Phil Upchurch / The Way I Feel (Cadet, 1970)

From time to time, I'm going to put up a few things I've had sitting around for a while. Why not, right? Otherwise they just sit around in my apartment collecting dust between spins. And anyway, I've always thought that part of amassing this collection would be sharing it, which is the inspiration for this blog in the first place. Great, so that's settled.

When I was doing more hunting for soul jazz a few years ago, I came across a record called Darkness, Darkness on Blue Thumb by the guitarist Phillip Upchurch. Turned out he'd had quite the storied career, playing with Jerry Butler, Jimmy Reed, George Benson, Curtis Mayfield, Bo Diddly, Howlin' Wolf, Jack McDuff, and many more. Anyway, Darknesswas pretty cookin' and so I started keeping an eye out for his other titles, though the samples I found of those records online left me skeptical. When I came across The Way I Feel at Good, I didn't quite know what to make of it, but Jonny was a big fan, and I have to admit that over time I've come to love this one even more than Darkness. 

It's a weird record, no doubt. Listening to first song, "Peter, Peter" evokes that reaction that I so often have to certain jazz-funk records: "Who the hell was buying this stuff in 1970?" There seems to be no clear-cut audience for it, with its eerie, expansive arrangements by Charles Stepney (perhaps best known for writing and arranging big hits for Earth, Wind & Fire), and one foot in jazz, one in funk, and a third foot you were terrified to discover in psychedelia. But then you'll hit something like "I Don't Know," which gets at the heart of what's great about Upchurch's playing: a few minutes of pure screaming mastery.

This record came out on Cadet, which also released Dorothy Ashby's Afro-Harping, and a lot of other great records by jazz luminaries. I didn't know this until just now, but Cadet was the jazz subsidiary of Chess Records, which helps explain the Stepney connection (he worked as a Chess producer in the 50s-70). Like a lot of this stuff, it's not clear that it's ever been released domestically on CD.

Wikipedia fun fact: Upchurch is on his seventh marriage. I wonder what goes through your mind when you're the 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th person to marry somebody.