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 Mr. Jones is a faculty member in the College for the following department(s) and division(s):
| Telephone | (212) 749-2802 x7708 | | Homepage | www.soulmanifesto.com
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| | | Given Rodney Jones’s background as a sideman, it’s surprising that until now he never stretched out as a funk-soulster on his own projects. The guitarist spent plenty of quality time with funk-it-up/pass-the-peas JB horn star Maceo Parker (recording five albums with him and touring for five years), graced the stage with the get-down godfather James Brown, played with all the funk legends while holding down the guitar chair for the TV show Showtime at the Apollo, served as musical director for blues/R&B queen Ruth Brown, and even penned the funkified number “Dizzy’s Party” for trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie when he toured with the jazz titan for three years. On his own recordings, however, Jones steered clear of the funk groove.
But finally, Rodney Jones cuts loose with the funkiest, most soulful CD of the year: Soul Manifesto, his second for Blue Note Records. It features an all-star band that includes his alto saxophone friends Maceo Parker and Arthur Blythe (performing together for the first time), Dr. Lonnie Smith on organ, Lonnie Plaxico on bass, and Idris Muhammad on drums. “This album is really special to me,” Jones says. “For the first time as a leader, I’m bringing out the music I got into when I was young and have been listening to all my life. On this album I went back to my musical roots.”
The CD cooks with funky horn flights, juicy organ lines, and sultry guitar licks; and in stretches romps with high-octane action, especially on the hefty-hunks-of-steamin’-funk bookends, “Groove Bone, Part 1” and “Groove Bone, Part 2.” But, Jones hastens to note, Soul Manifesto is not just a good-time dance party; it also goes to a deeper place and serves as an affirmation of his passion for music that touches both the corporeal and spiritual worlds.
“There are two aspects to the word soul,” he explains. “There’s soul music that makes for an organic human experience, and there’s soul on the spiritual level—the soul that transcends the body and survives death. This album serves to bridge those two meanings, to show that there is a unity, that the two elements flow seamlessly one to the other and enable each other. You have soul that was created by God, and you have soul created by James Brown. I’ve always been fascinated by that connection.”
That story starts in Jones’s childhood. The first music he was exposed to were the Negro spirituals performed in his father’s church, and he also recalls watching the Nashville TV show Night Train where the local R&B acts of the day performed, with his folks.
With that soul foundation, Jones set out to explore. He started playing guitar at age six, and after moving to New York City at age eight he began his first formal lessons (folk chords). Then he began to dive headlong into the pop music of the day: the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Sly Stone, the Ohio Players, the Whispers, the Moments. By age 14 he had learned all the guitar parts in JB’s tunes and joined a groove band. At 17, he began to study at the City College of New York with pianist John Lewis, soon after that linking up with another pianist, Mingus alum Jaki Byard. Other gigs followed quickly thereafter: three years on the road with Dizzy Gillespie; recording dates with drummer/band-leader Chico Hamilton; and accompanying Lena Horne, with whom his relationship continues to this day.
Over a decade ago, Jones linked up with the James Brown legacy. While teaching at Manhattan School of Music (where he still is a music professor), his guitar services were sought by the German-based Minor Music label, which at the time was championing JB horn players Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, and Pee Wee Ellis and giving them the opportunity to put their jazz chops on display. Label owner Stephan Meyner was looking to enlist a guitarist for Parker’s breakthrough disc Roots Revisited (which also featured Don Pullen, Bootsy Collins, Wesley and Ellis). Maceo’s nephew, who was studying guitar at Manhattan, recommended his teacher. Jones recalls, “Playing with these guys who were my heroes turned out to be an out-of-the-body experience. It was the realization of a dream from many years ago.”
Jones and Parker became fast friends. “Maceo and I really value the same things,” Jones says. “The things we found we had in common were to find the groove with sincerity and honesty and communicate that to the audience.” That’s at the core of Soul Manifesto, an album that Jones says was born of “the bond of friendship transcending the bond of music.” Jones notes that he’s known Arthur Blythe for many years (the saxophonist recommended him to Chico Hamilton), sat in years earlier with Lonnie Smith, and has been friends with Lonnie Plaxico for several years. Jones had never met Idris Muhammad prior to the recording, but had loved his playing for years. “He was the perfect choice,” Jones says.
Jones wrote most of the tunes shortly before recording. “I wanted the music to be close to its germination. I wanted to keep the spontaneity alive, to not let our minds get in the way of the joy, the spirit of the music. We rehearsed, then went into the studio without fanfare. It was magical. Everyone played from a deep place of understanding and expression. There was no script to follow except solo order. I wrote out light road maps, and then let these great musicians just play.”
The album opens with the ultra funky “Groove Bone, Part 1,” a tune inspired by the JB horns and Kool & the Gang. “It’s got a breakdown feel,” says Jones. “It synthesizes everything I like about this music. The groove bone means that it goes deep.” The upbeat, happy, house-is-hopping “Soul Makossa” (by Manu Dibango) follows. “I grew up listening to this. I love the synthesis of African rhythms and funk. Hearing Arthur and Maceo play this was a dream come true. They’re so different, but they come from the same root.”
After a prayerful drum interlude by Muhammad, the band cools down with the title track and its slow, sultry guitar groove, ruminating horns, and a free interchange at the close. “This slowdown allows the funk to permeate into a deeper place,” says Jones. “When I first wrote this tune, I played it for my 19-year-old daughter, Serena, who has her own band. She told me it was good but had too many chords. She said, ‘You’ve got the vibe, why clutter it up?’ She was right.”
Jones wrote the bluesy “One Turnip Green” as a tribute to such influential guitarists as Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, Nathen Page, Barney Kessel, George Benson, and Wes Montgomery. “None of us get to this place on our own,” Jones says. “This tune is my way of thanking those guitarists who went before and blazed a path for me and others.”
Jones and Co. also cover Bill Withers’s hit single “Ain’t No Sunshine,” with Maceo playing into the heart of the emotion; deliver a jazzy soul original, ”Mobius 3” (which Jones first recorded on his Musicmasters CD The X Field); serve up a plate of hot R&B with “Soup Bone”; and do a show-stopping take on “Soul Eyes,” with Blythe’s brilliant, soul-stirring performance. “I first heard that song on an old John Coltrane LP when I was 14, and it changed my life,” says Jones. “It still has a powerful effect on me. I’d been wanting to record the tune for 20 years. I was just waiting for the right time.” The CD ends where it began, with an extended take on “Groove Bone, Part 2,” which teems with feel-good instrumental conversations.
Jones concludes by saying that Soul Manifesto is his “public declaration” that music can reach beyond the superficial: “This album is a window on how music offers both fun and reflection. We’re showing that soul can be expressed by playing from a deeply spiritual place as well as with a down-home funky feeling.”
Manhattan School of Music faculty since 1988.
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