In my younger days after an evening of dancing to the most exciting music I had ever heard I asked a more enlightened fellow reveller which was the best James Brown album to buy (in a career spanning over 50 years, that ended Christmas Day 2006, there were nearly 100 so at the time there were probably about 67 to choose from!). In the Jungle Groove, he said, without hesitating.
Don’t expect any ballads, easy listening, or the hit singles, this double album length CD collects together ten extended funk jams recorded between 1969 and 1971. With their raw energy and improvised feel, these vital studio recordings encapsulate not only the intensity of Brown’s live performances, but also his volatile off stage existence during this period.
Brown was a hard task master and in March 1969 his regular backing band walked out; luckily for musical history not before recording the famous Funky Drummer, with its infectious and oft sampled rhythm. The version here features alternate sax, guitar, drum, and stabbing organ solos by Brown himself, over a gorgeous groove that goes on forever (actually nine minutes; indeed all the tracks on this album are so hypnotic and persistent, they each feel like twice their actual length).
Even more energetic is Give It Up or Turnit a Loose featuring a new band allegedly commissioned to perform a gig with two hours’ notice and no rehearsal. Unfamiliarity doesn’t show as the song kicks off with a muted guitar riff before the funky drummer (Clyde Stubblefield remained from the original band) comes crashing in and the new “JBs” deliver a high octane slab of chunk funk with Brown extolling “Ain’t it funky now!”.
And it just keeps on coming - peaking with the stupendous, foot tapping, head nodding, body popping and simply exhausting Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing where the band lock into another fast and furious, horn honking groove as tight as one of their leader’s latter day waist bands, and guaranteed to get your party cooking.
Several years before his death I was lucky enough to see James Brown performing at Brighton’s Stanmer Park. He was well past his best by then but just occasionally there were moments where the band channelled that jungle groove and I was back in that nightclub again.