Eugene McDuffy got his start as a bass player for cats like Joe Farrell and Denny Zeitlin, but the man better known as Brother Jack McDuff didn’t make any real waves until he jumped behind the Hammond B-3 organ; up there with Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Charles Earland, McDuff is one of the deities of the instrument. 1969’s Gin and Orange alternates studio tracks with live cuts, and features Phil Upchurch on bass, Morris Jennings on drums, and Jerry Byrd on guitar, among others.

Pick up Gin and Orange here.

There’s a good chance that Rahem “Tame One” Brown will prove himself right when he says that he’ll probably rap till he’s seventy. If not, expect his name to continually pop up until that day comes—even if it’s written on a warehouse wall out in the depths of New Jersey, undetected by Google Satellite.

The Newark native, best known among older hip-hop heads for two Artifacts albums (and among younger indie fans for his three LPs on Eastern Conference Records, including the PCP-inspired Waterworld collaboration with Cage), is one of hip-hop’s few artists hitting forty who is still as eager to create as he was twenty-seven years ago. And he still does graffiti like time doesn’t exist.

Since Tame inked his first deal in ’93, he’s treated labels big and small like rose petals leading to the master bedroom. Or, more accurately, like busy nights in motels while the master bedroom remains untouched.

“I call them one-offs,” he says as he sips a beer in his backyard in Hillside, New Jersey. “I compare it to Prince. Instead of having to go to the studio every time you sign a deal, running up bills in the process, record yourself a catalog of shit. And then sell it to labels.”

Since ’93, Tame has helped broker record deals for two group albums, six solo albums, three collaborative albums, and a handful of singles. Over the same seventeen years, he’s gone from cassette to vinyl to CD to vinyl to digital-only releases. But to those who haven’t closely followed his sudden movements, the Notty-Headed Terror from Jersey has occasionally slipped on and off the radar as he’s bounced from one label to another.

He and his Artifacts brother El Da Sensei made their first official appearance with the Nubian Crackers in the summer of ’93, on the bass-heavy single “Do You Wanna Hear It?” A year later, in October ’94, the two debuted with Between a Rock and a Hard Place on Big Beat Records, the dance and hip-hop subsidiary of Atlantic Records that later signed Lil’ Kim, Junior M.A.F.I.A., Mad Skillz, and Changing Faces, among others.

Big Beat formed its footprint back when hip-hop was far less glamorized as an art and far more marginalized as a business, and major records labels were less inclined to sign rap artists to their main divisions—unless they showed superstar potential in their first few weeks.

“When Lil’ Kim and Junior M.A.F.I.A. got signed, it was a wrap,” says Tame. “We could have done songs with Jesus and they would have been like, ‘Biggie’s not on it!’”

The Artifacts, known as That’s Them in the early ’90s, first started gaining exposure doing showcases at Club 88, Sensations, and Zanzibar in eastern New Jersey. Other local artists performing at those venues back then include Redman, Queen Latifah, Lords of the Underground, and Naughty by Nature. Jersey had a tightly formed hip-hop scene and most of its artists gave love to the next. But getting signed to a major label was just as important as local support, and That’s Them were just as eager as their peers to make it.

So, on an early Friday morning in the summer of ’92, Tame made a late-night, over-the-phone appearance on The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show on WKCR in New York. At the time, DJ Stretch Armstrong was also working for Big Beat, helping the label sign and promote new artists. This phone call got the first real stone rolling for Tame and El.

“I used to call up the show all the time,” Tame says with a laugh. “One night they had some over-the-phone freestyle battle and of course your boy won. So I was like, ‘What’s first prize?’ And they told me, ‘You get to come up to the station and spit live.’ I couldn’t call El at four o’clock in the morning, so the next day I was like, ‘Yo, did you hear me last night?’ He was like, ‘Nah, I was asleep. What happened?’ ‘They had a freestyle battle and I won!’”

An extra-long week went by before Tame and El headed up to WKCR at Columbia University to show off their skills on the venerable late-night hip-hop radio show. That Friday morning, in the clean, white recording studio stacked with cassette tapes and 12-inches, Stretch and Bobbito swapped jokes and stories from the previous week while Tame and El occasionally chimed in. The two guests were eager to spit, but they also wanted the moment to carry on. Then, about halfway into the show, Bobbito introduced the duo from Jersey as they started to trade freestyles and verses. For the next twenty-five minutes, Tame and El made the recording room theirs, while Stretch juggled beats and Bobbito gave supportive shouts in the background.

