Even by the standards of strange collector archive finds, this is unusual: a previously unreleased, indeed likely previously unknown, live concert from the early 1970s at
New York's Museum of Modern Art
by an obscure
funk
band themselves known only to collectors. It's fairly hot, too, and pretty well recorded, the sound falling only the smallest of tads short of ideal.
The Pazant Brothers
played mostly instrumental
soul
-
on this date, with a heavier touch of
jazz
than most such early-'70s outfits; a couple of them, after all, had done time with
Lionel Hampton
. There's almost a New Orleans marching band-meets-
James Brown
tinge to some of the horns, the sassy staccato breaks doing much to set them apart from other groups of the period. The tracks do get a little similar-sounding over the course of this hour-long groovefest, but it's a good blend of original material and eclectic, funkified covers, including
the Rascals
'
"Groovin',"
Martha & the Vandellas
"Dancing in the Streets,"
Nat Adderley
's
"Work Song,"
and, in far more of a left-field shot,
Melanie
"Momma Momma."
Betty Barney
takes vocals on the three non-instrumental numbers (one of them being
"Momma, Momma"
), but she's only an average
singer, and those tracks are actually less interesting than the instrumental workouts. Strangest of all is hearing the dignified pre-song announcements -- "now we'd like to do another original number of ours, it's a very, as you say, funky thing...it's entitled
"'Skunk Juice'"
intones one band member with the dignity of an awards presentation, to zero audible audience response. It might have been an odd combination of artist and venue, but it's a good thing the tapes were running. It makes you wonder, too, just how many other unsuspected off-the-wall live tapes of this sort are going to somehow eventually emerge into daylight. ~ Richie Unterberger