Charles Earland

Charles Earland - Slammin' And Jammin' (1998) {Savant SCD 2008 rec 1997}
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© 1998 Savant Records | SCD 2008
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz-Funk / Groove / Hammond B-3 Organ

In a year notable by the too-high incidence of jazz losses, Charles Earland quietly left this planet on Saturday, December 11, 1999. Known as the Mighty Burner for the intense way he commanded the Hammond B-3, the always working, too-heavy 58-year-old Earland made his departure via heart failure following one last performance in Kansas City.

In the late '60s, Earland became one of the stars on the B-3 organ and earned a classic with 1969's Black Talk. Like many organ players in the '70s, Earland moved over to the Fender Rhodes, the Mini-Moog, and the ARP string synthesizer with mixed results. This 1977 album is the follow-up to 1976's Odyssey. While Earland's skills are never in question here, the execution and the style are the problems here. Although many players legitimately started to do more material pertaining to the universal, even zodiacal concerns, by this time it was becoming old hat. The title track is symptomatic of Earland's the more pensive direction and even emotive Gabor Szabo's guitar solo; can't save the "deepness" from being cloying. Of course with albums of the type, the biggest success comes when the artist isn't really trying.

Even if the performances on Intensity weren't excellent, this Charles Earland session would be required listening for jazz historians because it marked the last recorded documentation of Lee Morgan. Only two days after Intensity was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's famous New Jersey studio on February 17, 1972, the influential trumpeter was shot and killed by a girlfriend at the age of 33. Refusing to confine himself to hard bop, Morgan was exploring soul-jazz and fusion during the last years of his life – and his enthusiasm for soul-jazz is hard to miss on Earland's funky "'Cause I Love Her" as well as inventive interpretations of Chicago's "Happy 'Cause I'm Goin' Home" and the Shirelles' "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow."

Charles Earland - Black Talk! (1969) {RVG Prestige PRCD-30082-2 rel 2006}
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© 1969, 2006 Concord / Prestige | PRCD-30082-2 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Organ

A pivotal album in the development of the use of the Hammond organ in jazz – and Charles Earland's first exposure to a large audience! Durign the 60s, Charles was bumping around the Philly scene quite a bit – and recorded some small group indie sides that first gave a glimpse of his unique sound on the organ. But with this record, Earland really broke out wide – and hit a huge audience that made him one of the most in-demand players of the early 70s!

The Blackbyrds & Charles Earland - At The Movies (1973-75) {Prestige PRCD-24255-2 rel 2001}
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© 1973-75, 2001 Prestige / Fantasy | PRCD-24255-2
Jazz / Funk / Jazz Funk / Soul / Groove / Blaxploitation

This single-CD reissue pairs two blaxploitation soundtracks by different artists: 1975's Cornbread, Earl and Me, composed by Donald Byrd and performed by the Blackbyrds, and 1973's The Dynamite Brothers, composed and performed by Charles Earland. Cornbread, Earl and Me, which featured the movie debut of Larry Fishburne, is serviceable, routine soul-jazz background film music, varying between funk-jazz-rock vamps (such as the Sly Stone-styled instrumental workout "The One-Eye Two-Step"), snazzy jazzy bits for action scenes, and sentimental orchestrated interludes. There are also occasional vocal numbers in a pedestrian mid-'70s soul-jazz-rock mode, such as "The Cornbread Theme."

Although Funk Fantastique is a somewhat thrown-together affair, the music presented on the album represents solid work by organist/keyboardist Charles Earland and company. The material at the center of the album (tracks four through seven) was originally released as Charles III in 1972, and the surrounding tracks are previously unreleased. Since the unreleased material comes from two different sessions, three different ensembles grace Funk Fantastique.

Charles Earland - In Concert: At The Montreux Jazz Festival and The Lighthouse (1972-1974) {Pestige PRCD-24267-2 rel 2002}
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© 1972-74, 2002 Prestige / Fantasy | PRCD-24267-2
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Organ Hammond B-3

This two-fer CD pairs 1972's Live at the Lighthouse with the less impressive, though still worthy, 1974 album Kharma, which was recorded at that year's Montreux Jazz Festival. As the head of a sextet on Live at the Lighthouse, Earland spearheaded some first-class soul-jazz, which integrated some funk and rock of the early '70s without sounding like a watered-down cocktail of all those styles (as many other soul-jazz-pop albums of the time did). The horn section of James Vass on sax and Elmer Coles on trumpet leaned more toward soul than jazz, as heard on the opening instrumental cover of Sly & the Family Stone's "Smilin'." The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" wasn't the greatest tune to attempt, though Earland gamely put it into a boppish swing arrangement.

Charles Earland - Leaving This Planet (1974) {1993 Prestige Remaster} (ft. Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson)
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© 1993 Prestige / Fantasy | PRCD-66002-2
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Hammond

A definite departure from the type of earthy, groove-oriented soul-jazz he usually embraced, Leaving This Planet is perhaps Charles Earland's most ambitous album – not necessarily his best, but certainly his most surprising. Responding to the fusion revolution, Earland plays keyboards and various synthesizers in addition to his usual Hammond B-3 organ and thrives in a very electric setting. The album (reissued on a 79-minute CD in 1993) isn't fusion in the same sense as Miles Davis, Larry Coryell or Weather Report – rather, he incorporates funk and rock elements in a manner not unlike the early-'70s experiments of tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

Recorded in 1970 at the Key Club, Living Black! is notable for many reasons, not the least of which is that it showcased Earland in a live setting at his most inspired. From choosing his sidemen to material to reading the audience to pure instrumental execution, there isn't a weak moment on this date, nor a sedentary one. Earland makes the band roll on all burners from the git and never lets up. Consisting of four extended tunes, there's the burning rhythm and stomp of "Key Club Cookout," which blazes with wisdom and rhythm fire. Earland's own soloing is revelatory, but it is the way he drags absolutely unexpected performances from his sidemen that makes him so special as a bandleader. In this case, Grover Washington never played like this again on a record; deep in the soul groove on his tenor, he turned it inside out, looking for new embouchures in which to get the sounds out of the horn…