As a teenager, the adventurous tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders backed singers like Bobby Bland and Junior Parker, but the Little Rock native was not destined for the blues life. Instead, Sanders fell in with the jazz crowd, working with everyone from trumpeter Don Cherry to saxophone great John Coltrane.

Sanders’ initial session as a leader, the cleverly titled Pharoah’s First, features trumpeter Stan Foster, pianist Jane Getz (who later recorded with the Bee Gees and Ringo Starr), bassist William Bennett, and drummer Marvin Pattillo.

Pick up Pharoah’s First here.

Last month, Will “Quantic” Holland dropped his latest record, Dog with a Rope, on the U.K.-based Tru Thoughts label.

Download it here.

We’ve lost another one of the great ones, folks. Cincinnati guitarist Phelps “Catfish” Collins, of James Brown and P-Funk fame, died on August 6. The cause was cancer. He was sixty-six.

Catfish was with JB from 1969-1971 and Parliament/Funkadelic from 1971-1983. Alongside his brother, Bootsy, he can be heard on classics like “Super Bad,” “Sex Machine,” and “Soul Power.” In 2007, he and Bootsy appeared on the Superbad soundtrack.

Above, watch Catfish tear it up with the Godfather.

Discography here.

A little more on Catfish here.

For a limited time buy any T-shirt at the Wax Poetics Storefront and get a free Tote.

Just a couple months after we finished working on the reissue of his funky Latin jazz masterpiece, Bobby Vince Paunetto passed away on Tuesday, August 10, 2010. As Los Angeles DJ and music historian Miles Perlich wrote in the liner notes:

Bobby Vince Paunetto was born June 22, 1944, into a family of Italian and Catalonian descent. Originally from Brooklyn, the Paunettos soon settled into a middle-class home in the Bronx where Bobby Vince and his two older brothers, Raymond and William (later honored in Paunetto’s composition “Brother Will”) would soon come of age. The boys’ mother, Rosemarie, loved to sing tangos and dance the Lindy and occasionally performed at social gatherings. In 1949, Rosemarie took Bobby Vince (at the tender age of five) to audition as a dancer at the famed Roxy Theatre, a place that also bore witness to the genius of Mr. Fred Astaire. And though the family spoke English at home, Rosemarie was able to speak Spanish well enough to later compose beautiful lyrics to her son’s music (on the Seeco 45s).

Though Paunetto was exposed to a wide variety of music at home, he got his first real taste of jazz listening to radio eccentric Douglas “Jocko” Henderson (“Mr. Oo-Papa-Doo, How Do You Do!”), often credited as being one of the very first rappers. “When I heard Charlie Parker,” Paunetto remembers, “with that saxophone that was faster than the speed of light, I really flipped.” And as far as his exquisite taste in Latin music, Bobby Vince has his older brother Raymond to thank. “Ray would go dancing at the Palladium and see all the great Latin bands, like Tito Puente, and I learned a lot about the music from him.”

One of the rarest Fania-owned Latin records of the late 1960s, El Sonido Moderno is a funky breakbeat treat of vibes and Latin rhythms that has been whispered about by collectors for decades.

Also included as a bonus on this reissue is the 1965 Seeco Records sessions, dug up with the guidance of Perlich. The incredible collection of soulful guajiras and jazz jams were recorded with the help of Latin luminaries like Bobby Rodríguez on bass, Dandy Rodríguez on timbales, Sonny Bravo on piano, and the dream team of vocalists Willie Torres, Santos Colón, and Chivirico Dávila.

Purchase El Sonido Moderno / The Seeco Sessions from iTunes.

Photo by David Lee

Remember our interview with Spike Lee in Issue 38? The following is an unpublished chunk from that piece.

Originally, Mo’ Better Blues was entitled A Love Supreme. Why did you change the title?

Alice Coltrane! [laughs] I was in contact with her. She read the script and thought there was too much profanity in the film, and she preferred that we not use that title, but she would still let us use the song. The recording was much more important than the title.

Was Mo’ Better Blues the first instance of the media accusing you of anti-Semitism? With the portrayal of the two Jewish club owners?

