Funky three-piece jazz release on John Zorn's wonderful Tzadik label, 2000. Starring: Derek Bailey scraping the guitars, Jamaaladeen Tacuma plumping the bass, and Calvin Weston hoarding the bang.
This isn't acid jazz style funk. This isn't easy listening music that goes down the gullet with all the abrasion of Muzak. This album contains some severely mind warping, booty shakin' jazz. If free jazz could ever force one to dance, this is the album right here.
Now then. Bailey is an accomplished avant-whatever improvisational fellow. Here, he's creating less of the melody, less of the rhythm, and more of the SOUND. Maybe he's trying to emulate Coleman's harmolodics sound of the 70's; everyone has an equal part here. No one is accompaniment.
Jamaaladeen, born Rudy McDaniel, is relatively well known for his out-there electric bass work. He played with Ornette Coleman's Prime Time group, while still a teenager -- honing his funk jazz instinct. In this session, while there are some buzzing and clanking noises coming from his pickups, mostly he provides rhythm with frantic, slap-happy melody. It's evident he's in the harmolodic groove.
Weston was also in Ornette's 70's Prime Time group. He keeps low-profile: the only information I can find regarding him beyond prior appearances is that he also comes from a funk background. And from listening: he knows how to rock.
Well. Of all the styles Bailey could choose from to blend with, he chose funk. This makes little sense, considering his anti-groove, anti-rhythm playing. Heard, this conflagration is... easy to listen to, but hard to grasp. Some of the time, the funk brothers just rock it away whilst Bailey is off on Jupiter. But then... unexpectedly... the band starts veering off orbit; Tacuma and Weston start to join Bailey and abandon all known ground. These moments are easy to follow the band into, and hard to escape.
A quarter funk, a quarter improv. More than half great. Rock!