The mission of The Department of Afro-American Research Arts and Culture to identify the global significance of the creative contributions pioneered by an international diaspora of Blackness
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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Johnnie Taylor - Disco 9000 OST (1977)




1 I Just Don't Know What I'd Do Without You
2 Toot Your Flute
3 Just a Happy Song
4 God Is Standing By
5 Disco 9000
6 I Love You Woman
7 Right Now

1977 LP Columbia 35004

Blaxploitation.com

Johnnie Taylor's entry into the blaxploitation genre is a disappointing affair. The album features a number of uninspired sub-disco soul tracks, very few of which actually appeared in the movie. The album's only redeeming feature is the Disco 9000 theme. The film is much, much better than the soundtrack album and, ironically, showcases some excellent songs that aren't on this album.

AMG.com
The soundtrack of the movie Disco 9000 (later retitled Fass Black after the blaxploitation flick's main character). Johnnie Taylor had a small part --performing "Disco Lady" -- in the less-than-thrilling box-office flop. Incidentally, "Disco Lady" is not part of the soundtrack. Sony records issued an album with this title in 1998 that is essentially a "best of Johnnie Taylor at CBS" CD and not the original soundtrack. This seven-track album contains two prototype soundtrack instrumentals; the other material, especially the formulaic "Disco 9000," is not Taylor's best. However, "I Love You Woman," "Right Now," and "I Don't Know What I'd Do Without You," are OK bluesers with contemporary productions.
by Andrew Hamilton

This comes to You courtesy of DJmadi

Those of You who may want to check out the previous review of the compilation album of the same name may do so here.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Isaac Hayes/Gordon Parks/Johnny Pate - Shaft Anthology: His Big Score and More! (1971-1974)

Track listing:
SHAFT ANTHOLOGY: HIS BIG SCORE AND MORE!

DISC ONE:

Shaft

Music Composed and Performed by Isaac Hayes
Rhythm by The Bar-Kays and Movement
1. Title Shaft (Theme From Shaft) Vocal by Isaac Hayes 4:34
2. Shaft’s First Fight 1:46
3. Reel 2 Part 2/Cat Oughta Be Here 1:43
4. Bumpy’s Theme (Bumpy’s Lament) 1:44
5. Harlem Montage (Soulsville) Vocal by Isaac Hayes 3:32
6. Love Scene Ellie (Ellie’s Love Theme) 1:43
7. Shaft’s Cab Ride/Shaft Enters Building 1:38
8. I Can’t Get Over Losin’ You 2:06
9. Reel 4 Part 6 1:37
10. Reel 5 Part 1 1:35
11. Reel 5 Part 2 (A Friend’s Place) 1:44
12. Source No. 1—6M1A (Bumpy’s Blues) 3:05
13. Source No. 1—6M1B (Bumpy’s Lament) 1:32
14. Source No. 1—6M1C (Early Sunday Morning) 3:05
15. Source No. 2—7M1A (Do Your Thang) Vocal by Isaac Hayes 3:21
16. Source No. 2—7M1B (Be Yourself) 1:54
17. Source No. 2—7M1C (No Name Bar) 2:28
18. Shaft Strikes Again/Return of Shaft 1:36
19. Source No. 3 (Caffe Reggio) 4:23
20. Shaft’s Walk to Hideout (Walk From Reggio) 2:27
21. Shaft’s Pain 3:03
22. Rescue/Roll Up 10:44

Total Time: 62:07

Bonus Tracks
23. Theme From The Men 4:09
24. Type Thang (From Shaft’s Big Score!) 3:53

Total Time: 8:04

Total Disc Time: 70:18

DISC TWO:

Shaft’s Big Score!

Music and Lyrics by Gordon Parks, Conducted by Dick Hazard
Music Supervision by Tom McIntosh
1. Blowin’ Your Mind (Main Title) Vocal by O.C. Smith 3:30
2. The Other Side 1:49
3. Smart Money 2:10
4. The Search/Sad Circles 2:31
5. Asby-Kelly Man 1:45
6. First Meeting 1:56
7. Don’t Misunderstand Vocal by O.C. Smith 1:46
8. Fight Scene 1:06
9. Ike’s Place 4:09
10. Move on In Vocal by O.C. Smith 3:38
11. 8M1/8M2 1:25
12. Funeral Home 4:02
13. Don’t Misunderstand (instrumental) 1:53
14. 9M3 0:44
15. Symphony for Shafted Souls (Take-Off/Dance of the Cars/Water Ballet/Call and Response/The Last Amen) 14:06
16. End Title 1:16
17. Don’t Misunderstand (demo) Vocal by O.C. Smith 2:00