The club owners were Moe and Josh Flatbush, played by John and Nick Turturro. This was something that blindsided me completely. There was a big brouhaha, and at that time, my lawyer, who is deceased and was Jewish, said, “Spike, if you want to continue to work in this industry, you have to get rid of this anti-Semitic label.” His name was Arthur Klein, and he suggested that I write an op-ed piece for The New York Times saying, “I’m not anti-Semitic.” I took his advice; I did that. They were really trying to lower the hammer. You never felt somebody on your ass until you have the JDL, B’nai B’rith, and whoever else on your ass with the anti-Semitic thing. They could put you on lockdown.

How did you feel about Malcolm X being snubbed at the Oscars?

Well, we didn’t get a Best Picture nomination. To be honest, that’s not why I make films. Denzel will tell you the same thing. Also, it didn’t just happen to me. Look at Scorsese and The Departed. You’re telling me he had Taxi Driver and Goodfellas and he never won? Look what he won for. There’s a makeup, and when you win, sometimes it’s not your best work. The biggest tip-off that he was gonna win was like two or three days before the Oscars. They announced that the presenters for Best Director were gonna be Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola. I said, “No way in fucking hell are they gonna have those guys here and it’s not going to be Scorsese!” I forgot who else was nominated for director of the year, but I would’ve bet a million dollars Scorsese was winning when they said the presenters would be Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola! [laughs] It’s unfortunate, but as Marty would say, “I’m glad I won!”

What was the impetus for your last film, Miracle at St. Anna?

Loved the novel. I’ve always wanted to do a film about World War II and African Americans’ participation in it. I’ve always wanted to shoot a film in Italy and [Miracle at St. Anna author] James McBride provided all the stuff I needed to make this film.

I know you enjoyed the book, but did the Clint Eastwood schism play a part in your decision?

Well, that happened after the film was already made. I was just incredulous that he could do two films about Iwo Jima and not have a Black Marine say a line. I was able to interview some guys, and one of the guys, who just recently died, was Thomas McFadden, who was there. He said there were plenty of Black folks there on those islands. Thomas McFadden told me this story that there were two pictures of the planting of the flag at Iwo Jima. He was at the first, and there was a whole bunch of Black people watching them take the picture. And, because it was lava, the stick wouldn’t hold. He had a supply dump, and they said look to see if you could find something, so he found a pipe from his supply dump, stuck the pipe in the lava, and that’s what they stuck the flag in. So, at the time the picture was taken, there were a lot of Black folks watching the picture being taken!

That story was mysteriously overlooked.

That’s the whole thing. It’s overlooked. There were one million African-American men and women who contributed to the war effort. That’s not even counting all the other wars. So again, there’s that pathology. The John-Wayne-super-White-man-pathology. And you cannot underestimate the power of the media.

I think in order to understand many of the issues you raise, and the questions you pose, you have to come from a certain place.

Here’s the biggest thing. The hurdle that happens is that these White folks think the world revolves around them. So, they don’t have the humility to understand there is some other shit out here that’s just as worthy, and you might not know about it. You’re not the motherfucking expert on it, either. They just can’t get around it. What’s the word? Entitlement. It fucks shit up. Everything does not revolve around your ass. And the ones that get around that are able to understand other stuff and are able to write more objective critiques on our shit.

From Memphis, Tennessee, the tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe grew up on soul and R&B music—he worked in the studio at Stax as a teenager—but made his mark in the free jazz world, performing and recording with the likes of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Billy Bang.

Lowe’s first date as a leader, the freewheeling Black Beings, was recorded in March 1973, and features Art Ensemble of Chicago saxophonist Joseph Jarman, drummer Rashid Sinan, violinist Raymond Lee Cheng (billed here as ‘The Wizard’), and the propulsive bassist William Parker in his first appearance on record.

Pick up Frank Lowe’s Black Beings here. Download his classic duo record with Rashied Ali here.

Bundle includes 1st Mack To The Moon, Journey To Vaginus, Life Imitates Clouds, The Dawning Of The Aja Aquarius, Antonio’s Giraffe, Upgrade, Shirts And Skins & S.E.M.E.

For a limited time get a free autographed picture, poster and sticker with your Mackrosoft CD bundle!

These titles are also all available for download at Wax Poetics Digital!