Dodgy Bossa is a tribute to a little minute of perfect clubbing, when jazz dance existed and hadn’t yet become acid jazz. In amongst the Blue Note & Prestige hard boppers, the Japanese fusion and the latin tunes, DJs from Colin Curtis & Paul Murphy to Gilles Peterson, Patrick Forge & Chris Bangs would dig through mountains of easy listening and Brazilian albums looking for offshoots of the bossa nova craze of the 60s. These records were “guilty pleasures” in the truest sense – the DJs knew they were slightly “naff” but they worked on the dancefloor and had a solid swing.  As no one cared what the jazz snobs said it didn’t matter, dancing was all that counted.

Here’s two songs from the time – one that made the album and one that should have...

Jon Lucien - Who Will Buy

Everyone loves the brilliant musical “Oliver” (even with the sad story of how Lionel Bart signed his rights away in the musical to Max Bygraves for 350 pounds “living money”) but for some reason it had particular appeal to Latin musicians. Frank Owens “oliver! Ole!” is  the full version, but British Virgin Island singer Jon Lucien’s take on “Who Will Buy?” ticks every dodgy box. Lucien always veered on easy listening but this take scampers and swings, warming the listener’s heart and moving their feet. Was reissued on the classic Jazz Juice albums by Gilles, and never sounds tired. 

Eydie (Gorme) - Blame It On the Bossa Nova

Eydie and her partner Steve Lawrence perfected the art of the dodgy bossa, and their selections were always arch and artful. But they had a wicked beat, and the floor always moved. Sadly Steve & Eydie elected not to be part of this selection and we hoped we didn’t offend them with the title. But it was a loss for this track and for Steve’s wicked “Rio De Janeiro”. This  is the one we really felt, with its super dope skating rink organ, and layered but wonderful vocals. These two clearly loved Brazil and understood it .. “fly me to Rio, because I find Rio Grande”. Says it all really.

[you can still get Steve & Eydie’s records through their own website https://steve-eydie.com/ so go there and remind Steve we all care – Eydie sadly passed away in 2013]

Running The Voodoo  Down represents a pub project that finally came to fruition. Dean and I have spent many evenings talking about the links between the total Black Jazz of early 70s Miles, and the funk breakdown (as in mental) of early 70s Sly. We have wondered endlessly if the famed Miles & jimi jam ever happened, or whether Miles & Sly ever turned the tapes on.  Jimi is a natural fit, as was George Clinton (especially as Dean was working on the double wicked Funkadelic catalogue). The rest is easy to fit together but hard to fit onto one collection. We had to struggle to do it, and we hope we did it justice as we may only do it once. Voodoo seemed entirely appropriate to describe the weird twisted dark magic embodied in these tracks – when funk wasn’t funk; jazz wasn’t jazz enough for some; and rock went wherever it wanted. As such we loved the voodoo flag inspired illustrations Bianca Bosso created for the CD package.  The best music comes in collaborations, the worst in commerciality. This is a period of the best.

Here’s two songs – again one from the album and one that didn’t get there

Betty Davis - Anti Love Song

Here’s a story. We’d love to have included a track from the legendary Betty Davis – the militant funk singer – who was Miles’ wife and who legendarily turned him on to the music of Sly and Jimi, and their clothes too. The marriage didn’t last long but the classic album it produced (“Bitches Brew”) is the stuff of legend and gave our  compilation its title. We couldn’t clear anything but if we had it might have been this bad boy. However, we have also talked endlessly about the legendary Hendrix and Miles collaboration .. and little did we know that we Light In The Attic were about to release a legendary rarity “Betty Davis: The Columbia Years” which includes a Betty session produced by Miles and Teo Macero. Jimi wasn’t there but  a lot of his band were, and on “Politician Man” Miles is heard barking instructions. A must buy if you dig our groove!

Sly Stone - Thank You For Talkin To Me Africa

I could have picked any track off the compilation itself but this seemed to sum it up. Sly had hit the cocaine self destruct button, and was holed up in the Hollywood Hills with Jim Ford, Bobby Womack and a crazed baboon. Miles would visit from time to time. I doubt if the primary purpose of the visits was other than pharmaceutical but it seems reasonable to think he heard the blitzed out music of the seismic “There’s A Riot Going On” and in turn it became an influence on the black rock of his 70s albums. TYFTTMA is a sort of remix, sort of rework of the previously optimistic Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) off Sly’s greatest Hits album filtered through a dark prism of paranoia and hate by an artist who had taken to dubbing backing singers voice’s onto his tapes to get laid and then erased them the next day. So its dark. Like our compilation.

- TH