Blackbyrds Compilations

Happy Music: The Best of the Blackbyrds

Fantasy 30194

Lovebyrds: Soft & Easy

Fantasy 30195

Both The Blackbyrds and their namesake, trumpeter Donald Byrd, are proof of the truism that notoriety is always a fickle and elusive condition. Band and mentor fell victim to shadows cast by higher profile purveyors of similar music. Byrd’s fusion experiments in the early Seventies were often considered pale imitations of Miles’ innovations. Similarly, The Blackbyrds slipped into the cracks opened by arena-selling outfits like Earth, Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players and Parliament/Funkadelic, though success wasn’t always elusive. Byrd originally organized the band as a touring vehicle for material from his best-selling Blue Note album of the same name, tapping a crew of his top Howard U. students to staff the posts. The group remained together after the tour, waxing six subsequent records for Fantasy, three of which charted Gold, but a downward trajectory in their popularity led to dissolution by the close of the decade.

Happy Music and its companion, the regrettably titled Lovebyrds, seek to encapsulate both the band’s hits and the scope of their songbook, a repertoire that shuttled regularly from hard funk to urban contemporary to what could readily fall under the rubric of smooth jazz. The ballast to the obvious commercial aims resides in the college-educated jazz chops of the principals and the tight, if sometimes dated-sounding, arrangements that reinforce practically every track on the first compilation. Keyboardist Kevin Toney, bassist Joe Hall III and drummer Keith Kilgo could certainly lay down a groove and cuts like the turgid rubberband snapping “One-Eye Two-Step” and disco-ready D.C. ode “Rock Creek Park” prove their dance viability beyond a doubt. The dual wah-wah guitars of Orville Saunders and Barney Perry and riffing horns of Allan Barnes and Stephen Johnson converge for the heavy funk of “Unfinished Business” as Hall’s sausage-segmented bass line exudes harmonic grease underneath.

Vocals are the weakest link throughout since none of the Byrds had much in the way of pipes, but fortunately, the fluid jams prevent any singing miscues from causing the music to go flaccid. “Do It, Fluid” and “Reggins” (think Rollins’ “Aregin” for a clue as to meaning on the latter) hint at political concerns, but the majority of cuts limn to the congenial mood described by the disc’s title. Good for a solo commute in the car or as a soundtrack selection at your next shindig, this set delivers a strong hour of vintage groove music, though the first half holds a definite edge over the more overtly urbane second.

Lovebyrds isn’t as satisfying thanks to the focus on the smoother side of the band’s songbook. The influence of Larry Mizell, Byrd’s original collaborator on the project that spawned the band, is audible throughout in a pervasive production polish. Oddly enough, the more amorously oriented and languorously paced bent of the tracks lends itself better to underscoring the musicianship of the members. The Byrds enlarge their base with a revolving cache of guests instruments. Chromatic harmonica and strings suffuse the ballad “All I Ask” combining with swirling Rhodes in a plush confluence of palpable schmaltz. A lone trumpeter, possibly Byrd himself, leads the way on “A Heavy Town”, a tune born from the band’s blaxploitation soundtrack work for the film Cornbread, Earl & Me. “At the Carnival” and “Wilford’s Gone” draw from the same cinematic source. The first welds a circusy rhythm to another chassis of cloying electric piano and soaring orchestral strings before switching speeds to a swiftly swinging clip while the second trades in strong bass-buttressed funk. “The Baby” and “Life Styles” share similar provenance with layered synths, syncopated drums and bobbing bass ostinatos building strapping grooves. The Byrds wisely avoid integrating vocals to these initial instrumentals, but later odes like “Dreaming of You” and “Flying High” sag under the presence of vapid lyrics and crowded arrangements. As a result, the hit to miss ratio of the fourteen selections registers at about even, not enough to endorse the set. Back in the day these sorts of love songs were likely all the rage, but with a few decades in front of them their antiquated elements are often unflatteringly apparent.

~ Derek Taylor