In those days where disco looks like pretty much revamped (see IDM # 39), let us give our props to A man who (to me) is a true icon on the groove spectrum, melting jazz and funky vibes like no one else has ever done before. One of those very rare people whose numerous works have stayed fresh throughout the years (the decades !) and the trends, as demonstrated on his new album on BBE, made of material recorded between 1976 and 81. Ladies & gents, please welcome Mister Roy Ayers !

Long time no seen each other. Last one was in Miami. He was then in full effect behind his vibraphone, accompanying India during the Nuyorican Soul's album promotional tour. An effort that would eventually relaunch his carreer (alongside George Benson's) after the relatively disappointing Nasty album on BMG in the mid nineties…

Times have changed a lot and the mentalities too for these last 15 years, he states with the calm suiting the wise men. I remember seing myself distributing my records on my own. But what was possible a few years back is no longer today. For instance, say you meet an interesting guy here or there. Well, in a three to six months period later, he's not there anymore and you have to do it all over again. That's the way life goes almost everywhere,until this lucky day that sees BBE Records honcho, Pete Adarkwah coming to his NY home to have a (careful) listen to some of the hundreds of unreleased tunes stcoked on his shelves…I'm litteraly obsessed by music and sounds to a wider extend, he explains. There's always something boiling in my head, this being one of the explanations why he has managed to record that much, collaborating with an uncomparable array of great names. From Herbie Mann, while doin' his debut, to James Taylor Quartet more recently. Not to mention Billy Cobham, Herbie Hancock, Donald Byrd, Jean Carne, Rick James, Ron Carter, Branford Marsalis, Tom Browne, Stanley Clarke, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stevie Wonder, Lonnie Liston-Smith, Pharoah Sanders, Brian Jackson, Fela Kuti, Don Blackman, Galliano, Scott Grooves, Erykah Badu, Guru, A Tribe Called Quest, Masters At Work, Naughty By Nature, The Roots or The Jungle Brothers, to name… but a few !I have always believed in my stuff, man, he adds, although having gone thru many ups & downs where many others would have lost their minds (if not boddies). May God bless those who've helped me in this. Not only the crowd, knowing how he may instantly find allieds amongst them from the very first minute he gets on stage. But also those numerous people who made themselves a name while trying to recapture a bit of his unique atmospheres in their music, making Roy's repertoire amongst the most sampled (alongside James Brown and Lonnie Liston-Smith's ones) in the world to date. Something that, no doubt, has helped him to keep the faith alive on what he's doing + give him the energy to keep on making live appearences with such a regularity on some of the most mythic places around the globe. See all these people asking me for a bit of this or a bit of that over the decades, generation after generation is trully what has kept me going on, even though sometimes stucked in the middle of financial probs, family crisis that could have led him to some self destruction. Yeah man, he keeps on with a lighting in his seyes. I saw them wanting Roy Ayers in their music and this is what has made me say to myself that everything was not all over, that I was not finished and this is how I have survived.

Back to this new album made of 25 to 30 y.o. compositions, he comes to explain his working method that applied to nearly everyone else at the time. Labels used to ask you to have from fifteen to twenny tracks for an album project before retaining an average amount of twelve, which I used to do naturally and in advance. But please, do not believe that what's issued today comes from what may have been rejected at the time. No way, Sir ! We was going to the studio to record songs and I was regularly telling myself that this one could fit into this project and that one to another. Needless to say that all the aforementioned haven't seen the day, our man keepin' them carefully for a more appropriate time. I dunno how many I've got so far, but I think that I've got enuff to release some more albums in the ten years to come…

No as easy to put words on what makes the unicity of the atmospheres he creates as they seem like being so temperamental. Him being an Afro-American living in this New York depicted as a place like no other in the world (cf. "We Live In Brooklyn"), with such a sensibility, not to mention these regular travels around the world allowing him to have the necessary and indispensable distance on things and have a global view of the world. But before being the incarnation of a style on its own, Roy is first and foremost an incomparable receiver of versatile elements that have given birth to his expression and formed the basis of what is to be called the art of fusion at a time when – shall this be reminded ? – black people used to be living where allowed by whites !

Musician, singer, composer, arranger, etc. Ayers excels in lucidity and subtelty while writing his lyrics, displaying this humour that you may find behind the camera with a guy like Spike Lee for instance, as epitomized on the memorable "Pooh Pooh La La" song where he evokes the woman's intimacy without materializing the word while shorty impersonating the late Barry White. When not having this Gil Scott-Heron's self mockery kinda like… Nevertheless, this doesn't keep him away from being very much concerned about what he sees as the great causes. Africa of his ancestors being to him of course one of his biggest concerns, leading us back to 1979 when he came to Nigeria for touring, meanwhile recording the mythic 2000 Black with the late Fela Kuti, recently re-issued on white label… History tends to repeat itself, he says almost with a drop of resignation in his voice. Never got paid for that at the time, and nor later as it's been re-released on Celluloid. Fela and I had done the title album on one side and he has recorded "Africa, Center Of The World" on the flip. We've got a real enthusiastic feedback on this, not only because of its musical quality, but also due to the conscience and the positivity of its lyrics… I can't wait next october to come back to Nigeria where I'm supposed to take part to a tribute to Fela and I'm very happy about this due to my admiration to the man and his work. I guess that being able to go to Africa has been for much in the understanding then the transmitting of my heritage. A legacy that ended up attracting 'Little' Louie Vega's interest as he was looking for emblematic people to be a part of his Nuyorican Soul project by the second half of the nineties. It didn't come straight, our man remembers. I remember offering him to collaborate on one or two tracks a few years before. He looked like interested at the time but never got back to me, until the days he offered me to be a part of this adventure. Louie's not really a musician, but he knows what he wants and what is to be expected by the crowd. He came to me with the basic idea of what would become "Roy's Scatt" before offering me to re-record "Sweet Tears" and I have to say that what he has made of it is even better than the original work. This followed by the no less meaningful "Our Time Is Coming". A message of hope, he concludes. Not only for me but for the attention of everyone, saying that time inevitably comes for the ones whose work is made of consistancy.

MFSB

ROY AYERS Virgin Ubiquity LP (UK-BBE)

(more info : bbemusic.com / royayers.com)