Total Time: 50:24

Shaft (Television Series)

Music Composed and Conducted by Johnny Pate
“Theme From Shaft” Composed by Isaac Hayes
“The Executioners”
1. Courtroom/Leaving Court 2:36
2. Dawson’s Trial 1:58
3. Shaft Leaves Barbara/East River/He’s Dead, Barb/Cunningham’s Breakfast 1:58
4. Visiting Jane/Act End/Jury Meets 2:02
5. Cars and Bridges 2:43
6. Leaving Airfield/Shaft Checks Hospital 2:22
7. Shaft Gets Shot/Shaft in Car 1:29
8. Night Blues 1:02
9. Day Blues 1:04
10. Pimp Gets Shot 2:59
11. Handle It/Follow Cunningham 3:31
12. Shaft Escapes/Stalking Menace 2:42
13. End Theme 0:30

Total Time: 27:20

Total Disc Time: 77:50

DISC THREE:

“The Killing”
14. Opening 2:33
15. Diana in Hospital 2:37
16. Window Shop/Leaving Hospital/Ciao 1:28
17. Restaurant Scene/Punchin’ Sonny 2:52
18. Hotel Room 3:05
19. Diana Splits/Booking Shaft 1:31
20. Shaft Gets Sprung/Searchin’ 2:09
21. Pimps/Lick Her Store/Wettin’ His Hand/Diana Ducks Out 2:12
22. Juke Box/Hands in the Box 2:31
23. Shaft 2:53
24. Iggie’s Tail 2:21
25. Kyle Goes Down/Case Dismissed 1:21

Total Time: 27:52

“Hit-Run”
26. Opening 1:57
27. He’s the Best/Reenact/Good Day 2:38
28. Travel Shaft 0:42
29. Coffin Time 1:34
30. To the Club 1:22
31. Ann Appears/Shaft Gets It 2:14
32. Jacquard 2:31
33. Dart Board/Kissin’ Time 3:09
34. Omelette 1:55
35. Cheek Pat/Don’t Shoot/Shaft’s Move 1:05
36. Funny Time 0:58
37. At the Club 2:12
38. Ending 1:49

Total Time: 24:29

“The Kidnapping”
39. Chasin’ Shaft 3:00
40. Sleep, Dog, Sleep 1:37
41. Here Comes the Fuzz 2:11
42. I Said Goodnight/Walkie Talkie 3:46
43. Shoot Out 2:34

Total Time: 13:17

“The Cop Killers”
44. Rossi Gets It/Hospital/Who the Hell Are You 2:06
45. Honky Horn 1:22
46. Sleeping Pigs 1:35
47. Splash Time 1:32
48. Shaft Gets It 1:50
49. Vacate the Van 1:41
50. Fork Lift 2:09
51. Shaft Theme (End Credit Version) 0:30

Total Time: 12:54

Total Disc Time: 78:49

screenarchives.com
“They say that cat is a bad mother—”

Yes, they’re talking about Shaft! On the famous record album, the lyric is “that cat Shaft is a bad mother—.” However, the name “Shaft” is omitted above because this is the film version of the legendary score—not the familiar record album—and this is one of many differences, both subtle and large, in the two versions of Isaac Hayes’s seminal work. This pioneering 3CD set features the previously unreleased original soundtrack to the 1971 Shaft along with music from the sequel, Shaft’s Big Score!, and 1973-74 TV series. It is the Shaft Anthology: His Big Score and More!

