CD Reviews

The Whitefield Brothers | In the Raw

Now-Again (2009)

By GUSTAVO TURNER | March 30, 2009

4.0 Stars

The key to any funk produced after the hip-hop revolution of the '80s is that it's deeply aware of the breakbeat. If the original funketeers opened up the arrangements to "give the drummer some" as a special courtesy, their descendants are all about the hypnotic, repetitive drumwork.

The good folks at Now-Again have done the world a favor by re-releasing this 2001 gem by Munich-born Afrobeat nuts Jan and Max Whitefield, a disc long out-of-print and impossible to find. An amazing tour through the best flavors of the soul-funk-jazz continuum, In the Raw offers in one tidy package the fuzz-drenched eroticism of "Prowlin'," the post-Miles brujería of "Witch Jam," and the glorious "Eji," a piece that updates the revered early-1970s Blue Note sides and takes a step beyond in the progression from Horace Silver to Mulatu Astatke.

Whether you decide to lose yourself in the groove of "Thunderbird" or luxuriate in several moments that feel like the Platonic ideal of the Deep Throat soundtrack, "this, my friend" (in the words of Howard Moon from The Mighty Boosh) "is jazz funk." And in the words of Vince from ShamWow, "You know the Germans always make good stuff." Bottom line: you really want to pick this one up.

Related: Nightwatch, Grupo Fantasma, Fat Worm of Error: Windsong On Our Own Mind, More

Nightwatch
Who's got the funk?
Grupo Fantasma
"When you come to our show, you gotta dance. You dance however you want to dance."
Fat Worm of Error: Windsong On Our Own Mind
The air downstairs at the Milky Way was a thick soup of body funk — the kind of stale coloration that a T-shirt stuck at the bottom of a pile of laundry tends to achieve after a few weeks.
Cornball bliss
Not until entering the Roxy a week ago Thursday did I comprehend what a normal kid feels the first time he sees a big-league ballpark.
Master of ceremony
As if Ash Wednesday weren't already the best party night of the year in Boston, George Clinton and his motley crew swung their tour bus through Lansdowne Street last night.
Super Furry Animals | Dark Days / Light Years
What better way to say hwyl! to this ponderous decade than with a hulking slab of psych jams from one of its most consistent and chameleonic bands?
Live! — sort of
The success of the Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" experiment augurs well for dance on the big screen. Simulcast at select theaters, with tickets priced higher than for a movie but much cheaper than for a live opera, these events generate a sense of anticipation.
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears | Scandalous
The soul revival has been going on long enough now that maybe it's a not a bad idea to stop calling it a revival at all.
Various Artists | Those Shocking, Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970–1978
I know what you're thinking: Is Those Shocking, Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970-1978 really as mind-bendingly, earth-shatteringly, consciousness-alteringly awesome as its title would suggest? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Philadanco brings the funk
The four pieces on Philadanco's program last weekend at the Institute of Contemporary Art had different accouterments — musical, scenic, philosophical — but they still looked very much alike.
Floating heavyweights
Club d'Elf, Julian Lage, Jérôme Sabbagh, and Michael Feinberg
Less

Topics: CD Reviews , Munich, Horace Silver, funk, More

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/15 ] "In Habitat," works by Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong @ Jamestown Arts Center

[ 02/15 ] Suzanne Vega @ Narrows Center for the Arts

[ 02/15 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

ARTICLES BY GUSTAVO TURNER

IAN KING | PANIC GRASS AND FEVER FEW | March 16, 2010
Just a few weeks after we reviewed the belated release of African Head Charge's latest, another, more recent gem from the always rewarding sonic laboratory of Adrian Sherwood arrives.

JOE CUBA | EL ALCALDE DEL BARRIO | March 09, 2010
Fania kicks off 2010 with what is sure to end up being one of the year's most important archival releases of Latin music.

ALEJANDRO FRANOV | DIGITARIA | March 03, 2010
Alejandro Franov is an Argentine multi-instrumentalist who's been involved in the more serious, and often experimental, side of the Buenos Aires music scene since he was a teen in the late 1980s.

THE SOULJAZZ ORCHESTRA | RISING SUN | February 23, 2010
We're living in the middle of a veritable renaissance of "Spiritual Jazz."

AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE | VISION OF PSYCHEDELIC AFRICA | February 09, 2010
UK dub guru Adrian Sherwood and adventurous percussionist Bonjo I have been releasing their sonic experiments as African Head Charge since the early 1980s.