Material - Memory Serves (1981)

Material's avant-garde dance record: as fun and weird as that sounds. Laswell plays oddball funk basslines which anchor the songs as the other musicians experiment like crazy over the top. Said musicians manage to go avant-garde while maintaining a punk rock spirit, keeping Memory Serves unpretentious. I can hear the Captain Beefheart influence and also where guys like Mike Patton and Les Claypool listened excitedly. That may or may not be a bad thing to you.. I think it's awesome

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Roy Ayers - He's Coming (1971)

1. He's a Superstar 5:35

2. He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother 4:04

3. Ain't Got Time 2:53

4. I Don't Know How to Love Him 4:02

5. He's Coming 6:20

6. We Live in Brooklyn Baby 3:43

7. Sweet Butterfly of Love 1:52

8. Sweet Tears 3:32

9. Fire Weaver 3:40

He's Coming captures Roy Ayers at the absolute top of his game, masterminding jazz-funk grooves as taut as a tightrope. Profoundly inspired by the Broadway musical Jesus Christ Superstar (and including a reading of the soundtrack's "I Don't Know How to Love Him"), the album is a deeply felt exploration of Ayers' spiritual and social beliefs, celebrating the life and rebirth of Jesus with "He's a Superstar" and its follow-up title cut before delivering the equally impassioned political manifesto "Ain't Got Time to Be Tired," a wake-up call for slumbering revolutionaries. Aided by an exemplary backing unit featuring saxophonist Sonny Fortune, bassist John Williams, keyboardist Harry Whitaker, and drummer Billy Cobham, Ayers channels the intensity of his message into his music, creating the most vibrant and textured music of his career to date. The atmospheric "We Live in Brooklyn, Baby" is an absolute masterpiece, a haunting hybrid of jazz, funk, and soul that exemplifies the Ayers aesthetic at its most far-reaching and inventive.
-AMG

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