Jean-Jacques is funky.
Bah yes, it is like that. I went to see it in a part at the House of Poetry
and Jean-Jacques was more funky. By far. By its cracks of rate/rhythm,
its modulations, its direction of space and volume, these subtle hitches
and which started again the trick. The part was heavy and shitting but
Jean-Jacques made a little take off all that. Then inevitably, one comes
from there to speak about James Brown. Godfather of the soul, inventor
of the funk, grandfather of the rap, giant rhythm' blues, James Brown
is impossible to circumvent, one of the large artists of the 20th century,
neither more nor less. Black Elvis. And to trust to be it. It is believed
that it is Ray Charles which brought the gospel in the pop one. Forgery:
it is James, well before Ray. It took the quetions-answers of the church
and into the rhythm' blues introduced as of its first tube, "Please,
Please, Please", into 56. And all its pieces are built on this exchange:
it is often a riff, coppers, enormous, which it answers of its voice surpuissante.
One of the largest hurleurs of all times, monumental and wild. Visceral.
Heat. And it is for that which James Brown touched initially only the
black public. Not like Ray Charles. Undoubtedly the best compiles marketing,
"Dance Machine" covers in only one disc 30 years of James. From
56 to 86. That pearls. Even "Living room In America", powerful
and drivée by the voice still and always striking of James Brown.
Just the madness of lives and the length of the pieces miss, here in strict
minimal radiophonic format. One will get them later. For the hour, it
east 23 titles really killing which are connected and which make a seminal
and inalterable disc of it. The beginnings of James show it in the current
rhythm' blues of the time. The advantage of the shouter black on its contemporaries
who are Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett and consorts, in addition
to his demolition and its energy, an emergency feeling and of danger inherent
in its vocal services, it is its group: James has to it his, into clean,
instead of group of studio house exploiting all the meetings of the house
of discs. And it directs it with an iron hand. The fines which it inflicted
to its musicians, for badly waxed shoes or false distilled notes, belong
to the legend. There is thus more coherence and of osmosis that on any
other disc soul of the time: that sounds like an entity. Like a group
of rock'n'roll, all things considered. Rolling Stones, which made only
recoveries at their beginnings, never rubbed with these pieces. What could
they bring to them? And Mick Jagger would undoubtedly not have liked souff
R ir of the comparison.... But very quickly, it is "Out Of Sight".
And "Papa' S Got A Brand New Bag". James has better than more
than one turn in his bag; he has a very new bag straightforwardly, with
full of turns inside obviously. One can consider "Papa' S Got A Brand
New Bag", into 65, like the first piece funk. The prototype. And
from there, James sends mashed potaties and connects the most terrible
grooves. Without slackening. Until chief-of works "Give It Up Or
Turn It A Loose", "I Don' T Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing"
and "Mother Popcorn" of 1969. Pieces nutcases, irresistible,
which one will be able to still listen to thousand times and during 50
years. "Sex Machine" obviously, in 70, with "(Call Me)
Superbad". Sex and violence, James is black and nasty piece of work.
Do not speak to me about the gangsta-rappers of Death Row which do not
hold the comparison, nor the road. Especially that Brown is respected
by all the American black community. A model: it succeeded and without
anything to disavow, quite to the contrary, of what it is. Musicalement,
its influence is enormous and difficult to measure. Artist more samplé
of the world, extending his musical spectrum in all the fields of the
black music until the rock'n'roll and pop, it is impossible to circumvent.
Even the jazz was upset by it, Miles Davis having been obnubilated by
the federator power of sound groove, this fright martial of which he was
the Master. It is true that rare are the discs pulsating as much as the
gems mentioned above. That defies weightlessness and the directions. One
does not forget any therefore the feelings and the melodies. "It'
S A Man' S Man' S Man' S World" is one of the greatest ballades of
all times, without problem. Enormous there still. And the other titles
continue to still turn, infernal, still and, diabolic. It is sure, it
is not inevitably, even in 2002, for the small white resulting from middle-class
man mediums sensitive to the romanticism junkie, the poets maudits and
the policy of extreme rebellious left. It is not that, James Brown, Raphaëlle.
Thus you cannot include/understand. Jean-Jacques left well, on the traces
of the James giant. Would be funky, keep groovin '. Blows of kidneys,
sweat and blood. And of the rate/rhythm, still of the rate/rhythm, always
of the rate/rhythm, which never, never stops. In the Sixties, an African
coldly unloaded with the U.S. turns the button of the radio and fall on
a piece of James Brown. He made this sibylline remark: "Hold, they
listen to the same music as us, the Americans.". James Brown and
it have there nothing any more but one world, plain and happy. Universal.
Even if it is at Polydor.
Ben Kennedy.
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