Rare Grooves: Some Favorites from the Soul-Jazz Genre

 I noticed that I don't write as much about my love for the soul-jazz/rare groove genre than I should, so I figured I needed to devote a post including some of my favorites, mainly from the 70's.  Here's a few tasty tracks from some my favorite albums and artists from the Soul-Jazz Genre: 

The first track is from jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey "Jasper Country Man" off of her excellent 1973 release Blacks and Blues.  You can always depend on Bobbi to have some great grooves on her albums, and generally it's easy to pick out a boatload of parts that have been sampled from hip hop artists.  Ice-T sampled this track for his epic song "New Jack Hustler".  

Richard 'Groove' Holmes "Groovin' for Mr. G" off of the 1971 release Comin' on Home.  I find jazz-organist Mr. Holmes to be a little spotty with some of his releases, but this song always does the trick for me.

Jimmy McGriff is another jazz-organist that I love as well.   Hate to say it, but I picked up his 1969 Electric Funk over a year ago on a whim, mainly because the album cover looked cool, and the title of the album sounded cool.  Hard to pick a favorite on this album, so I'll go with "Back on the Track", first track off the album that gets it off to a great start.

Jimmy Smith is yet another jazz-organist that I love as well, and is probably the first of the genre to really grab my attention (not including Herbie Hancock, who started out playing piano in bebop/hard bop jazz groups, and it wasn't until later that Herbie experimented with synths, organs, and electric pianos, but I feel that Hancock is so brilliant he desires his own post in the future).  I first picked up both The Sermon and then later his legendary 1972 live album Root Down.  Both are great, but I'll pick the track "Root Down" off of the album Root Down, which obviously was sampled by the Beastie Boys for their track "Root Down" off of their album Ill Communication.

I dig jazz-organist (notice a pattern here?) Brother Jack McDuff and decided to include something from him off of his excellent 1969 released Gin and Orange album.  "Theme from Electric Surfboard" was later sampled by Pete Rock.

Lastly, I thought I would include a track from saxophonist Nathan Davis off his rare and excellent 1976 released album If.  Half of the tracks on this album have some of the best jazz-funk grooves I've ever heard, and the other half is more straight-up jazz fusion.  Either way, great stuff.   Here is "New Orleans":