Barry Finnerty

Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn (1981) [Japan MiniLP, DSD 2006] (SICP-1234)
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© 1981 Sony BMG | SICP-1234
Jazz / Jazz-Funk / Fusion / Post Bop

For Miles Davis, the six year layoff between the release of PANGAEA and THE MAN WITH THE HORN was marked by isolation, physical pain and dependency…a sense of inertia. At points on THE MAN WITH THE HORN you can hear him straining to get his chops back up, although ultimately, his musicianly instincts served him well during odd passages of rope-a-doping, and for every broken note there is a blast of vintage Miles.

THE MAN WITH THE HORN introduces yet another striking band, featuring future leaders such as reedman Bill Evans, guitarist Mike Stern, bassist Marcus Miller and drum innovator Al Foster. The opening "Fat Time" combines Miles' love for the flamenco airs and melodic gravity of Spain with a contemporary hard funk style. Evans and Stern act as virtuoso foils, a la Coltrane and Hendrix, the latter's influence apparent in Barry Finnerty's boiling clouds of distortion on "Back Seat Betty" (which settles into a coy, laid back blues vehicle for Miles' muted horn), and a rivetting "Aida," in which Miles reprises the rhythmic tumult of his mid-'70s band with dramatic give and take between his horn and a fiery guitar-driven vamp, as Al Foster thunders away underneath.

Pianist Joe Sample, who has had easily the most successful solo career of any of the Crusaders, recorded a series of melodic and lightly funky sets for MCA . Sample is joined by Dean Parks, Carlos Fearing, David T. Walker and/or Barry Finnerty on guitars, either Wilton Felder, Abraham Laboriel or Nathan East on bass, drummer Ndugu, percussionist Paulinho Da Costa and occasional synthesizers and strings.

Keyboardist Jun Fukamachi did this LP in 1978 on the Kitty label, personnel is Jun Fukamachi on keyboards, Richard Tee on piano, Gordon Edwards, Anthony Jackson and Tony Levin on bass, Steve Gadd, Howard King, Ponta s. Murakami and Chris Parker on drums, Cornell Dupree, Steve Khan, Barry Finnerty and Eric Gale on guitar, Ernie Watts and Lou Marini on sax, Randy Brecker on trumpet, Barry Rogers on trombone and Crusher Bennett on percussion.

Masabumi Kikuchi - Susto +2 (1981) {2016 Japan Crossover & Fusion Collection 1000 Series SICJ 169}
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© 1981, 2016 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICJ 169
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Funk / Keyboards

Reissue with the latest DSD remastering. Comes with liner notes. A great album of funky Japanese fusion – one of the few sets from the Japanese scene of the late 70s that got any sort of wider release in the US – and a treasure that we've loved for years! The set's got a really great sound – soulful and funky, but sharp too – in a lineup that features a variety of keyboards from Masabumi Kikuchi, plus work by Terumasa Hino on trumpet, Steve Grossman and Dave Liebman on saxes, and James Mason on guitar! The best cuts have a funky feel that's in the CTI/Kudu mode – perhaps mixed with a bit of Herbie Hancock keyboard jamming – and the album's a surprisingly lost funky gem in the Columbia catalog of the early 80s, with a much harder edge than some of the other work on the label at the time!

A massive bit of funky fusion from the 70s – an album that was crucially overlooked at the time, but which has gone onto become a crate-diggers classic over the years! The group's fronted by Polish jazz legends Michal Urbaniak and Urszula Dudziak – but it also features a fair bit of American players too – all working together in a blend of the best funky fusion modes going down in both the US and Eastern Europe in the mid 70s! Drums on the set are totally great.