Our Funk Forefathers, Dare I Frighten You?

Funk, the epitome of music incorporating human psych, soul, and above all...the will to have Fun. This genre's importance in our musical history is displayed through primarily black individuals who came together around the time of what I call, the Last Musical Rennaisance, and transformed their very own identity into an artistic expression. What seperated this style of music From others emerging this time was how it was so heavily influenced by minorities concerned with politics, who shared similar tastes in jazz as well as blues, combining the two American sounds into a fusion that would later become a vehicle for the socially oppressed to reach unto the masses.

Like the law of what goes up must come down, we see a fast and ironic self destruction of funk music as recording companies oversaturate this music with repetitive loops and quick hooks making it more club accesible and destroying the vast orriginality of the early seventies all in order to make more profit. As this period of music gained mass attention at the end of the 70's, we see the rise of disco, and the ending of a monster genre once known as funk. What made disco so profitable and accessible were once staples of a much more complex and artistic genre of music; then again how can music be artistic if it is fit into catagories or genres?
That's the beauty of funk, it remained fresh, catchy, orriginal, innovative, and yes even progressive all while still staying close the root sound of jazz and blues fusion.

If you have no knowledge of what funk music is, I am going to take the opportunity to show you because I am so gratefull to have found and have given patience towards my understanding of this music. Allow me to list my favorite funk bands that are indeed progressive; all in hopes you will be curious enough to check out; and I promise satisfaction.

Sly and the Family Stone
James Brown
The Meters
Funkadelic
Parliament
Bootsy Collins
The Horny Horns
Rick James (bitch)
War

If you want any help where to start I can help. I mainly am interested in furthering this discussion with any fellow funkateers or with anyone who wants to chec them out.

These bands have hundreds of hours of music that to me is 100% progressive, and it's time we stopped ignorring it.
I for one want the funk and im gonna do my best to bring it back! Now who's with me!?

Pick up a bass guitar and ten tell me p-funk is not progressive....

Catcher10 wrote: Neville Bros

Rust wrote: Pick up a bass guitar and ten tell me p-funk is not progressive....

Edited by The Quiet One - September 12 2011 at 15:15

For being primarily focus around just dancing and partying, I think the rate at which the band evolved is worthy of earning them a more proper title then "complex".
What P-funk achieved in the album Funkentelechy Vs. The Plecebo Syndrome is a progress in controling chaos. That to me is progressive. 5 star album absolutely

I don't like to confuse the term progressive (adjective) with Prog (noun - as in a Progressive Rock style).  Not all progressive music is Prog, and not all Prog is progressive.  I use progressive music to mean music that advances music in some way, but it's also been used to refer to chord progressions etc.

lucas wrote: Catcher10 wrote: Neville Bros based on 'yellow moon' I wouldn't call them "funk" : they incorporate calypso, jazz, reggae, blues, "world" music -in other words "black music"  - this is the only album I know of theirs but it is a real masterpiece.

Rust wrote: For being primarily focus around just dancing and partying, I think the rate at which the band evolved is worthy of earning them a more proper title then "complex". What P-funk achieved in the album Funkentelechy Vs. The Plecebo Syndrome is a progress in controling chaos. That to me is progressive. 5 star album absolutely

lucas wrote: Talking about Bootsy, I cannot recommend enought the experimental dub/funk/metal band Praxis, which has a similar approach to music as Mr Bungle, and which should find a place in PA :

I can second you on Praxis.  I've got three and they're decent.  Kind of like metal, I don't mind a little funk in my prog but I don't really go out of my way to collect it.  Did I miss Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters being mentioned?  Or does that not qualify?  Just curious, not being judgmental,

Other bands, not prog, but fascinating with funkified tendencies in their music:

Primus* - Les Claypool is the sh$!
Isley Brothers
Axiom Funk
The Temtations

Isaac Hayes

The New Birth



Edited by Rust - September 13 2011 at 01:30