bread 'n butter

Recorded in 1969, Soul On Top was James Brown nod to the hot jazz and big band music that influenced him. It seems all-too-appropriate and a little mismatched at the same time. In less capable hands this may have been a fiasco, but Brown and band leader Louie Bellson, seem to have been able to find all the overlapping ingredients in funk, jazz and soul. The band compliments Brown's singing just as well on the jazz standards as they do on the funk-jazz rendition of some of his staple songs. They certainly hold their own with Brown in the extended version of "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World." As he goes off on his own vocal tangent it's hard to tell if it's a jazz big-band or the J.B.'s out there cutting it up with the Godfather. All in all, this is sort of an oddity in the James Brown catalog, but it also ends up being one of the most interesting and pleasing records in his career.

James Brown - That's My Desire


James Brown - It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World