Defunkt | |
|---|---|
 Defunkt in 1981 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Members | Joseph Bowie Kim Clarke Ronnie Drayton Bill Bickford John Mulkerin Kenny Martin |
| Past members | See below |
| Website | josephbowie |
Defunkt is an American musical group founded by the trombonist and singer Joseph Bowie in 1978 in New York City. [1] Their music touches on elements of punk rock, funk, and jazz. [2]
Joseph Bowie is the brother of big band musician Byron Bowie and Art Ensemble of Chicago co-founder Lester Bowie. Joseph, who had previously worked as a sideman for various 1970s jazz musicians, [3] founded Defunkt in 1978 with members of a band that had backed James Chance. [4] The new group's original focus was on danceable jazz music. [2] Joseph Bowie remains the only consistent member of the group over its history; he has been noted for displaying the influence of far-ranging musicians like Ornette Coleman, James Brown, and Joe Strummer. [3]
The first incarnation of the group was active in New York City's "No Wave" radical underground music scene, [2] [3] which also included fusion-oriented groups like Material and Sonic Youth. [5] Joseph's saxophonist brother Bryon, [6] bassist Melvin Gibbs [7] and future Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid [5] were early contributors. The group's debut self-titled album was released in 1980 and combined the band's original jazz focus with soul, funk, rock, and blues. [8] That album was particularly popular in Eastern Europe and Japan. [3] Their second album Thermonuclear Sweat followed in 1982. [9]
Bowie disbanded the group in 1983 due to a lack of mainstream success, and retired to the island of St. Croix for a few years. [3] He returned to New York in 1986 and assembled a new Defunkt lineup, with the addition of multiple singers and a large horn section to pursue a new focus on combining 1930s big band and swing music with 1970s funk. [2] This incarnation of the group, with many lineup changes under Bowie's leadership, has released several additional studio albums, starting with In America in 1988. [10] Their latest album, Mastervolt, was released in 2015. [3]
AllMusic described the Defunkt's music as "some of the most adventurous sounds of the last quarter of the 20th century." [2] Trouser Press has praised the group's later works for "a dynamic rock-funk-jazz concoction of popping bass, neck-melting guitar [...] and Bowie's inventive trombone figures and up-close-and-personable vocals." [4]
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz.
Rollins Band was an American rock band formed in Van Nuys, California. The band was active from 1987 to 2006 and was led by former Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins. They are best known for the songs "Low Self Opinion" and "Liar", which both earned heavy airplay on MTV in the early-mid 1990s.
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."
Ronald Shannon Jackson was an American jazz drummer from Fort Worth, Texas. A pioneer of avant-garde jazz, free funk, and jazz fusion, he appeared on over 50 albums as a bandleader, sideman, arranger, and producer. Jackson and bassist Sirone are the only musicians to have performed and recorded with the three prime shapers of free jazz: pianist Cecil Taylor, and saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little instruments": bells, bicycle horns, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and various forms of percussion. The musicians would wear costumes and face paint while performing. These characteristics combined to make the ensemble's performances both aural and visual. While playing in Europe in 1969, five hundred instruments were used.
Vernon Alphonsus Reid is a British-born American guitarist and songwriter best known as the founder of the rock band Living Colour. Reid was named No. 66 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, and in August 2023, was ranked #42 in Rolling Stone Magazine top 250 Greatest Guitarists of all time. Critic Steve Huey writes, "[Reid's] rampant eclecticism encompasses everything from heavy metal and punk to funk, R&B and avant-garde jazz, and his anarchic, lightning-fast solos have become something of a hallmark as well."
In All Languages is a 1987 double album by Ornette Coleman. Coleman and the other members of his 1950s quartet, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins, performed on one of the two records, while his electrified ensemble, Prime Time, performed on the other. Many of the songs on In All Languages had two renditions, one by each group.
The Big Gundown is the third studio album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.
Joseph Bowie is an American jazz trombonist and vocalist. The brother of trumpeter Lester Bowie, Joseph is known for leading the jazz-punk group Defunkt and for membership in the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.
Brick is an American band that created a successful merger of funk and jazz in the 1970s. Their most popular single was "Dazz", which was released in 1976.
A jazz trio is a group of three jazz musicians, often a piano trio comprising a pianist, a double bass player and a drummer. Jazz trios are commonly named after their leader, such as the Bill Evans Trio.
Melvin Gibbs is an American bass guitarist who has appeared on close to 200 albums in diverse genres of music. Among others, Gibbs is known for working in jazz with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson and guitarist Sonny Sharrock, and in rock music with Rollins Band and Arto Lindsay.
Ronnie Burrage is an American jazz drummer. His style draws from jazz, funk, and soul.
Man Dance is an album by Ronald Shannon Jackson and The Decoding Society, recorded in 1982 for the Antilles label. It was produced with money Jackson made on a European tour, and taped the day after the band’s return. Three tracks were done seven months earlier, with a different trumpet and an additional sax.
The Bastardz are a Croatian funk based band with a lot of pop and jazz influences, founded in 1990 by guitarist and songwriter Jex Zoran Jaeger. In 1995, they released their first music release, a mini LP titled "Your Love". The song "Tvoja Ljubav" quickly topped the charts in Croatia. It also started the whole urban music movement united under the record label Aquarius Records. They have won several national music awards. Due to the fact that Jex resided in Croatia and in The Netherlands, The Bastardz were active as a band there, too. Apart from leading The Bastardz, Jex was a long time guitarist for several dutch funk, acid jazz oriented bands like Saskia Laroo Band, Saxual Harassment, Traffic Jam and many others.
Black Rock is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer, recorded in 1982 and released on the Columbia label. It was Ulmer's second of three albums recorded for a major label.
Barbeque Dog is an album by Ronald Shannon Jackson and The Decoding Society, recorded in 1983 for the Antilles label. The album cover was designed by Eiko Ishioka.
Decode Yourself is an album by Ronald Shannon Jackson and The Decoding Society, recorded in 1985 for the Island label.
Thermonuclear Sweat is an album by the American musical group Defunkt. It was released in 1982 via Hannibal Records. The group broke up after the release of the album, reforming in 1986.
In America is an album by the American band Defunkt, released in 1988. The band supported the album with North American and United Kingdom tours.
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