inc.

Abraham Inc.'s disc Tweet Tweet was released earlier this year but I had a friend who just turned me on to the band.

With Abraham Inc., klezmer clarinet virtuoso David Krakauer collaborates with one of the great masters of funk, trombonist Fred Wesley (known for his work with James Brown, Bootsy Collins and Parliament Funkadelic), and beat architect SoCalled. Add a three-piece horn section led by Wesley and members of Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness! band and the result is an all-out klezmer-funk dance party! A sold out concert at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in December 2006 marked the first step in this collaborative venture which was also a hit at Transmusical de Rennes – one of the largest rock festivals in Europe, where it met with a resounding response from the crowds and a rave review in Le Monde. Abraham Inc. then brought down the house at the historic Apollo Theater in May 2008 with a performance that had the crowd dancing in the aisles.



While I don't want to mentally acknowledge just yet that the madness of another holiday season is almost on us (I've heard the Xmas trees have already been set up in Rockefeller Plaza), Tweet Tweet is already on the holiday gift list for a few music-lover friends. I don't think that I've heard any band connect such seemingly disparate styles into such a cohesive unit since the days of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.

Links:
Abraham Inc.

Rock/Funk Band KiNDERGARTEN Play Rockwood Music Hall on March 4th

DOWNLOAD: KiNDERGARTEN - "Man on the Stairs"
DOWNLOAD: KiNDERGARTEN - "Just a Little (Shook)"

Earlier this month, rock/funk band KiNDERGARTEN released their second disc, Small (click the band's photo to go to iTunes). The band is playing a free show next Thursday night, March 4th, at Rockwood Music Hall. The show is 21+ and KiNDERGARTEN go on at 10PM.

Small, which is the follow-up to KiNDERGARTEN’s debut album River of Slime (2007), is a collection of 12 hook-heavy songs that the band has been performing live for at about a year prior their recording. The lyrics focus on dark themes relating to the end of the world, the growing role of machines in our society, and the recession. This isn't as dark as it sounds though as KiNDERGARTEN mixes ‘70s funk and ‘80s rock with influences that range from Lou Reed and David Bowie to Earth Wind and Fire and Michael Jackson. There is a review of the new disc posted to iTunes where the reviewer says "This album is going to be classic...I've danced, smiled, cried and at least once got pretty scared while listening".

Links:
KiNDERGARTEN

James Brown In the 60's- I Got This Feelin' DVD Review

New box sets (both CD and DVD) have recently hit the market to coincide with the Christmas shopping season so I wanted to take a look at some of the more recent releases.

James Brown In the 60's is a strong winner that is facinating from both a musical and a historical perspective.

The first disc in this three disc set is the director's cut of the film "The Night James Brown Saved Boston". The film premiered this year at SXSW and is a fascinating look at the role that Brown played in the civil rights movement and the aftermath of the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The film combines performance footage with personal narrative from Dr. Andrew Young, former Boston mayor Kevin White, Rev. Al Sharpton and many others. The primary focus of the film is lead-up to and the concert that James gave in Boston the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

The film goes on to cover James' fight "for the Black America...to become American" and his adoption of MLK's message of non-violence. The film touches on some of the benefit shows that James played after Boston (he played Washington, D.C. at the the request of President Johnson) and his message was "learn, don't burn" and that violence "wasn't the way to go". On a personal level, I don't think that I realized that James Brown was such a voice for the previous generation. The film wraps up by touching on James' work in the 70's, which included co-hosting the Mike Douglas show and writing the Black Power anthem, "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud".

The second disc, "James Brown Live at The Boston Garden", is the actual concert, which was broadcasted live that night on Boston PBS station WGBH. The first disc in this set describes Mayor White's plan to broadcast the concert live in an attempt to keep people off the streets. This plan was evidently so successful that WGBH aired the concert a second time that night.

James plays a high energy set and, toward the end of the set, members of the audience start climbing on stage. It is somewhat amazing to watch James' control of a potentially high-tension situation. After the police toss one person off the stage, James waves the police off and says that he will handle it. He successfully negotiated (not by pleeding, but as a generation spokesman) with the crowd to climb back down and let him finish the show.

Some of the bonus content on this disc include audio from the radio simulcast of the concert and an interview with WGBH’s Director and Producer of the concert (who mentions that he had never been to a rock concert prior to the James Brown show).

The final disc is "James Brown Live at The Apollo '68". This show was filmed in color and was originally aired on TV as "James Brown: Man To Man". It compiled from a series of shows that James performed at the Apollo in March '68. The set starts a bit slower than the show at the Boston Garden as James performs the first two numbers, "If I Ruled The World" and "That's Life", seated. He then gets on his feet and the tempo of the set picks up with "Kansas City". The show ends strong with a lengthly medley of "Cold Sweat/Maybe The Last Time/I Got You (I Fell Good)/Please, Please, Please/I Can't Stand Myself."

The real gems on this disc are the bonus tracks which include "Out of Sight" (from The T.A.M.I Show), "I Got You (I Feel Good)" (from Paris, 1968) and "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World" (from Paris, 1969).

Click on the DVD cover to go over to Amazon where this set is on sale for $34.99.

Never Let Death Get In The Way of Profit (...or Exploiting James Brown)

Anyone who has been to a show at BB King's should recognize the card on the left. These are free giveaway "postcards" that BB King's uses to promote the higher profile shows at the club. These cards have just started turning up on eBay and are selling for $10 (or more) each.

It is pretty sad that the man hasn't been gone more than a few days and the profiters are already out.