Shaft is one of the landmark characters and films not just of 1970s “blaxploitation” cinema but all of pop culture. For the first time, a black leading man (provocatively named and dynamically played by Richard Roundtree) talked back to white authority and acted like a cool James Bond who did whatever he wanted...and he was the hero. The character starred in seven novels, three feature films (with a fourth in recent years) and a TV series. FSM has compiled the best of Shaft’s 1970s previously unreleased-on-CD soundtracks as follows:

The original 1971 Shaft was one of the seminal films of “blaxploitation” movement, as Shaft gets involved in the Harlem rescue effort of a gangster’s kidnapped daughter. The score by Isaac Hayes not only set trends in film music but pop and R&B, with its spoken/sung lyrics, disco-era wah-wah guitar and high-hat cymbals, and lush, soulful orchestrations. The soundtrack was widely distributed on a 2LP set (later a CD) by Enterprise (Hayes’s personal label on Stax Records) but that was a re-recording done in Memphis. For the first time, this CD presents the original Hollywood-recorded film score featuring primordial versions of the source cues as well as all of the dramatic underscoring (little of which was adapted for the LP). It is a fascinating glimpse into Hayes’s creativity and an important archiving of this legendary work. As a bonus, disc one of this collection adds Hayes’s two singles released in 1972 related to M-G-M productions: “Theme From The Men” (a TV theme) and “Type Thang” (used in Shaft’s Big Score!).

The second Shaft film, Shaft’s Big Score! (1972), was scored by the director of the first two installments, Gordon Parks, when Hayes was unavailable. Parks was a multitalented musician, poet, author and photographer, in addition to filmmaker, who had scored his directorial debut, 1969’s The Learning Tree, and was technically assisted on his film scores (as was Hayes on Shaft) by Tom McIntosh. The Shaft’s Big Score! soundtrack called upon an earlier, Duke Ellington-style of sophisticated jazz compared to Hayes’s Memphis-style R&B, with a bravura climactic chase (“Symphony for Shafted Souls”) that has long made the soundtrack LP a treasured collectible. The complete soundtrack is presented here.

The third Shaft film, Shaft in Africa (1973), is not presented here for licensing reasons (though most of it was included on a 1999 compilation, The Best of Shaft). That film’s composer, Johnny Pate—the brilliant arranger for Curtis Mayfield on Superfly and other projects—returned for the short-lived Shaft TV series in 1973-74 (starring Roundtree), which had seven 90-minute episodes produced for CBS. Pate provided inventive adaptation of Hayes’s “Theme From Shaft” as well as his own groovy and suspenseful scoring—from an era in which most TV crime music sounded like Shaft, this is, delightfully, the real thing. Pate provided three full scores and two partial scores for the Shaft series (with the rest tracked with earlier cues), almost—but not all—of which are presented at the end of disc two and all of disc three of this set.

This entire collection is in excellent stereo sound, meticulously remixed from the first-generation M-G-M session masters. There are lots of afros in Joe Sikoryak’s art direction. The comprehensive liner notes are by Lukas Kendall.

Uploaders comment:
Complete with reel spins, unreleased material, 30 page full color liner notes and film facts. Collectors item most definately. Even if you already have the original scores, this is a perfect companion. Completely revamped unissued original 92 tracks total with informative liner notes chock full of pics. I felt blessed to add it to my collection and I think the peeps here will too. Peace

Contributed by Visuals

Link to movie review:Gordon Parks - Shaft (1971)

Friday, January 9, 2009

How To Eat Your Watermelon In White Company (And Enjoy It) (2005)









Starring:
  • Mario Van Peebles
  • Spike Lee
  • Gordon Parks
  • Gil-Scott Heron
  • Woodie King, Jr.

I thought about it for a minute....... nah! I could conjure some clever unique style of critique of this film but I won't even do it.

The genuine article at best talks about his exploits better than anyone could but his children, business partners and key women in his life account for a few pivotal moments that is sure to blow your mind to what "MVP" has accomplished beyond what the general public acknowledges him for.

For any of you who do check this out, please share your amazement at how much of a fearless maverick, revolutionary artist and master marketer this Man was and is to this "Blaxploitation" movement we document and towards "The Movement of movement" in general. This doc is a Baaadaaassss Song of an equally incomparable badass Brother.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004)












Starring:
  • Shirley Chisholm
  • Ronald Dellums
  • Susan Brownmiller
  • Amiri Baraka
  • Reverend Walter Fauntroy and
  • Octavia Butler
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she becomes the first black woman to run for president. Shunned by the political establishment, she's supported by a motley crew of blacks, feminists, and young voters. Their campaign-trail adventures are frenzied, fierce, and fundamentally right on!

Featuring stirring archival footage, period music, interviews with supporters, opponents and observers, and Chisholm's own commentary — then and now — "CHISHOLM '72" is a remarkable recollection of a campaign that broke new ground in politics, and truly reached out to 'the people.'