whatido_formeforyou

dfa1985:

Donald Byrd - Love Is So Far Away

funny that i mentioned flugelhorns in my last post, because one of most famous performers on that instrument just popped up on my dashboard, shooting some hot fire out of his silver bell. donaldson toussaint l’ouverture byrd II, aka donald byrd, played it cool, always. this tune comes from his 1972 album black byrd, which is one of my two favorites of his, along with 1974’s stepping into tomorrow. the eponymous title track from the latter of those two is featured on madlib’s shades of blue record, featuring an intro by mf doom (despite his statement to assert otherwise). ‘love is so far away’ is a perfect example of the state of jazz in the early 70’s, where it’d moved on past the quasi-revivalist phase of hard bop and was totally engrossed in fusion, absorbing influences from soul, funk, r&b, rock, and pop, even developing ties with disco as the decade went on. the flute, synthesizer, and electric guitar + bass heard here are all characteristic of the state of jazz at that time, and pretty much no instrumentalist of the era was bringing the funk harder than donald byrd.